Tower Toppling with Terrorblade

Preface

This guide is aimed at a 20 min GG push with Terroblade. It works for every lane (including solo mid), but the safe-lane is the best choice. This is how I like to play him, have fun reading.

Terrorblade is strong early, mid and late game. At level 2 you can get a solo kill fairly easily against the right hero, with any sort of help or level 3 it is almost guaranteed. He is a ranged hard carry with strong anti-carry and has the push potential equal to Shadow Shaman, Dragon Knight, Pugna and Death Prophet combined. He has 7 base armour at level 1 and 2 hp/s regen. How is this hero balanced in any way? He starts out with 435hp with a str gain of 1.9, and relies on his ultimate to stay alive which means he is totally useless...
...against nukes - Lion, Lina, Shadow Shaman
...against disables - Lion, Lina, Shadow Shaman
...against silences - Lion, Shadow Shaman and Lina as well because she bought an Orchid just for you
GOOD LUCK HAVE FUN IF YOU ARE TB AND THEY ARE ON THE OTHER TEAM
otherwise...

First blood & Laning

The fast push strategy will only work when you have free farm, for the most part solo experience plus extra experience and gold from kills. This means you do not have someone in the lane sapping your experience, unless they are assisting you getting a kill. Your support should be pulling neutrals and stacking and you should be getting every last hit that comes your way. Now how to get first blood and hopefully many more kills after that:

Reflection is a targeted 5 second 60% move speed AND attack speed slow. It has a melee cast range. The illusion damage dealt and cool down reduction is what scales.
Have a Crystal Maiden in your lane so that you get first blood.

At level 2
Level 1 Metamorphosis gives you the damage of two Blades of Attack and 550 attack range.
If you didn't have a Crystal Maiden at level 1 you can now get first blood by yourself.

Repeat killing while maxing Conjure Image and Metamorphosis depending on its cool down until you have 12-15min min Ring of Aquila + Manta Style + Boots of Speed. If you haven't already go kill the tier 1 in your lane while the 0-6 clockwerk walks back from the fountain to his lane because his Tp is still on cooldown from the last time he came.

Always use Reflection before Metamorphosis if your enemy is likely to escape, or you will scare the enemy away, wasting Metamorphosis. Don't commit to using Metamorphosis, unless you are almost certain you can secure the kill. Use Metamorphosis as early as possible once you are certain to ensure you can get in as many right clicks as possible in ranged from. Even though you have low hp, Don't be scared to dive the tower because of your low hp as you have very high armour and hp regen. Tank with your illusions using the attack command.

Using Conjure Image for that extra damage is sometimes appropriate but remember Terrorblade has a very long cast point, and you may be wasting time where you could have been right-clicking instead.

At level 12 you can choose to either level up reflection from level 1 if you are doing lots of killing especially if the enemy has inherently strong illusions e.g. Diffusal Blade or Radiance holders, Anti-Mage, big dpsers with crits like Chaos Knight, Wraith Knight and Phantom Assassin. Reflection will give any auras such as Gem of True Sight, Monkey King Bar True Strike and Assault Cuirass Assault Aura.
If you are just pushing, stats and more levels in Conjure Image may prove more useful.

It's Tower Toppling time

By 15 minute mark you should have taken at least Tier 1, Tier 2 and severely damaged Tier 3 while the other 9 heroes on the map were ***********ing around mid.

If your team hasn't fed too badly, go to mid, use Metamorphosis, use Manta Style, use Conjure Image twice, kill everyone and their tier 1 and tier 2 towers in the mid lane.
Enemy will say 'Terrorblade OP'

Buy Boots of Travel

Roflcopter all around the map with your boots of travel until there are no creeps (in the jungle or otherwise) or enemy towers left. You don't even need your main hero to be pushing, just send your 4 illusion army.

If you see a conveniently placed Illusion Rune use Metamorphosis, pick it up and push or fight.

Avoiding Ganks

The concept of 'gank him and you'll be fine' does not apply to Terrorblade.
He has a very balanced skill called Sunder. It means that centaur with 8000hp that comes within 1hp of killing you is now a 1 hp centaur and you are now full hp. There is actually a percentage that must remain 25/20/15% but that sounds cooler.

This means if 2 people try to kill you and they don't kill you while you are stunned and silenced Sunder (Mash the R button and believe) the full hp hero and then proceed to kill both of them because their spells are on CD and they are out of mana. That brings me to the point that you should conserve at least 200/100 (lvl 1, lvl 2) of your mana in the event that someone does gank you. Remember you can Sunder your illusions as well. Getting the timing right on Sunder can be very difficult because you want to maximise your hp and the damage you deal to your enemy without dyeing in the process.

It is not uncommon to bait out many long cool down ultimates and full on team commitments to killing my Conjure Image illusions in lane, while I sit in the jungle farming away. Because your illusions have such high armour they are considerably tanky against creeps. My hotkeys are set to 1 for my main hero, 2 for illusions and 3 for both my hero and illusions. Keep in mind that you will not get experience from creeps killed by your illusions if you aren't in range.

Metamorphosis has a transformation time which can be used for disjointing stuns, however Conjure Image although it may seem like it, cannot disjoint stuns.

Ganks from heroes such as Pudge, Mirana and Clockwerk are easily avoidable by using conjure image and having the illusion stand between you and your pursuer.

Teamfight Scenarios

Although you'll be spending most of your time solo don't forget there are 4 other heroes on your team. You can participate in team fights in fact you are extremely strong in them (if you have the gold and level advantage and the right heroes to back you up). Let me tell you this, trying to fight against 5 terrorblades with +80 base damage from Metamorphosis at 12-15 mins in is what makes him such a scary hero.
Keep in mind however his damage is single-target.

If you have enough damage just on your main hero to kill an enemy quickly, you can micro your 4 other illusions to attack and kill another hero. With level 4 Conjure Image and Manta Style combined your illusions alone deal a whopping 186% of your main heroes damage.

With 200 base damage (with Manta Style and max Metamorphosis at lvl 16) thats a combined 372 damage per hit from just the 4 illusions. Giving you a total of 572 damage per right click.

To take a racks with Terrorblade you can do one of two options:

Kill the enemy team with your team and then push with your team,
OR
Get your team to distract the enemy while you rat.

One of two things can happen here: the enemy leaves you and fights your team,
OR
They TP their team to you:

When pushing, spread your illusions out around the tower so you can see the enemy coming and so they don't all get killed by one nuke e.g. Earth Spike, Dragon Slave, Crypt Swarm, Shockwave
Get your actual hero back leaving your illusions when the enemy comes if you are by yourself.

When you are solo pushing you can try sending an illusion back so that the enemy think it is your real hero and they chase it while you finish off their tower and then run the opposite direction. Always carry a Town Portal Scroll before you have your Boots of Travel.

Core and Situational Items in a list

Ring of Aquila for mana regen and bonus armour for creeps
Boots of Travel for split pushing the lanes + give you and your illusions insane move speed for chasing and killing
Manta Style is the only big item you need to GG by 15 going on 20 mins

However if for some strange reason you can't end the game by then here are some items you can buy:

Eye of Skadi - you are still very squishy with just the manta as it gives you only 190hp. a skadi gives you and your illusions another 500hp to work with. With its passive Frost Attack no-one can run from you OR fight you (35% attack speed and move speed slow through magic immunity to add onto the 60% move and attack speed slow you already have) - illusions don't get the Frost Attack buff however, even though it looks like it.

Black King Bar - if you are team fighting a lot and any of the heroes mentioned right at the top are on the enemy team and you are somehow not 0-12 yet, magic immunity is the best thing you can get. At 20 mins no-one is going to be winning a right-click war against a Terrorblade with 15 armour, let alone 5 of them.

Past 20 mins:
Linken's Sphere - can mean the difference between a successful sunder or not
Daedalus - Whats better than a 2.4x multiplier on a super high base damage illusion based carry that applies to illusions?
Talisman of Evasion/ Butterfly - Gives you and your illusions 30% evasion and some attack speed.
Heart of Tarrasque - Gives your illusions the hp they need to stay alive against magic AOE.

Excluded items:
Drum of Endurance is sometimes useful if you feel your team is behind and need to be in fights more with them - but this guide is strictly aimed at being ahead. Terrorblade is not a hero for staging a comeback especially when all you have by 15 mins is drums.
Power Treads give you hp and attack speed - however Boots of Travel are core for this play style of terrorblade, plus power treads give you away because of the +30 attack speed your illusions don't get.
Helm of the Dominator: while it has its uses for man fighting and stacking ancients - it only slows you from getting your big items when trying for a fast push.
Sange and Yasha is apparently core on Terrrorblade like it is on Phantom Lancer. However it completely forgoes their strongest potential as pushers.

When and when not to pick TB

Did you wait until 0:00 to pick?
If not good luck with your counter picks when you insta-lock Terrorblade expecting some easy mmr.

DO pick TB against:
Melee heroes who are easily kited such as Pudge, Clockwerk, Lifestealer
against had carries with little early game potential such as Spectre, Faceless Void, not Anti-Mage however

DO NOT pick TB against:
Ranged nukers with stuns or silences
such as Lion, Lina, Shadow Shaman, Luna, Clinkz, Lich, Disruptor
OR heroes with AOE making your illusions useless such as LunaMoon Glaive, Gyrocopter
OR heroes that will get you and your entire team killed because of your illusions, Earthshaker ( Echo Slam is easily baited however) Ember Spirit.

In closing

Unlike other hard carries with an abysmal early game, Terroblade can solo very well repeatedly punishing enemies in a 1v1 matchup for coming a tiny bit too close. Terrorblade's early game pushing potential is unmatched, and as an illusion based carry with 80 free base damage, his carry potential is enormous.

Just be careful of nukes and silences, as you rely heavily on your ultimate Sunder to stay alive as your strength gain is less than that of the super squishy Shadow Fiend.

Terrorblade is my number 1 pick for ranked because I can win the game through killing towers without relying on my team.