v7.10: Adaptive Support and Semi Carry Morphling

Introduction

Hi All,

Welcome to my second guide. Let me introduce myself - I'm CornLord. Started playing dota v3.84 on Warcraft 3. I got back to Dota 2 in Year 2016 and getting my grasp back on the evolved moba. Since back then i always love support heroes and tactical heroes. What prompted me to write is because there is lack of viable morphling support guide for version 7.09 onwards.

Let's get started. Morphling isn't a hardcore support like Crystal Maiden or Dazzle (both are the pub's favourite). He has to be played tactical in between the front line and the back. Positioning is extremely important with him. Likewise my first guide on Dark Seer, observation of team battle is important too.

Morphling is a very strange hero that Lord IceFrog has changes it many times since Warcraft III - Dota. The most important change to the ultimate now called morph instead of Replicate. With the ultimate and new talent tree, it made morphling a more viable support who can turns into a carry late game.

01 Mar 2018
Started first draft

14 Mar 2018
Completed Guide and published.

Pros / Cons

Pros

Good Escape and Ganking Ability (Wave Form)
Has a reliable stun.
Is Fun to play
Is a Tactical Hero
Adaptive to situation, morphing to str or agi depends on whether damage or health is needed.
Is a Great Gem Holder.
Has a wide range of stats boosting items which can compliments its role from early to late game.
Can scale well to provide damage in late game.

Cons

Very hard to zone out enemies during laning period due to poor range and early mana issues.
No passive skills which means silence will punish morphling very hard
Early game he is pretty weak (weak damage as well as low max health)
BKB and linken counters him hard.

When to pick morph?

After knowing the pros and cons of Morph...
Probably you might have some ideas already/

When opponent team has Silencer, Drow, Death prophet or Disruptor.
Remember having 4 active spells, silenced practically turns you in a "Creep".
Avoid playing morph if enemy already chosen more than one of the above.

When to pick him?
Basically without silence counter, he is a all rounder hero.
1. When the countdown for the first hero of the team started and you have no idea what roles will your team mates play.

2. You are prepared to be the unconventional tank and support. (This is not a carry guide)

3. You want to play an unconventional initiator.

4. Playing with a team mate who is willing to be the other semi support or rather willing to contribute to some wards. (*being the only support is hard for morph as he needs some items to be more effective in the later stage.)

Basically, for this guide is an unconventional support/tanker and ganker morph guide.

Skills Analysis

Detailed Skill Description - Click Here

Skill 1: Waveform
"Surges with a speed of 1250.
Morphling is invulnerable, and his model cannot be selected with the mouse during Waveform."

This is Morph escape/initiator skill with fairly good spell damage.
Escape- Waveform across "unpassable terrain like across cliff or river.
Initiation - Waveform across enemy location for positioning of morphling to push back and stun enemy in opposite direction towards allies.

Max this skill first for damage to kill off enemies when chance presents.

Skill 2a: Adaptive Strike (Agility)
(Linked with Adaptive Strike - Str in terms of leveling)
"Launches a surge of water toward an enemy unit, dealing base damage plus additional damage based on Morphling's agility times a multiplier. If Morphling's agility is 50% higher than strength, the maximum damage is dealt."

In Laning stage, the damage output isn't large but at late stage when you attribute shift to high Agi morph, this pack a heavy punch!

Skill 2a: Adaptive Strike (Agility)
(Linked with Adaptive Strike - Agi in terms if leveling)
"Launches a surge of water toward an enemy unit, stunning and knocking back the target based on Morphling's strength. If his strength is 50% higher than his agility, the maximum stun/knockback is dealt.

Early one point of Adaptive strike for 80 mana to stun/knockback hero is vital when chance presents itself for a poorly positioned enemy.

Skill 3a: Attribute Shift (Agility Gain)
Toggle skill and toggle it on to shift yourself to high agi attribute for farming and nuking of enemies in mid or late game.

Skill 3b: Strength Gain Shift (Agility Gain)
Toggle skill and toggle it to have high health to soak enemies'damage when focus on.

Ultimate: Morph
Morphling changes his form to match the targeted enemy, gaining their basic abilities. Can be toggled for the duration of the ability.
- Applies a basic dispel on Morphling upon cast and upon expiring.

As a support Morph, you have to view this skill in a similar way as playing rubick except you are not eyeing for powerful fanciful ultimates like Ravage, Blackhoke, Freezing Field etc.

The best part of it is that, you do not even have to watch for the last cast spell of the enemy.

In late game, you can even do a str or agi shift and copy the str or agi carry to do some carrying work. That's the flexibility.

- Upon unmorphing, Morphling's health and mana are set back to what they were before he morphed.
This point sets him apart from other heroes... and a very imba tanking apart from the morph to str. Key is do the "morph" while you have high percentage of health.

Talents Analysis

LEVEL 10 TALENT :+300 Waveform Range vs +10 Agility
No Brainer, go for Waveform Range (Aether lens is a waste as it gives you +250 range and other items can gives you the regen plus agi and str stats at a cheaper price). Waveform Range is more useful in ganking and escape.

LEVEL 15 TALENT +30 Attack Speed vs +15 secs Morph duration
As we are not going for "hard carry" morph, 15 secs morph duration is important
CD of morph is as follows for Level 1/2/3 : 160/100/40
Duration of morph at level 3 = 35 secs which means that there is only 5 secs of un-morphable period.

LEVEL 20 TALENT: Waveform Attacks Targets vs Morph Targets Allies
This synergize well with Level 15 Talent, at this stage you have only 5 secs of unmorphable time. Depends on the play your team need. Generally, i would choose separate allies heroes into 2 types, high mobility/initiation type or disabler type.

High Mobility type like PA, SA, AM, puck -> i could moph into them and start my initiation into the team battle by morphing into them and "blinking in and attack them" before morphing back to original form to revert to the original morph health. While you are still being focus down, u can morph to strength to continue tanking. Thus You are tanking all the damage while my team mates come in to clear them.
(* note to pull that off - recommended to have linken - only single target spell disabler or bkb - for aoe disabler or multiple target spell disbler)

Disabler type - like lion, sharman, bane, vs or even "hooker" like pudge. Straight forward, u do not rush in like the above, but as the dual disabler u guys will be trying to catch or reverse a team fight battle initiated by the enemies.


LEVEL 25: TALENT +2 Multishot Adaptive Strike vs 2 Waveform Charges
Seems a tricky choice but however as the semi support the choice is rather clear.
You are already ditching the Shotgun Morphling (refer as the Ethereal Blade Morph), so the +2 Multishot adaptive strike is much more useful in a team battle. Imagine 03 X Stun on 3 heroes in a furious team battle where one disrupted a channeling. (well its theory craft here, because as a semi support and semi carry morph, Late game is usually not what you like as opposed to some late game heroes like terrorblade, faceless void or spectre. You will like to end the game before enemies with late game heroes are getting increasingly difficult to control (especially the ones with bkb)

Items Analysis

Morphling loves stats (str and agi) because of the flexibility to convert between str and agi.

Early game items - in sequence

Magic Wand - +2 for all stats, health regen, stack charges for more health and mana whenever enemy cast spells
Boots - for movement speed
Ring of Aquila - +3 Str +9 Agi +3 agi, mana regen + 2 armor and +19 damage for Morph - perfect for laning stage


(*Note: Be flexible - on the occasion when you are being spell spammed by 2 enemy lane spammers ,kindly get a tango or healing salve after soul ring is essential.)

Core - Linken sphere to block targeted spell. Most of the time, you have someone with a single target spell to disrupt you example Disruptor's Glimpse, Sven's Stun bolt, VS's magic missile, Kunkka's Mark X, LC's Duel etc.

Mid Game Options

Sange n Yasha - for the str and agi stats,movement speed, chance to maim and attack speed.
Dragon Lance or Hurricane Pike - for attack range as well as stats, if you farm fast enough you can even go for hurricane pike for much more "Slipperyness"
Manta Style - for the stats as well as images for the pushes


Notable Item: Heaven Helberd for consideration to counter linken and it gives stats to morph


Luxury Items

Eye of Skadi - for slowing down enemies, alot more health and stats
Vyse - Additional disabling with additional stats of course
Butterfly- Evasion, attack speed and agi atats.
Heart of Tarrasque - Tons of health and str stats.


With stats, you can easily convert to add more dps to the team or tanking capabilities depending on the situation. Morphling like water is very fluid and must adapt accordingly to the situation. In fact none of items you read above is a core (despite having a core item as listed by me..LOL) or must, but they will definitely contribute to morphling as a hero. Pick and choose accordingly to the team battles or situation.

Creeping / Jungling

I rather called this page laning stage (as the name sounds so carry-ish...lol)

Well, instead of Waveform for farm, depends on the last hit on creeps. Morph will prefer offlane, with the other offlaner not as creep hungry as the core carry in the safelane.

Nothing fanciful in lane stage, "boring" last hits, check for bounty runes, stack creeps....you know the drill.

However the next few paragraphs, differentiate morph from other heroes!!!
Watch out for enemy heroes' starting items, plan in your mind how your enemy would die then wait for opportunity to kill.

Example: the solo Sven has a Ring of Health and he is 3/4 health from the harass you gave him. By rushing to kill him without a help of your allied tower and lane partner, he could possibly stun bolt you guys and walk away thinking "What a fool!" - and regenerating health from a safe and yet in the experience gaining zone.

However, if the Sven did a noob move like near to the tower where your allied creeps are pounding the last creep of the wave, and the hungry Sven did a last hit on one of your allied creep, this moment you waveform through him and with the adapative strike strength, you knock him towards your tower with your creeps and allied hero pounding him. In shock he threw a stun bolt, and stun all of you guys but dead by the tower. First blood... the system announced.

Please help your mid to gank in the laning stage possibly by picking a rune on the way to mid...communicate and plan properly with your mid to ensure a kill. Lastly always carry a scroll, watch ur mana and know what you can execute to help your team. Morphling have mana issues in the laning stage. That's why i recommend Ring of Aqulia to help.

Team Work

It is never easy to have people understand the role of a semi support as a Morphling.

As a morphling, you need to be like water, having better sense how to break the flow of enemies attack, dive in to set up a team fight, or "break the linken sphere" / disposition the enemy support/carry (e.g push back enemy sniper into the centre of allies to get him pounded) , or disrupt enemy channeling spells (such as freezing field, death ward etc).

General rules:
1. Keep your adaptive strike (str) for disrupting (disrupt channeling) or disposition of enemy.
2. It is better to use an item based single target skill (like purge from diffisual blade or disarm from heaven helberd.
3. Help with wards as a semi support - Vision helps the mission!
4. You will need a little farming time and leveling, unlike hard support.
5. Always carry a tp scroll around for tele to assist or getting kills in other lanes.
6. communicate with the team mates in lane to gank, indicate who is the easy target...usually sniper if there's one...to get them ready before the actual gank
7. Have good sense of map awareness and warn your team mates for possible impending gank especially a pudge missing from your lane.
8. At level 20, you can always morph into your ally , example sniper to take down towers at safe range, pudge for another hook chance, naga for more images and net.. etc
8. Toggling between replicate heroes and morphling give u assess to a wider range of basic skills to use.

Pesky invisible heroes with techies, you may be one of the best gem carrier. But you have to be very careful how you set up the team fight which may potentially cause u to lose the gem.

DO NOT - Push ur enemy out of range of some channeling spells or barriers (example, out of you friendly Disruptor's glimpse range, out of Crystal Maiden Freezing Field. You get the idea!

Stay Cool headed not like a hot headed Lina (Pun intended). Positioning is the key to get unfair advantage for team battle and sometimes it means waiting for enemies to make mistakes.

Good luck and Have fun!

Friends and Foes

Your Friends
As a morph, always beware of displacing your enemies from the allied who is performing his/her moves. Example, your allied pudge hooked the enemy and rots followed by devour ad you adaptive strike (str) to push the enemy out of his reach!!! WTF...a big No..No.

Generally, you work well with all heroes if you are careful with your positioning.

Best Synergy Partner of Morphling: Pugna!

Decrypify makes the enemy slow and increase the spell based damage which is ideal for your waveform and adaptive strike (agi) , moreover you can waveform past the decripified enemy ->adaptive strike (agi) -> adaptive strike (str) to push him back to your allies for further pounding to death.

Your Foes
Anyone that can silence you or a natural carrier of Orchid (the bane of your existence) The saving grace to counter silence is via manta style or BKB (Black King Bar).

Natural Carriers of Orchid/Bloodthorn

Clinkz - Natural carrier of Orchid and high dps with searing arrows.

Natural carrier of Orchid and can catch you across the map with electric votex to disable you

Silencers

Gust and frost arrows - Enough said

Silence and Spirit Siphon - not as deadly as drow one on one... but in a team battle , it is deadly enough

Silence you from anywhere on the map when you are dependent on any of your spells.

Doom Doom Doom .. After level 6 apparently, unless you get a linken

Mutes you during Duel and you are no dps, Linken comes to mind for counter

Summary

Well, we come to the end....as a Morphling , be adaptive.

1. Remember Dota 2 objective, Destroy the Ancient Structure!
2. Lanning stage is critical, time your last hit, you need farm too.
3. Create Vision for team when no one does it and be vigilant (map awareness)
4. Never waveform into 2 or more enemies without a gameplan together with your team.
5. Be wary how you position and use your adaptive strike (str) for push back. It make or breaks a team battle.
6. Be observant to Levelling, items of both allied and enemies' heroes
7. When Tanking damage in morphling form, remember to shift attribute to Strength.
8. When you are in the "replicate other hero form", remember you can toggle to Morphling state to get back to the health percentage before you morph.
9. Adapt to your team play.

Last words - Its not easy to use Morphling as support as a beginner, you need to practice and be very adaptive to the team play. Cheerios.

Please help to comment so that i can improve this guide or answer to any queries to this guide.

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