The (not so) Amazing Dota Hero Guides #1. Phantom Assassin!

Welcome to the first series of The (not so) Amazing Hero Guides! Featuring: Phantom Assassin!
ps:I'm not gonna explain each heroes skill detail or what items does. Read the wiki.

Why PA? She got an arcana recently, followed by some quite good event (if you buy the arcana) that makes her almost get insta-picked on pub recently, also, she's the most played heroes now, skyrocketing above, beating even pudge.

duuuuh.

And because she's one of my favorite hero, i was constantly get pissed off everytime i see her being played retardedly.

I.Introduction:
PA is, if not the best, one of the best melee agility that could snowball very hard. With her first skill, it's easy to get creep last hit even in the harshest of lane (i was once laning against a viper+sven combo and still managed to get last hit while keeping my distance safely). And once it's maxed out, it's really hard to deny PA's creep since the dagger CD is so fucking low. Also, it's low mana cost allow you to spam it constantly, while only having ring of basilius to backup your manapool.
Her 3rd skill, Blur, is one of the most annoying skill a carry could have,a motherfucking 50% evasion, forcing the enemy carry to either buying himself a MKB or desperately trying to hit you (while constantly missing) while you crit them to death. It's also remove you from the minimap if there's no enemy hero near you, you can freely farm and push tower if the enemies are unaware, it's also could be some kind of enemy-radar, the time you see your 3rd skill's buff go away, you should know, there's enemy coming for you. Her Ultimate is some sort of RNGblast that allow you to crit and dish out ridiculous amount of damage. Also, it affects your first skill, making it some kind of lowcost-luckbased nuke.

Why Should i pick PA?
-Easy way to get early farm
-Blink strike and evasion as early game escape mechanism.
-Snowball so hard late game, easy to dish out amazing amount of damage without much items.

Why i should not pick PA?
-RNG based, means if you're extremely unlucky, the crit just won't come out.
-No sort of disable
-Low Str/Hp Growth, facing against a burst-damage lineup would be a problem without BKB.
-Your blink requires target, means you couldn't blink out if there's no target around.

II.Skill Build:

There are currently 2 most used build on PA.
It's either this, where you maxed phantom strike after dagger.

Or This.Where you maxed blur after dagger.

i take this from dotabuff, if you like, you can take dagger at lvl 1.

The first build give you early mobility, it's quite useful to play aggresively early game, while the 2nd build let you towerdive quite well, while also make it easy to take roshan early. Choose your build wisely according to your situation. If you're facing mostly mobile heroes that have some sort of escape mechanism, take the first one, while if you're facing mostly right-click heroes without some sort of escape mechanism, i suggest take the second one, it allows you to tank most heroes early on. Take note that your dagger alone is enough to chase an enemy if he got no escape mechanism, that's why you ALWAYS should have maxed it first by level 7.

III.Items.

Starting Item:

Quelling blade to help you get lasthit early on, ring of protection is going to become basilius next, your first source of mana.

Laning Item:

Why phase boots? It gives you more mobility and DAMAGE. While arguably Treads give you more attack speed and stats, i prefer phase because it gives you more damage burst early one, not to mention that your 2nd skill already gives you a flurry of attack speed each time you use it. Basilius makes it enough for you too keep spamming mana, not to mention the armor you need early on. HOTD also give you early armor and more early burst damage. With these items alone, you could easily solo kill squishy heroes by level 7, if you maxed blur first before phantom strike, you should be able to solo Roshan early with these items.

protip: HOTD's active skill, dominate, is actually quite useful skill that people often forgot to use, the creep that you dominate could be used to scout ahead, stack neutrals, or even destroying techies's mines (if there is one).
protip2: You could disassemble your HOTD and create Armlet of Moridiggan from the Helmet, and Vladimir's Offering from the mask if you are feeling ahead early and need MORE BURST! It also allows you to go for other orb effect, such as Desolator.

Mid to late game item:

By the time you got basher and HOTD, you should try to get roshan, remember to ask for wards first.
NEVER EVER try to get BATTLE FURY as your first core item if you play PA, it's a farming item, while in my opinion, your job as a PA is to keep roaming and aiming their squishy heroes, kills are your main source of income, not creeps. Most of the PA that i played with that get BF as first core simply get outfarmed but other carry that could make the most of it more than PA could. Only get this if you're so far ahead, or if you're facing against heroes that spawn many units (brood, NP, enigma)
Note: if there's many nukes and disables on the enemy team, GET THE BKB FIRST.

Late game item:

no. you wont be able to get everything, not enough slot bitches.

These are some choice of late game items that you could buy.

Only get MKB if you're against other hero with evasion (brew, windranger) or if your enemy has butterfly, upgrade your basher to abyssal for lategame disable and more damage, remember that abyssal's stun ignores magic immunity.

Manta helps you get more escape and survivability.

AC and Mjollnir gives you much much aspd, you could get either one of it, but don't get both, it's a waste. I myself prefer AC because the armor (and the -armor aura) is very helpful, the armor bonus+your high agility gain+your evasion makes you very tanky late game.

If you're dissasembling your HOTD into armlet and vlad's, get Desolator, it synergies well with AC -aura, making you able to kill the enemy heroes easily, especially if you're against str carry with low armor and agi gain. If you're not, get satanic, it gives you loads of HP and it's active allows you to win clutch-close fight.

"How about butterfly?" you ask.
Well, since the last patch, butterfly's evasion stack diminishingly with blur's, so it could be another alternative item choice, but remember, butterfly's main attraction is it's evasion, so when your enemy got MKB, it practically useless, while if you get AC, the armor and the aura could still help you. Get it if you're stomping hard, or if the enemy are so fucking retarded, that they didnt get mkb.

IV.Partners and Nemesis

A good laning partners early game for PA are any support hero that could disable and get on early kills, Omniknight is also one of the best laning partner for PA, phantomstrike to get close to enemy followed by Purification could dish insane amount of damage while keeping PA's health up high. Repel also allows you to play aggresively early on without getting scared of disables. Degen aura+Dagger= You.Cant.Run.

Another amazing partner for PA is oracle, his skills are fucking ridiculous it can make you impossible to kill, invisibility and delayed damage? what else do you need?


PA's nemesis are almost any heroes that has early burst damage early on (Lina, Zeus, Tinker) Tinker's probably the worst, a farmed Tinker could easily kite you (waiting your bkb to be over) and burst you to death. Doom (with aghs) could disable your evasion. Bane's ult could still disables you, even if you have bkb on, rendering you powerless if your team couldn't disable it.


That's about everything i could tell you, sorry if this was kind of a mess (it was 2:27am by the time i'm writing this)
Grammatical Error? I DON'T GIVE A SHIT!!!

GO OUT THERE AND SPREAD SOME CRITS! MAKE DADDY PROUD!