Phantom Assassin
Hero
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   21 + 2.2
23 + 3.2
15 + 1.4
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Mortred, the Phantom Assassin, is a melee agility hero fitting the role of hard carry. Mortred is best-known, and infamous for, her ability to inflict staggering damage with single strikes. Her abilities synergize supremely well with each other, rendering her an extremely formidable foe once she has acquired the items she requires. She is a very farm-dependent melee Hero, but she farms creeps with much more ease than many of her fellow carries, using her Stifling Dagger for last hitting. Besides eliminating the weakness most melee Heroes have in their farming, her second ability, Phantom Strike, acts as both her escape and initiate, while Blur gives her an edge against other Heroes that depend on their physical attacks by evading them; giving her partial damage immunity to many carries. Her ultimate, the strongest critical strike in the game, is what connects Mortred with four-digit damage and what gives her a place amongst the very best support killers in the late game, since they usually fall instantly from the divine strike her ultimate provides. Mobile and able to fight back nearly every enemy that dares to face her, Mortred is a formidable foe that should never be underestimated, and with appropriate item choices and a few kills, she can snowball out of control and become next to impossible to stop.
Contents
Bio[edit]
Mortred, the Phantom AssassinPlay "I'm here to blur the line between life and death."
Lore:
Through a process of divination, children are selected for upbringing by the Sisters of the Veil, an order that considers assassination a sacred part of the natural order. The Veiled Sisters identify targets through meditation and oracular utterances. They accept no contracts, and never seem to pursue targets for political or mercenary reasons. Their killings bear no relation to any recognizable agenda, and can seem to be completely random: A figure of great power is no more likely to be eliminated than a peasant or a well digger. Whatever pattern the killings may contain, it is known only to them. They treat their victims as sacrifices, and death at their hand is considered an honor. Raised with no identity except that of their order, any Phantom Assassin can take the place of any other; their number is not known. Perhaps there are many, perhaps there are few. Nothing is known of what lies under the Phantom Veil. Except that this one, from time to time, when none are near enough to hear, is known to stir her veils with the forbidden whisper of her own name: Mortred.
Voice:
Abilities[edit]
Stifling Dagger
Throws a dagger slowing the enemy unit's movement speed, dealing 65+25%/40%/55%/70% of Phantom Assassin's attack damage as physical damage and applying attack effects from items and abilities.
Cast Animation: 0.3+0.47
Cast Range: 525/750/975/1200
Secondary Target Range Buffer: 300
Number of Targets: 1 (
3)
3)Base Damage: 65
Attack Damage: 25%/40%/55%/70%
Move Speed Slow: 50%
Slow Duration: 1.75/2.5/3.25/4
6
30
Can be cast on spell immune units. The attack pierces spell immunity, the slow does not. Slow persists if debuff was placed before spell immunity and when not dispelled.
Blocked upon impact, as primary and secondary target.Modifiers
Stiflingdagger Caster: Undispellable.
Stiflingdagger: Dispellable with any dispel.The first skill learned by the Sisters of the Veil often signals an incoming hit.
Notes:
- The Stifling Dagger travels at a speed of 1200.
- Upon hitting the target, the dagger causes Phantom Assassin to perform an instant attack on the target.
- Since it is a regular attack, it can proc any attack modifier and on-hit effect normally, except for the following modifiers: Jinada, and Tidebringer.
- The damage of Tidebringer is applied, but its cleave is not.
- However, the attack uses no attack animation, so abilities which proc on attack begin (e.g. Untouchable) cannot be procced.
- Cleave effects are based on the target's position, damaging a trapezoid area the opposite direction where the dagger came from.
- Although the dagger may make it look like a ranged attack, the attack still counts as melee when coming from Phantom Assassin.
- This means all abilities which differentiate between ranged and melee, use their melee effects/values, not ranged.
- The performed instant-attack has True Strike, so it cannot miss. However, when the dagger is avoided, no attack is performed.
- The instant attacks completely ignore disarms.
- The dagger first reduces Phantom Assassin's total attack damage by the percentage, and then adds its own 65 extra damage on top of that.
- This results in the following formula:
65 + 25%/40%/55%/70% * (main attack damage + attack damage bonuses/reductions) - "Attack damage bonuses/reductions" includes all already existing attack damage changes, including temporary ones (Bash) and conditional ones (Quell).
- The 65 damage is also an attack damage bonus, but is added after the main damage is calculated.
- Attack modifiers which are based on attack damage (critical strike, lifesteal, cleave) include the 65 extra damage as well.
- The damage is added to Phantom Assassin's attack damage through a status buff which lasts for 0.03 seconds.
- Since the damage comes from a regular attack, it does not count as spell damage, but counts as attack damage.
- This means it is affected by damage block, unaffected by spell damage amplification and cannot spell lifesteal.
- This results in the following formula:
- The dagger first applies the attack, then its own debuff.
- The projectile has 450 range flying vision. This vision lingers for 3.34 seconds at the target's location upon successfully hitting it.
- When choosing the level 20 talent, the spell launches two additional projectiles towards random visible valid targets within range.
- The search range is based on the cast range, plus the buffer, resulting in a search range of 825/1050/1275/1500.
- Cannot target the primary target with the additional projectiles, so when no other targets are nearby, nothing happens.
- The secondary targets are chosen randomly within the area. There are no priorities. The projectiles cannot choose both the same target.
- Since the additional projectiles use the spell's cast range, cast range increasing effects increase their range as well.
Phantom Strike
Ability
Target Unit
Target Unit
Affects
Self
Self
Teleports to a unit, friendly or enemy, and grants bonus attack speed while attacking if it's an enemy unit.
Cast Animation: 0.25+0.8
Cast Range: 1000
Attack Speed Bonus: 100/125/150/175
Duration: 2
11/ 35/Modifiers
Phantom Strike: Dispellable with any dispel.Mortred's silken veil is the last thing her unfortunate target sees.
Notes:
- Phantom Strike can be cast on allied units, without gaining the attack speed bonus.
- Moves Phantom Assassin next to the target, towards the position she was upon spell cast.
- Does not disjoint projectiles upon teleporting.
- Phantom Assassin is ordered to attack the target if it is an enemy, automatically canceling the cast backswing.
- Cannot be cast on couriers.
Cast Animation: 0.4+0.57
Evasion: 20%/30%/40%/50% ( 45%/55%/65%/75%)
45%/55%/65%/75%)Vanish Dispel Radius: 600
Vanish Dispel Delay: 0.75
Vanish Duration: 25
60/ 50
The passive evasion is disabled by Break.Modifiers
Blur Active: Undispellable.Meditation allows a Veiled Sister to carefully anticipate her opponents in combat.
Notes:
- Turns Phantom Assassin invisible, with True Sight immunity. Only Chronosphere can reveal her.
- Attacking or casting spells does not break the invisibility.
- The effect is dispelled getting within 600 range of an enemy hero (including clones, excluding illusions) or an enemy building (except for shrines).
- The effect is not dispelled instantly, but 0.75 seconds after getting within range.
- Getting out of range during that delay does not prevent it from dispelling. The delay does not serve as a grace period.
- The effect is also dispelled when attacking Roshan, again, not instantly, but after the dispel delay.
- The evasion and the active part are independent from each other. The evasion is always present.
- On average, Blur increases Phantom Assassin's survivability against physical attacks by 25%/43%/67%/100% ( 82%/122%/186%/300%).
- Blur uses pseudo-random distribution, and thus, the actual miss chance on every level is 20%/29.9%/37.7%/45.7% ( 41.8%/49.3%/56.6%/63.2%).
Coup de Grace
Ability
Passive
Passive
Affects
Enemies
Enemies
Phantom Assassin refines her combat abilities, gaining a chance of delivering a devastating critical strike to enemy units. Stifling Dagger shares the same critical strike chance.
Proc Chance: 15% ( 20%)
20%)Critical Damage: 200%/325%/450%
Red critical numbers are before illusion and armor reduction.A divine strike, Mortred honors her opponent by choosing them for death.
Notes:
- Increases attack damage by an average of 15%/33.75%/52.5% ( 20%/45%/70%).
- The proc chances of multiple crit sources stack.
- If two sources of critical strike proc at the same time, the higher multiplier has priority.
- Coup de Grace uses pseudo-random distribution.
- A part of the visual effects (a white glow on her weapon) plays during the start of an attack, revealing that the attack is going to crit.
Cleave
Starting Radius: 150
Distance: 650
End Radius: 360
Cleave Damage: 30%
Visual effects and sounds still play when illusions attack.Notes:
- Cleave damage cannot be amplified with spell damage amplification and cannot spell lifesteal.
- Cleave damage is reduced by Damage Block.
- The complete area is shaped like an isosceles trapezoid in front of Phantom Assassin.
- Fully stacks with other sources of cleaves. Each source of cleave works completely independent.
- Does not cleave upon attacking wards, buildings or allied units. Wards and buildings are unaffected by cleave.
- Despite the visual effect, cleave damage is applied instantly in the whole area.
Armor Corruption 
Ability
Passive
Passive
Affects
Enemies
Enemies
There is no description for this ability.
Armor Reduction: 3
Duration: 10
Modifiers
Special Bonus Corruption Debuff: Dispellable with any dispel.Notes:
- Successive attacks with Armor Corruption do not stack the debuff, but refresh the duration instead.
- The attacks first apply the debuff, then their own damage.
- Fully stacks with Blight Stone and Desolator.
Talents[edit]
| Hero Talents | ||
|---|---|---|
| +25% Blur Evasion | 25 | +5% Coup de Grace |
| Triple Strike Stifling Dagger | 20 | 20% Lifesteal |
| +30% Cleave | 15 | -3 Armor Corruption |
| +15 Damage | 10 | +150 Health |
Notes:
- This attack damage talent is added as raw attack damage, so it does not benefit illusions, and is not affected by most percentage-based damage increasing or reducing effects.
- The health talent increases maximum health capacity, and keeps the current health percentage.
- The lifesteal talent stacks additively with other sources of lifesteal.
Recommended items[edit]
Starting items:
- Tango provides health regeneration to help Phantom Assassin stay in lane and continue farming despite enemy harassment.
- Healing Salve restores health as well.
- Iron Branches give cost-effective increase to Phantom Assassin's attributes, and can builds into Magic Wand.
- Stout Shield helps reduce harass damage taken from lane opponents, increasing survivability.
Early game:
- Quelling Blade increases Phantom Assassin's farming ability in the early game. Being able to last-hit more easily and kill neutral camps faster allows her to farm the items she needs to start becoming effective in a match.
- Boots of Speed are important to obtain early on. Phantom Assassin must be able to easily move in and out of range to last-hit, as well as chase or escape as needed without having to rely as much on Phantom Strike.
- Magic Wand can greatly improve Phantom Assassin's survivability and effectiveness in the early game. It provides a small amount of attributes and tremendous charge storage for burst health and mana regen, both of which are crucial on an agility hero with low strength and intelligence.
Mid game:
- Power Treads boost Phantom Assassin's combat effectiveness and survivability greatly with added agility and attack damage. She can attribute switch to strength for more health, or intelligence for using spells, particularly for repeated casting of Stifling Dagger.
- Desolator is a useful utility mid-game item that can be built relatively easily. It allows Phantom Assassin to apply the armor debuff from long range with Stifling Dagger, softening up multiple targets for her team and for her own attacks. The damage boost also greatly improves the killing power of Coup de Grace, particularly when combined with the armor reduction on enemies that Phantom Assassin jumps on.
- Black King Bar gives Phantom Assassin much-needed spell immunity, allowing her to ignore enemy disables and nukes as she directly engages enemies in fights. The extra health helps increase survivability, while the damage improves attack power.
Late game:
- Abyssal Blade can be crucial for giving Phantom Assassin the lockdown and damage she needs to quickly eliminate key opponents in fights. The bash gives her a chance to stun an enemy after jumping on them with Phantom Strike, while the active allows her to instantly hard-disable any foe through spell immunity, long enough to bring them down with Coup de Grace. It also increase her survivability giving bonus health and health regeneration and blocking 40 damage from incoming attacks.
- Satanic improves Phantom Assassin's survivability in teamfights, allowing her to quickly refill health with Coup de Grace crits.
Situational items:
- Phase Boots can be situationally useful over Power Treads depending on how they are utilized. The bonus attack speed increases the chance to proc Coup de Grace, while the extra movement speed allows Phantom Assassin to more easily chase down enemies.
- Battle Fury is a strong item for allowing Phantom Assassin to secure her ability to farm into the late game. The damage and cleave allow her to easily clear bunches of creeps, whether it is for farming or pushing/counter-pushing, while the health and mana regen ensure that she can always maintain her health and mana pools while farming.
- Mask of Madness gives high attack speed and an source of lifesteal. Phantom Assassin's survivability is based on evasion instead of armor and her damage comes from a passive ability, partially offsetting the debuff, but not being able to use Stifling Dagger or Phantom Strike can be costly when trying to chase or flee, making this item a dangerous purchase.
- Butterfly greatly boosts Phantom Assassin's damage output, as well as providing additional evasion. While stacking it alongside Blur runs the risk of having both nullified by the enemy building Monkey King Bar, purchasing a Butterfly can punish certain lineups by forcing their heroes to purchase Monkey King Bar over a different item that synergizes better with their strengths. As well, Butterfly's active allows Phantom Assassin to more easily chase or flee in circumstances where Phantom Strike proves impossible to use.
- Assault Cuirass greatly increases Phantom Assassin's damage output through more attack speed as well as the enemy armor reduction aura. The improved armor also greatly increases her survivability against physical damage, and the aura helps give teammates more armor and attack speed as well, which can be very useful depending on team composition.
- Nullifier gives damage boost and the active ability that dispels the enemy and mutes them (disabling several defensive items) as well as greatly slowing them for a long duration (synergies perfectly with Phantom Strike and Stifling Dagger combo).
- Monkey King Bar is item to build in order to counter enemy evasion. As well, the increased damage is one of the best options for increasing Phantom Assassin's damage output.
- Sange and Yasha is a situationally powerful mid-game item that is easy to farm and allows Phantom Assassin to begin participating in teamfights earlier. The agility and strength-based bonuses give her more damage output and health, while the movement speed makes her far more mobile, allowing her to chase and escape far more easily.
- Eye of Skadi is a powerful carry item and can greatly boost Phantom Assassin's combat effectiveness. It grants stats across the board, giving Phantom Assassin more health, mana and base damage. The Cold Attack passive can be used alongside lifesteal, and allows Phantom Assassin to slow enemies with her attacks and Stifling Dagger, greatly reducing their movement speed and preventing them from easily escaping her.
Gameplay[edit]
| Roles: | Carry Escape |
|---|---|
| Complexity: | ★☆☆ |
| Playstyle: | Of all the assassins raised by the Sisters of the Veil, only one is known by name: Mortred. Through meditation and prophecy, the order identifies the next target to die at her hands. Attacks miss against the Phantom Assassin as she Blurs into her surroundings, traversing undetected across the land to catch her victims unawares. She opens the encounter with a Stifling Dagger, thrown from the shadows, then leaps upon the crippled target to deliver a flurry of Phantom Strikes. Mortred ends the struggle with a decisive Coup de Grace, leaving behind only the blood-splattered ground as testament to her efficiency. |
Audio[edit]
History[edit]
Equipment[edit]
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Trivia[edit]
- Mortred's name is derived from Mordred, a character in the Arthurian legend who betrayed and fought King Arthur at the Battle of Camalann.
- "Coup de grâce" is a French term (pronounced "koo duh gras" [the duh is short and should not be emphasised]) which literally means "blow of mercy", and refers to the killing blow of a wounded person or animal, friendly or not, to end their suffering. The phrase originates from medieval times, specifically Knights (see above - Knights of the Round Table). When a combatant was gravely injured (in battle, duels, jousting, etc...) but not killed; a coup de grâce was often, although not always, performed. Traditionally a rondel dagger was used as this could make a small puncture in breastplate and was long enough to reach the heart.
- Mortred's level-up line Play "I'm an immaterial girl!" is probably a reference to the song Material Girl performed by Madonna.
- In DotA: Allstars, Blur caused Mortred to become transparent to the enemy, scaling with levels and making her nearly invisible and untargetable to unexperienced players, thus her title "Phantom Assassin". This aspect of the ability was not ported to Dota 2.
- Mortred's idle animation is a typical fencing stance, with perpendicular feet, one arm extended forth and the other one folded and up in the air. However, her weapon is wielded not with the extended arm, but with the arm at rest. There are treatises, at least for the Italian school of fencing, which do show an extended arm but this is exclusively used when wielding a rapier or other thrusting one arm sword.
- Mortred is featured in the Dota 2 comic, The Contract.
Gallery[edit]
Splash artwork
Early concept artwork
Early alpha model based on the early concept art
Leaked concept artwork
Early textures of the current model, featuring different color scheme
Ability icon progress
Hero icon progress
Phantom Assassin illustration
