Strategy
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Many hands make light work.
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Gameplay
| Playstyle | |
|---|---|
| Shifting his attributes with Attribute Shift to suit his situation, Morphling can be as elusive as he is deadly. Whether riding a wave to flank an enemy or boosting his health before escaping into his deceptive replication using his ultimate ability Morph, few can hope to corner him. Morphling can deal high burst damage, often taking out an enemy in a blink of an eye. | |
| Pros | Cons |
|
|
Carry
- Morphling typically enters the game with a sensitive laning phase. His short attack range and low base damage require him to shift into agility early on to last hit, leaving him fragile for the first few levels. As he gains levels, however, his Waveform evolves into a potent area-of-effect nuke which can easily grab him kills to accelerate his farm. Additionally, early points in Attribute Shift allow him to escape danger so long as he is not disabled.
- In order to transition to the mid-game safely, however, Morphling requires a significant amount of mana and mana regeneration to keep up. His spells are demanding on mana, but a healthy supply of it will allow him to escape, gank, split push, and adapt to all manners of fighting with impunity. This is typically why Linken's Sphere is a strong item to pick up on him. He benefits from the attributes it provides and Perseverance gives him early game sustenance. The spell block is invaluable; the strongest silences and hexes in the game are instant and targeted, giving him enough reaction time to Waveform out of dangerous situations.
- Carry Morphling is more farm oriented in the latest patch as Ethereal Blade no longer provides the 40 agility that allows Morphling to take early fights, so getting Manta Style which allows him to split push and dispel debuffs with ease will be his first priority. In the late game, Morphling has many options. With a full set of attribute items, he boasts the strongest natural attack speed and damage in the game, making items such as Satanic, Daedalus, and Monkey King Bar very profitable on him. He also makes incredible use of every attribute on Eye of Skadi and Butterfly, two must-have late game items which allow him to go toe-to-toe with even the hardest of carries.
- Despite his strengths as a scaling carry, Morphling is a difficult carry to play from behind. Waveform is an expensive spell and he has no in-built sustain to farm jungle creeps easily, this is why Morphling purchases an early Morbid Mask during the laning phase as it works well in combination of his high right-click damage. Adaptive Strike also requires levels and items to become an effective nuke. In addition, his lack of multiple-target damage makes it difficult for him to join larger teamfights in the early or mid game.
- Putting the first point into Attribute Shift while in the fountain allows him to shift extra points into agility, making it easier to last hit.
- Adaptive Strike (Agility) is primarily used to deal damage, scaling with agility, making it good at grabbing last hits in the laning stage.
Ability Builds
| Carry Morphling | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 20 | 25 | |||||
 |  | | | |  | | | |  | |  | | | | |  | | | | |||||
Talents
| Hero Talents | ||
|---|---|---|
| +35 Strength | 25 | -40% Waveform Cooldown |
| +0.8s Adaptive Strike Stun Duration | 20 | Waveform Attacks Targets |
| +15 Agility | 15 | +16s Morph Duration |
| +250 Waveform Range | 10 | +15% Magic Resistance |
Notes:
- Stacks diminishingly with other
magic resistance sources.
- Increases Morphling's magic resistance to 36.25%.
Tips & Tactics
General
- Early on, go mid or have a support keep you safe in the safe lane while you farm.
- Focus on farming up items. Only go for kills you know you can get.
- Morphling's Adaptive Strike (Agility) may look deceptively spammable with its 50 mana cost, but a gentle reminder that Morphling has a low total mana pool, so focus on using it to secure range creep during the laning phase.
- Morphling functions better as a carry in teams with a strong front line. This allows him to remain in the fight with a high amount of agility and hence right-click or Adaptive Strike (Agility) damage, without feeling the pressure of being focused. Although he is good at soaking damage through Attribute Shift (Strength Gain) and items such as Linken's Sphere and Eye of Skadi, he is much more useful as your team's primary source of consistent damage.
- Morphling relies on quickly removing enemy heroes from a teamfight, as he is vulnerable with no proper way to defend himself once his abilities go on cooldown.
- This should not be too big of a problem in the mid to late game, as most supports are unable to soak up the immense amount of burst damage that Morphling outputs.
Abilities
Waveform
- Use Waveform to escape from ganks early game and dodge stuns with travel time, this will help you stay alive to farm for your items.
- Assuming you have the regeneration and mana pool, you can use Waveform to speed up farming while going for those big items. Remember that purchasing an occasional Clarity to help sustain in the jungle should be considered, as it is cheap and very rewarding towards his low mana pool.
- Morphling's early game can be daunting as he cannot take trades well with his low health pool, so put priority in getting last-hits as he wants to scale into the late game. And request your support to purchase some sustaining items until you get your Morbid Mask or Ring of Health as enemies will most likely pressure you out of lane with your low early health pool.
- Given that you can attack or cast abilities while in Waveform, you can use this to close in a disabler enemy and use Morph while still in Waveform, reappearing already in the shape of your foe and able to use the disabler's ability against your target, then morphing back to finish off your foe.
Adaptive Strike (Agility)
- When wanting to maximise the damage, shift to full agility.
- Use Adaptive Strike (Agility) early on to secure last hits, especially on ranged creeps.
- This ability should not be used without reason as it puts Adaptive Strike (Strength) on cooldown for 3 seconds, so only use it to secure a kill in a teamfight.
Adaptive Strike (Strength)
- If needing to escape, use it after shifted to mostly strength to increase stun duration and knock back enemies.
- You do not need to go full strength in order to maximize the stun, merely having Strength being 50% larger than Agility is enough.
- If well aimed, you can actually push enemies onto places and leave them stuck if they don't have any way to leave, similar to using Telekinesis or Skewer.
Attribute Shift
- At level 1, skill Attribute Shift as it gives bonus agility and strength, as well as the ability to increase agility to last hit, so upgrading this ability to its maximum is the first priority.
- Shift to agility to increase damage output when fighting or farming.
- Shift to strength to increase health, and health regeneration to survive enemy ganks.
- When Attribute Shift to agility, Morphling will be losing strength, so both maximum and current HP will also decrease, but this ability cannot kill Morphling and will leave him at atmost 1 health point.
- Attribute Shift will continue to work even when Morphling is disabled, as long as Morphling was toggling on Attribute Shift prior to being disabled.
- Attribute Shift preserves agility and stregth through death. Upon respawning, use Attribute Shift to return to desired attribute values as Morphling is teleporting to lane.
- When going back to base with low HP, Attribute Shift to strength just in case to tank enemy global abilities, such as those of Ancient Apparition or Zeus.
- Use Attribute Shift (Strength Gain), gaining health and health regeneration, to tank nukes from heroes like Techies or Skywrath Mage. After they have unloaded their abilities, use Attribute Shift (Agility Gain) to engage.
- At low HP, Morphling can heal with Attribute Shift by shifting to maximum agility then start shifting back to strength again. Take care to do so in a safe spot to avoid enemy ganks.
Morph
- Skipping Morph at level 6 is recommended as Morphling wants to farm and scale into the late game, so it can be leveled later on when he begins to take team fights.
- Morph does not copy target's talents, even the talents that affect abilities.
- Morph into an enemy target to use their non-ultimate abilities.
- Morph does not copy target's items, but you can still use your own items.
- Beware that when Morphling is morphed to another hero, he cannot shift attributes to save himself, so Morph back before getting killed.
- If Morphling copies Anti-Mage, he can abuse Mana Break and Blink, especially if Morphling carries a Manta Style.
- During the lane phase, if there is no point in copying your opposing hero's abilities, you may consider postponing acquiring Morph to later levels and focus on the rest of Morphling's abilites to help him farm.
- Always consider using Morph immediately if Adaptive Strike (Agility) doesn't kill the target, especially if the target has highly damaging abilities, so you can morph into your foe and uses their damage spells if you are not willing to commit Waveform. This strategy is also important against disablers, so you can disable your foe to get time to finish them off when you are able to right click again.
Items
Starting items:
- Tango gives sustain in lane with health regeneration.
- Iron Branch gives cost efficient attributes, and can builds into Magic Wand or combines with Tango for more health regeneration.
- Healing Salve heals up Morphling in a short amount of time.
- Enchanted Mango provides mana so Morphling can keep using Adaptive Strike (Agility) to get last hits.
- Faerie Fire gives cost efficient damage and provides burst health in lane.
Early game:
- Wraith Band gives attributes and attack speed for a decent price.
- Boots of Speed are necessary on Morphling to improve his slow base movement speed.
- Magic Wand provides burst health and mana for sustain.
Mid game:
- Power Treads provide an affordable source of attributes. The cost of his abilities can be mitigated by casting on intelligence, and they can also provide agility or strength for more offensive or defensive power without needing to use Attribute Shift.
- Linken's Sphere provides a modest amount of attributes and regeneration, as well as giving protection against single-target abilities, making it even harder for him to be ganked.
Late game:
- Black King Bar is a vital item for late-game teamfights, providing Morphling with time to deal his damage without being disabled.
- Eye of Skadi is the largest source of total attributes available in one item, providing a large amount of HP even when fully shifted to agility.
Situational items:
- Morbid Mask provides lifesteal to sustain Morphling while he farm up better items. It can build into Satanic later on.
- Dragon Lance is a cheap source of attributes, and gives valuable attack range to improve Morphling's early fights. Later, it may be upgraded to Hurricane Pike for additional mobility, mana, and health regeneration, or it can be disassembled to make Black King Bar and/or Yasha.
- Butterfly gives a very large amount of attack damage and evasion, and so is most effective for a build focused on attacks instead of Adaptive Strike.
- Satanic allows Morphling to use his high DPS to rapidly heal himself full, via the active. However, if you get stunned while trying to lifesteal, you can still be very easily killed, so it should be paired with Black King Bar or used against teams with little lockdown potential.
- Manta Style gives ability to dispel silences and debuffs, and synergies well with his escape mechanisms.
- Diffusal Blade provides modest attributes, and allows his attacks to burn mana. Сan be effective if facing mana-related heroes (Medusa, Storm Spirit etc).
