Phantom Lancer is a carry who spawns a massive amount of illusions in order to whittle down and confuse opponents. His item and skill build is quite versatile, although a Diffusal Blade is always needed as the first core item and Spirit Lance is maxed first.
Maxing Phantom Rush secondly allows you to move in and out of fights a bit more easily and chase enemies down much more easily. If you are facing lots of aggressive spells such as stuns or slows, then maxing Doppelganger can help to keep you alive for longer in early and mid game fights.
Having hotkeys bound to help you micro your illusions will drastically improve your gameplay and reactions in-game as well.
@ Valve
[/column]Build these Skills on Phantom Lancer
- Spirit Lance
- Phantom Rush
- Spirit Lance
- Doppelganger
- Spirit Lance
- Juxtapose
- Spirit Lance
- Phantom Rush
- Phantom Rush
- Talent
- Phantom Rush
- Juxtapose
- Doppelganger
- Doppelganger
- Talent
- Doppelganger
- –
- Juxtapose
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Phantom Lancer launches a ball of light at the target enemy, slowing the target and creating an illusion of himself to attack the target. Aghanim’s Scepter makes the Spirit Lance bounce to 4 other nearby target. This is usually maxed firstly because each skill increases the damage, slow and illusion duration. Overall, these things make it a great early game spell, as it will give you a lot of kill potential.
Spirit Lance can be disjointed, so be careful about using it on heroes with Blinks. Your other illusions make the animation of Spirit Lance as well so as to not reveal which PL is your actual hero. Spirit Lance is a great spell to use from the back or side lines of a team-fight to contribute a fair amount of damage without committing to a potentially dangerous position. It’s particularly a strong spell against supports, as they tend to not have many items or means of dealing with the illusions that can spawn when the illusion attacks them.
Phantom Lancer briefly disappears, reappearing 1 second afterwards near the target point, along with any other illusions and also creating 2 more illusions. Doppelganger also increases the duration of all illusions by 1 second after reappearing. One of the created illusions takes 100% damage but deals 0% while the other takes 600% and deals 20%. Doppelganger will disjoint any incoming projectiles and applies a basic dispel on you when cast. This skill is usually maxed lastly because you tend to need to escape less than move around the battlefield and chase enemies more easily. If you’re against a very aggressive line-up and can make good use out of the basic dispel, disjoint and re-positioning that the spell provides, then you can max it over Phantom Rush.
The spell also has a very short cast time, making it a good spell to react with when being initiated upon. You can use Doppelganger to dodge Glimpse if timed well. You can use Doppelganger to move across cliffs and into trees, however it will destroy all trees within its AoE attack range upon reappearing. This can also be used to scout enemies who are hiding or attempting to juke in trees.
One thing you can attempt to do if you think that you’re about to die with no way out, is that you can attempt to stand still and micro one of the illusions. If you select the illusion that takes 100% damage and try to run away with him, enemies will often be confused and think it’s the real PL only for you to then run the opposite way and escape, perhaps with a teleport scroll.
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Phantom Lancer charges towards the target enemy, gaining increased movement speed and gaining bonus agility upon reaching the target. This spell is usually maxed secondly because it helps you to move around fights more easily and chase enemies in the early and mid game.
Phantom Rush can be toggled on or off to prevent you from putting the spell on cooldown if you want to harass without putting the spell on cooldown. You cannot be slowed while charging, which makes this a good spell to try to escape with if there are creeps or other enemies that you can Rush to. You can activate Phantom Rush by attacking any unit at all, including towers, wards and runes. At levels 3 and 4, Phantom Rush has a longer cast range than Spirit Lance. Keep this mind in case you need to close the gap without Doppelganger.
Phantom Lancer has a chance to create illusions of himself upon attacking an enemy. Illusions also have a smaller chance to split into another illusion, although any illusion that isn’t spawned from your hero directly lasts half the duration. Breaks prevent you from spawning illusions through this passive. Your Manta Style illusions also have the chance to create illusions, which is another reason why the item is such a good pickup on PL. This passive allows you to stand on the back or side-lines of a team-fight and potentially contribute a lot to a fight through the sheer number of illusions that can be spawned if the enemy team doesn’t deal with your illusions straight away.
In most games, the extra attack speed is preferred. This is because it benefits your illusions as well, and overall helps you to farm a bit faster. The evasion can be good if you are against several sources of physical damage and are having a rough early game.
The extra health is usually safer and affects your illusions as well. You’ll get a lot of value from the extra HP because it will make each of your illusions a little bit harder to deal with, requiring one or two more attacks from enemies to kill them. In most games this will be the best choice of the two, however if you are very far ahead and unlikely to die, you can solidify your lead with the extra damage to nuke down enemies faster and more easily in team-fights.
If you’re against enemies that are hard to lockdown then the extra Phantom Rush range can be very good. Heroes with high movement speed or mobility spells or items can be very hard to catch sometimes, and the extra gap-closing that the 500 range provides will make it much easier for you to catch enemies. Otherwise, the extra illusions will increase your DPS in team-fights and make you a bit harder to fight.
The cooldown reduction on Doppelganger halves the cooldown from 10 seconds to 5, which is very strong against line-ups with lots of disables. The basic dispel it provides is very helpful against several debuffs, and if you are facing several of such spells it can be very useful. However, in opting for the cooldown reduction, you are passing up the 30% chance to deal double damage on your attacks. This is a massive increase to your DPS and very powerful in the late game. In most situations, you’ll want the critical chance. However, if you’re facing several debuffs that make team-fighting harder for you, then the cooldown reduction can be strong.
Phantom Lancer can get a wide variety of starting items; it depends very much upon his lane. A Stout Shield will be needed in most games, because you usually end up in the jungle anyway. You can also get a Quelling Blade if your last hits will be, or are being, contested. Stat items give Phantom Lancer more damage to last hit with, and can be built into his early game items. Tango and Healing Salve will be needed in most lanes, unless you expect to take very little harass damage. A Mango will give you some HP regen, can be built into a Magic Wand and can be used to cast Spirit Lance to get kills or Doppelganger to escape. This is good in lanes where you expect to be active with your best hard supports in Dota 2 in getting kills in the early game.
A Magic Wand is a decent item on PL. It helps you to move about the battlefield in the early game more easily by allowing you to get more casts of Doppelganger and Spirit Lance off, and by keeping you alive for longer.
A Ring of Aquila gives your illusions more stats in the early game, gives you a bit more last-hitting damage and mana regeneration. The armor aura can be used to help your creeps to split-push when you do and take towers a bit more easily.
Power Treads gives Phantom Lancer more agility and attack speed which directly strengthens his illusions. If you don’t need the early game advantage that the stats give you, then you can skip these and get a faster Diffusal Blade and Boots of Travel afterwards. This may be a better idea against split-pushing heroes, or if you yourself can split-push very effectively this match.
A Diffusal Blade is perhaps the single core item on Phantom Lancer. It gives each of your illusions the mana burn passive, loads of agility for damage and the intelligence helps you to use your spells. The active allows you to slow and chase enemies more easily. When you spawn a large number of illusions, you can set them to zone away a hero when pushing a tower for example. This is very effective against intelligence heroes as it hinders their ability to contribute to the fight. If you do so against support heroes, they will often not have a way to fight back and have to flee or kill the illusions.
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A Manta Style allows you to spawn stronger illusions than from your ultimate. These illusions also have a chance to fracture and the stats from the item makes your illusions better in every way as well. The movement speed allows you to move around the map faster and allows you to farm a bit faster as a result. Manta Style also offers a self-dispel which is helpful against many spells, in particularly slows.
An Eye of Skadi gives you lots of stats that tank you up, increase your damage and allow you to cast a lot more spells. Your illusions benefit from all of the stats and it’s a great all-around item in the late game. The MS/AS slow is great against farmed carries in the late game as well.
A Butterfly is a great item if you need more damage. Your illusions benefit from the agility, attack speed and evasion, and makes you and your illusions much tankier against physical damage. The Flutter active allows you to escape team-fights very easily which helps a lot.
A Heart of Tarrasque is a great late game item if you just need to tank you and/or your illusions up, particularly against magical damage. It allows you to regenerate your lost HP very quickly and as a result allows you to move in and out of fights very easily. You can spawn illusions and send them onto the enemy as you heal back up from the back-lines of the fight safely. This strategy will make even the best Dota 2 players sweat nervously.
In the late game, you should swap out your Power Treads for Boots of Travel. You can very easily keep lanes pushed in with your illusions. Spawn them either through Manta Style, Doppelganger or Spirit Lance and set them to attack down the lane after teleporting to it. You can farm the jungle while your illusions push and farm the wave out. They also give you lots of movement speed to help you escape fights more easily and free up an inventory slot.
A Moon Shard is a great 7th item to increase your DPS after you’ve gotten all of your main items.
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In some games you’ll be up against a lot of AoE magical damage or stuns which will prevent you from being able to team-fight effectively. In these situations, you’ll need a BKB. However, in most games you won’t need one, because you don’t necessarily have to have one in order to fight. You can spawn illusions with Spirit Lance, Doppelganger, and Manta Style and send them onto enemies from a safer distance. However, if you don’t have the damage, or if you are against an enemy that can deal with your illusions quite well or catch you out and kill you easily, then a BKB can be very helpful.
A Nullifier can be a decent pickup if you’re playing against enemies with spells or buffs that make them hard to kill. The damage and armor aren’t great for your illusions as they don’t benefit from them, but if you’re having a hard time killing heroes like Windranger, Necrophos or Omniknight, then it may be worth picking it up.
A Blink Dagger can be a good item if you need to be able to move around the battlefield more easily. It will help you to move in and out of fights, particularly if they are long and help you to avoid taking damage from several spells or getting caught out.
A Monkey King Bar can be a great item against heroes with evasion. Your illusions gain the attack speed, and the accuracy. However, they do not proc the extra damage.
Sange and Yasha can be a great item on PL if you are fighting a lot or need to end the match in the mid game. You can disassemble it into a Manta Style. Your illusions benefit from all of the stats, and it will help you to deal a bit more damage and tank you up a bit as well.
A Linken’s Sphere is a great item on PL against heroes with strong single-target spells. It provides a large amount of stats which your illusions benefit from and the Spellblock gives you enough time to cast Doppelganger to re-position yourself or Manta Style to continue to evade enemies. You’ll need to consider this item in certain matches in order to reach 10k MMR.
Abyssal Blade can be a very decent item on Phantom Lancer. It will tank your illusions up a lot, give you a chance to bash and give you a 2 second stun that pierces magic immunity. The bash chance and the stun can be very good against heroes like Sven or Lifestealer and any carry that is hard to lockdown.
A Bloodthorn can be a good item against heroes that are hard to lockdown, casters, or heroes with evasion. Your illusions benefit from the attack speed and the crit chance. The mana regeneration and intelligence help you to cast spells in team-fights and spam your Spirit Lance, which is particularly helpful when defending your base.
A Radiance is a very situational item on PL. It allows you to push creep-waves out more easily which is helpful against split-pushers and heroes that can summon creeps or other units. However, it’s usually not worth getting on PL because your illusions are fairly good at keeping lanes pushed out as they are, it’s an expensive item to build and the damage isn’t applied to your illusions. The burn aura is only really worth it if you can justify needing to keep the lanes pushed out and if you don’t have much on your team to do so with as it is.
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Heroes like Wraith King or Medusa are very vulnerable to the mana-burn from Diffusal Blade on your illusions. They will be much easier to bring down than normal.
Phantom Lancer’s illusions are very hard for the enemy to kill or control if they have no AoE spells. In these situations, tanking up is often a very good idea because the enemies often have no way of dealing with them. On the contrary, AoE nukes and stuns are very effective against PL and make his illusions a lot more easily manageable.
All of Arc Warden’s spells are countered by the sheer amount of PL illusions. Flux has no effect when PL is near an illusion, Spark Wraith can easily hit an illusion instead, and Magnetic Field doesn’t matter against a melee hero. Phantom Rush is also a very good spells to close the gap against Arc Warden, as the hero has no natural means of escape.
Timbersaw has lots of AoE damage and is very tanky against right-clicks. The illusion attacks will also allow him to quickly build up stacks of Reactive Armor making him very hard to takedown. In addition to this, the slows from Spirit Lance and Diffusal Blade are easily overcome by Timber Chain.
Axe is very good at controlling PL, as the sheer number of illusions that he can spawn give him many opportunities to get procs of Counter Helix. Berserker’s Call is also very good at catching out PL and preventing him from escaping.
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