Templar Assassin Dota 2 Guide – Tough Carry in Patch 7.07d

Lanaya, the Templar Assassin, is a hero that excels in many areas:

• She has great physical damage due to her Refraction ability. At level 7, when this ability is usually at maximum level, you get +80 damage per attack, for 6 attacks.
• She can provide excellent map and Roshan vision with her psionic traps, which have a permanent duration (unless used or destroyed). A total of 11 traps are available to her when the Psionic Trap ability is at maximum level.
• Thanks to her Psi Blades ability and her damage, she can farm faster than almost any other hero once you get a Blink Dagger. This passive ability, combined with good damage and a Blink Dagger, makes her the equivalent of a Battle Fury Anti-Mage. And this usually happens just 10 minutes into the game!
• She is difficult to kill in a 1 vs 1 matchup, as she can block 3/4/5/6 instances of damage of any type using her Refraction ability.
• When her Meld ability is level 4, she can decrease a target’s armor by 8. She can also use this ability to surprise an enemy or escape from a dangerous situation.
• Together with her team, she can quickly kill Roshan after buying a Desolator or maxing out her Meld ability.

@ Valve

Templar Assassin is a mid-laner that can easily carry the game once she gets a few items. You should view her as an actual carry that’s played in the mid lane, with the exception that she can handle most 1 vs 1 matchups and often even win them. When playing this hero, it’s best to initially focus on farming lane and neutral creeps until you get a Blink Dagger and ideally a Desolator. Afterwards you can start joining fights and taking objectives like towers and Roshan.

Templar Assassin Item build

As for most heroes, the item build for a Templar Assassin should contain some key elements that are standard (there’s no good reason not to buy them every single game). Apart from these optimal items, you should buy whatever is appropriate for the particular match you are playing. The additional items you buy should also fit your playstyle.

Starting Items

• Wraith Band
• Iron Branch
• Faery Fire
• Tango (shared)

Early Game Items

• Power Treads/Phase Boots
• Ring of Aquila
• Bottle
• Magic Wand
• Blink Dagger
• Desolator

Mid/Late Game Items

This is where the particular characteristics of your playstyle and the match itself should constitute the starting point for your item choices. Here are some of the options:

• Black King Bar: if the enemy team has a lot of disables and you don’t have good enough crowd control and initiation in your line-up to neutralize them.
• Force Staff/Hurricane Pike: if you’re used to playing with two mobility items instead of one. The Hurricane Pike also gives you a good attack range bonus.
• Monkey King Bar: if you’re dealing with a line-up that has a lot of evasion or can make you miss hits with various items and abilities.
• Butterfly: if you want a combination of damage, attack speed and survivability.
• Daedalus: if you’re feeling lucky enough to get the critical hits at the ideal times. This item is a risky choice though.
• Bloodthorn: if you can afford this powerful item and the enemy team doesn’t have a lot of Black King Bars or Manta Styles, buying it may help you a lot in getting quick kills.
• Linken’s Sphere: if you’re being targeted by powerful abilities that pierce magic immunity (Doom, Rupture, Fiend’s Grip, Duel) and are neutralized in fights because of this.

Read Also: Dota 2 The International - Dota 2 Esports Tournament Overview

Templar Assassin Abilities Explained

Like most heroes, Templar Assassin has 4 abilities. These are:

Refraction

This ability gives you two buffs that cannot be dispelled. One of them blocks 3/4/5/6 instances of damage, while the other gives you 20/40/60/80 bonus physical damage for 3/4/5/6 attacks. This ability makes the hero hard to deal with in the absence of damage over time (which can quickly remove the damage blocking instances of Refraction by dealing multiple instances of damage over a very short time).

Refraction allows the hero to last hit and deny creeps much more easily than other mid lane heroes. It also gives you a lot of protection to compensate for the hero’s short attack range during the early game. Templar Assassin is considered to be a ranged hero (which makes it ineffective for her to buy a Poor Man’s Shield), but her short attack range in the laning phase allows enemies to easily harass her. This can be a problem against aggressive players, who will spend most of their time attacking you instead of the creeps. To trade hits effectively in such situations, you need to position yourself so that you can use Psi Blades to damage them.

Meld

Meld allows you to surprise enemies, decrease their armor, stay hidden, evade attacks and dodge certain spells (like Sven’s Storm Hammer, Queen of Pain’s Shadow Strike or Ogre Magi’s Ignite).

Psi Blades

This passive ability gives the hero 60/120/180/240 bonus attack range. It also allows you to damage units that stand behind the one being attacked directly (even if they’re invisible). The damage that these units take indirectly is pure. Attack modifiers however are only applied to the primary target.

Psionic Trap

This ability constitutes Templar Assassin’s ultimate, and it allows the hero to maintain excellent map vision for the team. The traps can also be triggered to slow down enemies that try to escape. A total of 5/8/11 traps are available at any given time. Once a trap is placed, it quickly becomes invisible. And if it’s triggered at least 4 seconds after it’s been placed, it also deals 250/350/450 damage. The amount of slow increases gradually, from 30% if you trigger the trap immediately after placing it, to 60% if you trigger it 4 seconds afterwards.

@ Valve

Best Templar Assassin Talents

Templar Assassin’s talents focus on survivability, mobility and damage. All of them are good, but your choices should be guided by your playstyle and the particular aspects of the match you are playing. The question is: what do you need to make the hero better and carry your team to victory? Here are the 4 pairs of talents available at level 10, 15, 20 and 25:

• +3 Psionic Trap / +25 attack speed – You should almost always take the attack speed in Dota 2 esports.
• +200 Psionic Trap damage / +7 armor – The second option is much more practical and reliable. The first one requires you to have exceptional map awareness and mastery of the hero. Otherwise you will rarely get to benefit from it.
• +4 Meld armor reduction / +Refraction dispels – Always take the first option. As a Templar Assassin, you should never enter a fight with your Refraction down, so making use of the second talent is quite awkward.
• +4 Refraction instances / Psi Blades spill paralyzes targets for 1 second (slows movement speed by 100%) – Always take the first option.

Templar Assassin Skill build

The hero’s skill build is pretty straightforward and contains little variation, determined by the mid lane matchup. Against most mid lane heroes, you start with a point in Psi Blades, followed by two points in Refraction and then 1 point in Meld (for early game survivability) or a second point in Psi Blades (for better attack range). At level 5 you put another point in Refraction and at 6 you generally skill your ultimate. Afterwards you simply max skills in this order: Refraction, Meld, Psi Blades, Psionic Trap. However, make sure you have two points in Psi Blades before starting to max out Meld, as it will allow you to farm neutral camps more easily.

Against certain matchups you will want to start with a point in Refraction instead of Psi Blades. This applies against Tinker for example, who can nuke you several times with his Laser before you are level 2, bringing your HP very low (in the absence of Refraction).

Against one particular hero, namely the Queen of Pain, you should go for an unusual skill build and start with a point in Meld, in order to dodge her Shadow Strike. Be wary though that you can only do this if she doesn’t have a Sentry ward that reveals you while using Meld. Good teams usually place such a ward in the mid lane, anticipating this tactic. In response, you should ask your team to buy a Sentry ward as well, in order to destroy your opponent’s.

When to pick the hero

Templar Assassin is weak against line-ups that have a lot of disables and damage over time. In any other situation, the hero is very strong if it can farm properly against the enemy mid-laner. You shouldn’t pick Templar Assassin if you have to face one of the following heroes in the mid lane: Viper, Venomancer, Razor, Batrider, Arc Warden, Warlock, Jakiro. Other mid-laners that can be difficult to play against at early levels are Death Prophet, Silencer, Queen of Pain, Lina, Ursa, Monkey King, Timbersaw, Dragon Knight and Tinker. Keep in mind though that Dota is not a 1 vs 1 one game. Your supports can and should intervene if the mid-lane match-up greatly favors your opponent. However, in a purely 1 vs 1 situation, the Templar Assassin needs a lot of practice before it can be played against strong counters like Viper.

Read Also: Best Dota 2 Players for the Carry Role

Conclusion

Templar Assassin is a high damage hero that can farm really fast if it gets a good start. Whenever you deal against a line-up that doesn’t have the proper tools to deal with her Refraction, you should pick the hero if you can play it well and you’ll most likely have an excellent game.

Comments are closed.