Phantom Lancer Guide by Nikobaby
Artist: Don Don
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Author:
Nikobaby & Co.
Date: 02/2018
Tags:
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Phantom Lancer
Builds
Tactics
Analysis

Welcome

Welcome to Nikobaby's Book of the Phantom Lancer, a hero guide part of the Book of Dota series!

Here you will find all the information you need to learn to play PL on a high level – from drafting and builds to the optimal playstyle in different lanes and situations. We hope you’ll enjoy this guide and find it useful!

Nikobaby Phantom Lancer Stats
TL;DR:

Draft: PL has some of the simplest interaction with the enemy team – if your opponents don’t have a lot of AoE, PL is a great pick. If they do, he’s not. Because of this try to pick him later on in the draft based on the information you have.

Early Game: PL is a strong laner, but he needs farm. Usually, you want to put him in the safe or mid lane to give him 10-15 minutes of free last hitting. PL can attempt kills in his own lane with allies, but he doesn’t rotate – you want to get your core items before you join fights.

Mid & Late Game: You are quite versatile – you can farm and split-push and you can also join fights and ganks, depending on the game. Make sure you itemize properly – you always want some kind of stats items, but you might need specific defensive items to counter silences or strong single target nukes, etc. Don’t be afraid to take the game late – the more items you have, the stronger your illusions.

Authors

Nikolay "Nikobaby" Nikolov
Endorsement & Info

Niko is a rising star on the EU & CIS pub and pro scene and he is absolutely proficient at carrying. He has played for teams like Basically Unknown, Effect, DD, and recently - 20 min afk les, which won the TI8 CIS Open Qualifiers.

His peak placement on the EU Leaderboards is top 3, while his highest MMR before the reset was 8.5k. According to Dotabuff's player rankings, he is the rank 1 Morphling player in the world.

Nikolay "CTOMAHEH1" Kalchev
Info & Editing

CTOMAHEH1 started his pro career as a support in Basically Unknown together with Mind Control. Since then he has consistently been playing on the European T2 scene, most recently on Unchained Esports. 

His highest placement on the EU ladder is top 100 - he plays all roles (mainly support), which is untypical for high-ranking players and shows his great versatility and understanding of the game.

Martin "BRING IT ON" Slavov
Writing & Info

Martin has lots of experience writing about Dota and he is no pushover in the actual game - a Divine III player, Martin plays mid and carry heroes on a very high level.


He has been playing Dota since Guinsoo's Dota Allstars (more than 12 years) and he loves thinking about new builds and strategies.

Kyril "MrNiceGuy" Kotashev
PM & Editing

Esports and gaming enthusiast since forever and founder of Dotahaven.

Has been playing Dota since 2005 (5.84). An Ancient I player in Dota 2.

From one: an army.

Phantom Lancer is a carry hero who uses an army of illusions to outnumber and overwhelm his enemies. He’s hard to kill, relatively mobile and enemies often have a hard time distinguishing the real one if they don’t have enough area of effect abilities. 

Phantom Lancer Loadout
Stats
Level 1
Level 15
Level 25
STR
19
Medium
47
Low
67
Low
AGI
29
Very High
65
Very High
91
Very High
INT
19
High
47
Medium
67
Medium
Attack
51-73
Very High
87-109
Very High
113-135
High
Armor
5.8
Very High
13.08
Very High
18.28
Very High
Resistance
26
Medium
27
Medium
29
Medium
HP
542
Medium
1046
Low
1406
Low
MP
303
High
639
Medium
879
Medium
MS
290
Low
296
Medium
301
Medium
STRENGHTS

MAJOR:

Army of one:
PL is one of the strongest illusion heroes and when his illusions are armed with a Diffusal Blade and later on other stat items, they’re able to deal some serious damage as well as mana burn. Heroes without strong AoE abilities can often do very little to save themselves.

Not an easy prey:
Thanks to Doppelganger, which is a nice escape ability with a built-in dispel, the hero is so hard to kill in the early game that most players don’t even bother ganking him unless he’s massively out of position. Later on, his illusions become stronger and finding the real PL turns into a real problem, which makes him even harder to kill.

MINOR:

Pretty good stats:
PL is #1 in terms of total starting stats. His strength and intelligence are not bad at all and his starting agility is only surpassed by Riki. His starting damage is also very good although it varies between 51-73 (22 damage spread). The attack animation is also good for last hitting and denying.

Creates confusion:
With the huge number of illusions, the hero can spread chaos in a team fight if the enemies can’t kill them.

Good chaser:
Phantom Rush is a pretty good chasing ability with low cooldown and it works on all illusions as well.

WEAKNESSES

MAJOR:

Dependent on illusions:
Although the hero can hit fairly hard, he needs his illusions to deal damage. Usually, a simple Diffusal Blade is sometimes enough for that, the hero will often need a lot of farm before he can actually fight effectively.

Weak against AoE:
PL’s illusions are not very tanky (they take 500% damage), so heroes like Sven, Gyro, Tinker, SF, QoP destroy them. It’s just very hard to play against heroes with a lot of AoE.

MINOR:

No AoE or burst:
Although Spirit Lance is a nice nuke in the early game, the hero lacks any sort of AoE or burst damage – that means his only way of dealing damage is the good old fashioned hitting enemies in the head with his stick.

Weak against certain items:
The hero has a hard time dealing with BKBs and Crimson Guard so while those are active, your damage output will be pretty low. 

Replays

OG vs PSG.LGD, TI8, Game 4, Grand Finals

MATCH ID 4080778303
Replay

Ana’s performance on PL in the 4th game of the grand finals of TI8 is undoubtedly the most memorable PL match in Dota 2 competitive history. Despite a bad start to the game, thanks to the space provided by Ceb’s Axe, Ana manages to keep his team in the game and to come back from a 17k XP and 9.5k gold deficit.

Notice how once he gets the Doppelganger CD reduction talent, he uses the spell to dodge multiple abilities in fights and becomes impossibly elusive. LGD’s lack of good AoE damage and reliable lockdown becomes apparent the later the game goes and PL is able to secure the victory for OG.

Optic Gaming vs Newbee, Dota 2 Asia Championships 2018

MATCH ID 3811019779
Replay

CCnC plays an almost flawless game on PL versus a lineup which theoretically could make the game very difficult for him. Optic picked PL in the first picking phase, which gave Newbee the opportunity to counter him with heroes like Gyro (AoE damage), Terrorblade (late game AoE damage from Reflection) and Disruptor and Puck (silence + AoE damage). Despite playing versus two silences, he died only once for the whole game. This is even more impressive bearing in mind that the game was quite even – this is a great replay to watch if you want to learn great positioning in fights and on the map as PL.

Drafting

PL is good in any lineup where the enemy doesn’t have too much AoE damage/stuns. He’s a good laner, can join fights early with Diffusal Blade if he has to, and his late game potential is pretty good – the later the game goes, the stronger his illusions become and the harder they are to simply nuke down.

Although PL can fight early to some extent, as a PL you’d like to have a window of about 10-15 minutes to farm first. This way you will be able to get your core midgame items, which will increase your DPS output and tankiness a lot.

Roles

  • Safe lane carry

The classic PL position. PL can stand his ground against a number of tough offlaners and he has kill potential if a support helps him thanks to Spirit Lance and Phantom Rush. The safe lane gives him the opportunity to free-farm and get his Diffusal + some cheap stat items as quickly as possible (or even go for a Battlefury build in more passive farming games).

  • Mid lane carry

Good against heroes who can’t pressure him much like Invoker, Ember, QoP and with his Spirit Lance he has a pretty high kill potential if a support roams around. Since he is a AGI carry with high armor, he can Phantom Rush the enemy ranged midlaner and start harassing. In case they use a skill, he can always disengage with Doppelganger.

Synergy

Good friends to have are:

Attack speed buffs: IO, Beastmaster, Ogre

IO Wisp
Beastmaster
Ogre Magi Portrait

More attacks mean not only higher DPS, but more illusions created with PL’s ultimate, which translates to even more damage.

Strong Lane Supports: Bane, Ogre, Dazzle, Jakiro

Bane Portrait
Ogre Magi Portrait
Dazzle Portrait
Jakiro Portrait

Thanks to his great stats and good nuke, PL + a strong lane support could fully dominate a lane against one or two opponents. Dazzle deserves a special mention because even though he is not such a lane dominator as the others on the list, he has great synergy with PL’s illusions because of Shadow Wave’s damage.

Crystal Maiden

CM: CM’s aura is pretty useful for PL and with her 2 other abilities (slow and disable), she can help him get early kills combined with his high damage and nuke.

Keeper of the Light

Kotl: KotL’s Chakra not only recharges your mana, but the cooldown reduction also allows you to cast 2 Lances in a quick succession, which deals very high damage. Later on, in the game, KOTL can use recall to help PL split-push more efficiently and join fights just in time.

Counters

Strong Against:

No AoE: WK, Ursa, Drow, Huskar, TA, CK, Clinkz, Viper

Wraith King
Ursa Portrait
Drow Ranger
Huskar Portrait
Templar Assassin
Chaos Knight
Clinkz Portrait
Viper

Those heroes are just general examples. Any team will have some AoE, but if it’s not too much – PL could always be a strong pick and snowball out of control in the mid and late game. Just Mjollnir on a carry is usually not enough to solve the PL problem.

Mana dependent heroes: WK, Medusa

Wraith King
Medusa

With a Diffusal Blade, you can drain all of their mana, rendering them useless in a fight. 

Repositioning abilities: Disruptor, Kunkka

Disruptor Portrait
Kunkka

Doppelganger is one of the best spells to dodge both Glympse and X-Mark. That being said, Kinetic Storm + Static field and Kunkka’s Boat are great spells against PL, so don’t pick him just to counter Dis or Kunkka.

Weak Against:

A lot of AoE: Timber, Leshrac, Tinker, Gyro, Earthshaker, Sand King, Axe, Magnus, Sven

Timbersaw
Leshrac
Tinker
Gyro
Earthshaker Portrait
Sand King
Axe Portrait
Magnus Portrait
Sven

Those heroes can pretty much destroy your entire army by themselves even in the late stages of the game. As we mentioned, every team will have some AoE damage – if multiple heroes can disrupt your illusions on the enemy team, PL might not be a good pick.

Witch Doctor

WD: WD’s Maledict can’t be dispelled, you can only dodge one instance of damage with Doppelganger. His stun is also strong when

Puck Portrait

Puck: Puck’s Dream Coil will stun you even if you’re trying to exit with Doppelganger, so you have to wait for the duration to end. Puck’s instant Silence is also a pain in the ass combined with his Blink initiation. He also has plenty of AoE damage to kill your illusions in the early and mid game.

Skills

Phantom Lancer Spirit Lance
Phantom Lancer Doppelganger
Phantom Lancer Phantom Rush
Phantom Lancer Juxtapose

Sends a magical spirit lance to a target enemy unit that damages and slows, while summoning an illusory phantom to attack the unit.

STATS

Cast Animation: 0.3+0.73

Cast Range: 525/600/675/750

Damage: 100/150/200/250

Move Speed Slow: 10/18/26/34%

Illusion Damage Taken: 400%

Illusion Damage Dealt: 20%

Illusion Duration: 2/4/6/8

Slow Duration: 3.25

CD: 7

Mana: 125/130/135/140

Aghanim's Scepter

Causes Spirit Lance to bounce to nearby enemies.

Spirit Lance

Mechanics:

  • Spirit Lance travels at a speed of 1000.
  • The lance first applies the debuff, then the damage.
  • The illusion only spawns when the projectile successfully hits and damages or slows the target.
  • Illusions of Phantom Lancer within 675 radius of Phantom Lancer cast a fake Spirit Lance.
  • Illusions created by Spirit Lance have a static 5 gold and experience bounty which does not scale with levels.

Uses and Tips:

The main tool for harassment on the lane – you can slow the enemy and rush towards him for a couple of hits. It also has a very short cooldown and can be used multiple times in a single gank.

Later on, you will be using it to create an illusion which has a chance to create its own illusions and snowball. This is not only good for dealing more damage on creeps, but it is good for pushing out waves if your ultimate procs enough times.

The Aghanim’s Scepter causes the Spirit Lance to bounce, creating multiple illusions. This makes the skill a lot better and makes Aghanim’s a good choice if you are afraid of engaging directly and want to chip at your opponents. Needless to say, this is a not a situation you want to be in.

Phantom Lancer briefly vanishes from the battlefield. After 1 second, Phantom Lancer and any of his nearby illusions reappear at a random position within the targeted location, along with two additional doppelgangers. Extends duration of all illusions. The two added doppelgangers have different properties: one takes normal damage and deals none, while the other takes 600% damage and deals 20% damage.

STATS

Cast Animation: 0.1+0

Cast Range: 600

Reappear Radius: 325

Illusion Gather Radius: 900

Reappear Delay: 1

Number of Illusions: 2

First Illusion Damage Taken: 100%

First Illusion Damage Dealt: 0%

Second Illusion Damage Taken: 600%

Second Illusion Damage Dealt: 20%

Gathered Illusion Duration Extension: 2

Doppelganger Illusion Duration: 8

CD: 25/20/15/10

Mana: 50

Doppelganger

Mechanics:

  • Doppelganger disjoints projectiles upon cast.
  • Applies a basic dispel on Phantom Lancer upon cast.
  • Phantom Lancer and his affected illusions are invulnerable and hidden during the reappear delay.
  • Phantom Lancer and the 2 created illusions face the direction Phantom Lancer was facing upon cast.
  • Illusions which were moving or attacking a target continue to move or attack their target after reappearing.
  • The normal damage taking and no damage dealing illusion is brighter and can be distinguished by Phantom Lancer and his allies from other illusions.
  • Unlike illusions created by Phantom Lancer's other abilities, Doppelganger illusions use the default bounty values which scale with levels.
  • Doppelganger cannot be interrupted by anything except death. This means when getting teleported (with e.g. Glimpse, X-Mark), Phantom Lancer still appears in the targeted area.
  • Destroys trees within 200 radius of Phantom Lancer and every affected illusion upon reappearing.

Uses and Tips:

Your main survival tool: Doppelganger makes PL very hard to kill in the early game unless you’re caught out of position. Not only it dispels a lot of things, it also moves you and creates more illusions to confuse the enemy.

Confuse your enemies: You can make a control group for your “normal damage taking illusion” (let’s call it Jeff) and it will last for every next one created. Use Ctrl + number to make a control group and you can select Jeff immediately after he appears and send him in a different direction to make the enemies chase him. Issue an order for the illusion first, wait a second for the enemies to start running after it and then send your hero and your other illusions in a different direction. This trick is able to confuse even the best of players every once in a while.

Dispel debuffs: This ability is also pretty good on the lane against heroes like QoP, Bristleback, Batrider as you dispel their debuffs.

When targeting an enemy for an attack, Phantom Lancer quickly charges into range, gaining a temporary agility boost upon reaching the target. Phantom Lancer's illusions also have this ability.

STATS

Minimum Proc Distance: 250

Maximum Proc Distance: 600/700/800/900

Haste Speed: 800

Agility Bonus: 11/22/33/44

Max Rush Duration: 5

Agility Duration: 2

CD: 16/12/8/4

Phantom Rush

Mechanics:

  • Can be toggled to not activate. Only Phantom Lancer can toggle it, it still remains toggled on for his illusions.
  • Requires a direct attack order to trigger. Auto attacks or attack ground orders do not trigger Phantom Rush.
  • Applies a haste effect on Phantom Lancer, meaning his movement speed cannot be slowed while having the buff.
  • Phantom Rush can trigger on any target, including wards and buildings.
  • Disarm or ethereal effects do not prevent Phantom Lancer from rushing. However, units which cannot be attacked (e.g. invulnerable or ethereal units) cannot be targeted and rushed towards.
  • Upon triggering, Phantom Lancer receives the rush buff, which grants the haste on him.
  • This buff lasts for up to 5 seconds until Phantom Lancer successfully hits the rush target, or until he receives another order.
  • Non-targeted items do not cancel the rush. Items which can be double-clicked to cast on self still count as targeted.
  • Phantom Lancer gains the agility buff and loses the rush buff upon starting an attack on an enemy.
  • The agility buff effectively grants Phantom Lancer 1/2.33/3.67/5 armor, 0.36%/0.84%/1.32%/1.8% movement speed, and 6/14/22/30 attack speed and attack damage.

Uses and Tips:

Phantom Rush is very good for chasing as it works for all illusions. It also synergizes well with Diffusal Blade as it allows your entire army to hit the enemy at least once, burning a lot of mana.

The agility buff encouraged players to experiment with the skill builds and now we have a second possible build which revolves around maxing Phantom Rush for harass on the lane.

It could be used as an escape tool as well if you see a creep or tower in the direction that you want to go, so you can rush towards it. It’s also effective if you target someone on a high ground as Phantom Rush will force your hero to try to find a route towards it and it will often result in a huge distance covered.

Phantom Lancer has a chance to fracture his presence, creating an illusion of himself. Illusions also have a chance to fracture further. Illusions created from Phantom Lancer last for 8 seconds, while illusions created from other illusions last 4 seconds.

STATS

Hero Proc Chance: 40%/45%/50%

Illusion Proc Chance: 8%

Max Illusions: 6/8/10

Illusion Damage Taken: 650%

Illusion Damage Dealt: 16%

Illusion Duration (from Hero): 8

Illusion Duration (from Illusion): 4

Juxtapose

Mechanics:

  • The chance to spawn illusions only triggers upon attacking.
  • Juxtapose uses pseudo-random distribution.
  • Illusions created by Juxtapose attack the target that the ability was triggered upon.
  • Illusions created by Juxtapose have a static 5 gold and experience bounty which does not scale with levels.
  • Affects all illusions of Phantom Lancer, not just the ones from his abilities. This includes illusions created with items (Manta Style) or with other abilities (Disruption, Reflection).
  • Works against wards, but not buildings.

Uses and tips:

The signature ability of PL – it helps you create your personal army.

Synergizes very well with Diffusal Blade as all illusions will burn 16 mana per hit.

The illusions duration is really low (8s) so it’s not really useful for split-pushing with illusions.

All illusions deal 60% reduced damage to buildings (so essentially a Juxtapose illusion deals 6% of your hero’s damage to buildings), so they’re not very good for pushing unless you have an entire army and no one is trying to stop you.

As all illusions use Phantom Rush, they all gain the 30 agility buff from it, which allows them to hit harder and faster and to burn more mana.

Skill Builds

PL’s builds are both good for harassing the lane enemy and eventually going for a kill if a support rotates to gank. They both include a point in Doppelganger in case the enemies try to make a move on you. Since their advantages are pretty much the same, it’s up to you to decide if you want to max Spirit Lance or Phantom Rush.

Phantom Rush Build
Spirit Lance Build
Phantom Lancer Spirit Lance
1
Phantom Lancer Phantom Rush
2
Phantom Lancer Phantom Rush
3
Phantom Lancer Spirit Lance
4
Phantom Lancer Doppelganger
5
Phantom Lancer Juxtapose
6
Phantom Lancer Phantom Rush
7
Phantom Lancer Phantom Rush
8
Phantom Lancer Spirit Lance
9
Talent Icon
10
Phantom Lancer Spirit Lance
11
Phantom Lancer Juxtapose
12
Phantom Lancer Doppelganger
13
Phantom Lancer Doppelganger
14
Talent Icon
15
Phantom Lancer Doppelganger
16
Phantom Lancer Juxtapose
18
Talent Icon
20
Talent Icon
25
Pros: mobile; good lane harass with attacks;
Cons: no burst damage;

This is a relatively new build, which was born in 7.00 and further developed in 7.05 (those patches introduced the Phantom Rush agility bonus and then increased it to 6/14/22/30). Most professional players are using it because PL has a pretty high starting damage, so he can use Phantom Rush at the early levels to harass the enemy.

The build uses 2 points in Spirit Lance for slow (20% at level 2) and then focuses on maxing the Phantom Rush by level 8.

Phantom Lancer Spirit Lance
1
Phantom Lancer Doppelganger
2
Phantom Lancer Spirit Lance
3
Phantom Lancer Phantom Rush
4
Phantom Lancer Spirit Lance
5
Phantom Lancer Juxtapose
6
Phantom Lancer Spirit Lance
7
Phantom Lancer Phantom Rush
8
Phantom Lancer Phantom Rush
9
Talent Icon
10
Phantom Lancer Phantom Rush
11
Phantom Lancer Juxtapose
12
Phantom Lancer Doppelganger
13
Phantom Lancer Doppelganger
14
Talent Icon
15
Phantom Lancer Doppelganger
16
Phantom Lancer Juxtapose
18
Talent Icon
20
Talent Icon
25
Pros: max burst damage; spell harass;
Cons: low mobility;

Maxing Spirit Lance has been the build for ages. Its advantage is that the slow increases by 10% with each level and the cooldown is pretty short. So if you get some small mana regeneration items, you’re able to spam it on the enemy for harass and it’s also good for kill attempts if a support rotates to your lane.

If you’re having a very safe lane, you can get Phantom Rush at level 2 and delay the Doppelganger. And the opposite – if the enemies are trying to gank you, you could get Doppelganger even at level 1.

Talents

+30% Critical Strike (x2)
25

-6 Doppelganger CD

+5 Max Juxtapose Illusions

20
+500 Phantom Rush Range
+125 Spirit Lance Damage
15
+250 Health
+20 Attack Speed
10

15% Evasion

Lvl10: The attack speed is good for both farming and fighting and works on the illusions as well, so it’s a bit better.

Lvl15: At level 15, the Spirit Lance damage is already insignificant and it’s only used for the slow. The health bonus works on illusions as well, so this is our choice.

Lvl20: Most professional players pick the Phantom Rush boost. The reason is that 10 illusions are already a lot, so you don’t really need more. Neither of them is game-breaking, so feel free to pick whatever you like.

Lvl25: Both are very strong and with a distinct purpose: On one hand, crit obviously increases your DPS a lot - it's a big deal for a hero who buys a lot of stat items and has good AS and damage. On the other, the CD reduction allows you to constantly spam Doppelganger, which makes it great for dodging spells and staying alive even against counters. The decision is situational - do you need more damage or more survivability?

Standard Build

This build allows PL to fight early in the game with just a Diffusal Blade. However, the farming speed is not very good and if your game starts bad – the comeback potential will be limited. Use it when your team is having a strong early game and you want to contribute to fights.

The early game package is standard for every agility carry – Wand and Wraith Bands help with the mana management and provide useful stats. Raindrops are also a good addition against nuke damage.

In the later stages of the game, you want to make your illusions stronger. Since they take a lot of damage, the best way to make them tankier is to get Heart. This also allows you to fight, disengage and regen and re-enter the fight. In the late game, you get more stat items for damage on your illusions.

Starting Items
Stout Shield
Tangoes
Healing_Salve_icon
Mango
Iron branch
Iron branch
Early Game
Quelling Blade
Wraith Band
Wraith Band
Magic wand
Power Treads Agility
Diffusal Blade
Mid Game
Manta_Style_icon
Heart
Late Game
Skadi
Butterfly
Black King Bar
Stout Shield
Tangoes
Healing_Salve_icon
Mango
Iron branch
Iron branch
Quelling Blade
Wraith Band
Wraith Band
Magic wand
Power Treads Agility

Power Treads: the only boots that give stats – this makes them the best for your illusions.

Diffusal Blade

Diffusal Blade: The signature item for the hero. PL has the highest number of illusions of all heroes in the game, so if you start hitting a hero with all of them, their mana goes to the dumpster. It also deals 0.8 physical damage per burned mana, which further increases the illusions’ damage. Last, but not least – the active slow ability is very useful against heroes without AoE as it allows you to kill them easily. 

Manta_Style_icon

Manta: Manta has a great synergy with Diffusal Blade, Phantom Rush and Juxtapose, making it a perfect item for the hero. It gives you another dispel to play with and it’s very useful against silences. It also provides nice stats and the early effect of Yasha is pretty useful for farming. 

Heart

Heart: Since we already have a lot of damage with the Diffusal Blade illusions, we want to make them tanky. Heart is the perfect item for that purpose as it grants a total of 1300 HP. PL is also very good in prolonged fights, so you can simply back off for a few seconds to restore HP and use Phantom Rush to join the fight again.

Skadi

Skadi: An alternative to Heart – it only provides 725 HP but comes with other offensive bonuses. There’s no reason not to buy both.

Butterfly

Butterfly: It doesn’t provide any HP which is why it’s usually not favored before Heart or Skadi, but when it comes to damage, Butterfly is the best item on the hero. It gives 60 damage (35 for illusions) and 65 attack speed, which combined with Diffusal Blade and other stats items make the illusions very scary. 

Black King Bar

BKB: BKB is sometimes necessary if the enemies have a lot of disables and your illusions don’t offer enough protection. 

Other Items

Early & Mid Game
Hood
Blink_Dagger_icon
Linken's Sphere
Shadow_Blade_icon
Sange_and_Yasha_new
Late Game
Nullifier
Bloodthorn_icon
Boots_of_Travel_1_icon
Abyssal_Blade_icon
Hood

Hood: PL is a low HP high armor hero and the easiest way to kill him in the early-mid game is with magic damage nukes. Hood is the best defensive tool to counter that.

Usually, you want to take it after the Diffusal. You can, however, rush it in the lane if you are getting pressured and nuked down from early on. It will slow down your Diffusal a bit, but it will give you a lot of sustain and survivability, which makes it worthwhile in such situations.

Blink_Dagger_icon

Blink Dagger: Blink is a very good item for initiation – you can simply jump on top of a support and annihilate him. It also has great synergy with Doppelganger for escape purposes as it can be used to hide you and confuse enemies long enough for the Dagger to cool down. 

Linken's Sphere

Linken’s Sphere: It’s good against the usual suspects like Batrider, Doom, Beastmaster, etc. It gives you enough times to use Doppelganger to escape. 

Shadow_Blade_icon

Shadow Blade: A nice item for sneaking up to an enemy hero, to travel around the map without being seen or just as the usual escape tool. Doppelganger dispels Dust of Appearance, so it becomes a bit harder for the enemies to catch you. It also upgrades into Silver Edge which is very useful against heroes like Tidehunter, Timbersaw, Bristleback who are otherwise unkillable by your numerous but weak-hitting illusions.

Sange_and_Yasha_new

Sange & Yasha: S&Y is an alternative to Manta if you don’t plan to build Diffusal Blade. Its advantage is that it’s cheaper than Manta. The bad part is that you lose the extra dispel which makes you weak against silence.

Nullifier

Nullifier: Useful against heroes like SF, Luna, Sniper and many other heroes who use their items to protect themselves like Shadow Blade, Euls, BKB, etc. If you manage to use Nullifier before they can BKB (great synergy with Blink Dagger for that purpose), you can delete them from the game within those 5 seconds. It’s also a counter to Ghost Scepters.

Bloodthorn_icon

Bloodthorn: A nice late game item when BKBs have low duration and you can Rush a hero who doesn’t have protection against silence. It also boosts the DPS greatly as it causes every illusion to crit. 

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BOTs: great in the late game for split-pushing. You could get it earlier if you want to dodge fights and push-out lanes in the early-mid game.

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Abyssal Blade: increases PL's Hp and gives him more control. Great in combination with Phantom Rush.

Early Game

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PL’s early game is similar to any other carry’s with the exception that he can harass the enemy hero and contribute to kills sometimes. All of that depends on your supports’ rotations, however.

Preserve the creep equilibrium and farm
Harass & kill the enemy if possible, help your supports
Survive and play more defensively if you are getting pressured
Farming:

Last hitting and denying with PL is very easy – he has high damage and good attack animation, Quelling Blade also provides another 24 damage, so you should focus on that.

His jungling skills are not very good early on, but you can still farm the big camp close to the lane. Use the Juxtapose illusions to tank the creeps and make sure to sidestep an eventual stun or clap from Centaurs/Bears.

If you decide to build a Battle Fury (9-12 minute is a very good timing), that will greatly improve your farm later on. You can clear out the creep waves quickly and then move to the jungle. 

Harassing & Kill potential:

PL is one of the carries who can harass even ranged heroes on the lane. You can throw a Spirit Lance and then use Phantom Rush to shorten the distance between you and the enemy and land a few hits. Do that a few times and the enemy is already low and will have to use their regen or retreat from the lane if they don’t have any. After you repeat this a couple of times, the enemy will be scared to even get close to the lane.

Melee heroes are a bit harder as they’re usually very tanky – it’s hard to harass heroes like Tidehunter, Bristleback, Timbersaw. They can’t stop your farm, but you’ll need a teammate in order to harass them.

With the help of a support, you can attempt a kill at some point if the enemy is close to you. You want to cast Spirit Lance in the beginning (so it starts cooling down), Phantom Rush towards the enemy and hit him until you have Spirit Lance again. This, with the help of a stun/slow from a support, should be enough to kill most heroes.

If you’re playing mid, any kills are very welcome as it slows their progression down, so you can call your supports to rotate mid at any time. Slow mid laners like SF, Invoker, Tinker, Sniper are not hard to kill with some help. Killing an offlaner is usually trickier if you don’t have a significant level advantage.

Survival:

Most of the times, you won’t get ganked because Doppelganger is usually enough to save you from any ganks. The only time you should be careful is if you’re far away from your tower and the enemies can flank you and then chase you even after Doppelganger, so don’t be over-aggressive for no good reason.

As we mentioned, make sure to make a control group for the tough illusion from Doppelganger. If you’re being ganked, use it to bait the enemies to throw their skills at it.

Don’t forget to use Doppelganger over a cliff edge if you can – this way your opponents won’t be able to chase even if they know who the real PL is.

Timings and rotations:

You should be farming for the first 12-15 minutes until you have your early game items and your core item – Diffusal or BF.

With Battle Fury, you want to just keep farming lanes + jungle and use your item advantage later on to beat the enemies. You can afford to farm for another 5-6 minutes for a Manta/S&Y/Shadow Blade before joining your team.

If you decided to help your team earlier with Diffusal Blade, this is when you can rotate to another lane and use it to kill some enemies. Ask your supports to rotate as well, don’t go alone to gank. If possible, rotate to the offlane, try to kill the enemy carry and supports and then push their tower.

If those rotations don’t succeed, don’t try to force other rotations. If the enemies are very hard to kill, you can go back to your lane or jungle and keep farming to transition to the mid/late game. You’re not on a timer with this hero, you have great late game potential, so there’s no need to risk more if your first rotations fail. 

Video Example:

In this game, we can observe Mushi’s PL against team Empire. He gets to play against Nature’s Prophet – this is a bit annoying as he can harass you with Treants, but he’s easy to deal with if your supports help you.

Check how he’s looking for Treants at 0:10 to see if Nature’s Prophet will try to pull his creep wave.

At 1:30 Mushi goes on the NP with Phantom Rush and Spirit Lance to harass him a bit but he doesn’t want to be too aggressive as he’s too low level.

At 3:30 you can see how easy it is for PL to chase his enemies, even at level 4, as he uses Doppelganger and then Phantom Rush to close the distance between him and NP, resulting in a kill.

At 4:10 they manage to dive him beyond the tier 1 tower and get a kill again.

At this point, NP just can’t sit on the lane as PL can kill him with the help of 1 support at any time which is shown again at 5:40.

At 7:10 he buys a Ring of Health from the secret shop. Up to this point, he didn’t have anything on his quick-buy so we can assume he hadn’t decided which build he wants to go for. This is a nice thing to do – just buy the early game items and you can decide if you want to build Diffusal or Battle Fury later instead of committing to one build before you know what you’re going to need. In this game he’s having a great game, his team doesn’t need him to fight with them all the time and he can afford to build a Battle Fury to secure his mid/late game.

At min 8, they wait for the NP to go jungle and gank him again which gives Mushi enough gold for the Perseverance. Check how he kills the Hellbear Smasher camp – he dodges the clap of the bear when his illusions spawn – a useful trick against Centaurs and Bears. And also how he lets his illusions finish the job and moves to the other camp.

10:25 – his Nyx comes for a gank on NP. Since Mushi wasn’t in range for anything, he uses Phantom Rush on the catapult to cut the distance and throw a Spirit Lance.

He gets his Battle Fury at min 11, a respectable timing and now his real farm can begin.

Mid & Late Game

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PL is a carry that can afford to join fights quite from early on, especially if you go for the fast Diffusal build. Nonetheless, you shouldn’t forget that your top priority is to continuously farm. If you can fight and take map control that is great, but if you are not in position to fight it is perfectly reasonable to play more passively, avoid fights & split-push until you have the needed items.

Maintain a good level of farm
Join fights
Split-push if possible
Farming:

PL is a farm dependent hero – although you can fight without many items, you want your net worth to at least match the enemy cores, so you need to maintain good farm throughout the entire game.

With Battle Fury, that’s not a hard task, but if you don’t go for that build you’ll need to focus on farming as it’s a bit harder. Most players simply forget to farm in mid and late game when they’re not playing a hero with wave clearing abilities and fall behind later on. You don’t have to search for fights all the time, let your team do that for you and just focus on farming efficiently until your team needs you.

Once you have your mid game items, you can start using illusions to farm multiple spots. Send Doppelganger, Spirit Lance and Manta illusions to farm the creep waves while you safely farm the jungle.

When you farm jungle with the real hero, if you spawn a lot of illusions, you can let the illusions finish the camp and start moving towards the next camp.

Keep a teleport scroll at all times so you can join your team if they decide to smoke, push or the enemy goes on them. 

Comeback Potential:

It’s not impossible to come back from a bad game with PL, but it’s not too easy either, mainly because the hero farms pretty slowly (unless you have a Battle Fury, then you have all chances to come back into the game). This is why you’ll need a lot of time to farm without dying and you won’t be helping your team too much during that time.

Another disadvantage is that your illusions won’t be that useful when you play from behind as the enemy heroes will itemize to counter you in fights with items like Shiva, Butterfly, Crimson Guard, etc.

That being said, the hero is a monster in the late game if he gets to his luxury items.

Team Fights:

While the Diffusal Blade is pretty good for small skirmishes, you want to have Manta before you can join 5v5 team-fights.

In a team-fight, wait for the enemies to reveal themselves before going in. Don’t try to initiate with Doppelganger, just use Spirit Lance and Rush in the beginning.

You want to save Doppelganger and Manta as survival tools. Use Doppelganger to dodge AoE abilities if possible – that way you can protect all of your illusions in the fight. Save Manta for silences or if the enemy doesn’t have any – use it when the enemies find your real hero and start damaging you. Special mention again for the control groups – use the fat illusion to confuse the enemies after you use Doppelganger.

Focus heroes that your team has disabled, so they can’t use their escape mechanisms. Other than that, the supports are usually pretty squishy, so you can overwhelm them with your illusions, especially if they don’t have reliable AoE disables.

In the late game, your Critical Strike talent will increase your overall damage by a lot and you’ll be able to man-fight pretty much any hero.

Don’t go on heroes with activated BKB – your damage against them is greatly reduced as it blocks the Mana Burn.

Pushing:

  • 5-man pushing:

PL is not that strong at sieging as the enemies can kill your illusions from distance with some AoE abilities. If you’re having a huge item advantage, that’s ok, but usually, you want to pick off someone or win a team-fight before you can push.

  • Split-Pushing:

PL is pretty decent as a split-pusher – he can use his illusions to push the waves for him and if the enemies group up on another lane, he can use the time to push a tower with the main hero. His damage against buildings is not bad – even though the illusions don’t deal that much damage to towers if you create an army by hitting a creep wave before that, they can still help.

Boots of Travel is a great item if you want to be split-pushing more, for example, if you can’t fight the enemy team.

If you don’t see the enemy team it is the safer option to out-push waves with your Lance and Manta illusions and to farm safer locations with the hero.

At first, it seems nothing special happens in this example, but when you look more closely you can see that it is a great move by PL and the whole team:

  • CCnC split-pushes the wave alone while the enemy team is showing mid.
  • This forces them to react and to come bot to out-push the wave. As this happens CCnC backs off a bit to avoid getting ganked but stays close enough.
  • Meanwhile, his team knows that the enemy cores will have to deal with the PL: by out-pushing the wave or trying to gank him they will slightly overextend. The Dire team uses this moment to smoke and attack them from behind, which results in a few very easy kills.

Because the fight happens in enemy territory (because of PL’s split-push), Dire can immediately threaten to break the high ground and in this example – the Gyro is forced to buyback very early in the game to defend his base. Consequently, this simple mid-game move by Dire turns out to be extremely costly for Radiant.

Ganking:

Ganking with PL is very hard to execute on your own because the hero lacks any form of disable or a way to stop teleport scrolls.

This is why your ganking only depends on the situations your teammates are able to create. If you have Boots of Travel, you can try to participate in ganks or you can smoke with your teammates if you try to look for a pickoff together.

Other than that – don’t actively try to search for ganks. Either walk with your team to fight, or farm and split-push if you cannot do that.