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Welcome to Xcalibur's Book of the Spectre, a hero guide part of the Book of Dota series!
Here you will find all the information you need to learn to play OD 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!
Draft: Picking Spectre early on is usallu a bad idea, because your opponents will most likely counter with strong laners and will try to pressure you in the lane, which will make the game more difficult for you. You are the hard carry – pick your hero in the later stages of the draft to avoid such situations.
Early Game: Go to the lane where you will be able to find the most farm – usually the safe lane. Try to get your core items as fast as possible without dying. Join fights and ganks with Haunt, but only to secure kills – then go back to farming.
Mid & Late Game: Continue farming and split-pushing. Tell your teammates to find engagements when your ultimate is up and join and win fights with Haunt. When you have some luxury items, buyback gold and Aegis, you can safely finish the game.
Spectre is, without doubt, one of the strongest carries in the game. She is very farm dependent, but at the same time thanks to her global presence (Haunt), she is able to easily join ganks and fights without having to be present in advance.
This makes her a perfect hard carry pick for a team that wants to create space by fighting and ganking, but don’t forget that she needs babysitting in the early game to unleash her full potential and carry the team.
MAJOR:
Global presence: Her ultimate is an amazing addition to her kit that provides vision to your team and gives Spectre the ability to join team fights or pick-off lone or low-life heroes.
Scales very well with items: Spectre becomes a beast when farmed properly. Her mid game is good but her late game is terrifying for your enemies. Her item scaling is probably one of the best of all heroes.
Elusive: Spectral Dagger can be used as a defensive tool because it lets her go through terrain. She can even use her ultimate to escape bad situations.
MINOR:
Can become a very hard to kill tank: Her third ability, Dispersion, reflects 22% (when maxed) of damage dealt to her back onto enemies in range. This means she scales very well with items that make her tankier.
Uses buyback very well: Buying back and using ultimate to rejoin a fight and pick-off enemy heroes after they’ve used big cooldown spells is a good strategy. It could help you finish the game – a Spectre with Aegis and buyback gold needs to die three times in a single fight, which is usually enough to secure the victory.
Solo kill potential: Having maxed Desolate in addition to some DPS items is usually enough to provide Spectre with great solo kill potential if the enemy is alone. Also, finding alone enemies is very easy with Haunt.
MAJOR:
Mana dependent: Spectral Dagger is the only range skill that can be used to kill creeps and has high mana cost and low DMG. Being mana efficient is important because of Spectre’s low mana pool.
Weak and squishy in the early game: Spectre has low life and mediocre base damage without items and can be easily harassed by enemies. Keep in mind that dispersion is not very effective in the early game.
MINOR:
Farms very slowly: A slow farmer compared to other hard carries, at least until she gets some farming items.
True hard carry (item dependent): An under-farmed Spectre is a pain for the team and a bonus to the enemies. You are not going to do much in team fights and will be picked off easily. For Spectre to truly shine, she must be well-farmed.
OG vs EG, TI8
MATCH ID 3902849890
Replay
Ana plays Spectre in a very hard game against EG and manages to snatch the late-game victory despite the 31-4 Tiny performance by Sumail and the 15k gold lead for EG.
He goes for the Manta-Diffusal build because he realizes that he is going to get pressured a lot. Not being greedy pays out – he is able to participate in a decent amount of kills in the early and mid game, rarely dies and when he does – it doesn’t cost him too much.
Spectre scales well into the late game with or without Radiance, and slowly but steadily Ana becomes the strongest hero on the map and secures the comeback victory for his team.
PSG.LGD vs VGJ Storm, MDL Changsha
MATCH ID 3902849890
Replay
Ame plays a flawless game on Spectre. The enemy team doesn’t manage to pressure him enough, so he decides to go for a greedy build: Aquila, Treads, Radiance. He gets the Radiance very early on, which skyrockets his GPM and helps him to quickly overtake the game and secure a victory.
This is a great replay to watch if you want to learn how to maximize your farm and midgame impact with Spectre if your teammates manage to provide you sufficient space.
MATCH ID 3795622964
Replay:
ARTES plays Specter in MEGA-LADA’s surprising but convincing victory against Na’Vi. He manages to deal 51.8k damage to enemy heroes, while the highest damage on the enemy team is 22.8k by Lycan – this demonstrates the power of Spectre in the late game.
ARTES has two defensive supports who can keep him alive. Nonetheless, he dies twice in the early game and has the sub-optimal 34 last hits on the 10th minute mark. This illustrates how hard the early game with the hero is. Nonetheless, once he gets his Radiance, he starts rolling and Na’Vi lack the tools to stop him.
Notice that before the Radiance he buys a Vitality Booster to increase his survivability. This is very important especially against the nuke damage of Tiny. Since he doesn’t have Urn (he buys Aquila instead), he doesn’t use the Vitality Booster for a Spirit Vessel, but instead saves it for Heart, which he buys after Radiance and Manta.
Picking Spectre at the beginning of the draft will most likely result in opponents picking a carry that counters you or ones that you simply can’t face 1vs1 such as Phantom Lancer or Lifestealer. More importantly, enemy players might choose heroes that can pressure Spectre a lot in the laning phase, thus leaving her under-farmed.
Your priority should be picking her last in the draft and be sure that a support is going to babysit you at the beginning of the game.
Specific hero interactions aside, Spectre is a hero that cares a lot about team timings. If your opponents peak in the early-mid game and are able to take away map control, you will have a bad time as this is when you are at your weakest. The most difficult part in the game with Spectre is before you get your Radiance (or Manta + Diffusal). Before picking her, make sure you will be able to survive this stage and get your items. If your opponents are strong in the early-mid game, then your allies must be strong enough to fight them back until you get your items.
Picking Spect against greedier drafts is a safer choice, as you will go through the early game much more easily. Because of your high carry potential you should have an advantage in the mid-late game.
Usually we pick Spectre because of her monstrous potential in the late game and for her global presence. She is great in 4 protect 1 picks where she can split-push and farm while the rest of the team is pushing and ganking as 4, thus creating space for her. When needed she can join the fight with her ult. Of course, being extra careful when pushing and enemies’ positions are unknown is a must.
In all cases we want her to be in the safe lane
with a support at the beginning of the
game. She has no disables, has a low
movement speed, not the best health regen and is
vulnerable to harassing, thus the need for babysitting.
If you know your opponents are going to build an offensive lane to pressure you, you can try to dodge. Go to the offlane or in extreme cases – mid, but make sure you take your babysitter(s) with you, otherwise you are going to have a harsh early game.
Space Creators: NS, Bara, Brew, Nyx, Venomancer, DP, Pudge
The most important kind of ally you want on your team are not heroes that have synergy with your spells, but heroes that create space either by ganking or pushing. This is because you want the enemy team to be focused on them, not on you - you need space and time to finish your items. Moreover, with Haunt, you can easily join ganks and fights to reap the rewards without taking much of the risks.
Strong lane supps with a disable: Ogre, Rhasta, Lion, Disruptor
If your opponent is alone, supports like Rhasta that can disable enemies in place provides a great opportunity to deal massive damage if you have a few points in Desolate - it’s pure damage. Both Spectre and Rhasta can deal very high amounds of damage if the target is alone.
Global heroes: Zeus, NP, AA
Having another global hero in your team such as Natures Prophet, Zeus or Ancient Apparition can increase both your offensive and defensive capabilities. For example, if you are going in for a kill on a target that is away from his team, Nature Prophet can quickly join you or Zeus can use his ultimate to help you burst your target’s health.
Team fight control: Puck, Magnus, Tidehunter
You don’t have any kind of control (unless you build items like Abyssal/Diffusal), so heroes that could keep the enemy team in place help you a great deal in fights.
Backline damage dealers: Sniper, Tinker, Drow, Zeus, Lina, Windranger, Mirana
Spect has an obvious advantage against such heroes - she can use her ultimate to find them an instantly get on top of them. Moreover, since they are likely to stand further away from other units in fights, Spect will deal Desolate damage to them. Last but not least, Spectre’s Desolate reduces enemy vision, so heroes that rely on vision to deal damage will have a lower impact in team fights if affected by Desolate (applied by Haunt illusions even if Spect doesn't teleport on top of them).
Initiators who rely on timing and blink dagger: Magnus, Earthshaker, Tide, Sand, Enigma
Her ultimate can mess up their plans in a team fight. If an engage is about to happen, using Haunt right before engaging won’t let heroes use their Blink Daggers, thus greatly decreasing their usefulness in the fight.
Squishy heroes with no mobility: WD, Sky, Maiden, AA
Supports such as Witch Doctor and Skywrath that are naturally with low life can be easy targets in the mid game and can die only from your ultimate later on. Desolate and Radiance are great in providing an insane amount of damage to your ultimate.
Heroes relying on nuke damage: Lina, Lion, TA, Sky
Because of Dispersion, in the mid and late game, Spectre becomes quite tanky for heroes that rely on nuke damage to win fights. Usually, these are magic DMG nukers, but Dispersion works equally well on physical DPS, so physical nukers (like TA) also have a hard time.
Ultimate-centric heroes: Tide, Enigma, Void
Heroes that rely mostly on their long cooldown ultimates to deal damage can be exploited by buying back and using Haunt to win the fight after thei've used their ult.
Strong Gankers: LC, Ursa, Nyx, BH
Your biggest fear is that you will not have the needed space to farm your items. Your opponents know how item dependent you are - you desperately need farm to reach your potential. Because of this, they will try to focus you a great deal (as most hard carries). Your escape mechanisms, however, are not the best in the game and you cannot just rely on them to keep you alive.
Playing against 1 strong ganker isn’t a big deal, but if the enemy team consists of multiple great early-mid game gankers (for example LS + Storm/Bat/Riki for Naix bombs), you will have to rely entirely on your teammates to create enough space and protect you.
BKB/Magic Immune Carries: Gyro, Sven, Naix, Omni
She is somewhat countered by BKB’s because both Dispersion and Desolate (and the Radiance burn damage) are blocked by it until it wears out.
Heroes that disable passives or natural Silver Edge buyers: Slark, Troll, Viper
You rely on your passives to stay alive and deal more damage. Heroes that break them are a problem in fights. Slark, for example, is a natural Silver Edge carrier and ganker, which makes him very strong against Spectre. Viper is also a good example, because of Nethertoxin, which disables passives.
Illusion Carries: CK, PL, TB
You have no innate way of clearing illusions and Desolate works best on isolated targets, which means Illusion carries are quite good against you in the late game (ofc., the amount of farm they have will determine if they will be a problem or not).
Spectre flings a dagger to draw a Shadow Path, dealing damage and slowing the movement speed of any enemies along the trail. Units hit by the dagger also trail a Shadow Path. While treading the path, Spectre phases through otherwise impassable terrain.
Cast Animation: 0.3+0.37
Cast Range: 2000
Effect Radius: 125
Damage: 90/140/190/240
Move Speed Slow/Bonus: 8%/12%/16%/20%
Path Duration: 12
Path Creator Duration: 7
CD: 16
Mana: 100/120/140/160
Offensive: Spectral Dagger is the only burst skill in Spectre’s arsenal that also slows the targeted enemy hero: it is great if you are going in for a kill. Most importantly, it gives you unobstructed movement and MS while you are on the Dagger path and continues for a few second if you go out of it, which is great for chasing.
Defensive: It is a great defensive tool when used appropriately. If you are about to get ganked and enemy heroes are approaching, using the skill to phase through trees or obstacles is great for escaping or to teleport out. Additionally, it slows the movement speed of any enemy along the trail.
If you are using it into the trees to TP away from a gank, it is a good advice to never start your TP on top of the Dagger trail. Always walk a bit to the sides and then start TPing – this way your opponents won’t know where exactly to use their long range disables to cancel the TP.
Alternative uses:
If you are having a hard time in the lane using the skill for some last hits or harass is appropriate but not advisable to do often, because of the small mana pool that Spectre has.
Deals bonus damage whenever Spectre attacks an enemy who is alone. Reduces the enemy vision for 5 seconds.
Radius: 500
Damage: 20/30/40/50
Vision Reduction: 40%/50%/60%/70%
Duration: 5
A great passive skill for doing massive pure damage. It works on your illusions.
If an enemy is close to his allies Desolate won’t do extra damage. You should try and exploit moments when your opponent is alone and go in for a few hits – a great strategy for harassing in the lane.
Hitting enemies with Desolate can be crucial in some situations and team fights. You should remember that it removes their vision by 70%. Desolate is inherited by your Haunt illusions, so you are usually not required to think actively about this effect of the spell - Haunt will do the work for you.
Damage done to Spectre is reflected on her enemies, leaving her unharmed. The effect lessens with distance.
Minimum Radius: 300
Maximum Radius: 700
Damage Reflected: 7/12/17/22%
This passive is the reason stacking health points is amazing. The more HP Spectre gets, the more damage Dispersion is going to mitigate and do to your enemies. It’s the main reason that you want to include items that make you tanky in your build.
Creates a spectral nemesis to attack each enemy hero after a short delay. At any moment during the duration, Spectre can use Reality to exchange places of a given haunt.
Haunt illusions are uncontrollable, take extra damage, and deal less damage than Spectre herself. They move at 400 base movement speed and ignore terrain.
Cast Animation: 0.3+0.5
Radius: Global
Illusion Damage Dealt: 40/60/80%
Illusion Damage Taken: 200%
Haunt Duration: 5/6/7
Mana: 150/200/250
CD: 150
Join fights: In the late game, main priority should be to abuse the advantage that Haunt provides and split push while the rest of your team is pushing another lane or focusing other objectives. During team fights, you should Reality into a target that is squishy and a bit out of position.
Join ganks: During the early-mid game, keeping an eye out for ganks or low life targets can be a valuable extra source of gold and XP.
Exploit buyback: In the late game buyback is very important on Spectre because you can get back into the fight instantly and pick-off low life heroes.
Escape ganks: You can use Haunt as an escape mechanism and if you are lucky you could turn that into a gank in another lane.
Vision: It can be used to provide vision of enemy heroes – very important if the enemy team has good initiators. Using it before they jump could break their daggers and mess up their whole initiation.
This is the most common build. It provides Spectre with an offensive power from the burst that Spectral Dagger and the damage that Desolate adds. Also, a bit of survivability from the MS/slow of Spectral and by placing one point in Dispersion. You should get every spell by you third level starting with Spectral Dagger and maxing it first. This gives you the ability to quickly push lanes and start farming the jungle. Additionally, Spectral Dagger is the only spell you can rely on to survive early.
This build focuses mainly on your continuous DPS and can be followed if you are playing with a support that can provide control, for example, Crystal Maiden. We are maxing Desolate over Spectral Dagger first because of the bad scaling it has. The downside here is that you don’t have any damage reduction from Dispersion. So choosing this path comes along with you being extra careful not to get killed by ganks.
Although we don’t often recommend this build, it can be followed if you are in a very hard lane and you are getting harassed a lot. It focuses mainly on Dispersion and the damage reduction it gives you. Usually, you will also combine it with some quick HP items, like Drums or even Vanguard. Nonetheless, the need to go for this build means you are in a bad Spectre game anyway and you will have to rely on your teammates a lot.
+6% Dispersion
+40% Haunt Illusion Damage
+20% Spectral Dagger Slow/Bonus
+ 500 Health
-10s Spectral Dagger Cooldown
+15 Desolate Damage
+4 All Stats
+5 Health Regen
Level 10: The health regen is great for farming the jungle if you don't have another source of HP sustain. It can also make you hard to kill if you have items that give you a high HP pool. 4 to all stats is the slightly more offensive option, although the bonus STR could also be useful defensively against nuke damage. Get it if you don't have HP sustain problems.
Level 15: Having a spammable Dagger is great for farming and the CD reduction is big enough to give you 100% uptime of the path. You need to have the mana to sustain constantly use it, however. The Desolate damage works amazingly with Manta if you need extra DPS to secure kills.
Level 20: Bigger health pool for Spectre is amazing. The more you have, the more damage reduced and reflected to your enemies from Dispersion.
Level 25: As mentioned, the whole talent build is focused on tankiness so taking the +8% Dispersion talent will further help our overall strategy. With this talent and big health pool, even if you die you are going to deal a lot of damage to your enemies leaving them easier to kill by your allies.
Leave the base with a Stout Shield and some form of health regen. You should buy your Quelling Blade from the side shop.
This build is focused on getting some cheap survivability while at the same time getting the Radiance as fast as possible in order to increase your farming speed and fight impact. If you feel you need to be active and fight more often with your team, you can go for cheap items like Blade Mail, Vanguard, Yasha, etc. before farming your Radiance.
Your late game choices are open, but Heart to boost your Dispersion and Butter to increase your DPS and survivability are standard.
Phase Boots: the more offensive choice - the MS boost is great for chasing down enemies and the attack speed helps you get more Desolate hits.
Magic Wand: a source of burst heal to keep yourself alive. The mana is also nice as it allows you to use Dagger more often.
Radiance: a classic for Spectre, it is one of the items that will increase your farming, split-pushing and fighting potential by a LOT. It also works with your ultimate, thus making this item one of the best in the mid game for Spectre.
Manta is just amazing combined with Desolate. Your illusions get the additional damage from it. Catching an enemy support that is out of position will most likely result in you killing him in a few seconds. The ability to dispell debuffs, the stats, and the MS are also very valuable.
Butterfly: is overall a great late game item to buy because of the stats and utility it provides. It gives you a big DPS boost as well as some survivability.
HOT: As already mentioned in various places in this guide, the bigger the health pool you have, the more damage you will reduce and reflect to your enemies, which makes Heart of Tarrasque one of the best item options in the late game.
Abyssal Blade: makes you tankier, which is great with Dispersion. More importantly, the active stun and bashes are great when you are trying to bring down targets with your Manta illusions.
If you want to fight from earlier on you can choose to get Manta + Diffusal rather than a fast Radiance. The drawback of this build is that you farm slower, while the advantage is that you have a bigger impact in mid game fights. Manta + Diffusal + Desolate will give you insane single target DPS after you use Haunt to get on top of an isolated target.
In this example, you go straight for the Manta after your early game items. This will help you reach your Manta + Diffusal timing faster. If needed, however, you can buy Urn for sustain or Blademail for survivability before the Manta.
Your late game choices are open - in this example, you go for the standard DPS choice - Butter, and a great source of control and additional health - Abyssal.
Treads: Extra stats are great if you need to be tankier early on. Tread switching also helps you sustain your mana. The damage is great for last-hitting.
Yasha: great stats for increasing your DPS, which is useful for farming and for kill attempts.
Manta Style is just amazing combined with Desolate. Your illusions get the additional damage from it. Catching an enemy support that is out of position will most likely result in you killing them in a few seconds. Moreover, you often build Diffusal (which also gives damage to the illusions) and stat items, which make the Manta Illusions hard to kill and increases their damage.
Diffusal is a great choice because of its good synergy with your Haunt illusions & Manta. Also, it adds solo kill potential with the slow that lasts four seconds.
Butterfly: is overall a great late game item to buy because of the stats and utility it provides. It gives you a big DPS boost as well as some survivability.
Abyssal Blade: makes you tankier, which is great with Dispersion. More importantly, the active stun and bashes are great when you are trying to bring down targets with your Manta illusions.
Skadi: In rare situations, if more movement speed slow is needed you can exchange the Heart for a Skadi.
Drums: Every component from the item is useful for Spectre - a boost of HP, Mana Regen, and MS. The disadvantage is that you will often end up with too many small items.
MOM: increases your single target DPS greatly, which is very useful both for farming and for kill attempts (make sure you use it after your spells, ofc.). The life steal helps a lot with health sustain when you farm the jungle camps.
Urn of Shadows: Gives you an early HP sustain source, some stats and increases your DPS a bit when you try to finish off enemies. The main reason it’s good on Spect is that you can always join fights with your ult, thus ensuring you will always get some charges.
Blade Mail: cheap stats and an active, which protects you against enemies, who want to focus you down in early fights. If they commit, they risk committing suicide from the Blade Mail Return + Dispersion.
Vanguard: Vanguard has great synergy with your Dispersion, making you extremely hard to kill. It was the usual early game item to get in tough games before your Radiance, but lately Spirit Vessel is giving it a run for its money because you already have Urn and it builds with Vitality Booster, similarly to Vanguard. The advantage of Vanguard is that it makes you a bit tankier versus physical damage dealers and you need it anyway if you want Abyssal Blade. The advantage or Spirit Vessel is that it is stronger offensively because of its active.
Spirit Vessel: If you already have Urn, upgrading it to Spirit Vessel is a great choice if you want to quickly increase your HP. It is also a great tool to deal with high HP/healing heroes.
Sange and Yasha: Increase your farming potential (Yasha) and increases your survivability (Sange). Also the MS from the item works great with your Spectral Dagger.
Heaven`s Halberd: Great item to deal with right-click carries (TA, OD).
Bloodthorn: Another great late game item. You can use it on supports or even cores after their BKB ends and if the silence is not removed, the damage increase is huge. It also synergizes very well with Nullifier – you basically Doom the target, blocking all of their abilities and items.
Nullifier: A great late game item that allows you to block the enemies’ escape items – they won’t be able to use Ghost Scepter, Force Staff, BKB, Eul, etc. It’s especially good against heroes who only use items to stay alive – for instance, SF, Luna, Gyro, Sniper lack any form of escape without using items.
Refresher Orb: Having the possibility to use your ultimate twice in a row could be very useful for the late game.
You usually start the game in the safe lane with at least one lane support. The only exception is when you see that the enemy team is trying to counter your lane and prevent you from getting enough farm (e.g. they have an offlane Axe + Lich), in which case you can ask for a lane swap.
Try to get all possible last hits and pay attention to the map: first, enemies will try to gank you to stop your farm. Second, once you get lvl6 you can join fights to steal a kill for some extra resources.
As an item
dependent position 1, you need to farm. Get as many
last hits as you can. It shouldn’t be that hard if you have a Quelling Blade
and a support with you or playing against
one enemy offlaner. In some situations, the lane could be hard if playing
against two heroes. Trying to stay safe and last
hitting as much as you can should be your
priority. Don’t get killed.
You could use Spectral Dagger to take some last hits if you are desperate (not a good long-term strategy, you don’t have the mana).
Later on in the laning stage when your Dagger is higher level and you have some mana regen items, you can use the dagger to push out the lane faster and go into the jungle. Because of its long range, you can occasionally use it to hit both the creep wave and the nearest camp, which will also allow you to get to the jungle faster. Doing little farm-maximizing tricks like this one is very important on Spect – you are a slow farmer early on and you are very item dependent, which means every second of efficiency you gain can increase your chances to win.
Besides your tankiness from Dispersion, your
main survivability tool is Spectral Dagger. If you are getting ganked and you
are afraid of dying, you can use it to enter the trees and get away from your
opponents. It is smart to use the 4 second linger time of the buff not to walk in
a straight line so that your position is not predictable in case of long range nukes
or disables.
If you are not playing with a support that has a lockdown spell your
harras is close to none- existent. The only spell you can use is Dagger, but because
of Spectre’s low mana pool should be used wisely.
If you catch the enemy hero away from his creeps, you can start trading hits – Desolate + dispersion means you will likely win the hit exchange.
The same situation applies here. Your kill potential is bad, so unless you
see some good opportunity given from your supports to make kills, don`t be too
greedy. Focus on staying in your lane and don’t move much. To kill an enemy you
need supports who can lockdown opponents away from creeps so your Desolate can
really shine (and who can provide some additional damage). If the enemy is
trying to escape use Dagger to slow him down.
You don’t
have a specific timing when playing as Spectre, besides the CD of your ultimate.
Normally, you stay on lane, keep farming
and you rotate only with Haunt when you
see an easy kill opportunity created by your teammates.
Because of your ultimate, you shouldn’t rotate with a TP scroll to other lanes to join fights like most other carries – it is a waste of time and will decrease your farm early on. Communicate with your teammates if your ult is up and you can join fights or if it isn’t.
When you ult is on CD, you focus only on farming.
Starting with double Branch and Mango is very good for Spectre, especially when you know that you are going to face Bat Rider in the lane – you can upgrade it to Magic Wand as soon as you have the gold.
Notice how after Spectre sees that Bat Rider is trying to steal the wave behind the tower and drag it around the map (by doing this Batrider is trying to double wave and push the lane), Spectre kills the radiant wave on his tower and in this way makes a huge creep wave with which he pressures Bat under his own tower and even forces a support rotation from Radiant.
Spectre’s priorities in the mid and late game should be to farm until she has her core items and then to split-push as much as possible and join fights instantly with Haunt.
She is one of the hardest carries in the game (if not the hardest), which means you are definitely not in a hurry to finish the game. If you reach the late game you will be at a huge advantage, so try to be patient and don’t take big risks.
Your comeback potential is both good and bad. Let us explain: if enemies shut you down in the early game you have to rely on your teammates to create space for you to catch up. In the same time, if your opponents don’t manage to push your base for long enough, you will always have a chance of winning the late game because of your huge late game potential.
If your early game was bad you have 2 options here:
Using your ultimate in team fights is crucial.
Not only does it deal a moderate amount of damage, but it can create confusion
among enemies and stop enemy initiators from using their Blink Daggers. Most of
the times you should focus on killing squishy supports that are out of position
to kill them off as fast as possible, however sometimes staying in front if you have a chance to kill an
important hero is better.
Until your Haunt is active, you can use it to jump from target to target: you can do it after killing a support very quickly, or after you are getting focused (to save yourself).
If you think or know that your team is going to get jumped, using your ultimate to disable enemy Blink Daggers and provide vision can be the thing that wins you the game. That’s why having a good timing for your ultimate is crucial to winning fights.
Besides that, team-fighting with Spectre is quite straightforward – you usually win because of how well you scale with items. If you are not in a position to fight resource-wise, you should avoid 5v5 fights for as long as possible.
You should always focus split-pushing
when your ultimate is off cooldown, especially when your team is playing
aggressively. You can, for example, threaten objectives to try to force a TP
reaction and afterwards instantly join a
fight on the other side of the map, making it into a 5v4 engagement.
If you decide to split-push with your ultimate on CD, don’t forget to mention to your team to avoid fights. And be careful, as getting out of a bad situation is more difficult: you will rely only on the unobstructed movement from Spectral Dagger to save yourself.
Keeping an eye on ongoing ganks by your team is
a nice way to use your ultimate and get an assist or even a kill. Normally, you
should avoid ganking with Spectre and focus on farming as much as possible.
A typical Spectre gank: ARTES is farming the safest spot on the map – he is out-pushing the top wave. His team gets in position to gank and push the enemy safe lane. Spectre uses her ultimate to reveal the positioning of the enemy team, which results in a dead Sand King in addition to a pushed tower.
Haunt reveals the position of all enemy heroes,
essentially giving you a temporary (and expensive) map-hack. You can use it as
a scouting tool in situations when you think you are going to get jumped on
(either in a gank or, usually, before a team fight). Messing up the initiation
of your opponents and providing your team with the exact knowledge of their
position could win you fights.
This use of your ult, however, is extremely expensive. Your opponents can wait it out and fight afterwards when they don’t have to fear your ult at all. So, use it this way only when you are certain it’s the right thing to do. (Generally speaking, it is much safer to use it just when your team is initiating a fight, instead of before a fight happens.)
An enemy hit by your Spectral Dagger will leave a black trail that shows where he is going to. So, enemies that become invisible are easy to be followed and revealed.
You should keep in mind that Desolate removes 70% of enemy’s vision and try to use this to your team’s advantage. Removing 70% of Zeus’s or Tinker’s vision in a team fight does a lot!
In the late game where your mana pool is bigger,
using your Dagger to farm faster and to take short-cuts between camps is a way
to increase your overall gold per minute.
In the jungle, the strategy here is to hit all creeps until they have low health points, then use Dagger to kill them and to hit the next camp of creeps. Run through obstacles to save time and then repeat. This is extremely important to do in the early-mid game, as it will allow you to get your core items as fast as possible (which can determine the outcome of the game). Later on, when you flash-farm much more quickly, Dagger is useful mainly for the unobstructed movement.
