TA is one of the strongest physical damage nukers in the game. Moreover, she is very survivable thanks to her Refraction and Meld, which allows for aggressive play from the start of the game. TA also provides good map control with the help of her Traps that give vision around the map. She is, however, quite vulnerable to heroes that counter her Refraction ability and enemies that can control her a lot in fights.

TA is usually played as a solo mid semi-carry that is expected to win the lane heavily in most situations. The early game gold and EXP advantage can allow her to snow-ball into the mid game, pressure the enemy team and take away map control both through vision and/or through ganking or forcing fights. 

TA is drafted for two main reasons:

First, you want to pick TA to dominate a lane and shut down the enemy hero.  To do this, however, you need to make sure that she is in a favorable lane matchup. This basically means you need to dodge lanes against heroes that directly counter TA (like Viper, Razor, etc.).

Second, TA is a strong hero in the early-mid game, since she can deal a lot of damage without a lot of farm. Moreover, since she usually dominates in the laning stage in terms of last hits and denies, the gained resource advantage allows her to pressure enemies even more by ganking and fighting early on. Apart from picking off heroes around the map, she is a very fast Roshan-killer thanks to her Meld, which gives her team a strong strategic advantage. Refraction is also a great thing to have in combination with Blink Dagger as it makes you pretty hard to gank without instant stuns.

The jungle stacks clearing potential of TA could also give you a huge early game boost. Minute 10 ancient stacks clearing has become a trademark of the hero.

TA, however, can’t really help the other lanes and if you don’t have the early lead you’d need to farm for the first 12-15 minutes to get a Blink Dagger or Desolator or both. That means you want to have strong lanes that don’t desperately need help from the mid laner.

Last but not least, TA does not fully depend on being successful in her early aggression (ganks or fights). She is by no means the best hard carry but her flash farming and semi-carry potential make her comfortable in more passive, farm-oriented games and allow her to contribute to late game fights.

TA needs a lot of experience to get higher levels in her spells. The higher level her Refraction is, the harder it will be for enemies to get through her Refraction charges. The Meld damage also increases significantly with levels and allow her to nuke down targets faster. Higher levels in Psi Blades helps her deal AoE damage and not get kited in fights as easily (because of the bonus range).

The higher levels in her spells early on (because of the solo XP) allow her to quickly get an upper hand against her opponent mid. Lower levels in Refraction make it much easier for enemies to harass and last hit against TA (since her Refraction charges and extra damage will be lower). Moreover, against multiple enemies, the effect of Refraction will be greatly reduced since a single auto-attack from each enemy will burn her Refraction charges relatively quickly. As a result of all that, TA is best played in a 1v1 match-up.

If TA is able to get a lot out of the 1v1 match-up (getting enough resources AND shutting down to a degree her lane opponent), it will be easy for her to be active around the map: gank, force fights and acquire map control in the early and mid game.

If you get counter-picked by heroes like Razor, Veno, etc. you might want to swap lanes with your carry if it’s a hero that can stay mid (maybe with a support) like Gyro for instance. TA needs a good game in order to be effective and if you get destroyed on the mid lane, it’s very hard to make a comeback. TA is not bad on the safe lane, being able to farm the jungle camps close to the lane and beats most offlaners. 

Substitutes:

There are not many heroes who can do what TA does, being able to farm fast and dominate a lane, however here are some heroes who have similar timings and still have a strong lane:

Generally, you want to pick heroes with TA that can boost her nuking potential either by increasing her damaging output (Auras, Minus armor etc.) or by providing good disable so that she can deal damage freely.

Good friends to have are:

Strong Against:

Weak Against:

TA’s skill build is very flexible with the condition that you always max Refraction first. You want this skill maxed as soon as possible to have more Refraction charges and so deal more damage and have higher survivability. Higher levels in Meld give you more burst damage, while higher levels in Psi Blades increase your range and make it easier to harass.  Usually, you want to max Meld after 1 or two levels in Psi blades since Meld scales better with levels and increases your kill potential.

You always want to get your ultimate at lvl 6 to start providing map control and vision around the map. Moreover, it is your only disable and if you want to gank early on getting a skill point is quite important.  

The item choices for TA revolve around two main things – damage and mobility. The reason is that you want to be able to chase down enemies and burst them down with the help of your armor reduction and already high physical DPS.

Your starting items are pretty standard – you want a branch so you can eat a tango with double duration as you’re easy to harass on the early levels. You bring healing salve with the first earned gold – also standard. Multiple Wraith Bands and Treads + Blight Stone give you the needed stats to fight early on before your core items. Get Clarities to sustain your mana if needed. Bottle is a viable item mid if you think you need more sustain.

The goal is to get your core Deso + Dagger as fast as possible and to start applying pressure to your enemies. Pike + BKB comes after and ideally at this point you want to close the game. If it goes late your options are open, but Bloodthorn and Butterfly are the standard as they increase your kill potential and carry potential further.

• When last-hitting with Refraction ALWAYS try to hit the enemy hero as well with the Psi Blades spill. Don’t focus on the creeps, last hitting them with Refraction is easy and most of the times uncontested – focus on positioning yourself in a way that will always hit the enemy hero as well. He will try to position himself outside of your angle, watch his movements and try to outplay him.

• ALWAYS look for an opportunity to harass/last hit by hitting your own creeps, spilling the damage with Psi Blades to preserve Refraction charges.

• If possible, try to last hit (or deny and last hit) multiple creeps at the same time to preserve Refraction charges.

• Decide what you want to do with the creep equilibrium: hold it on your high ground so that it is easier to out-last-hit and deny your opponent or push the lane as fast as possible to spend your free time stacking and farming the jungle.
  

Ok, we explained how we win a lane as TA. However, there are ways for a good player to abuse TA’s low range and win the lane against her. TA is most vulnerable at levels 1-4.

A good opponent will try to harass you a lot on the first levels while positioning himself outside of your Psi Blades angle. Especially on your first 2 levels, you are very vulnerable to harass as your range is still low and your Refraction only has 3 charges. The enemy will try to exhaust your charges and then use their spells on you. In those situations, better back off a bit, you don’t want to man-fight at level 1-2 as the entire creep wave will be hitting you. 

You should draw the creeps’ agro by issuing an attack to the enemy hero, so they come closer to you. That will allow you to hit the creeps and harass the enemy from a safer distance.

The enemy can also come close to you with the intention of baiting you to hit him, so the creeps will start attacking you and break your Refraction. Usually, you never want to hit the enemy when he’s close to his creeps unless you’re sure you can deal much more damage to him than he can. Try to attack the creeps so you can spill damage on the hero as well, even if he’s close to you.

At level 5, your damage becomes too high for the enemy to deal with, so you shouldn’t have many problems. However, against heroes with strong nukes, don’t man-fight them close to their creeps. Heroes like SF, Lina, Puck, Storm, Tinker will deal much more damage to you if the creeps break your Refraction charges first. 

Dual lanes on mid are quite common at the beginning of the game, especially against TA, because people know they need to shut her down at the early levels. Unfortunately, this is the biggest weakness of the hero, she can’t deal with supports like Bane, Ogre, Winter Wyvern, Jakiro coming to harass her even if she gets help from a similar support hero. If your creep equilibrium is on the enemy side, you’re better off heading to the jungle to farm 1-2 camps. The good thing is that TA can farm jungle from very early levels, so you can still salvage the situation and go back to the lane once the enemy support is gone.

TA is naturally tanky thanks to Refraction. However, against multiple hero ganks her charges can get consumed very quickly, which will leave her exposed. In addition, there are spells that remove refraction charges quite fast because they deal multiple instances of damage over a short amount of time.  Therefore, you shouldn’t rely all too much on your Refraction when it comes to surviving, especially if enemies have such abilities.

The timing of Refraction use when you are getting ganked is also important. If you are surrounded by enemy creeps or units and they are attacking you, it might be better to try to create some distance from these units and then use Refraction. Otherwise, your charges will get removed very fast and you will be left vulnerable to attacks. Against some heroes like Tiny whose Avalanche spell applies multiple instances of damage, it might be better to use Refraction after Tiny has cast Avalanche (if you can afford to tank it, or course).

Meld is your second spell that can be used to survive ganks. The spell can be used to dodge projectiles or hide in one place if enemies don’t have detection.  However, it is pointless to hide with Meld if enemies have high AoE damage (since the AoE damage will usually affect you even if you are invisible) or detection. It would be better to use it to dodge a hit or a projectile and then keep running away. Because of this checking inventories is very important.

Last but not least, you can use your Traps to scout enemies’ movement and/or slow them down once they initiate on you. You can, for example, place the Traps around the Mid lane so that you can spot enemies rotating to gank you and avoid getting initiated in the first place.

Although TA has a lot of damage you rarely have solo kill potential before you get to level 6 because you lack any lockdown. However, with the help of teammates or a lucky rune, you can score kills even before this point. Level 3 Refraction essentially gives you the bonus damage of a DD rune. If a teammate disables your target you can burst it down very quickly. If you get a lucky Haste rune, on the other hand, you can even dive a tower to get a kill on your opponent since Refraction will protect you from the tower damage.

Once you get level 6, you can use your Traps to slow down a target and chase him down. Usually, you want to use the double-trap technique. You place one or two traps on his high ground. Whenever you see an opportunity, you trigger the already placed trap. It will deal damage and slow the enemy for 60%. When the duration is about to end, you cast a new trap – it will only slow for 30% and it will deal no damage, but if the enemy is low, it should be enough.

Whether you can get a kill on your own depends on the target’s mobility and the disables it has. If there aren’t any good targetable disables and the hero isn’t mobile, getting a kill will be relatively easy. For example, if you dodge a disable like Lina’s AoE stun, then you can finish her off with Meld and Refraction hits while she is slowed. Even if the enemy can escape, you should still give him a hard time, it will deal damage to him and scare him, he will miss creeps, etc.

As we mentioned earlier, if you cast Refraction around 10 seconds before a fight, you will have it off CD again after 7 seconds. This means that you can use up your Refraction charges and then recast the spell to get full charges again. In the span of 10 or so seconds, you can in theory attack 12 times with bonus damage and block 12 instances of damage.

In the laning stage, TA needs a good amount of levels before you can start fighting. Your first timing window is when you get around level 6-7 and have a high level in Refraction in addition to your ultimate. With the help of the slow from Traps and the survivability and damage from Refraction, you can rotate and get kills. Nevertheless, TA is also a great lane dominator –you shouldn’t attempt rotations if you are not absolutely sure of the outcome. A good rotation is to teleport and help your team if they’re being dived under their tower, so you can be sure you can catch the enemy. Bad rotation is to gank heroes who are close to their tower, unless you have a rune, like Haste or Invis.

The best kills to happen are actually on the mid lane. At level 6-7, you can call a teammate to gank or if you see enemies grouping up to come for you (with a ward or trap), you can turn it around with the help of teammates and carefully placed traps. Those are the best kills that can happen because you don’t have to move from your lane, so your farm doesn’t suffer either.

For those reasons, it’s better to farm a bit before you start fighting. Depending on the game, you can farm your Blink Dagger first, so you can start fighting and help your team. If the game is slow and you think it’s better to farm, you get Desolator first and then farm Dagger. Blink as a first item usually comes at around 10-12 minutes, while Desolator at 14-15. 

So generally, you want to have 10-15 minutes to farm before you start actively fighting. Of course, it depends on the amount of time can your team afford to play without a mid laner, but in most situations, taking some time to farm secures your early game and allows you to be much more effective later on. 

Ancient stacks are very important for TA as she’s one of the heroes who can farm large stacks very early into the game, like level 7-8 with just Power Threads and Aquilla. The ancient stacks also give you a huge experience boost and help you farm your first core item much faster.

If your teammates don’t stack for you, you can go yourself without losing much farm on the lane. If you already have level 6, you can stack them with traps as we explained earlier.

Trap the area around the ancients, enemies will often try to gank you while you’re farming them. Call teammates if needed to protect you, they can benefit from the experience too.

Have the ancients chase you and then attack them all in a line with Psi Blades. You can use your traps to slow them down, it makes it much easier.

Unless you’re having a godlike lane and you’re destroying the enemy hero (in which case you want to keep doing that so you can shut him down completely), it’s always good to make stacks to farm later.

(Fnatic vs OG, Dota summit 8)

In this video we can see Abed going up against Notail’s Broodmother in Dota Summit 8 – generally an unfavorable matchup although not that bad.

At level 1 he gets a little help from the Ogre who secures the last hits on the first wave. He starts with Psi Blades at level 1 with the intention of harassing the enemy.

Follow how he always tries to position himself in a way that hits the enemy hero as well. Also, watch how the enemy is trying to avoid being hit which makes the entire laning stage a game of positioning and harassing.

At 04:20 you can see a perfect Psi Blades spill from max range which is pretty hard to execute.

At level 6 he starts placing traps all over the mid lane – enemy high ground, his own high ground, low ground. At 05:50 you can see he starts stacking ancients with traps – also an important thing to do, as it doesn’t cost you farm to go stack in the traditional way. 

(Fnatic vs LGD, Dota summit 8)

Another game of Abed, this time against Somnus/Maybe – arguably one of the top mid laners in the world.

This time Abed is in the position of being harassed by Doom, who hits him with Infernal Blade at level 1. He chooses Psi Blades at level 1 again as Refraction will not offer him much protection against 2 heroes.

At 01:50 we can observe a beautiful succession of Psi Blades hits which results in a solo kill for the TA. From this point forward, he gets the upper hand and starts harassing the SF very effectively.

At 02:50 you can see how he realizes his advantage and zones the SF, dealing some nice damage as well. 

At 06:20 he is being ganked by 4 heroes, however, the perfect placement of his traps saves his life.

At 07:20 he attempts to kill the SF – it doesn’t work as the CM comes to help his teammate, however take a note that this is how kills happen with TA – you activate an already prepared trap and start hitting the enemy hero, then cast a new trap to slow him after the first one ends. One trap is usually never enough, but with two of them, you can pose a real threat. 

The mid game for you starts when you have Desolator and Blink Dagger. At this point, you are able to nuke a squishy target very fast. This allows you to force fights favorably or efficiently gank unless you’re playing from behind.

If your laning stage went well, you should use the gained advantage to push towers, gank and fight enemies. Usually, the enemy carry will deal much less damage than you at this point in the game. In that sense you are a “timing” counter to most enemy carries – you will simply have more DPS than them and will be able to easily win direct fights.

If the laning stage went poorly, you won’t usually be in a position to fight. Rather, try to catch up in terms of farm and get some items. You are a decent flash farmer and you can allow being passive when you are behind. If you are behind but your team composition allows you to fight efficiently in the mid game you should try to get pick-offs. Even without much items you deal considerable damage and killing the enemy farmers will quickly decrease the lead of your opponents.

Although TA doesn’t have any team fight spell (reliable AoE damage or control), she is a decent team fight hero because of her high single target nuke damage and in-build survivability. She can potentially burst down a disabled target very fast and provide a numbers advantage for her team in that way.

Starting a team fight:

Usually, you are not the hero that start the engagement. If you go in you will be probably brought down quickly even with Refraction – the spell is not very efficient when multiple enemies are focusing you.

Instead of initiating you should slow heroes down with Traps and only go in whenever you see an opportunity to burst down a target. More often than not you should wait for a target to get disabled by one of your teammates and then go in to burst it down. Before a fight it is smart to cast Refraction 10 second beforehand in order to have the spell off CD again soon after (so that you can potentially benefit from the spell 2 times in a row).

Movement and positioning in a team fight:

Usually, you are not a static man-fight hero – if you go in even with BKB, you will likely get kited or you will get killed since your defensive Refraction charges get quickly removed in team fights. When your refraction is on CD, you need to be much more careful not to get focused – unless your opponents have used most of their spells, it is better to stay at a safe distance with Refraction unavailable. You are more of a single-target nuker rather than a continuous damage dealer at least while you don’t have many items. Your job is to bring down a disabled target as quickly as possible.

Also, unless you need to focus a key hero in a team fight, your target priority should start from the lowest armor heroes.

Example:

No[o]ne makes the critical decision to finish Rosh instead of immediately joining the fight – this is possible only because TA’s great at killing Rosh fast. Afterward, he manages to kill the enemy Luna. Even though Luna is the most farmed hero in the game, TA has far more single target damage. From that point on the fight is won and TA chases down enemy heroes to claim additional kills – this is possible because of Blink Dagger and the slows coming from her traps. Notice how he uses the spill damage of Psi Blades to finish off the Axe without having vision on him.

5-man pushing:

TA is a decent pusher for two reasons. First, her Refraction bonus damage works on towers which means that she can push relatively fast. Second, the defensive charges make her quite resilient against any anti-pushing nukes.  Your job would be to stay upfront and attack a tower. Thanks to Refraction it will be hard for the enemy team to initiate and bring you down quickly. You will likely survive the initiation thanks to Refraction and afterwards you will be able to activate your BKB and fight back.

When you are out of Refraction charges you need to immediately go to a safer position until the spell is available again.

Split-Pushing:

TA is a good split-pusher especially if she has Blink (you are more mobile this way, can move faster around the map and avoid ganks). Thanks to her Psi Blades and high damage output she can quickly clear creep waves. In addition, she can place Traps around the area where she is split-pushing to scout for enemy movement.  Last but not least, TA has quite a lot of damage that allows her to destroy towers fast if enemies don’t react in time.

Using your traps to clear out waves is also a great tool to keep the lanes pushed, even if you’re playing from behind. Make sure you always have traps on the lanes if you’re not in a leading position. 

Although TA has quite a lot of burst potential she doesn’t have any disable to cancel TP’s or to lock down very mobile enemies. Therefore ganking on your own in the mid and late game would be a rather hard job (unless you are ganking immobile targets without escape mechanisms). Usually, you will need a teammate with a good disable that can set up kills for you.  TA excels against solo targets since they can hardly deal with her Refraction. If you gank multiple heroes, however, you will be relatively squishy especially without BKB.

Executing a gank depends on your items, but generally, you want to let an ally initiate and afterwards follow up immediately with a Meld strike and subsequent Refraction hits. 

Traps provide a lot of Vision in the mid and late game since you can scout important routes and areas. They make it quite hard for enemies to move undetected around the map without using smokes. Your primary job in this context should be to place as many Traps as possible in key areas around the map – rune spots, Roshan, enemy jungle, ramps, and chokes etc. 

TA also creates pressure and acquires map control by using the gained item advantage in the laning stage (since she usually wins her lane) to gank heroes or push towers.

Your primary farming tool is Psi Blades. Don’t passively auto-attack lane creeps or jungle creeps. Rather, try to aim your attacks so that you hit several units at once with your Psi Blades. In the jungle, you can attack a creep camp then move back a bit so that the creeps chase you in a line. Then you can attack the first creep and so hit several units with your attacks. You can keep doing this until you have cleared the camp – step back, attack, repeat.  You can use your Meld attack on the biggest neutral creep to kill it faster. Usually, you will use your Refraction on CD to increase your farming speed.

Keep in mind that although TA is a strong mid game hero and can fight without a lot of items, she is a good late game carry as well. You can farm quite fast and if your team is not in a position to fight, you should farm up until you get some items that will allow you to engage (for example - a BKB). However, you are not the strongest late game carry since you can get easily kited because you lack mobility and have relatively low range. Therefore you shouldn’t passively farm but rather farm up to a point, for instance until you get a BKB, Orchid, Hurricane, Nullifier or another key item and then use the items to force engagements or gank.