DOTA 2 - Phantom Assassin

Introduction

"I'm here to blur the line between life and death."

Phantom Assassin is one of the hardest carries in Dota 2. A deadly hero capable of delivering ridiculously high critical strikes, she does however require a lot of farm to carry hero team to victory; without it she is at best a one kill wonder and at worst food for the enemy team.

Despite requiring a lot of farm Phantom Assassin is nonetheless one of the most popular carries in non-competitive Dota and if she does get rolling is one of the most satisfying heroes to play.

Phantom Assassin's complete character profile can be found here.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Can deal insane amounts of damage.
• Mobile hero with good initiating & chasing potential and an escape mechanism.
• Built-in evasion.
• Can use her spammable Stifling Dagger to help farm.
• Can face off 1 on 1 with almost all other carries if even on farm.
• Good stat gain.

Cons

• Requires farm... a heck of a lot of farm.
• Limited usefulness early and even mid game a lot of the time.
• Susceptible to burst damage.

Item Build

You'll almost always be your team's safe lane farmer. Naturally, in pub games you can't always guarantee the cooperation of your teammates, so you may be forced to bite the bullet and farm on the offlane sometimes. Although not ideal it's not entirely the end of your hopes of actually getting decent farm thanks to your ability to use Stifling Dagger to both grab creep kills and do so from a safe distance.

Since you can't always guarantee safe farm I've decided to recommend items with two different games in mind. The first set of items will be geared towards a PA with safe lane farm, the second to either the PA who's forced to go in the offlane or who had a poor laning phase and is therefore in no condition to aim for his/her optimal items.

Starting Items

There are two typical starting item builds.

If for some reason you are forced into the offlane, or you're in the safe lane but expect your safe lane to be contested by the enemy then a good all-round starting build is:

A set of Tangos, a Healing Salve, 2x Iron Branches, and a Stout Shield.

If on the other hand you expect an uncontested lane (i.e. you're safe lane farming and the enemy is not going to be aggressive tri-laning) then you can go for this greedier build instead:

A set of Tangos, a Healing Salve, 3x Iron Branches, and a Quelling Blade.

Early Game Core

Using the side shop you can upgrade your Stout Shield into a Poor Man's Shield early on. You can also grab a pair of Boots of Speed from the side shop. Finally, upgrade your Branches into a Magic Wand to round out your early game core.

The Boots of Speed can either be upgraded into Phase Boots (damage & mobility but no health) or Power Treads (stats & attack speed but limited mobility). I prefer Phase Boots but either are viable.

Avoid Tranquil Boots. They're often recommended in build guides found in the game and online but they're out-of-date; Tranquil Boots are no longer viable on carries because they 'break' whenever you attack something (which is a lot of the time!).

Ideal Mid-Game Additions

Battle Fury - The cookie cutter build on PA. Safe lane farm into a Battle Fury into even faster farm and item progression. You'll clear creep camps quickly, deal a nice chunk of additional damage and won't need to return to base. But it relies on having free-farm, and that's a bit 'but' in pub games. If you don't have free-farm check out the 'Poor Man's Mid-Game Additions' section below.

Helm of the Dominator - Late-game you'll be turning this into a Satanic. Mid-game you can use it to stack ancients to accelerate your farm. It gives you much-needed life steal for fights and some extra damage. A great second core item pick up.

Poor Man's Mid-Game Additions

So you got forced into the offlane, or your team left you out to dry against harass-heavy opponents in the safe lane. Either way, you're pretty poor and there's no way you're farming up a Battle Fury in the foreseeable future.

Consider going for an early fighting build. Get cheap, cost-efficient items that give you a little of everything you need and allow you to take part in teamfights. Good pick-ups in this scenario include:

Drums of Endurance - Gives you a bit of almost everything you need - solid stat gain, attack speed, mobility, and even a team aura. Drums are fairly cheap and easy to build into, so even if you had a bad start you should be able to get them up and running fairly quickly.

Vladmir's Offering - PA really thrives off of life steal. Ideally you'd want to go the Helm of Dominator into Satanic route, but that's incredibly costly. If your poor and need the life steal go for a Vlad's instead. Again, it also gives you added utility to your team.

Armlet of Mordiggian - I was sceptical of this pick-up on PA and wouldn't ordinarily recommend it, but it will make you feel capable of joining in early fights, and makes you significantly less squishy. Consider it instead of a Battle Fury if things are going badly.

Naturally this route of item progression is not ideal. It is not recommended... unless you have a poor start, in which case it is your best fall-back option and much better than having half a Battle Fury built by the time the enemy team start forcing fights.

Luxury Possibilities

Regardless of which route you took to get to this point in the game, the following are PA's optimal luxury item pick ups:

Black King Bar - Always a great second or third item pick up on any semi-carry or hard carry. It gives you some added damage and health but most importantly the active Spell Immunity will allow you to stay alive during teamfights. It's especially good on PA because she is very susceptible to being burst down by magic damage dealers.

Abyssal Blade - An amazing late-game item on PA. Lots of bonus damage, a decent chunk of health and two separate instances of lockdown - one active, one passive. It lets you pound on enemies for longer while you wait for that lucky crit!

Satanic - If you managed to get a Helm of the Dominator in the mid game then upgrading it into a Satanic is a no-brainer in the late game. Even if you didn't pick up a Helm it's still a great luxury pick up in its own right.

Butterfly - Not many guides recommend this because they haven't been updated for the 6.79 patch. Butterfly does now stack with your built-in evasion from Blur (albeit with diminishing returns) so it is now a viable item choice for PA. Gives you great bonus damage and attack speed, as well as additional evasion.

Monkey King Bar - Another fearsome damage item, MKB also gives you some extra attack speed and a little bit of additional lockdown.

Assault Cuirass - An amazing 5th or 6th slot item. AC is not just the defensive item it looks to be on paper, although it will make you tankier. The minus armour reduction means you'll hit that much harder in the late game, and all three auras benefit your team. There may be a hero in your line-up which typically picks up Assault Cuirass much earlier in their item progression than you, which is fine, but if there isn't then consider it luxury core in the late game.

Other good situational items include Desolator (damage and minus armour), Divine Rapier (the risky mega damage option), and Mjollnir (attack speed with a little extra damage; good if you're not going AC).

Skill Build

Phantom Assassin has a pretty universal skill build. At level 1 you want to skill Stifling Dagger and also max it first in order to help you secure last hits during the early laning phase. Don't use it to harass enemy heroes unless you're chasing them down and expecting to get a kill - the damage at this stage is minimal and the skill is better off being used to grab creep kills.

The only scenario where you may want to skill Phantom Strike first is during a level 1 teamfight if you can jump in to secure a kill and still back off safely, but it's a very specific scenario. During most level 1 engagements the Dagger will be more useful.

Level 2 grab a point in Phantom Strike. This isn't just an initiation/chasing skill, it can also be used as an escape mechanism. If you're being ganked or slowed and need to create some distance between you and the enemy you can use Phantom Strike on allied heroes or creeps to do so. Phantom Strike is also the second skill you'll max.

Grab a value point in Blur at level 4 but thereafter don't max it until last. One point is sufficient in the early stages of the game; it gives you the 20% evasion chance and all of its passive benefits in that first level.

Always get Coup de Grace whenever you can (levels 6, 11 and 16). This ability is the main reason you'll be feared by enemy heroes. It's only a 15% chance across all three levels but the additional damage it gives you when it does proc is immense - 230/340/450%.

Gameplay Tips

Stifling Dagger actually deals pure damage, so even though it deals half of the damage noted in the skill description it can actually have a bigger effect than you may think as an harassment tool later on during the laning stage or during stand-offs. Once all of your skills are maxed it can actually deal 405 pure damage.

Phantom Strike isn't just an initiation/chasing tool, it also gives you bonus attack speed of 130 for up to 4 attacks, but you have to target the same hero you blinked onto in order to gain this attack speed bonus.

Watch out for opponents using Blade Mail. It's one of the best counters to PA because her high damage output is turned against her low health pool. Blade Mail does not go through Black King Bar, however - another reason BKB is good on PA.

Last Updated - Patch 6.83.