Introduction
“We outnumbered you. We outnumber them all!"
Phantom Lancer is a melee agility hard carry. He is famed for his passive ability to spawn tens of illusions, for being a fearsome split-pusher, and for being an annoying, evasive hero to be up against. He takes a long time to get going, but when he does he’s almost impossible to stop.
He was a highly popular hard carry pick in competitive Dota in early 2013, but his popularity fell off ahead of The International III and he has been seen little since. This was welcomed by many in the community – his nickname ‘Cancer Lancer’, which grew in popularity during the period when he was a top tier pick, being indicative of the general feeling towards the hero.
You can find Phantom Lancer's complete character profile here.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Amazing late-game hero
- Great pusher
- Amazing split-pusher
- Highly elusive
- High agility gain
- Good attack animation
Cons
- Needs a lot of farm & levels
- Takes a long time to come on-line
- Mana issues early on
- Fairly micro-intensive
- Somewhat luck-based
- Fairly squishy without items
Item Build
Starting Items
Phantom Lancer, like most hard carries, really needs to be able to farm safely, and so is usually played in the safe lane. In public matchmaking you’re likely to face a certain degree of pressure on the lane (in contrast to most professional safe lanes) and so a build that errs on the safe side is advisable:
- A set of Tangos, a Healing Salve, a Stout Shield, and 2x Iron Branches.
This gives you plenty of starting regen, a Stout Shield to block harass, and Iron Branches to give you some starting stats.
Alternatively, if you’re confident that either you’ll be facing up against an easy offlane opponent or that your team can keep you well protected in the lane, you can swap the Stout Shield out for a Quelling Blade, and get an extra Iron Branch. This is a greedier starting build but will make last hitting easier.
Early Game
Grab some quick Boots of Speed from the side shop. You can also work straight away on upgrading them. Recommended upgraded Boots for PL are Power Treads. As a squishy hard carry he benefits from the early stats and doesn’t get as much out of Phase Boots as other right clickers because he relies primarily on building an illusion army in order to carry.
Finish off your early game pick ups by upgrading any Iron Branches you have into a Magic Wand.
Core Options
I tend to think of Phantom Lancer as having arguably 4 core item builds. Which you go for will largely depend on how well you’re able to farm in the early stage of the game, and also how much pressure the enemy team is applying on either your towers or on forcing teamfights. I’ll go through each of these builds in turn:
Drums of Endurance – This build, which involves getting Drums of Endurance usually followed by a Yasha, is an early fighting build. The cheapest option available to PL, it’s ideal if you’re struggling to find space to farm and/or if you expect to have to fight early on.
These two items give you good, cost-efficient early stats, and allow you to transition into his luxury items off the back of regular farming and hero kills (the Yasha gives you an early start on a Manta Style while allowing you to get involved in teamfights much earlier than PL usually would). They’re also both relatively cheap items and easy to build into, in contrast with 2 of the other options detailed below.
Diffusal Blade – The second ‘cheap’ option. Diffusal, like the Drums into Yasha build is fairly easy to build into thanks to it having 4 relatively affordable pieces that can be bought whenever you have unreliable gold to spend. It doesn’t give you any survivability, unlike the first build, but it is the more offensive build option for a PL who doesn’t want to risk dying (Simply throwing out a Spirit Lance from long range will hurt a lot).
Even with the other builds Diffusal is almost always purchased because it’s arguably the offensive item that synergises best with PL. It gives you a nice chunk of agility and mana, and the mana burn will make life hell for enemy heroes, especially supports, because your illusions will also benefit from it. The active is also great for offensive chasing purposes and defensively purging enemy debuffs (such as Dust or a slow).
Radiance – The greediest and riskiest build option. Only go for this if you get completely uncontested free farm and have a good last hit rate (or manage to net some early kills). Radiance is fantastic on PL because your illusions acquire the burn aura, making split pushing or jungling an absolute breeze (thus rapidly accelerating your farm and item progression). It also means you deal considerable damage in early teamfights purely because of the illusions have the burn aura.
The downsides are huge though: Firstly, you’re essentially forcing your team into a 4 v 5 situation until you get your Radiance up and running, and even then you’ll be extremely fragile and thus reliant on illusions spawning so that you can avoid engaging at melee range. If the enemy team forces early teamfights or pushes your team is probably going to get run over before you come on line.
Secondly, if you die you’re going to be hit hard and set back a long way, because a big chunk of your gold will be from last hitting creeps and will thus be unreliable. If you die just before you’re able to afford your Sacred Relic it’s going to be a huge blow.
Hand of Midas – The other greedy option that is used to accelerate your farm. Again, only go for it if you’re getting uncontested farm and a good last hit rate.
It provides less combat utility than a Radiance, but it’s a lot cheaper and thus easier to build in public games. It’s also, however, the least tolerated build in public matchmaking; if you go for it and your allies are unable to hold their lanes together expect a lot of flak for ‘only’ having a Hand of Midas and 1 luxury item by the time the laning stage breaks down.
Luxury Items
Once you have your core you can get to work on your luxury items. Phantom Lancer has a fairly small list of luxury items compared to a lot of heroes, mainly because the items listed below are simply so good on him that nothing else competes.
As mentioned above, Diffusal is a fantastic pick-up regardless of which core build option you go for. The others (aside from Yasha) are not, however. Radiance and Hand of Midas need to be purchased early on in order to be most effective, and so should not be purchased as luxury items. Drums, meanwhile, are a very early-to-mid game oriented item, and should probably not be invested in as a luxury item.
Manta Style – Good stats for an agility carry, increased mobility and attack speed, and most importantly 2 illusions every 50 seconds. This is useful not just for quickly pushing out lanes and taking down enemy buildings – furthering PL’s split-pushing potential - but also for dodging certain silences and projectile attacks/stuns, making you much harder to lock down.
Once you have your Manta you don’t need to fear being Orchid’d and silenced or Dusted; you can simple pop your illusions to dispel both effects. With a Manta Style, Phantom Lancer can have a maximum of 10 illusions at a time if they are used after Juxtapose has generated its max of eight images. It gives these illusions extra movement speed, damage output, health, and armor.
Heart of Tarrasque – Although Manta on top of whatever core build you went for will go a long way to giving you good DPS, you are still a very squishy hero; if you get focussed you’re likely going to die very quickly, and your illusions are easily dealt with and highly susceptible for burst AoE damage. And so Heart is your next item of choice.
The Vitality Booster can be bought whenever you want (before the Manta Style if you’re feeling too squishy), to give yourself and your illusions a nice health boost and then you can go back to finished the Heart off later on. The incredible health gain and health regeneration makes both your main hero and your illusions very difficult to deal with.
Butterfly – The ultimate late-game luxury purchase for agility carries – huge chunks of attack speed, damage, and evasion. It makes you much tankier and more dangerous, and significantly buffs your illusions in the process. The ideal pick-up after Heart.
Boots of Travel – There are no better boots in the late game. When you need to free up a slot which would otherwise be taken up by a TP Scroll work towards these and replace your Power Treads. With this, you combine your Boots and TP Scroll slot into one, allowing you to put a slot to better use. They also make your split-push potential even scarier than it already is.
Daedalus – By now you’re quite literally 5 slotted. A 5/6 slotted Phantom Lancer will almost always look like this: Diffusal Blade (level 2), Boots of Travel, Heart of Tarrasque, Butterfly, and Manta Style, with only the sixth and final item being particularly optional. I like Daedalus here, for the large infusion of damage. Abyssal Blade is also a popular option, and so too is Monkey King Bar. Any of these are fine.
Situational Items
Ring of Aquila – I like Ring of Aquila as an early game item. If you decide or are forced to go the low budget Drums into Yasha build then a Ring of Aquila makes a lot of sense. These items are all about getting cost-efficient stat items early, allowing you to get involved in the fight. Ring of Aquila gives great stats (especially since its recent damage buff), some much-needed mana regeneration, and a good aura for your team.
Highly advised if you get off to a bad start or are forced into early engagements.
Vladmir’s Offering – An alternative to the Ring of Aquila build, Vlads is a bit more mid-game oriented but gives similar advantages. Especially good if you have other melee cores on your team.
Soul Ring – Soul Ring is a much more situational early game item. I know some pro players like to buy up an early Soul Ring, especially when playing him in public matches, so that they can throw out Lances at enemy lane opponents or at jungle creeps to increase their farm efficiency, using the illusions to take the damage.
Monkey King Bar – A solid alternative to Daedalus as a 6th item. Highly recommended if the enemy carry or cores are agility heroes that tend to purchase Butterfly in the late game, or if their supports decide to work into a Heaven’s Halberd, as MKB counters the evasion effects of both items.
Divine Rapier - Finally, there's always the Divine Rapier option if your back's against the wall and defeat is almost imminent or you feel you're so far ahead you want to insta-kill the opposing supports. Just warn your team so they know to either protect you or be prepared to pick up the Rapier should you die.
Skill Build
Spirit Lance is skilled and maxed first. It is a magic damage nuke which slows the target for 3.25 and which spawns an illusion when it hits them which continues to attack the enemy for several seconds after it spawns. Additional levels increase the damage, the percentage move speed slow that is applied, the duration of the illusion, and the mana cost.
Between the initial magic damage and the follow up illusion damage, Spirit Lance is a very potent nuke at all stages of the game.
Doppelganger is an escape and confusion ability which is skilled second but usually maxed last. It makes Phantom Lancer briefly vanish from the battlefield before randomly reappearing within a 325 unit AoE, gathering all of his illusions within 900 units and adding two new ones as well.
It is useful, naturally, for creating confusions and potentiallyescaping from sticky situations (enemies will not know who the real Phantom Lancer is), for disjointing projectiles, and also for giving you an extra 2 illusions on-demand. Additional levels only reduce the cooldown, so it is usually maxed last – one point being sufficient in the early going.
Phantom Rush is a passive ability which allows Phantom Lancer and his illusions to charge forwards at 800 movespeed when targetting an enemy. It is skilled last but usually maxed second, after Spirit Lance.
Additional levels increase the rush distance (from 600 units to 900 units) and reduce the ability's cooldown, from 16 seconds to just 4 seconds.
Juxtapose is always skilled (levels 6, 11 and 16). This passive ability gives Phantom Lancer and his illusions a chance to spawn illusions when attacking. A max of 5/7/9 illusions can be created, with Phantom Lancer having 40/45/50% chance to trigger an illusion, and his own illusions having a smaller and flat 8% chance.
The illusions created as a result of Juxtapose last for 8 seconds if created by Phantom Lancer and 4 seconds if created by another illusion. All of them take 500% bonus damage and deal 16% of Phantom Lancer's damage when attacking.
Gameplay Tips
Spirit Lance is great for providing early harass and for securing kills. As Phantom Lancer generally wants to avoid early engagements this plays perfectly into this approach; use the burst magic and physical damage from Spirit Lance and your illusions if you want to contribute to fights but avoid risking death.
Doppelganger is great at confusing enemies; if you're being ganked you can use it to both disjoint any projectiles and to spawn two illusions with which to distract enemies while you try to make your escape.
Juxtapose is what makes Phantom Lancer a scary late game carry. With a high chance to spawn illusions it allows Phantom Lancer to quickly build up an army of illusions which wil ldeal a deceptively high amount of damage.
Juxtapose also makes Phantom Lancer a very strong split pusher for this same reason.
A quick list of passive abilities that your illusions will benefit from:
- Attack speed
- Straight attribute bonuses
- Critical strike
- Evasion
- Feedback (i.e. Diffusal Blade)
- Base health & mana
- Magic resistance
- True strike
- Move speed bonuses
- Quelling Blade
- Burn damage (i.e. Radiance)
- True sight (i.e. Gem)
Last Updated - Patch 6.82c.
