[WARNING]I like to use ... a lot[/WARNING]

Mortred, The Phantom Assassin-A guide by gd1


Mortred's Introduction

Mortred is a paper hero early in the game but later on has significant damage potential. If you play her well and have decent reflexes, you can easily take out an enemy hero before their friends can help them. Playing Mortred is about keeping a low profile in a game and capitalizing on shock value when the enemy does realize you are attacking them. While a well played Mortred is good, many players opt not to use her because she lacks the flashy abilities that attract players to other heroes like Faceless Void or Earthshaker. Remember though, no matter how good you are (unless your opponents are really stupid or underleveled), you cannot take on an entire team by yourself and going against 2 heroes of equal level is generally a bad idea barring having a disabler with you. With all the disclaimers out of the way, let's get into the meat of this guide.

Mortred's Info and Stats

Benefits
+Extremely hard to run away from
+Has a passive that grants evasion and makes you usually not the target in teambattles
+Has the potential to deal extraordinary damage in a single hit which can play mind games with your opponents
+Phantom Strike allows you to escape or attack opponents and when combined with blur in a teambattle can confuse enemies
+Stifling Dagger has an incredible amount of utility: excellent for last hitting and avoiding nukes early on by being out of range, grants vision of enemies it hits (so if they run up a hill into fog you can still blink after them), can be used to save allies (by slowing the enemy while still keeping out of range of most of their abilities).
+Has above average movespeed
+Has great casting times

Drawbacks
-Paper hero (low HP) for a lot of the game
-Disables can destroy her if your enemy is determined to kill you in a team battle and your allies aren't helping much
-Is allergic to blademail as all DPS heroes are
-Item dependent (less than in the past but still more than other carries)

Information

Affiliation: Scourge
Primary Attribute: Agility
Attack Range: 100 (Melee)
Sight Range: 1800 / 800
Purposes: DPS and Chasing

Level 1 Stats

Strength: 17
Agility: 23
Intelligence: 13
Hit Points: 473
Mana Points: 169
Damage: 46 - 48
Armor: 4.3

Level 25 Stats (Including Bonus Stats)

Strength: 66.2 + 20
Agility: 98.6 + 20
Intelligence: 37 + 20
Hit Points: 1784
Mana Points: 741
Damage: 141 - 143
Armor: 15 + 2.8

Mortred's Skills

The hotkey for each skill appears bolded with brackets around it. Example Stifling [D]agger means D is the hotkey.


Stifling [D]agger

Hurls a dagger which deals minor pure damage and slows the unit's movement speed for a short duration. Deals half damage to heroes.

Level 1 - Deals 40 damage (20 to heroes), slows by 50% for 1 second
Level 2 - Deals 80 damage (40 to heroes), slows by 50% for 2 second
Level 3 - Deals 120 damage (60 to heroes), slows by 50% for 3 second
Level 4 - Deals 160 damage (80 to heroes), slows by 50% for 4 second

Target: An organic (non-siege, non-golem, etc...) unit
Cooldown: 10 seconds.
Manacost: 30/25/20/15
Description: Not really for harassing purposes at any point in the game it should be used instead for last hitting or killing an enemy hero who is running away. Mainly used for the slow as well as the vision it grants to make Mortred an amazing chaser. This projectile cannot be dodged by blinking.

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Phantom Strike [B]

Teleports to a unit and attacks it. Gains 100% attack speed for 3 seconds while attacking that same target. Maximum of 4 attacks.

Level 1 - Teleports to the target unit, and recieves increased attack speed.
Level 2 - Teleports to the target unit, and recieves increased attack speed.
Level 3 - Teleports to the target unit, and recieves increased attack speed.
Level 4 - Teleports to the target unit, and recieves increased attack speed.

Target: An organic (non-siege, non-golem, etc...) unit
Range: 700/800/900/1000
Cooldown: 30/20/10/5 seconds.
Manacost: 50
Description: This ability gives you increased attack speed when you need it, but isn't as good as dagger for last hitting. It can also be used as an escape but for the most part it gives your hero the element of surprise as well as a possible method of escape.

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Blu[r] [Passive]

The Phantom Assassin becomes hard to see by blurring her body. Some enemy attacks miss.

Level 1 - 15% chance to dodge an attack/25% Transparency
Level 2 - 20% chance to dodge an attack/50% Transparency
Level 3 - 25% chance to dodge an attack/75% Transparency
Level 4 - 30% chance to dodge an attack/100% Transparency

Target: Your Hero
Cooldown: None
Manacost: Free.99
Description: This ability grants you the highest possible evasion in the game without having to activate a skill (even butterfly grants the same amount (unless you count pseudo evasion stacking with butterfly)). More importantly, it grants you a low profile because you appear to be nothing more than a dark spot on the ground. While this is certainly nice to have, it is not to be taken early in the game because you should not be ganking heavily early in the game. There are a few counters to this transparency...
-Skaadi (turns you blue)<-- most annoying one
-Aura's (put a blue circle around you)
-Radiance (causes you to give off pretty sparkles)
-Other abilities that place visible buffs on your hero (such as ogre magi's ignite)

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[C]oup de Grace [Ultimate-Passive]

Mortred has refined her hero-killing skills to a high degree.

Level 1 - 15% chance to 2.0x critical
Level 2 - 15% chance to 3.0x critical
Level 3 - 15% chance to 4.0x critical

Target: The enemy on the pointy end of your weapon
Cooldown: Your attack speed
Manacost: Nonexistent
Description: The most powerful (although one of the most infrequent) critical in the game (unless you count that one item in the hidden quest of one of the previous versions that gave 5x...). It's value is in it's ability to intimidate opponents into running away as well as the damage bonus it brings. This ability can swing a battle in your favor but it's best not to rely on it too heavily.

And now onto the builds...

Mortred's Build (sort of an "s" here)

The standard issue skill build:
01 - Stifling Dagger or Phantom Strike
02 - Phantom Strike or Stifling Dagger (if you went with strike for level 1) or Blur
03 - Stifling Dagger
04 - Phantom Strike
05 - Stifling Dagger
06 - Coup de Grace
07 - Stifling Dagger
08 - Phantom Strike
09 - Phantom Strike
10 - Blur or Phantom Strike (if you went with Blur at level 2)
11 - Coup de Grace
12 - Blur
13 - Blur
14 - Blur
15 - Stats
16 - Coup de Grace
17 - Stats
18 - Stats
19 - Stats
20 - Stats
21 - Stats
22 - Stats
23 - Stats
24 - Stats
25 - Stats

Justification:
Dagger first for creeping with phantom strike and dagger maxed as soon as possible (barring CDG). Alternatively you can get blink strike first if you think you will need to escape and it probably won't affect your game negatively but it's really a personal preference decision. Coup De Grace (CDG) taken whenever possible. Blur taken after maxing strike and dagger. Stats fill in the rest. You won't be needing stats early thanks to the item build and blur isn't going to net you the money you need early on. CDG gives you the power to make your hero more than just a chaser. Blur can be taken at level 2 if you absolutely must have 15% evasion for some reason. Your dagger and strike will be maxed 1 level later but it should not have too much impact on farming or ganking.

Item Build (Part 1)



Justification: The ring of regeneration will allow you to heal damage from the nukes that the opponent manages to slip in or the occasional attack because for the most part you will be hanging out of range and last hitting with dagger. The courier will bring your wraith bands to you when they are assembled so you can stay in lane and farm/level. The wraith bands give you the damage you need early game if you do need to gank as well as mana and hp at a reasonable price. The treads are built last and give you the movement speed to get from place to place as well as some attack speed. I personally go with agi mode treads but if you really feel you need the extra survivability you can go with str mode.

And here's where the "s" in builds comes in...

Item Build (Version 1 - My build)

After getting part 1, the following in order:


Justification:
MKB is absolutely amazing for your dps. +80 damage, increased attack speed, a chance to microbash (to stop teleport and channeling) and deal 100 bonus damage, and you never miss on your attacks (which makes evasion useless against your crits). Satanic fills in the rest of your hit point needs for most purposes and lets you slug away at enemies who don't run and are also dps.

Item Build (Version 2 - Ye Olde Traditional Build)

Also after getting part 1, the following in order:


Justification:
For those people who just really want to farm more instead of going after enemies, you can get bfury which works very well with your crits. This build also counters summoners and illusion users very well for the same reason. Grants you mana regen and extra hp regen as well as respectable damage and is very easy to assemble. Satanic for the same reason as the with version 1.

If for some reason the game has not ended yet (by mass ragequit or otherwise)...
Ditch your ring of regen first and:
If you went with version 1, get battlefury

If you went with version 2, get MKB


Thereafter it is entirely situational so:

Nukers or disablers?-

Extra DPS?-

Riki being an ***hole?-

Carrying a nuke me neon sign above your head?- or

It really doesn't matter what you get (as long as you have 250 (from items and base) damage for those pretty 4 digit crits) because you will have enough dps to deal with almost anything. Just don't get anything stupid or auras.

More on why aura's are a bad idea:

Your hero is meant to keep a low profile. It's hard to do that when you have a big shiny aura animation following you around. Sure, someone on your team is going to get one or maybe an enemy has one that targets you, but that's still just a blue circle at worst and odds are that creeps are going to have them too so it will still be hard to single you out. However, when you carry an aura generating item on your person, you're telling the enemy where you are with the equivalent of a neon sign. I can't think of any aura (short of maybe stacking vamp with vlads) that could be worth it. Also, it kind of announces that you're waiting to gank an enemy when your creeps light up like christmas trees. Same reason for why radiance is a waste of time other than the fact that there are better damage items out there.

And now onto how to actually play mortred...

Strategy

Early Game

Buy a ring of regeneration and a chicken. Hotkey your hero as 1, your chicken as 2, and your circle of power as 3. Go to whatever lane you feel like going to. Offer to share your chicken with whoever you are laning with (this is just to be nice). Creep block if you feel like it. Start daggering creeps when your dagger reaches level 2 (if you're really confident you can do it at level 1 but it costs more mana). Stay out of range of enemy nukes. Last hit if you think you can get away with it (no disables, not many nukes, nobody else laning against you at the moment). If the enemy took combat lessons from Rambo and is being really stupid for no good reason (nobody is missing that could be coming to help him) you can dagger and blink him early when his hp becomes low enough that you think you can get him before he gets back to his tower (remember that blink strike still has a long cooldown and dagger isn't 4 seconds yet and you still don't have boots). There are very few reasons why you should ever leave your lane at this part of the game because your chicken is bringing you items, your method of last hitting costs so little mana that you can spam it, and your ring of regen is constantly healing you.

Mid Game

You've survived early game (because your enemies didn't harass you enough) and farmed up treads. At this point in the game you should have maxed blink and dagger and have one point in CDG. You can potentially kill enemy heroes now but it's still to early to go out and gank full hp heroes without a good disabler. You probably won't need your dagger to last hit creeps anymore and laning is not as clearly defined at this point (you can still dagger if you feel like it). Keep laning probably but if somebody calls for a push or a gank and it looks like you can pull it off or like they need a slow you can go for it.

Late Game

Now is your time to shine. You have an MKB and the ability to deal 1k crits (usually depends on how well you farmed and your level though). You can go after full hp targets but it's best to go after enemies who aren't at full hp but still haven't run back to base yet. There are few heroes who can run from blink+dagger combo with your treads (gem to counter invis and dagger sight can sometimes even counter blinkers). Now, for your role in a team battle: you stay back until your team has engaged the enemy, then blink in to attack a nuker or stunner or low hp enemy (preferably a stunner and maybe a low hp enemy) kill them and depending on how the tide of the battle goes either retreat or go after another enemy. DotA almost always depends on the team in team battles so you can't always expect to win every engagement. You can also take out roshan (solo) after getting mkb (at level 16) if someone has vamp aura or you have vamp normally.

How things work (basic strategy):

Blink+Dagger=You blink, and attack a few times, when they start running then you dagger. Then you blink to close the distance. Then you dagger as soon as the cd resets.

Roshing=Get 4x crits and your mkb and some vamp. Your evasion makes him hit you infrequently and your crits with vamp gets you back up to normal after he does. Use strike to increase your attack speed when you can.

Stay in the back=When a team fight starts, things get ugly fast at the front. The best defense is to not be there and to blink in after it starts so that they are focused on your friends and not you while you pummelize them.

Good Heroes to have on your team:

Pretty much any hero works with Mortred. Disablers, slowers, healers, flashy spell users, nukers, support, whatever. As long as they do something that makes the enemy target them instead of you or brings the enemy in range of your killing abilities they are helping you. As with most dps heroes, disablers are typically preferable.

Heroes who are annoying (until you get a gem):


While you can chase down almost any hero in the game, invisibility heroes don't like to play fair and can run from you in a way that you can't follow without a gem.

Heroes who mess you up in a teamfight but probably couldn't take you 1v1:

Really heavy nukers (like lina) and Disablers (any disable of 3 seconds or over will do or multiple disables).

Heroes who can give you a hard time early game:
Mana burners such as->

They will take away the mana you need for daggering if you aren't careful.

Heroes who can take you 1v1:
and maybe

Void can get mkb to negate your evasion while your mkb will not negate his pseudo evasion. Void can chrono you and follow up with permabashes through which almost no hero can escape and he can timewalk away a respectable distance. Troll can maybe take you if he gets lucky with bashes and got an MKB because he hates you so much (though with the attack speed buff he may not need it).

The hero who can run from you and mow you down as well if you didn't farm very well or if his team is with him:


His ball lightning ability can run from you because of how far it can go. He can mow you down with it and his semi-purge attacks.

Conclusion

Mortred is a high dps glass cannon who can chase well. Play her for the pretty 4 digit red numbers followed by an excitement mark. Remember: You are the iron hand of justice.*

*It is because of this quote I saw on someone's guide on the old forums that I decided to give Mortred a try. I've played her ever since.

Replays

BNET PUBS played in version 1.23 (v6.60b but still applicable)
Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Game 4
Game 5
Game 6

6.61b games
Game 1 -> 11 and 0

Credits:
-Guide format a semi-ripoff from Ramomar's rexxar guide.
-Thanks XJDevil for the insight on getting a point in blinkstrike.
-Thanks to Verve for alternate point with blur early possibility.