The mighty Soulkeeper is back

Author advice:
***Pick this hero if you want to show those pansies physical prowess***
***The following guide only shows you a way to play Terrorblade, based on my personal preference. Feel free to make changes in your skill builds if the situation calls***


Terrorblade, a poor kid who was mistreated and bullied by many people. But he didn't give up to them. He worked his ass off and eventually becomes a handsome multi-billionaire. This is the story of the Soulkeeper, the story of own-age.

- Nah, He is not a weakling like that. This is the real story:
Terrorblade is the twin brother of the Anti-Mage. Both of Night Elf descent, Terrorblade was drawn in by the powers of the Undead, plunging deeper into the abyss of no return, growing large, gargoyle-like wings to symbolize his breaking from the Night Elf world. Having mastered the art of image-creation and soul manipulation, he has the ability to transform into a fearsome and terrifying demonic form, obtaining the powers to hurl energy at his opponents. Large moonblades slashing, he is one to fear on the battlefield.




Affiliation: Scourge
Attack Animation: 0.3 / 0.6
Damage: 48 - 54
Casting Animation: 0.5 / 0.51
Armor: 5.1
Base Attack Time: 1.5
Movespeed: 310
Missile Speed: Instant
Attack Range: 128 (melee)
Sight Range: 1800 / 800

- My humble thought about his magnificence
+ Low BAT (Just next to his little brother Magina and part-time Alchemist)
+ Good Attack Animation
+ Huge Attack Backswing (remember to cancer animation by right click right in front of any one you are chasing)
+ High Armor (going to be high throughout the game)
+ Above average MS (for chasing and chasing in the other direction)
+ Average Casting point and Sight range
+ Melee (It is a bad thing, isn't it?)

15 + 1.9
22 + 3.2
15 + 1.75

- Another comment about his fine stats
+ A "whooping" 3.2 in Agility growth, you can expect to have Godlike Attack speed and Immortal Armor (times to times you can still use the Aegis though)
+ A bit low Strength Gain and Starting Strength, but we can fix this easily
+ A fine amount of Intelligent, he doesn't need that much mana anyway.(You don't want to be called a nerd, do you? We are smart, but not that brainy)


+ High Agility (Doesn't mean you should get Ethereal)
+ Low BAT
+ High Armor
+ Good Stats Gain
+ Annoyingly good Ultimate
+ Harassment Skill early
+ Extra Attack Speed
+ ... The rest are for you to state them

The bad

+ Melee
+ Fragile in early game
+ Item dependent
+ Too handsome (which make homosexual people like Lion prefer to gank/rape you)

Reflection

Terrorblade brings forth a dark reflection of all enemy units in a small area. Affected units are slowed and attacked by their reflections for 5 seconds.

• Your harassment tool if you are laning
• Last 5 seconds and cost 75 mana at all level
• Slow by 35% and deal 65% of damage at max level

- No more soul steal, meaning you cannot heal yourself in a fast rate. But with this thing in hand, you won't have to fear those noisy harassment early in game
- Remember, this is an aoe skill, try to hit all the heroes you can. It slows, it hurts, it's everything you need to get a kill (when you are chasing)
- It has a maximum reach of 950 units. It is not far, but try to abuse it.

Zeal

Increases your attack speed and HP regeneration.

• Add up to 50 AS
• Add up 5HP regen/second

- Just lvl 1, you have a free gloves of haste and a RoR. That is worth 850 gold.
- In max lvl, you got yourself almost a Hyperstone, and a Ring of Health. That is worth about 2900 gold (for free).
- You can jungle early with this skill (the extra regen is good in any circumstance)
- The best thing is: this skill strengthen your images, which is your main source of damage later in game - it increases their AS

Metamorphosis

Transforms Terrorblade into a powerful Demon with a ranged attack and illusions.

• You will have a reduced AS and MS, due to having 1.6 BAT and 300 MS respectively
• Fix your problem with being melee, with a fairly normal range of 550
• Cost a hell lot of mana (100, that's a lot for Terrorblade) but it will be worth it.
• Give you a good amount of extra BASE damage (35 at max level)
• 2 illusions are given to you
• 30 seconds duration and 70 seconds cooldown at all level.

- This skill alone could be your ultimate. It makes people fears and hate you so much later in game.
- With the remake in 6.72, the skill got better. Even though you can't spam illusion anymore, the two skill are combined into 1.
- Having illusions means you will confuse enemies, and in a chaotic team battle, if you can control your images carefully, nothing is scarier than a team full of farmed up Terrorblade

Sunder

Sunder severs the soul from both Terrorblade and a target hero, then exchanges them, carrying part of the units' life forces. The percentage hit points of each unit are switched with the souls. Some hit points must remain.

• This skill is almost as good as Resurection of Leoric - the man without testicles
• It won't go though magic immunity.
• Good skill to either save your friends or kill some enemies.
• Have a ministun, you can cancel channeling spells with this skill (although I don't really recommend doing it).
• The damage is HP removal, so it won't disable blink. (if you are facing anyone with Dagger, keep that in mind)
• Allow targeting heroes only.
• It lowers the mana cost and cooldown at each level, try to max it asap (what ultimate don't we max asap, perhaps only Azgalor's....).

- ALWAYS, and I do mean ALWAYS save mana for Sunder. It is your life saving skill.
- You should swap when your HP comes close to 1/4 or 1/3. You can't do anything if they stun you.
- Turn on your BKB if you buy one when swap to save a friend (he's gotta be worthy of your efforts though. Your HP won't change so both of you and your friend will have the high HP. (Please, only do this if you two have already got out of the battle)
- And last but not least, don't try to sunder Roshan. He is NOT a hero (Ancient type)

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Justification
- A level of reflection early game is enough. You can harass with this and don't worries about being shredded to pieces by those annoying range heroes
- Maxing Metamorphosis first is quite obvious, it gives you a huge damage boost early game: 35 base damage makes a lot of different while farming early game.
- Two level of Zeal make sure you'll have enough Attack Speed and HP regen to withstand harassment/ unwanted damages from creeps. It also allows you to go jungling for a while when the lane is pushed too far into the opponent's vagina (tower I meant).
- Maxing Zeal or Reflection next is depend on you.
* If you were doing extremely good, got your core (at least manta) and 1 luxury, you can start killing people with friend's help. Take Reflection as your next skill, as it will help you net a fair amount of kills.
* If you are ganked a lot of time, and still going for your core by the 30 mins mark, take Zeal. You will need the extra regen, and the AS helps with the neutral creeping as well.

The classic way to play Terrorblade early game.
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Justification
- Zeal is taken at level 1, as the regen is needed for jungling effectively, and the AS is just like cherry on the cake.
- Reflection is delayed till lvl 10, as you face little to no harassment.
- Metamorphosis is maxed first, as you can use your image to tank for you.
- A level of Sunder is needed early to save your life, as they start ganking as soon as you hit lvl 7. But if you pay a little attention to the minimap, be aware of incoming ganks (Warding. Supporters!), and evade them, you can delay Sunder, as it cost a hell lots of mana early (200 mana).

- Walking out of the base:
Any combination of these items:

-> Anything you like

+ My own footlocker
A.
- This is what I prefer: A changeable stats, and increase your good attack speed to great. The only down side is it gives not too much MS
B.
- A viable choice, the extra damage is welcomed, but it is not that great. The active ability is quite interesting, as you can escape/chasing with the Bonus MS.
C.
- Getting this boot will solve your non-existent mana problem. And that's it. That's everything this can offer. Only if TB was a support
D. - NEW ITEMS
- Useful only if you have PMS and a lot of armor. The Rejuvenate ability can be handful in certain times, like after you got out of a gank or just finished off any enemies. Provide whole lot of MS compared to the first 3 boots above though.
E.
- Luxurious Boot. You have no trouble farming this, as you are truly a ricing machine early game. Get this in place of Tread when the game turns into a 5v5 push festival

+ Manta(trademark of McDonald)
(I'm Lovin' it)

• +26 Agility
• +10 Strength
• +10 Intelligence
• +15 attack speed
• +10% movement speed
• Mirror Image (active)

- Another two illusions under your control, with Bonus MS, Good Agility gain, Extra Damages, Extra Attack Speed, nice HP boost, fine MP increase. This is truly, the Item made for Terrorblade.
- The ability to dodge certain spell with this is just icing on the cake
- Have I mentioned about the feeling of fear and frustration when 5 (7 with Illusion rune) fully farmed Terrorblade decent upon you?
- A nice trick: You can kill Roshan without getting red health with images. Just send two (or four of them) with MOVE order toward Roshan, then auto-attack him. Before he gets through those images, you'll probably burn most of his HP away

+ Butterfly

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

• +30 Agility
• +30 Damage
• 30% Evasion
• +30 Attack Speed

- It boosts your damage to a magnificent level (60 damage and 60 IAS is no joke)
- Your EHP is increased, with evasion and armor (Agility is converted into armor, remember?)
- 3300 gold might be a problem though. You might want to stay out of trouble if you are rushing this before Manta

+ HotD

-> In ancient time, all rich men have their slaves, do they not?

• +20 damage
• +5 armor
• Lifesteal (passive)
• Dominate (active)

- It gives you lifesteal that you direly need. Meaning you can participate in gank earlier to net some kills.
- The armor makes your bulky armor bulkier. But man will never have enough.
- The damage is a nice compliment for TB.
- An quick HotD can be scary, and when Chen/Enchantress is on your team, feels free to snatch a free kill early with them. (Try to get the creep to tank for you, they are expendable after all)

+ Wraith Band

- Just this once, quantity is better than quality. Stack this to get a better early game.

+ Magic Wand

- Get this if there are spammers in the opposite team. Special thanks to Bristleback

+ TP Scroll

- Who know what will happen? Get this as your insurance.

Get these when your wallet looks like this

1. Eyes of Skadi

• +25 Agility
• +25 Strength
• +25 Intelligence
• +200 HP
• +150 mana
• Cold Attack (Passive, orb)

- This is the better version of Wraith Band. Getting 3 Skadi means you will have about 4000 HP, which is a lot to punch through.
- Everything about this item is useful for you and your images, probably only the cold attack is wasted.

2. Black King Bar

• +10 Strength
• +24 damage
• Avatar (active)

- A fine amount of HP
- Good damage
- Magic Immunity (remember that it won't block Doom)

3. Satanic

• +25 Strength
• +20 damage
• +5 armor
• Lifesteal (passive)
• Unholy Rage (active)

- The only upgrade of HotD, and a worthy one too.
- It potential grows with our own DPS. Abuse it.
- Damage and armor stay the same, but the extra HP is more than welcomed.

4. Armor Cruirass

• +10 armor
• +35 attack speed
• Positive Armor Aura (passive)
• Negative Armor Aura (passive, enemies)
• Attack Speed Aura (passive)

- You can use this, but there are better carriers out there.

5. Heart of Tarrasque

• +40 Strength
• +300 HP
• Health Regeneration (passive)

- 1000 HP is no joke. If you want to be an immortal without having to kill Roshan (and I don't say you shouldn't), this is your answer.

6. Crystalys & Buriza-do Kyanon
&

• Critical Strike (passive)
• +35 damage & +81 damage respectively

- Extreme DPS boost. Perfect for outdamaging that Mortred.

7. Monkey King Bar

• +88 damage
• +15 attack speed
• True Strike (passive)
• Mini-Bash (passive)

- No more Mortred, or anyone who dare getting Butterfly.

8. Divine Rapier

• +300 Damage

- If you feel like you wanna chop people, or just want to see your hits becomes horribly heavy for the enemies, get this.

9. Cranium Basher

• +40 damage
• +6 Strength
• Bash (passive)

- I've almost forgot about this item. It can be quite useful on Terrorblade, because of his insane Attack Speed. Beware of any fake bash from the images however. Remember: don't upgrade it to Abyssal Blades. The damage and ability don't worth the amount of gold you spent. Buy Rapier instead. If you want to know how bash works with illusions, check out this guide:
Illusions - DotA Mechanics


A few DPS items left, I'm not gonna mention them. The list is already big, and you can only have 6 items at a time.

No, Just No! Don't even touch one of these.

- Are you going to use up to 8005 for a puny amount of unusable stats, and a nuke which doesn't scale into late game?

- The initiator Soulkeeper: I'm gonna blink in and sunder someone. Sounds good?

- OK. Are you actually going to hit someone with Ethereal and be a sitting duck for 3 seconds? Go sit in the corner and think about what you have done!

- What? You are a support or something?

- You want to out nuke those nukers?

- If you want lifesteal, get HotD. It's cheaper and has a better build up.

- This one looks good on many heroes in pub, except for TB. You won't tower dive early, and the 40 damage block is nothing late game. Want to be beefy? Get Heart instead. The main problem of this is it will delay our core if we buy it early, and doesn't work that good late game.

- Great item for .... farming. It'll be good if you stay melee, but again, why this when you have Metamorphosis

- I have seen someone who used this (in Pub though), and the first thought was "You gotta be F*king kidding me". DO NOT get this shit, it is used only for the weakling like Davion who can never have DPS like us. Total waste of gold and time.

- Get your starting inventory and head for the long lane. If you are going to face a trilane, immediately call for a lane switch if possible. You are the most precious asset of the team anyway. If you do have to stay inlane, try to harass and push them back with Reflection and Metamorphosis (man, I love this word). Or you can just jungle and leave the lane from times to times.
- Facing harassers or jungling, I highly recommend PMS and Tango. They will keep you up much longer get as much gold/experience as possible.
- If you don't mind having a lousy score, suicide jungling is your bet. Doing that won't give your opponent any gold and experience. Just remember to spend all your money before you die. It takes you 45 seconds walk back to base and heal. That's worth a lot of gold and experience early game.
- Keep an eye on the mini-map. Your enemies tends to go roaming (especially VS) when they don't see you in lane. If you are playing in pub, don't expect to hear VS mia or something like that. They won't call. Fall back and tower hug as soon as you see someone's missing.
- As all carry do, get all the last hit. In pub, they might call you selfish, but when you come back with your core and own the game, you'll be hailed as a hero. In competitive, as they know what are they doing and how to do it, so try to ask them to do all the harassing. You don't have that much mana to spam reflection early.
- Remember that you have Reflection. When your roaming friends come and gank your opponent, cast it. 9 out of 10 times, with nice co-ordination, you'll net a kill or two.
- If you do face a weak lane - another carry, harass them with metamorphosis. What's the point of being able to go ranged when you can't abuse that. Just don't fall into a trap and die. You are not the ones who own early game.
- If you push the lane too far, go jungling and do some creep pull. It saves you the risk of being ganked while allow you to keep farming.
- A beautiful way to jungle. In case you might need this. Credit to Luminous48

GANK

Yo! wat's up, blood?

- While keep farming, when the opportunity rises, you can gank and snatch some kills. Your DPS is fairly good now, and if the early game was excellent for you, you might already got HotD and Yasha. That is much, much stronger compare with other carries. So if you do have to face an Obsidian Destroyer later in game, this will be your time to push him down the hole. Gank and kill him as many time as possible, combining with farming, you can finish your core (which cost a fair amount of money) before any carry does.
- You are still vulnerable this stage in game. Stay alert and aware of any incoming ganks. You should carry a TP scroll all the time.
- Roshan with your team when ever available. First of all you can keep the Aegis if you want (you are the alpha male anyway). Then if you do the finishing blow on Roshan, you get about 700 gold if you are lucky. That's good money, and fair amount of time farming.
- In early team battle, try to get Metamorphosis first and then Reflection. This is due to the duration of Metamorphosis is much longer compared to Reflection, and when your images are up, you can maximize the effect of the slow.
- Try to spead your images carefully. You don't want them to die because of two aoe nukes.

- When you get here, team battles are growing larger and larger. 4v4 and 5v5 are starting to appear. Try to get out of there alive, and kill as many as possible.
- Farming in free lane. If you have had good game since the start, you might already finish your core and work yourself to some luxuries.
- If this didn't go right, try to consider some Situational item in the Maybe section. You can also stack up Wraith bands. They are cheap but give you some stats to keep on going.
- Just stay alive. When ever you die, you lose precious exp and gold.

- Normally, you finished your core now. Probably half way through a luxury. You have become a pushing, killing, and raping machine who no one dare stand against. Push like mad and kill anyone who dare cross your path.
- Roshan. Now he drop cheese, that's what you might like. The little piece like that mean you won't have to go back to base after withstand a beat up. If you already got Heart, leave Aegis for someone else on the team who need it more than you do.
- You can take on the opposite team all by yourself, if you want. Just get a BKB and everything is fine.
- With precise co-ordination, you can take on even the opponent fountain. Bring with you your team tanks, a healer (preferably Omniknight) and Aegis. Tanks the fountain and Sunder an image when you go to red health. It takes about two or three times. Once you did it, the enemies won't have any place to heal, to hide and have to tremble in fear. (Just take out all the enemy heroes first, and push the fountain)
- Change to TP.Boots as soon as possible. Pushes are much stronger and much more common now.

- Just finish the game. If it goes longer than 60 minutes, consider getting all the luxuries and push a final time to victory.


- Survivability is one of the most important factor of TB gameplay. The table in this page should give you a good idea of the amount each item will improve your heath:
Heath DotA 2
- Deceiving skills can be extremely useful, and quite pleasing if you can pull it off. One example is when you get 1 image to tank all the disables for you. There are 2 ways to do this:
Turn on either Metamorphosis or Manta while approaching the enemy(ies). When you turn it on, the enemy should not see you.
( - )Case 1: Send 1 image in first, then you and the other image go in second. Press P so that your TB do the same thing as your 2nd image, while microing the 1st. Disables will be thrown, and most of them will come to the one with micro.
( - )Case 2: All in. Rush all of the images + yourself toward the enemy. Try to spread them out first so aoe damages won't give out who is the real TB. Micro 1 image in the back, and act as if you are waiting for the enemies to kill all the images in front. They will jump on the one in the back instead. Try to act as normal as possible on the fake TB, otherwise smart opponent will figure out.

- We can names people like:

-> These guys don't need too many items to be useful. They also provide heal/ regeneration for you to stay alive and farming. In case of CM and KotL, they are mana batteries, allowing you to spam as many reflection as you want. Later, as I mention in the Strategy section, Purist can help you kill the enemies fountain. Just use his heal and Ultimate, you will see the fountain goes down before you even get to red health. When laning with Dark Seer, ready to snatch some kills early with the extra MS and perfectly positioned Reflection

- They are frienemies, homies when on your side, Homo when on the other side.
- e.g.

Special mention for Earthshaker: He have an ultimate which grow stronger the more unit inside (illusion included), and 4.75 seconds stuns. You'll love him for the stun, and he will love you for your extra units.

- OK. That's a bit hard to understand, according to feed-backs. It's just because of Echo Slam also counts images into the final damage, so when Earthshaker shoot his Echo Slam the second time to finish any retreating enemies, the extra units that you provided (5-7 units) add up to 490 damages to EACH enemy, in a total of 830 + 70x number of people and creeps left after the chaos. Also, he can chain 4.75 seconds stun, and 9.5 seconds when he gets that Refresher Orbs. In that free time, you can pretty much whack anyone to death.


- He is the last guy on Earth you want to face. Born to be the perfect counter for TB ("Thanks" to Icefrog). He hits you with rocket lauchers which does pure damage and chops your images to pieces with his Arcane Orb. He kicks you into another dimension with his astral, to leave your already small mana pool smaller. Last but not least, when farmed up, he tends to do more than 1000 damage to you with just his Ultimate. Fear him or rape him before he can rape you.


- No way this guy can fight you, even late game. 5 men raping team is too much to handle for a sniper.

- Doom becomes extremely unreliable when you have image, and even if he guessed right, your auto attack and images can finish the job for you.

- 3 dogs will never be a match for 5 men, ever.

- You are smart, but you ain't brighter than a whole team.

- Perma-bash? Well, do it on as many images as you want. Still be dead anyway.

- She can take out people one at a time, but not when lots are coming for her.

- Being a fellow image user, her skills are much weaker compare to you, except she can map hack without being ban.

- Same as Traxex. He can only kill 1 guy at a time.

- It doesn't matter how tanky she is, your DPS gonna turn her into ash.

- "Mepoo" assault squad is a cheaper, weaker version of 5 men Immortal TB.

- Give him a good slap before sending him back to the fountain (or better, to heaven).

- Blink heroes are dicks. They can't kill you, but you can't kill them either. (well at least not when you are alone).

- Pre Battlefury Mortred is a bitch. Battlefury Mortred is a bitch you can't handle.

- Not much of a trouble, but fairly annoying with his Windwalk and Radiance.

- In human form he a walking hotdog. In dragon form he's a bitch out of control.


- Fighting this Fatso is extremely frustrating. Killing him in ranged form can make it less of a headache. Luckily he can't farm as well as you.

- Stated in the enemies section.

- If it's for some strange reasons after your dominance time has arose, you allow this guy to farm Buriza, Rapier, Cuirass, Heart, Battlefury and BoT, then he can chop you and your image to pieces. Other times, eat him for a little midnight snack.

- I found this amazing video about Terrorblade. It's in chinese, but still got English subtitle.
Credit goes to WODotA.com

DotA - TerrorBlade's Revenge - YouTube


- Special credit for Icefrog, and the gamemakers for this wonderful game.
- The Playdota.com website for most of the icons and emoticons in this guide.
- Luminous48 for a beautiful guide to jungling. I don't wanna make one because it's already too good.
- Credit for Lycan on the idea of Basher on TB. He helps me with some structure as well.. ^^
- You for reading, voting and putting up with my lousy English. This language wasn't my mother-tongue anyway.
Thanks for your contributions, and please give me feedbacks if I do miss something. ^^