Templar Assassin: Psi Blades and Illusions.

[Magikabula]

I've been trying to get some practice with TA lately and I've been trying out the different builds. One common item I see built on her is Manta Style. I tried it, but I was disappointed that the illusions don't spill damage. That's too bad, because part of the appeal to manta is the interaction it has with the passives of different heroes. Antimage needs it, Specter can use it, heck, even Axe's illusions can do full damage counterhelixes.

I know that plenty of people will take this opportunity to rush to TA's defense, and rightly so. She hurts. But would it really be so terrible to spread a little more Psi Blade love around, even with 28% effectiveness?

[J_A_P_G]

I'm not sure where she sits in the meta right now. Is she dead like Leshrac, or a mid-range pick like Ogre?

[Magikabula]

To my knowledge, she's picked about as much as Lux is in the Lol championship.

Translation: No clue.

[The_Technomancer]

Originally posted by Matau99:

I'm not sure where she sits in the meta right now. Is she dead like Leshrac, or a mid-range pick like Ogre?

She's around areas with clinkz, and nyx assassin. Powerful with farm, lots of early damage, shines mid game but doesn't perform quite as effectively as other picks late game. They can still do damage but other characters can do more. They are rare to see and annoying to play against but just glossed over in picking. Basically powerful but not popular.

[Magikabula]

Originally posted by God's Gonna Cut You Down:

Originally posted by Matau99:

I'm not sure where she sits in the meta right now. Is she dead like Leshrac, or a mid-range pick like Ogre?

templar assassin is an antimeta hero. she has a strong advantage in a 1v1 against meta heroes like shadow fiend and queen of pain.

Originally posted by Magikabula:

I've been trying to get some practice with TA lately and I've been trying out the different builds. One common item I see built on her is Manta Style. I tried it, but I was disappointed that the illusions don't spill damage. That's too bad, because part of the appeal to manta is the interaction it has with the passives of different heroes. Antimage needs it, Specter can use it, heck, even Axe's illusions can do full damage counterhelixes.

I know that plenty of people will take this opportunity to rush to TA's defense, and rightly so. She hurts. But would it really be so terrible to spread a little more Psi Blade love around, even with 28% effectiveness?

manta style is not an offensive item for templar assassin. giving illusions spill is a bit too much since she can send illusions to clear creep waves while farming the jungle.

And having 1 more rat hero would be so terrible? What if we promise that we won't play her that way, and only use it for heroes?

But seriously, Axe can do that if he buys manta too.

[C.C. 折オリ枝 の 夫]

Depending on the build or the reason why you buy it, manta can be good on her. For example, you cau buy it to dispell DoT spells, Dust (if you need a 3-5 sec meld so you can blink away) and so on. Also it's good against single target heroes who have no AoE or used their 1 AoE spell, as they would have to hit each unit first to see who is the real one. Also, let's not forget the fact that Manta allows you to dodge spells if you time it right.

As for builds, there is one build I use as a fall back plan and manta is pretty good there because of the extra stats and the considering I buy some more stat items, the illusions are pretty neat :D

Like most items, it's good if you know what you want to do with it, not just buy it because it's in a guide

Also, against Venomancer, QoP and a few others it can allow a quick suicide if you know how to do it

[♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, nerd in leather]

it'd be too predictable for manta style to work with all the passives of heros. with it how it is, there is more thought to the item than just be an idiot and buy the item with out doing research. so something like this differenciates the smarter players from the stupid, which more things that can differenciate them means the game more accurately has the smarter players on top.

[Magikabula]

Originally posted by white:

it'd be too predictable for manta style to work with all the passives of heros. with it how it is, there is more thought to the item than just be an idiot and buy the item with out doing research. so something like this differenciates the smarter players from the stupid, which more things that can differenciate them means the game more accurately has the smarter players on top.

You call it predictable, I call it consistent. I already know that Cleave doesn't work on illusions, and I'm more or less okay with that. But Psi blades is essentially a weaker cleave if you don't count the bonus range.

Also, your point about idiots buying mantastyle isn't really that good. By that logic, you should put as many inconsistencies in the items as possible. While we're at it, why don't we make Dagon do 10% damage if lion buys it? That way, only good players who do research will be good at lion, and stupid players will buy dagon and be like, "Hur Dur, Burst damagez!" only to realize that their dagon sucks.

[Slocknog]

you buy manta for the dispel, stats increase and a bit of help vs heavily single target enemies. giving it extra farm speed for ta would be an unnecessary buff.

[A Street Sweeper]

Like Anubis said, there are big reasons to get manta on TA other than the illusions. I'm not sure if this change you suggest would be OP or practically worthless. TA doesn't build many stat items generally, so her illusions are pretty weak already. On top of that, she gets a lot of her dmg from meld and refract which they don't have either. However, after she gets something like a butterfly it might be really hard to deal with.

In terms of meta, she's still a pretty popular pick AFAIK. Not top tier, but she comes out often enough in pro games. In pubs there's always someone who plays her a lot not far away.

[Magikabula]

Personally, I like to see heroes who can go different builds. Tiny usually goes blink Aghs, but he can opt to skip blink by going phase, drum and yasha while taking advantage of his Grow Movement speed bonus. The typical build for Lanaya is Blink/Deso and from there it's usually BKB and crit. If Illusions could spill, she could consider building lots of agi for them. That way, the multiple angles that the illusions attack from would potentially increase the effective AoE of the spill, albiet at a lower damage.

Originally posted by Dr Taco Monster:

Like Anubis said, there are big reasons to get manta on TA other than the illusions. I'm not sure if this change you suggest would be OP or practically worthless. TA doesn't build many stat items generally, so her illusions are pretty weak already. On top of that, she gets a lot of her dmg from meld and refract which they don't have either. However, after she gets something like a butterfly it might be really hard to deal with.

In terms of meta, she's still a pretty popular pick AFAIK. Not top tier, but she comes out often enough in pro games. In pubs there's always someone who plays her a lot not far away.

If it were practically worthless, I see no point in not adding it because it would at least not disappoint my expectation. But I would be more willing to guess that it would actually be potentially OP, and that's why Icefrog hasn't enabled it.

Others have already mentioned the potential for splitpushing, but I don't think it would be too troublesome since Axe can potentially do the same thing with Manta. It also might be really good in teamfights since it helps spread more damage which TA can stil do, but only if their positioning is really good.

[A Street Sweeper]

Originally posted by Magikabula:

If it were practically worthless, I see no point in not adding it because it would at least not disappoint my expectation. But I would be more willing to guess that it would actually be potentially OP, and that's why Icefrog hasn't enabled it.

Maybe, but remember that there are a lot of things in DotA that are the way they are just because. You used to not be able to get blink on Pudge or VS, yet this item hardly makes them OP. You can buy basher on bash heroes now. Sure you don't get the bash chance still, but at some point it dawned on Icefrog that you can't get abyssal on these heroes and you might want it for the attributes and active. These things took a long time to change though.

So it's a good question and could be an interesting change. I just think it's low down on the list of important things to work on, so it goes overlooked.

[C.C. 折オリ枝 の 夫]

Originally posted by Magikabula:

Personally, I like to see heroes who can go different builds. Tiny usually goes blink Aghs, but he can opt to skip blink by going phase, drum and yasha while taking advantage of his Grow Movement speed bonus. The typical build for Lanaya is Blink/Deso and from there it's usually BKB and crit. If Illusions could spill, she could consider building lots of agi for them. That way, the multiple angles that the illusions attack from would potentially increase the effective AoE of the spill, albiet at a lower damage.

Originally posted by Dr Taco Monster:

Like Anubis said, there are big reasons to get manta on TA other than the illusions. I'm not sure if this change you suggest would be OP or practically worthless. TA doesn't build many stat items generally, so her illusions are pretty weak already. On top of that, she gets a lot of her dmg from meld and refract which they don't have either. However, after she gets something like a butterfly it might be really hard to deal with.

In terms of meta, she's still a pretty popular pick AFAIK. Not top tier, but she comes out often enough in pro games. In pubs there's always someone who plays her a lot not far away.

If it were practically worthless, I see no point in not adding it because it would at least not disappoint my expectation. But I would be more willing to guess that it would actually be potentially OP, and that's why Icefrog hasn't enabled it.

Others have already mentioned the potential for splitpushing, but I don't think it would be too troublesome since Axe can potentially do the same thing with Manta. It also might be really good in teamfights since it helps spread more damage which TA can stil do, but only if their positioning is really good.

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1921164653

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1926637634 (this one is a loss, but as you can see, it still does the job. It's not a surprise why we lost, also, FYI, Riki never used Smoke on Enigma to save us, he just stood and watched how it kills our team mates....)

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1891358993 (surprisingly, the tusk had 4k solo MMR, even now, if you check his profile, he has very high skill games, but I don't say that it was an easy game, even if I make it look like it was, because it wasn't)

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1891188856

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1813272552

So, as you see, Manta is good, but it's not just a decent item, you need to know why you get it. I spent a lot of time "perfecting" (no build is perfect, nor there will ever be such a build) this build, this is my back-up build and I have almost 90% win rate with it :D

From my experience with TA, I agree with the Holy Amphibian, if Illusions get Psy-Blades....it's bad for the other team....TA already farms fast (if you know how to make it so) and has exrtemely huge kill potential (or as soon as she gets the Dagger if she went that item)(she still has huge kill potential even with brown boots and nothing else) from 10+ minutes. Giving her an increace in farm rate means huge GPM and already high GPM numbers are on TA's list. Making them even bigger would mean to give her a farming speed similar to a slightly weaker Alchemist that can kill you in 2 hits. I breaks her more than she already is.

I know, I know, in order to get that result you need to have a decent micro and all the yada yada and that the avarage pubber can't get that result so what's the big deal? But the pros can. And from there comes the problem

[A Street Sweeper]

Originally posted by Anubis:

From my experience with TA, I agree with the Holy Amphibian, if Illusions get Psy-Blades....it's bad for the other team....TA already farms fast (if you know how to make it so) and has exrtemely huge kill potential (or as soon as she gets the Dagger if she went that item)(she still has huge kill potential even with brown boots and nothing else) from 10+ minutes. Giving her an increace in farm rate means huge GPM and already high GPM numbers are on TA's list. Making them even bigger would mean to give her a farming speed similar to a slightly weaker Alchemist that can kill you in 2 hits. I breaks her more than she already is.

I know, I know, in order to get that result you need to have a decent micro and all the yada yada and that the avarage pubber can't get that result so what's the big deal? But the pros can. And from there comes the problem

I agree in theory, but there's a big reason I don't see this mattering too much for TA. When does she buy the manta? The build up you use in a lot of games is not the most common deso + blink, so I'm not really able to guess for those games when it is you pick up the manta. But for the Deso + Blink build, these two items are massively more important for farm speed than Manta, so you'd get those first. Crystalis at least is going to be better for farm than manta as well, so maybe you get it after these 3 items. But then you have deso + blink + cyrstalis + manta. Why are you farming? Go and murder people!

Between the micro required to farm with psy blade manta illusions and the awkward timing of the manta pick up, I can't see the change suggested making much difference as I think there are far better farming items for her to get than Manta even with the change. The big deal for me would be in team fights where you could have psi-blades from multiple angles, but as I said before, the illusions don't even hit that hard anyway unless you went skadi + butterfly. As OP suggests, this could open up more builds on her too.

[Magikabula]

Originally posted by Anubis:

From my experience with TA, I agree with the Holy Amphibian, if Illusions get Psy-Blades....it's bad for the other team....TA already farms fast (if you know how to make it so) and has exrtemely huge kill potential (or as soon as she gets the Dagger if she went that item)(she still has huge kill potential even with brown boots and nothing else) from 10+ minutes. Giving her an increace in farm rate means huge GPM and already high GPM numbers are on TA's list. Making them even bigger would mean to give her a farming speed similar to a slightly weaker Alchemist that can kill you in 2 hits. I breaks her more than she already is.

I know, I know, in order to get that result you need to have a decent micro and all the yada yada and that the avarage pubber can't get that result so what's the big deal? But the pros can. And from there comes the problem

Then why don't we see Axe pick Manta more? I actually posted a half serious thread a while back called AXE MANTASTYLE NEW META advocating Axe building the item to split push like a boss, and the idea predictably got ridiculed, and one of the reasons for this was that the Manta illusions wouldn't last long enough to do more than a creep wave or two.

I mean, seriously! Axe illusions get counterhelix! Why? Why give a cool feature to the illusions of a hero who never builds mantastyle instead of giving them to a hero who does occasionally build it?

A TA with Treads, Drum, and Mantastyle at level 16 will have about 135 base damage which translates to around 38 damage per illusion. That's definitely enough to push a wave if you cleave it right, but it's not on par with Axe's 205 counterhelix damage if you position the illusions correctly.

The only reason this isn't a problem is that Axe has no other reason besides this to build mantastyle, while TA does.

@TacoMonster: I would love to see TA's building agi to try to exploit this, but I don't think they would use it for farm, I think that they'd use it for fights. Who wouldn't want to see 3 TA's shooting lasers everywhere? Think of all the pink! Think of how pretty!

[C.C. 折オリ枝 の 夫]

Originally posted by Dr Taco Monster:

Originally posted by Anubis:

From my experience with TA, I agree with the Holy Amphibian, if Illusions get Psy-Blades....it's bad for the other team....TA already farms fast (if you know how to make it so) and has exrtemely huge kill potential (or as soon as she gets the Dagger if she went that item)(she still has huge kill potential even with brown boots and nothing else) from 10+ minutes. Giving her an increace in farm rate means huge GPM and already high GPM numbers are on TA's list. Making them even bigger would mean to give her a farming speed similar to a slightly weaker Alchemist that can kill you in 2 hits. I breaks her more than she already is.

I know, I know, in order to get that result you need to have a decent micro and all the yada yada and that the avarage pubber can't get that result so what's the big deal? But the pros can. And from there comes the problem

I agree in theory, but there's a big reason I don't see this mattering too much for TA. When does she buy the manta? The build up you use in a lot of games is not the most common deso + blink, so I'm not really able to guess for those games when it is you pick up the manta. But for the Deso + Blink build, these two items are massively more important for farm speed than Manta, so you'd get those first. Crystalis at least is going to be better for farm than manta as well, so maybe you get it after these 3 items. But then you have deso + blink + cyrstalis + manta. Why are you farming? Go and murder people!

Between the micro required to farm with psy blade manta illusions and the awkward timing of the manta pick up, I can't see the change suggested making much difference as I think there are far better farming items for her to get than Manta even with the change. The big deal for me would be in team fights where you could have psi-blades from multiple angles, but as I said before, the illusions don't even hit that hard anyway unless you went skadi + butterfly. As OP suggests, this could open up more builds on her too.

Well, when I do the normal Blink-Deso, I try to have both by 20 minutes, fastest timing I got until now was almost 15 minutes both items :D

Now, the way I start the other build, is after I died 2 times while not even starting my Deso. As for items, I have Phase and Dagger which is a must for me, then I get Yasha -> HotD -> Manta -> Skadi -> whatever I need -> Satanic -> BoT

As for the normal build, it's Phase -> Dagger -> Deso -> whatever I need, reason why some games I have Daedalus, others I don't.

But, since no build is set in stone, I get what I need if I feel that another item will do the trick better.

Also, as you stated, Manta doesn't seem much at first glance, since we can't actually test it, but remember how many "small buffs" changed the game.

Well, it's just my oppinion. I don't see it as a necesarely buff to TA.

As for different builds, I use 2 builds, have a 3rd fallback build I almost never use (which is the build I made a guide for), there are people who use Treads-Drum-Yasha-Silver Edge build, the thing is, it's just that the normal build is better.

There was someone that said: "If you want a stun with invis, don't pick Venge and go shadow blade, pick Nyx from the start"

The same thing can apply to TA, even if the illusions would spill, and you want to make a build like that, you need a lot of stat items to power up the illusions, so why pick TA just for that build if you want illusions? In pubs, for testing it, it's ok, but if you want strong illusions in ranked, you have Naga, PL, CK and the rest. Thing is, beside pro lvl games, the build will go unnoticed a few days after the patch because regular pubbies and low skilled ranked games won't know how to abuse that