SPECTRE GUIDE (by RS

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SPECTRE GUIDE (by RS_Lee)

Tittle: A carrier style Mercurial guide
Author: RS_Lee

As I said before, there is no fixed playstyle, Mercurial can be played as a farmer or semi-ganker early game, and can be tank and/or dps carrier late game. However, in most serious games, Mercurial is the primary carrier of the team, so I will assume the Mercurial as the primary carrier and continue with the guide.

In addition, ganking style Spectre is a little more difficult to ‘guide’, because you cant just gank, you gank and farm simultaneously, and you have to balance the two things, If you gank too much and forget farming, you will be useless late game, if you farm too much and forget about ganking (team fights), you may not have a late game.

As the primary carrier of the team, Mercurial is a FARMER early, mid as well as late game. The differences are: early game, you farm and try to avoid ganks; mid game, you farm and try to push tower; late game, you farm and push and find a chance to kill Roshan and end. No matter when, pay attention to the mini-map , whenever there are team-clashes, quickly exam the fight, and decide if you should haunt in and help/KS, or you should go on farming/pushing.

Skills

Spectral Dagger

The Spectre launches a deadly dagger that trails a Shadow Path. Deals damage to the targets in its path. Units hit by the dagger will also trail a Shadow Path. The Spectre becomes phased (gains zero collision) while on the path.

1. Mana 130 / Cooldown 16 / Duration 12 seconds / Spectre gains 5% movespeed, enemies lose 5%. Deals 50 damage
2. Mana 140 / Cooldown 16 / Duration 12 seconds / Spectre gains 9% movespeed, enemies lose 9%. Deals 100 damage
3. Mana 150 / Cooldown 16 / Duration 12 seconds / Spectre gains 14% movespeed, enemies lose 14%. Deals 150 damage
4. Mana 160 / Cooldown 16 / Duration 12 seconds / Spectre gains 18% movespeed, enemies lose 18%. Deals 200 damage

Damage type: magical
Buff lasts for 4 seconds after Mercurial leaves shadow path.
Debuff lasts for 7 seconds after enemy leaves shadow path.
Slows but does not damage magic immune units.
The dagger moves at a speed of 857.14 units per second.
Vision is granted of shadow path when Spectral dagger is cast.

Desolate

Deals bonus damage that cuts through armor when attacking a hero that has no nearby allied units. Works on Illusions.

1. 20 Bonus Damage
2. 35 Bonus Damage
3. 50 Bonus Damage
4. 65 Bonus Damage

Damage type: pure
Damage is dealt before Spectre's actual attack.
Works only if attacked enemy has no allies in 350 range.
Your illusions also have the Desolate skill.

Dispersion

Causes any damage taken by Mercurial to be reflected onto all enemies in a 1000 AoE. The further away the enemy is the less damage is dealt.

1. 10% of damage
2. 14% of damage
3. 18% of damage
4. 22% of damage

Damage type: pure
Reflected damage is not felt by Spectre, effectively reducing the incoming damage.
Illusions will not benefit from this ability.
Full damage is dealt in a 300 AoE around Spectre.
The damage dealt decreases linearly from a 300 distance to a 1000 distance from Spectre.
Will not disable Kelen's Dagger of Escape, Heart of Tarrasque and Tranquil Boots.

Haunt

Creates a haunting image beside each enemy hero. These images are uncontrollable, take 200% damage, deal 40% damage and each of them will attack only its pair. Haunting images have a 1 second delay before they become active.

1. Mana 150 / Cooldown 120 / Duration 5 seconds / Creates an Illusion beside each enemy hero
2. Mana 150 / Cooldown 120 / Duration 6 seconds / Creates an Illusion beside each enemy hero
3. Mana 150 / Cooldown 120 / Duration 7 seconds / Creates an Illusion beside each enemy hero

Illusions have Desolate ability with same level as Spectre's, and damage from Desolate on illusions isn't reduced.
Illusions are uncontrollable.
Illusions have 400 base movement speed, regardless of any boots (or Eul's Scepter).
Illusions cannot be stunned.
There is a 1 second delay before illusions start attacking their target hero.

_____

Reality

Target a location to replace the nearest Haunt Illusion immediately.

Replaces Spectre to nearest Haunt illusion

Skill Build

This is hard to elaborate, but I will try. If you are against hard harassment (and you usually will as a melee carrier) , lvl up dispersion first. If your opponents are less skilled than you, or if your ally is really good, you may have a chance to grab a kill/assist, lvl up Spectral Dagger and Desolate first. Here are two types of skill builds, the first one is defensive and the other one is offensive.

Defensive

Level 1 Spectral Dagger
Level 2 Dispersion
Level 3 Dispersion
Level 4 Spectral Dagger
Level 5 Dispersion
Level 6 Haunt
Level 7 Dispersion
Level 8 Spectral Dagger
Level 9 Spectral Dagger
Level 10 Desolate
Level 11 Haunt
Level 12 Desolate
Level 13 Desolate
Level 14 Desolate
Level 15 Stats
Level 16 Haunt
Level 17 - 25 Stats

Offensive

Level 1 Spectral Dagger
Level 2 Desolate
Level 3 Spectral Dagger
Level 4 Desolate
Level 5 Spectral Dagger
Level 6 Haunt
Level 7 Spectral Dagger
Level 8 Desolate
Level 9 Desolate
Level 10 Dispersion
Level 11 Haunt
Level 12 Dispersion
Level 13 Dispersion
Level 14 Dispersion
Level 15 Stats
Level 16 Haunt
Level 17 - 25 Stats

There are also all kinds of skill builds between the above 2, just play a few games, you will learn to have your own style skill builds.

Item Builds

God, this is taking much more time than I thought to finish a guide. OK, let’s talk about item builds. Again, I wanted to emphasize, there is NO fixed item build, and there is NO best item build that applies to every game , as a good player, you need to choose the item wisely. I am just providing a general idea about item builds.

Starting items:

Choose from the above, and try to fill up your slots. I personally prefer

One thing worth mentioning is that getting if you are in a pub and you need to compete last hit with your ally. But if you are free farming, you dont really need and you can change into towards a faster

Core items:

Vanguard is your deffensive/ farming core item, get it in most cases. The hp, hp regeneration and block are important for your farming and survival. Usually you get a fast

in lane (say within 3-4 mins), and buy a

, and then goes to

Some 'guide' claims that

vanguard is too expensive and argue

can be more effective. In most cases, this is wrong. Hp reg is as important as hp itself for farmers, and a

Mercurial will have to travel back to fountain much more often than a

Mercurial. Thus the late game of a Vanguard Mercurial is going to be much more scary. In addition,

helps neutraling and pushing which is also important for a carrier.

Some players decide to skip boots and go directly to radiance, well, you can do it if you are farming really well, but in most cases, get one.

Spectre is a little, remember only a little short in mana, so a

solves that problem perfectly. You don't have to upgrade it in to

, but get one. Upgrade it if there is an Invoker on the other team and use EMP to drain your mana.

Always bring one if you don't have beyond-god-like map awareness, if you are reading this guide, you probably don't, so bring one.

Radiance is core in about say 70% of the games. Get one as long as you can farm it before a certain time (say around 24-30 minutes). The 40 magical dmg/sec AOE hurts only the early-mid game, in late game, it won’t be as useful.

Also, it is worth mention that the time line is not fixed either. If there are no

or

in the other team, and there are lots of fragile heroes, even a 35 minutes radiance will bring you victory. On the other hand, if there is a 20 minutes

and

on the other team, even a 22 minutes

radiance would not be so devastating.

This is the item you should go if you are against Omniknight DotA Hero

,

, or

, or if you can not farm up

before the certain time line.

Another thing, usually you can get a fast

after your

, however, if you decide to buy

first, dont bother getting a

later. Go directly for or

Luxurious:

Great item for Mercurial as a tankish dps carrier. It provide tons of hp, hp reg to you which means tons of reflection dmg to your enemy team. You will need it late game, get it if you can.

Good item on Spectre. If you are against a farmed dps hero or high burst dmg opponent, let them have a taste of their own attack. The timing is important for it to be effective though.

Good item for sepctre, combined with Huant, Enemies won't be able to tell which one is real you, they will just feel you are everywhere.

Well, not soo great but viable item for Mercurial, i recommend to buy

first if you decide to go for it.

One of the best late game items, if you did not upgrade your early, you can go directly to . Also, it feels good to buyback and tp into the enemy base again.