PC console

Phantom Assassin

Posted on by Manh Vinh
phantom assassin dota 1
18
Sep

Mortred, the Phantom Assassin, is a melee agility hero fitting the role of hard carry. Mortred is best-known, and infamous for, her ability to inflict staggering damage with single strikes. Her abilities synergize supremely well with each other, rendering her an extremely formidable foe once she has acquired the items she requires. She is a very farm-dependent melee Hero, but she farms creeps with much more ease than many of her fellow carries, using her Stifling Dagger for last hitting. Besides eliminating the weakness most melee Heroes have in their farming, her second ability, Phantom Strike, acts as both her escape and initiate, while Blur gives her an edge against other Heroes that depend on their physical attacks by evading them; giving her partial damage immunity to many carries. Her ultimate, the strongest critical strike in the game, is what connects Mortred with four-digit damage and what gives her a place amongst the very best support killers in the late game, since they usually fall instantly from the divine strike her ultimate provides. Mobile and able to fight back nearly every enemy that dares to face her, Mortred is a formidable foe that should never be underestimated, and with appropriate item choices and a few kills, she can snowball out of control and become next to impossible to stop.

Bio[]

Mortred, the Phantom Assassin

[external_link_head]

▶️ “I’m here to blur the line between life and death.”

Through a process of divination, children are selected for upbringing by the Sisters of the Veil, an order that considers assassination a sacred part of the natural order. The Veiled Sisters identify targets through meditation and oracular utterances. They accept no contracts, and never seem to pursue targets for political or mercenary reasons. Their killings bear no relation to any recognizable agenda, and can seem to be completely random: A figure of great power is no more likely to be eliminated than a peasant or a well digger. Whatever pattern the killings may contain, it is known only to them. They treat their victims as sacrifices, and death at their hand is considered an honor. Raised with no identity except that of their order, any Phantom Assassin can take the place of any other; their number is not known. Perhaps there are many, perhaps there are few. Nothing is known of what lies under the Phantom Veil. Except that this one, from time to time, when none are near enough to hear, is known to stir her veils with the forbidden whisper of her own name: Mortred.

Abilities[]

Throws a dagger slowing the enemy unit’s movement speed, dealing 65+25%/40%/55%/70% of Phantom Assassin’s attack damage as physical damage and applying attack effects from items and abilities.

Cast Animation: 0.3+0.47

Cast Range: 550/750/950/1150

Number of Targets: 1 ( 3)

Base Damage: 65

Attack Damage: 25%/40%/55%/70%

Move Speed Slow: 50%

Slow Duration: 2.2/2.8/3.4/4

 Secondary Target Range Buffer: 300

6 ( 4)

30

Can be cast on spell immune units. The attack pierces spell immunity, the slow does not. Slow persists if debuff was placed before spell immunity and when not dispelled.

Blocked upon impact, as primary and secondary target.

Modifiers

modifier_projectile_vision: Undispellable. Persists death.

modifier_phantom_assassin_stiflingdagger_caster: Undispellable. Persists death.

modifier_phantom_assassin_stiflingdagger: Dispellable with any dispel.

The first skill learned by the Sisters of the Veil often signals an incoming hit.

Notes:

  • The Stifling Dagger travels at a speed of 1200.
  • Upon hitting the target, the dagger causes Phantom Assassin to perform an instant attack on the target.
    • These instant attacks can proc any attack modifiers and on-hit effects normally (except Tidebringer). They have True Strike, but completely ignore disarms.
    • Cleave effects are based on the target’s position, damaging a trapezoid area the opposite direction where the dagger came from.
    • Although the dagger may make it look like a ranged attack, the attack still counts as a melee attack when its coming from Phantom Assassin.
    • This means all abilities (and items) that use different values for melee and ranged heroes, use their melee effects and values, not ranged.
  • Stifling Dagger first reduces Phantom Assassin’s total attack damage by the percentage, and then adds its own bonus base damage on top of that.
    • This can be defined as 65 + 25%/40%/55%/70% × ΣAtk
    • The total attack damage includes all already existing attack damage changes, including temporary ones (i.e. Bash) and conditional ones (i.e. Quell).
    • The 65 base damage is also an attack damage bonus, but is added after the total main damage is calculated.
    • Attack modifiers which are based on attack damage (e.g. critical strike, lifesteal, cleave) include the 65 extra damage as well.
    • The damage is added to Phantom Assassin’s attack damage through a status buff which lasts for 0.03 seconds.
    • Since the damage comes from a regular attack, it does not count as spell damage, but counts as attack damage.
    • This means it is affected by damage block, unaffected by spell damage amplification and cannot spell lifesteal.
  • The dagger first applies the attack, then its own debuff.
  • The projectile has 450 range flying vision. This vision lingers for 3.34 seconds at the target’s location upon successfully hitting it.
  • Cannot be cast on Couriers.
  • With the triple strike talent, Stifling Dagger launches 2 additional projectiles towards random visible valid targets within the range.
    • The search range is based on the cast range and the buffer range, resulting in a search range of 850/1050/1250/1450.
    • Cannot target the primary target with the additional projectiles, so when no other targets are nearby, nothing happens.
    • The secondary targets are chosen randomly within the area. There are no priorities. The projectiles cannot choose both the same target.
    • Since the additional projectiles use the ability’s cast range, cast range increasing effects increase their range as well.

Teleports to a unit, friendly or enemy, and grants bonus attack speed while attacking if it’s an enemy unit.

[external_link offset=1]

Cast Animation: 0.25+0.8

Cast Range: 1000 ( 1250)

Attack Speed Bonus: 75/100/125/150

Duration: 2 ( 3)

11/9/7/5

35/40/45/50

Modifiers

modifier_phantom_assassin_phantom_strike: Dispellable with any dispel.

Mortred’s silken veil is the last thing her unfortunate target sees.

Notes:

  • Phantom Strike can be cast on allied units, without gaining the attack speed bonus.
  • Moves Phantom Assassin next to the target, towards the position she was upon cast.
  • Does not disjoint projectiles upon teleporting.
  • Phantom Assassin is ordered to attack the target if it is an enemy, automatically canceling the cast backswing.
  • Cannot be cast on Couriers.

Phantom Assassin focuses inward, increasing her ability to evade enemy attacks. Can be activated to blur her body, causing her to be impossible to see until near enemy heroes.

Cast Animation: 0.4+0.57 ( 0+0)

Passive Evasion: 20%/30%/40%/50% ( 55%/65%/75%/85%)

Vanish Dispel Radius: 600

Vanish Fade Time: 0

Vanish Dispel Delay: 0.5 ( 0.75)

Vanish Duration: 25

60/55/50/45 ( 10)

50

Causes Blur to have instant cast time and applies a dispel. Anytime you get a hero kill, your abilities are refreshed. Reduces Blur cooldown and increases Fade Time to 0.75.

The passive evasion is disabled by Break.

Modifiers

modifier_phantom_assassin_blur: Undispellable. Persists death.

modifier_phantom_assassin_blur_active: Dispellable with death only.

Ability Draft Notes:

Blur adds 1 charge to charge-based abilities upon resetting cooldowns.

Meditation allows a Veiled Sister to carefully anticipate her opponents in combat.

Phantom Assassin releases sharp blades around her in a 550 AoE, dealing 16% of a victim’s max health on impact and applying break for 3 seconds.

Cast Animation: 0.15+0.9

Radius: 550

Max Health as Damage: 16%

Debuff Duration: 3

20

50

Modifiers

modifier_phantom_assassin_fan_of_knives_thinker: Undispellable. Persists death.

modifier_phantom_assassin_fan_of_knives: Dispellable with any dispel.

Ability Draft Notes:

[external_link offset=2]

Notes:

  • Requires Aghanim’s Shard to be unlocked.
  • Applies Break on hit enemies.
  • Despite the visual effect, Fan of Knives releases a single pulse that expands outwards, hitting all enemies as it reaches them.
    • The released daggers only have a visual purpose, the pulse affects all enemies it catches, regardless of the number of visible daggers.
  • The pulse spreads at a speed of 1000 and takes 0.55 seconds to reach maximum range.
    • The area of effect is centered around the cast location, it does not move along with the caster.
  • The pulse is not a ring. It affects every enemy within its expanding area of effect.
    • This means it is not possible to avoid the effect by blinking over the daggers/pulse towards the caster.
  • Fan of Knives first applies the debuff, then the damage.

Phantom Assassin refines her combat abilities, gaining a chance of delivering a devastating critical strike to enemy units. Stifling Dagger shares the same critical strike chance.

Proc Chance: 15% ( 22%)

Critical Damage: 200%/325%/450%

Red critical numbers are before illusion and armor reduction.

Modifiers

modifier_phantom_assassin_coupdegrace: Undispellable. Persists death.

A divine strike, Mortred honors her opponent by choosing them for death.

Notes:

  • Increases attack damage by an average of 15%/33.75%/52.5% ( 22%/49.5%/77%).
  • A cricital strike proc is decided upon attack begin, not upon landing an attack.
    • When a critical strike procs, Phantom Assassin uses a specific crit attack animation, and particle effects appear on her weapon.
  • The proc chances of multiple crit sources stack.
    • If two sources of critical strike proc at the same time, the higher crit multiplier has priority.
  • Coup de Grace uses pseudo-random distribution.
  • Coup de Grace does not work against allied units, buildings or wards.

Talents[]

Notes:

  • The lifesteal talent stacks additively with other sources of lifesteal.
  • Armor Corruption Strike from talents is not disabled by Break.
    • The armor corruption lasts 10 seconds, and stacks with the Armor Corruption talents of other heroes.

Recent Changes[]

  • Increased base attack damage from 30-32 to 32-34.
  • Talents:
Level 10 left talent: -1.5s Stifling Dagger cooldown increased to -2s.
Level 10 right talent: +150 health increased to +175.

Recommended Items[]

Starting items:

Early game:

Mid game:

Late game:

Situational items:

  • Mask of Madness gives high attack speed and a source of lifesteal. Phantom Assassin’s survivability is based on evasion instead of armor and her damage comes from a passive ability, partially offsetting the debuff, but not being able to use Stifling Dagger or Phantom Strike can be costly when trying to chase or flee, making this item a dangerous purchase.
  • Butterfly greatly boosts Phantom Assassin’s damage output, as well as providing additional evasion. While stacking it alongside Blur runs the risk of having both nullified by the enemy building Monkey King Bar, purchasing a Butterfly can punish certain lineups by forcing their heroes to purchase Monkey King Bar over a different item that synergizes better with their strengths.
  • Assault Cuirass greatly increases Phantom Assassin’s damage output through more attack speed as well as the enemy armor reduction aura. The improved armor also greatly increases her survivability against physical damage, and the aura helps give teammates more armor and attack speed as well, which can be very useful depending on team composition.
  • Nullifier gives damage boost and the active ability that dispels the enemy and mutes them (disabling several defensive items) as well as greatly slowing them for a long duration (synergies perfectly with Phantom Strike and Stifling Dagger combo).
  • Monkey King Bar counters enemy evasion and boosts Phantom Assassin’s damage output with increased attack damage.
  • Sange and Yasha is a situationally powerful mid-game item that is easy to farm and allows Phantom Assassin to begin participating in team fights earlier. The agility and strength-based bonuses give her more damage output and health, while the movement speed makes her far more mobile, allowing her to chase and escape far more easily.
  • Eye of Skadi can boost Phantom Assassin’s combat effectiveness. It grants attributes across the board, giving Phantom Assassin more health, mana, and base damage. The Cold Attack passive allows Phantom Assassin to slow enemies with her attacks and Stifling Dagger, reducing their movement speed and preventing them from easily escaping her.

Gameplay[]

Audio[]

History[]

Equipment[]

Trivia[]

  • Mortred’s name is derived from Mordred, a character in the Arthurian legend who betrayed and fought King Arthur at the Battle of Camalann.
  • “Coup de grâce” is a French term (pronounced “koo duh gras” [the duh is short and should not be emphasised]) which literally means “blow of mercy”, and refers to the killing blow of a wounded person or animal, friendly or not, to end their suffering. The phrase originates from medieval times, specifically Knights (see above – Knights of the Round Table). When a combatant was gravely injured (in battle, duels, jousting, etc…) but not killed; a coup de grâce was often, although not always, performed. Traditionally a rondel dagger was used as this could make a small puncture in breastplate and was long enough to reach the heart.
  • Mortred’s level-up line ▶️ “I’m an immaterial girl!” is probably a reference to the song Material Girl performed by Madonna.
  • In DotA: Allstars, Blur caused Mortred to become transparent to the enemy, scaling with levels and making her nearly invisible and untargetable to inexperienced players, thus her title “Phantom Assassin”. This aspect of the ability is replicated to a limited degree with Blur’s active component in Dota 2.
  • Mortred’s idle animation is a typical fencing stance, with perpendicular feet, one arm extended forth and the other one folded and up in the air. However, her weapon is wielded not with the extended arm, but with the arm at rest. There are treatises, at least for the Italian school of fencing, which do show an extended arm but this is exclusively used when wielding a rapier or other single-handed thrusting swords.
  • Mortred is featured in the Dota 2 comic, The Contract.
  • Phantom Assassin’s ability Fan of Knives is based on the Fan of Knives ability from the Warden from Warcraft 3, sharing its name and working in a similar way.
    • In DotA, Phantom Assassin also uses the Warden’s hero model.

Gallery[]

  • Splash artwork

  • Early concept artwork

  • Early alpha model based on the early concept art

  • Leaked concept artwork

  • Early textures of the current model, featuring different color scheme

  • Ability icon progress

  • Hero icon progress

  • Phantom Assassin illustration

[external_footer]

Scores: 4 (11 votes)

Manh Vinh