For dark eons the comet circled. Held in thrall to a distant sun, bound by gravity's inexorable pull, the massive ball of ice careened through the blackness between worlds, made strange by its dark journey. On the eve of the ancient war of the Vloy, it punched down through the sky and lit a glowing trail across the night-a sign both armies took for an omen. The frozen ball melted in a flash of boiling heat, as below two forces enjoined in battle across the border of a narrow river. Thus freed from its icy stasis, the Morphling was born into conflict, an elemental power at one with the tides of the ocean, capricious and unconstrained. He entered the fight, instinctively taking the form of the first general who dared set foot across the water-and then struck him dead. As the motley warriors clashed, he shifted from form to form throughout the battle, instantly absorbing the ways of these strange creatures-now a footsoldier, now an archer, now the cavalryman-until, by the time the last soldier fell, Morphling had played every part. The battle's end was his beginning.
I'd like to start this with a disclaimer: I'm by no means a professional Dota player. However, I've been following the competitive Dota 2 scene since inception almost religiously, and have a fair bit of experience playing in inhouse leagues and team matchmaking/captain's mode with a team of my friends that I captain. While I'm not Dendi, I do have some experience putting my ideas into practice in settings other than pub games, and I think my Dota knowledge is deep enough to be valuable to players trying to learn new heroes. With that being said, allow me to introduce...
Dangerous Waters: A Guide to Morphling by Commander Coriander Salamander aka Cyx.
"For dark eons the comet circled. Held in thrall to a distant sun, bound by gravity's inexorable pull, the massive ball of ice careened through the blackness between worlds, made strange by its dark journey. On the eve of the ancient war of the Vloy, it punched down through the sky and lit a glowing trail across the night-a sign both armies took for an omen. The frozen ball melted in a flash of boiling heat, as below two forces enjoined in battle across the border of a narrow river. Thus freed from its icy stasis, the Morphling was born into conflict, an elemental power at one with the tides of the ocean, capricious and unconstrained. He entered the fight, instinctively taking the form of the first general who dared set foot across the water-and then struck him dead. As the motley warriors clashed, he shifted from form to form throughout the battle, instantly absorbing the ways of these strange creatures-now a footsoldier, now an archer, now the cavalryman-until, by the time the last soldier fell, Morphling had played every part. The battle's end was his beginning."
Morphling, since his patch 6.75 nerfs, is a hero who seems to have fallen off the face of the planet. His influence in the professional Dota scene has declined sharply since his glory days at The International 2. However, he can still be an incredibly strong hero in the hands of the right player – his nerfs, despite being quite broad, didn't change much about the way the hero was played, and when done right Morphling is still a force to be feared at all stages of the game. His ability to farm quickly and safely while still maintaining a strong midgame presence is unmatched by most other carries, and a well-farmed, well-leveled Morphling is an absolutely terrifying sight to behold. This guide will hopefully provide players who have never played Morphling before (or never played him well) a good resource to start with, as well as providing even players who consider themselves good Morphling players some food for thought.
Since Morphling isn't an excellent 'beginner' hero, this guide will assume you understand a lot of the basics of Dota already, and you're looking to expand your hero repertoire by learning to play one of the most versatile carries in the pool. That being said, if you don't understand anything in this guide, don't hesitate to ask questions!
Morphling's base stats are not altogether that strong. His base Agility of 24 seems quite strong on paper, but when coupled with the base damage nerf from 6.75 it still results in a base damage of 41, which is incredibly low for a hard carry. His base Intelligence is also really low at 17, leaving him without mana for more than one waveform in quick succession at lower levels. His one redeeming feature stats-wise is his mediocre base Strength of 19 – hardly a redeeming feature at all.
His stat growth is where Morphling truly shines. With levels, he can devastate teams, and his Agility gain of 3 per level is immense, matched by only a few heroes and exceeded by two (Phantom Assassin and Phantom Lancer, with 3.15 and 4 respectively). His Strength gain is again fairly mediocre at 2 per level, and his Intelligence gain worse at 1.5, but the agility gain is an immense benefit to a Morphling with levels.
As previously discussed, his base damage of 41 is pretty poor – there are a couple of ways to deal with this covered in the skills and items sections later on, so for now we'll just note that it's a problem.
Lastly, his attack range isn't great at 350 – this will leave you pretty vulnerable to harass against 600 range heroes like Invoker, Windrunner or Drow Ranger (to name a few), and also make it difficult to harass melee heroes without taking creep aggro.
Morphling is one of the most versatile carries in the game, and can fit pretty well into a lot of lineups. His great strengths as a carry, however, lie in his strong (and most of all safe) laning thanks to waveform, and his ability to dominate the midgame while still having an incredibly effective lategame. While his lategame presence won't keep up with an incredibly farmed Faceless Void, Spectre, or the like, the combination of replicate and waveform makes him a dangerous split pusher without sacrificing his presence in the midgame teamfights that he does so much damage in, while still keeping up with or even outstripping the enemy carry's farm.
He also doesn't necessarily need to be played as the hard carry on the team – he can function just as well in a solo mid role, using waveform for excellent lane control and harassment (when positioned properly). A quick level 7 on a Morphling can result in the game snowballing out of control, as a hero with the ability to be everywhere through replicate has the levels he needs to take advantage of weaker heroes. He also has the advantage of scaling (obviously) insanely well into the lategame compared to a lot of mids. When combined with another source of lategame DPS, Morphling can often be the extra bit of damage necessary to beat down an ultra-farmed hard carry.
Morphling has an incredible amount of presence in the laning stage of the game. Waveform can combo incredibly well with almost any support you could think of, as well as guaranteeing lasthits and lane control if you're in middle lane, and morph gives you survivability to allow you to play a little riskier against dangerous lanes. He's a hero who doesn't mind a gank-heavy game – he can escape from them really easily, while participating extremely well on the aggressive side, and his ability to get his farm up quickly and do significant damage with only a couple of core items means he dominates in the period where ganking heroes truly shine. Be wary though – if you're having trouble with an extremely aggressive lane, even though you will be safe, you will have a bit of a hard time getting the early game farm you need, as will any carry.
As strong a hero as he is, though, there are some things Morphling struggles with. Seriously push-heavy lineups will cause a lot of pain for Morphling, cramping the space he needs in the early game and leaving him with nowhere safe to farm in the midgame, even for someone who gets away as easily as Morphling. As a carry, he requires some breathing room to get going, and things that put a damper on that are hard to deal with. As a corollary to this point, if your team is focusing on early towers (think before level 8 or 9) Morphling again won't provide as much during that phase of the game as some other heroes would.
If your team is relying on you to turtle deep into the lategame and win the game alone, Morphling is probably not a good option for you. One of his greatest strengths is in how quickly he comes online, and a team that is focused on making tons of space for a lategame carry doesn't fit well with that. Also, he scales pretty weakly into the lategame when compared to an ultra-lategame carry like Medusa, Faceless Void or Spectre, since his only true lategame scaling comes from adaptive strike, which doesn't provide nearly as much DPS with huge numbers of items as something like dispersion or even time lock (not even considering chronosphere!), and replicate, which provides unreliable DPS at best, and instantly-purged DPS at worst.
When to Pick: -You need a strong midgame carry with good lategame potential -Your team is going to create space for you to split push heavily in the midgame -The game is going to be insanely gank-heavy -You need a midlane hero who will provide a lot of physical DPS in the lategame
When Not to Pick: -The game is going to have a lot of early pushing from either side -You need a carry to compete in the ultra-lategame -Your lane is going to be difficult to farm safely in
IV. GO WITH THE FLOW - THE MINDSET OF A MORPHLING PLAYER
Since Morphling can be played in a couple of different roles, and your role in the game is going to be pretty different depending on where you're playing, this section of the guide will be split into two parts. First I'll focus on the more common first position, or hard carry, Morphling, and then we'll take a look at a second position (solo mid) Morphling. There'll be a little bit of overlap, but I'll make sure to reiterate important points from the carry section in the midlane section, so even if you're not reading this whole guide at once (God forbid! It's such a quick read, I don't know why anyone would bother) you'll be sure not to miss anything major.
Hard Carry Morphling
Early Game (Levels 1 – 6): In this stage of the game your focus should be mostly on your farm. If you're with a good aggressive support, you also have the ability to be really aggressive at this stage of the game, and a Morphling/Crystal Maiden dual lane can score first blood as easily as a Chaos Knight/Wisp can. Judge the strength of your opponents in lane – will you be able to do the damage to bring them down? If they have spells like surge or purification, chill out and focus on farming. If you're against a solo lane Keeper of the Light, murder that old man without remorse. Make sure you're not getting distracted too much by the kills, however. Gold is king, and if you're missing lasthits you'd better make up for it with some extra gold from an assist at the very least.
One important thing to note at this stage of the game is that you should make your choice of first item pretty quickly as Morphling. There will be more on this in the items section of the guide, so we'll let it suffice to say for now that if you want to go for a linken's, the early perseverance can be an incredible laning item (the earlier the better!), but if you're saving your gold for something else big it's just a waste of money. Make this decision preferably by the time you have enough gold to buy the ring of health, if it's possible.
Goals for the early game: Get farm, get levels. Be aggressive if possible.
Early – Midgame (Levels 7 – 11): During this stage of the game, replicate allows you to move easily around the map without sacrificing your farming time. This is such an important skill that it's covered in more detail in its own section below, but I'll talk about it here a bit too. Replicate allows you to find farm all over the map, and waveform lets you do it quickly, so your goals at this point should be much the same as the early game. Gold is your best friend – the faster you can get up your big items, the more effective they will be.
Your extra levels in morph let you be even more aggressive at this point in the game as well. You're almost unkillable as long as you maintain your mana pool well, and waveform is even better than it was when you got first blood on their offlane, making you an awesome ganker as well as an incredibly safe farmer, even in places other heroes would usually worry. Don't lose focus though, since gold is still your primary objective. You have the ability to farm faster than almost any other carry at this point in the game, so abuse it heavily.
This is when your split push ability starts to show itself, too. Waveform can bring down an entire wave of creeps really quickly, and lets you push into towers without too much fear of ganks as long as you have mana for a waveform and a teleport scroll. If you're given the space, don't be afraid to push into a tier 2 tower, even this early in the game.
Goals for the early – midgame: Get farm, get levels. Make your presence known on the map. Push towers.
Midgame (Levels 12 – 16): This point in the game is when Morphling truly shines. You have hopefully had the time to build up a couple of core items, and adaptive strike is starting to do serious damage now that you have a decent amount of agility. Waveform is still a pretty strong nuke, and replicate's duration and cooldown decrease at level 11 lets you be even more everywhere than you were in the early – midgame.
At this stage, you should be focusing more on being a presence in teamfights and tower pushes (alone or with your team) than you have been previously. You have a lot more presence in this stage of the game than most carries do, so abuse that by forcing them to take fights when they're at a disadvantage. Single heroes are food for you now, and you can be all over the map with good use of replicate and teleport scrolls, so take advantage of that ability. Don't lose sight of the fact that you're a carry, however – falling behind on your items at this point in the game will result in a crippling weakness that you can't overcome, and you still need to find farm wherever possible.
If you find yourself with the opportunity, don't feel like this stage of the game is too early to consider doing damage to their tier 3 towers. You're unlikely to be able to take a barracks at this point in the game, but a lone Morphling knocking on your back door is enough to force a good number of teleports back (or risk losing the single hero who came as well as the rax), and opens up a lot of space on the map for you to do other fun things, like farming, killing Roshan or ganking whoever didn't go back to the base. And as we've already been over a few times, Morphling's pretty hard to gank even if you're playing pretty aggressively, so you're a lot safer pushing deep into their base than a lot of carries would be.
Goals for the midgame: Take teamfights, take towers. Abuse replicate to make sure you don't fall behind on farm. Gank where you can.
Lategame (Levels 17 – 24): During this stage of the game, you need to assess your team's lategame strength against theirs. Around level 16, the true lategame hard carries are just beginning to come into their own, and if given enough space during this time they'll get so fat as to ruin any hope of you ever taking their barracks. So you need to think – am I going to be able to win this at level 25? Remember, Morphling doesn't scale as well as other carries do in the lategame, so if you're up against a Spectre who has had even an alright game, the timer is on. You need to end the game before they get too scary for you to finish.
However, if their lineup is based around a carry that you can compete with, then you have a bit more breathing room. If you're pretty sure you'll be able to win, it's not a bad idea to just farm up enough items to do it safely, so you don't need to be so aggressive as you would otherwise. If it's going to be close, you need to do something to ensure their carry is weaker than you at the point when you two are all that matters – ward his jungle, gank him lots and pressure his base so he doesn't have time to farm, but don't fall behind on your own items or it's all for naught.
Goals for the lategame: Assess your lategame strengths. End the game if necessary. If not, get farm, get map control. Don't let their carry get fat.
Ultra – lategame (Level 25): At this point, much of the game is going to come down to how much farm you have, and whether it's enough to take on the enemy carry. If you've done a good job in the lategame, you won't get to this point against a 6-slotted Faceless Void or Spectre – so I'll assume you're playing against a carry you can compete against in the ultra-lategame, and you both have around the same amount of farm, no matter how fast you got it.
Your split push becomes a huge deal at this point in the game. The safety Morphling has while split pushing carries even until this point in the game, and a fully farmed Morphling with boots of travel can easily put a ton of damage onto a tier 3 or a barracks and escape from almost anything that teleports back to deal with him. You're probably the only hero on your team who can do this safely, so it falls to you to make sure your lanes are always pushed towards the enemy base.
The most major change in your mindset when you reach this stage is obviously going to be the fact that farm is no longer as important for you. Always ensure you have buyback, but beyond that, your focus needs to be on split pushing and making sure you're there for teamfights. If all has gone well for you, you'll be one of maybe two heroes on your team who's capable of winning fights, and if you're not there you could easily lose a teamfight and not be able to stop them from just ending the game. Getting caught out by something you can't escape (a chain hex from a Tinker, or even something as small as a well-timed orchid) can also mean you're unable to attend a crucial fight, or put your buyback on cooldown for it, which can be just as bad.
Goals for the ultra-lategame: Split push, win teamfights. Make sure you have buyback at all times.
Solo Mid Morphling
Early Game (Level 1 – 6): Like a hard carry Morphling, your focus during this phase of the game should be mostly on your farm. Waveform gives you great rune control without missing out on lasthits or experience, and can also lay down some good harassment at early levels, but without items you're still not much more than a walking, tanky waveform, so unless you see a really good kill opportunity on your sidelanes and you have an opportune rune, use them to dominate your lane and give you the mana to keep spamming out waveform through bottle charges.
Using morph to gain some early lasthitting strength is exceptionally strong in midlane as well. There will be more on this in the skills section, but for now, I'll just say that you're at a lot less risk of dying quickly in midlane, so your HP pool can be a bit lower to grant you a lot of lasthitting strength in the early laning phase. When combined with waveform, you can dominate against anyone less than a very strong mid, and ensure yourself a lot of safe, early creeps.
Goals for the early game: Get farm, get levels. Gank if you see a good opportunity.
Early - Midgame (Levels 7 – 11): With some more levels, Morphling becomes an excellent ganker. Tower diving is easy with replicate, waveform and morph to absorb and avoid tower shots, as well as providing deadly chasing power and plenty of damage when other heroes are still a much lower level than you. Using replicate to be in a number of places at once makes you a strong surprise ganker, and the early advantage you get from successful ganks can quickly snowball you into your first big item.
Don't lose sight of that goal though – as always, you need items to truly be effective, so make sure you're still making money. Farm whenever you don't see an opportunity to gank, instead of spending all your time trying to make those opportunities happen (like a hero like Pudge would in mid). You're perfectly happy to go into the midgame without a huge advantage as long as you still have a good level of farm.
Goals for the early – midgame: Get farm, get levels. Abuse your level advantage to gank aggressively. Don't waste time.
Midgame (Levels 12 – 16): By this point, you should be getting up your first big item, and your ganks are starting to be really scary. Morphling at this point is a force to be feared – where other gankers start to see themselves falling off a bit as their targets gain levels and items, Morphling's damage output at this point in the game can be high enough so as to devastate even high-HP heroes, and completely destroy squishy supports. Abuse your advantage and try to snowball your way into ever more items.
You can also start joining in on pushes more at this point in the game – earlier in the game, it's not as worthwhile since you'll be splitting your otherwise solo experience with other heroes, but at this point continuing to extend your level advantage isn't as amazing for you as getting more and more items. Make sure you're not missing out on too much farm by using replicate well (again, more on this in its own section below).
Goals for the midgame: Get farm, get levels. Take part in teamfights and tower pushes. Gank unsuspecting enemies. Lategame (Levels 17 – 24): At this point, your role begins to synch up pretty closely with that of a hard carry Morphling. Your presence is a necessity in teamfights – without you, your team is relying solely on your hard carry to deal damage in teamfights, and even if he's got his core items up already he would still prefer to be farming alone, only coming in when necessary. You need to provide that space for him by doing the things he would normally be doing – you do more physical DPS than most midlane heroes at this point, so you can take on that role in teamfights and skirmishes easily.
Your split push isn't going to be as strong as a hard carry Morphling since you want to be present more in fights, pushes and tower defenses. However, this doesn't mean you shouldn't be split pushing, as long as you make sure to be there when your team needs you. Split pushing is quick, easy gold as long as you're safe about it, and in the downtime between fights and ganks you should still be looking to pressure towers by yourself or with a team member or two.
Since your team isn't relying on you to be the sole source of physical DPS, you don't need to be as focused on your farm as you would in the first position, but you need to pay attention to it still. As always, an underfarmed Morphling is (almost tautologically) not nearly as devastating as a well-farmed one, so make sure you're at least keeping up, if not outstripping your enemies' gold per minute.
Goals for the lategame: Play the hard carry in teamfights. Split push. Find farm wherever possible.
Ultra-lategame (Level 25): At this point in the game, you're again going to act much like a hard carry. You won't have quite as many items as a hard carry would, unfortunately, but that doesn't mean you aren't still scary. You can easily wipe out a couple heroes on their team with ease if you find the right opening, and deal a lot of sustained DPS in long teamfights, as well as being able to replicate their carry (or yours) for a bit of bonus damage . Focus on making sure your carry has room to deal the insane damage he can deal by taking out key squishy heroes quickly, using waveform to get right in close.
Split pushing is even more of a priority for you now as long as you manage to be in all the fights that happen. You can easily put enough pressure on to take a barracks alone uncontested, and you should be looking for opportunities to do this whenever you can. Don't let them push out of their base comfortably. Make absolutely sure, however, that you don't miss a crucial teamfight – if you're trying to take a rax and five of them are trying to take your throne, they will probably win.
Gold is more important for you than it is for a hard carry at this point – you're less likely to have 6 items than they are, and until you reach that point you should still be trying to get as much gold as you can. Finish up as many big items as you can. You scale better into the lategame than almost any other midlane hero does, so take advantage of it if you get this far into the game.
Goals for the ultra-lategame: Take out key heroes in teamfights. Split push. Find farm until you finish all your items.
As alluded to in the previous section, replicate is one of the most useful abilities in the game. This section will cover some of the many uses of replicate, and show you how to use it to its maximum potential.
Replicate's most useful feature is the ability of Morphling to take his replicate's place at any time. Used correctly, this enables Morphling to basically have a global teleport available for 150 mana, and at max level it's available almost all the time. However, the difficult thing about using it is the built-in delay required for the replicate to walk to a spot – you need to know where you want to be anywhere between 15 seconds and a full minute ahead of time, and also take care the replicate doesn't wander into any weird spots on the way. That being said, making a replicate of a team member allows you to stay with them constantly, without leaving your lane or any lasthits until it's absolutely necessary.
Keeping a replicate with your team throughout the midgame enables you to split push with an instant out if you get caught, as well as an instant in if your team gets jumped, which is what makes him one of the strongest split pushers in the game. You never have to leave your team, but again, you get solo gold and experience from (ideally) an empty lane, while also applying pressure to somewhere other than where your team is.
In midlane, making a replicate of the enemy hero and sending it to scout the runes is a great way to guarantee yourself rune control even if you have no wards, or if the enemy mid is guessing where the rune is – keep your replicate there, and deny the rune if you have to. Even if you don't get it, he won't either, and if it's not where he guessed, you can just go get it after you waveform through the creep wave. Also, that same replicate can be used for surprise ganks, since unless they see it coming they'll think you're still farming midlane while you set up on them unawares.
Especially useful right when you hit 6 is the ability to make a replicate of your lane partner (or enemy), teleport home, regen all your health and mana and replicate back to lane without missing any lasthits or experience once again. Also, if you're mid, as a bonus you can fill up your bottle while you're home.
Somewhat more situationally, replicate is also a good chasing tool if you need a good chunk of extra distance and you have the mana to spare. Make a replicate next to a hero (it has really good range as you level it up!), and instantly jump beside them for a good helping of surprise Morphling.
In a 1v1 situation early game (or in a teamfight later on), making a replicate of another hero who does large amounts of damage can be incredibly effective as a way to get some extra DPS to bring down key heroes. Exceptional targets for this use of replicate are heroes with good on-attack effects like Antimage's mana break or Phantom Lancer's juxtapose, as well as simply heroes that do tons of damage. If you replicate a team member, it can also have the bonus effect of making enemies blow spells on the replicate before they realize it's an illusion, since replicate takes normal damage rather than increased damage (as is usual for illusions).
One last benefit of replicate is that it can provide your team with useful auras from the other team that you don't have, like vlads, assault cuirass or radiance, which can be greatly beneficial to your team in a fight.
Waveform is Morphling's bread and butter skill. The ability to reposition himself, and be invulnerable while doing so, is invaluable, allowing him to escape from ganks with ease, or chase down a fleeing hero. The damage makes it valuable long-range initiation in the midgame, and also lets him get up close and personal so his 350 range is less of a disadvantage. It lets him clear through creep waves easily, making him a dangerous split pusher and letting him find his farm quickly and safely. Waveform is one of the skills that makes Morphling able to do everything that he does, useful in a myriad of ways.
Adaptive Strike (W)
Strikes an enemy unit with a blast of water. If Morphling's agility is 50% higher than strength, it deals the maximum damage and the minimum stun. If strength is 50% higher, it deals the maximum stun and minimum damage.
Adaptive strike is the ability that allows a Morphling with a lot of agility to deal incredible magical damage to a target, as well as providing an interrupt to channeling. Especially in combination with ethereal blade (more in the items section later), adaptive strike and waveform combined with a few rightclicks from a well-farmed Morphling can rip through the HP of anyone who's not incredibly tanky, letting Morphling fatten his targets up from range before diving in for the kill and the subsequent 4v5 teamfight with waveform. On top of this, when you've morphed a lot of strength up (ie. you're trying to escape), adaptive strike becomes a strong knockback and stun, letting you get away much easier if you have the mana to spare (or no more strength left to morph).
Morph (Agility/Strength) (D/F)
Morphling shifts its form, pulling points from (Strength/Agility) and pouring them into (Agility/Strength). The process is reversible. Additional points in Morph increase the rate of stat change. Passively grants bonus (Agility/Strength).
Points Per Shift: 2 Shift Rate: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 shifts per second Bonus (Agility/Strength): 3 / 4 / 5 / 6
Mana Cost: 30 per second
While morph may look like two separate skills when you first glance at it, both of them level up together, and provide their passive bonuses for each level you put into morph. This means that taking morph at level one provides you with 3 agility and strength, granting a much-needed 3 base damage increase, as well as 57 hitpoints, which is no laughing matter at that level. Also, this allows you to morph some points into agility in the pool early on, leaving you a little bit lower on HP but giving you the base damage to compete in lane with someone who's trying to deny you (or completely out-lasthit someone with weak base damage).
The most important thing to note about morph is that the strength you remove from agility will not increase your current HP by a percentage, but will instead give you a flat 19 HP per point of strength, meaning that if you have time to start your morph going a bit, you will be incredibly tanky by the time enemies wear through a lot of your health and mana. This works the other way as well – morphing to agility will remove 19 HP per point of strength lost, meaning if you're not at full HP you will drop extremely quickly, so be safe! A nice thing about morph, though, is that it's easy to get started, since you can use it even when you're stunned, meaning without a hex or a silence, it's very difficult to kill a Morphling who doesn't want to die.
Replicate (R)
Morphling replicates any hero, friend or foe, although only dealing 50% the original hero's damage. At any time, Morphling can instantly take the position of the Replicate.
Since this skill has its own section above, I won't talk too much about it here. Let it suffice to say that it is one of the abilities that truly makes Morphling into the hero he is, and learning to use it well is one of the most difficult things to do as a new Morphling player.
In this section of the guide, I'll provide you with a fairly standard Morphling skill build, with a couple of variations, as well as an explanation of that build. I'll talk a bit about a few things you can do with his skill build that are viable as well, but aren't usually used quite as much due to a few weaknesses.
Reasoning: At level one, you can take either morph or waveform. Morph is generally taken to boost your lasthitting power to a sustainable level, as morphing six points out of strength and into agility can be enough to get you up to a point where you can compete without risking too much of your life to early burst, as long as you can afford to morph it back when you need it. If you're really feeling risky and you want to control your lane really hard, you can morph even more so you out-damage almost anyone, leaving you with low HP but the ability to absolutely dominate the lasthitting in your lane. This is usually done more in mid, but can be done in the safe lane as well. Taking waveform at level one allows you more survivability from ganks, but leaves you with really weak base damage at level one which can really throw off your early game rhythm.
Waveform is maxed first for obvious reasons – morph doesn't really give you a whole lot at early levels until you're getting ganked by numerous heroes, and even then a couple levels is usually sufficient. Adaptive strike does pretty poor damage until you have a lot of agility, and also doesn't provide the utility of waveform, so we leave it for later, around the time when we're getting our first items up.
Replicate is taken when possible for the sustain it can give you in lane with tp-replicates, as well as the overall potential of the ability.
Variations: Some possible variations you can do on this include avoiding skilling replicate, which is not awful if you don't have anything to use your replicate for at early levels. However, morph doesn't give you a whole lot at that level – neither does adaptive strike. Replicate is usually your best bet, but if you don't feel like you're going to use it even for the free back-to-base it gives you, it's reasonable to skip it.
You can also skill adaptive strike over morph – whether or not you take one level in morph or not is preference. This leaves you with a bit more nuking power in the early-midgame, but a lot less survivability, and adaptive strike doesn't provide you with a great amount of damage until you have a decent amount of agility. Overall, morph is usually preferable, and the single point is almost always necessary for the lasthitting aid, but if you feel you need a bit more burst this is an alternative.
VIII. I'M SPENDING MONEY LIKE WATER - ITEMS AND ITEM BUILDS
Which items you choose to get on Morphling can, of course, vary a lot depending on the course of the game and the composition of both teams. This section will lead you through some of the item decisions you should be looking at making throughout the game as Morphling, and why you should be making those decisions. Also, since Morphling is a hero who becomes exponentially better with items, it's important to note the emphasis on item timings especially in the midgame items section of the guide, as your items are exponentially more useful the earlier you get them, and it starts with getting your core items up quickly enough for you to be effective.
Starting Items: Your starting items as Morphling should be geared towards getting your farm and levels up as quickly as possible, while also providing you enough regen to get aggressive in lane if you feel like you have the chance. As such, most of your first 603 gold should go towards early stats to aid you in lasthitting and (obviously) enough regen that you can stay in lane for an extended period of time.
Option 1: Tango (90), Salve (100), Clarity x2 (100), Slippers of Agility (150), Iron Branch x2 (106)
Option 2: Tango (90), Salve (100), Slippers of Agility x2 (300), Iron Branch x2 (106)
Option 3: Tango (90), Salve (100), Slippers of Agility (150), Ring of Protection (175), Iron Branch (53)
Option 4: Tango (90), Iron Branch x3 (159)
Early Slippers of Agility provide you with a much-needed boost to your base damage, which is still not great even with your first skill point in morph, and can also be built into a quick wraith band to further aid you in that respect. If you feel you're going to be able to be aggressive in lane (or you're going to need waveform to escape lots), a couple of Clarities will provide you with the mana for more than one or two waveforms, as your starting mana isn't great. If you don't feel you'll need the mana regen and you'd rather go for a more passive lasthitting build, feel free to trade those clarities for an extra slipper as in option 2, or even for a Ring of Protection like option 3 suggests, for a faster aquila or tranquil boots (if you're going to be against a lane that will require them). Obviously, option 4 is a more midlane oriented build, going for the fastest bottle you can reasonably pick up. Be wary though – you will sacrifice some of your early lasthitting if you go for the quick bottle. At least one Iron Branch is almost always necessary at the start of the game, since the early couple of stat points frequently can spell the difference between escape and death, and also provides you a bit more lasthitting damage and mana to use your spells in the early game.
Early Game Items: In the early game as Morphling, you want to focus on mostly the same things as you did at the beginning of the game. Sustain in lane is still extremely important to you, as you want to be sitting and farming safely, as well as have the freedom to use your spells aggressively or defensively if possible, and this point in the game is where you can start thinking about building up towards your first big item as well.
Pictured: Ring of Aquila, Magic Wand, Boots of Speed
Ring of Aquila is an amazing early-game pickup for Morphling. He uses the mana regeneration incredibly well, and he also frequently already has a wraith band for the bonus stats (which he loves), so the logical choice is, like many agility carries, ring of aquila.
Magic Wand is a great item on almost every hero early in the game. If you're around enemy heroes for a reasonable period of time, you're sure to gain a few stick charges, and if you get ganked they can easily save your life, granting you both extra health to get away and extra mana, with which to morph even more health to aid your escape. If you suspect your game is going to be extremely passive and you're not going to get a lot of chances to gain stick charges, your gold may be better spent towards one of your bigger ticket items, but a magic wand is almost never a bad investment.
Boots of Speed are, as again on any hero, one of the best items you can get in the entire game. The movespeed is incredibly valuable for both chasing heroes and for escaping, so if you plan on being involved in any sort of combat early on in the game at least raw boots are absolutely a must.
Situational: Ghost Scepter, Perseverance, Bottle, Hand of Midas, Urn of Shadows
Both Ghost Scepter and Perseverance can frequently be considered before finishing your boots, depending on which of their big brothers you plan on building later on in the game. Ghost scepter provides you those few valuable seconds to get your morph started when you get ganked in the early game, and can build into an incredibly quick ethereal blade (which can also often be considered before you finish your boots, but it gets its own paragraph later on so we'll save that for then) to devastate fragile heroes on the enemy team. Perseverance provides you with a ton of that lane sustain you so desperately need on a more farm-oriented Morphling, and should definitely be built at this stage of the game if you're planning on building it into a linken's later.
Bottle is, obviously, great for a solo mid Morphling, with excellent rune control through wave and replicate at higher levels, providing you with more regen for your money than any other item could hope to.
Hand of Midas is a little bit more awkward to build on Morphling. He doesn't benefit greatly from the attack speed (he likes raw stats a lot more), but if he's given the dead time he needs for the midas to become effective, it trades a lot of his early-midgame strength for an incredibly strong 30-minute, game-ending Morphling, and also slingshots you into the lategame pretty well. It does kill a lot of the time when you could otherwise be more powerful, however, and it delays your big items by a fair amount.
Urn of Shadows is a great item on a Morphling who's getting a lot of kills, granting mana regeneration, strength (which can be traded easily for agility at this early stage of the game for a bit of mana), and a ton of HP regeneration. It's not a great item on a Morphling who plans on farming a lot, however, as you won't have the opportunity to accrue charges and there are far more efficient ways to get the stats and mana regen that you want.
The Boots Dilemma: Which upgraded boots to buy is one of the first big decisions you should make in any game of Dota. On Morphling, sometimes you'll want to be thinking about getting one of your big items up before you finish your boots, but there'll be more on that later – most of the time, before you finish anything big, you're going to be finishing your boots. So, which of the five boot choices is most effective on Morphling?
Pictured: Arcane Boots, Phase Boots, Boots of Travel, Tranquil Boots, Power Treads
Arcane Boots aren't great for a hard carry or solo mid Morphling. He doesn't require the buff to mana pool and area mana regen that arcanes provide – he can get more than enough mana for his requirements through other sources combined with an arcane boots charge from a support here and there. Overall, the stats provided by the other boot choices far outstrip the benefits provided by arcanes (unless you plan on playing support Morphling – hilariously unkillable, if not insanely effective!)
Phase Boots provide Morphling with something he already has tons of through waveform – mobility is one of his strengths, and it's usually not necessary to build phase boots on top of that. If you feel you really want that extra little bit, or you want the early game damage (usually not a great tradeoff on a mid – lategame hero like Morphling who prefers stats), phase is a viable option, but not usually a great one.
Boots of Travel are great on Morphling lategame, adding insane amounts to his split push ability as well as opening up an extra inventory slot no longer needed for teleport scrolls. However, as a first boot choice they're not usually great, as the investment is a lot bigger than other boots, delaying your big items by a while, and they provide less useful stats in the early game.
Tranquil Boots are a pretty good option on a Morphling who's not having a great time in lane. If you're up against a lot of harassment, tranquils provide better regen than even a ring of health, allowing you to stay in lane and get closer and closer to your next big item. They also have the benefit of being able to be disassembled later on, allowing you to use the boots over for a different set of boots and sell or reuse the rings. Also, they're very cheap, which lets you get them early against a hard lane.
Power Treads are usually the option of choice. The attack speed scales well into the lategame, and the bonus stats are a Morphling's best friend, so overall treads will usually provide you more benefit than any of the other boot choices in the early game, except possibly tranquils. Be sure to trade them in for boots of travel once you have enough items to compensate for the slight stat loss, though!
Midgame Items: Your midgame items are much more situational than your early game items were. While before you were mostly focused on getting enough farm to reach your strongest point in the midgame, now is when you have to make the decision of what you spend your gold on to enhance that strength the most. As such, you need to assess the game state a lot more, and make your choice based on that – what each of your usual midgame choices are best at will be discussed more in each of the item's sections.
Linken's Sphere is, at its heart, an extremely farming- and split-push-oriented item. The incredible mana and HP regeneration allows you to abuse replicate and waveform to their fullest extent, flying across the map and finding farm and tower kills wherever you see an opening. The stats are, as always, incredibly strong on Morphling, and the spellblock provides you with the opening you need to escape incoming ganks you were unable to avoid otherwise. It also provides you with some teamfight strength, though not as much as other items in this section do – if they have a crucial disable that you think is going to be targeted on you more frequently than not, linken's can provide a crucial advantage in teamfights even if you don't want to take advantage of the farming capability it provides. However, the true strength of the item is that it accelerates the rate at which his other items come up – so if you're destined to be the scariest carry on the map and want to get there faster, linken's is an excellent choice to do so. With a reasonable amount of farm, you should be able to get your linken's sphere by 17 or 18 minutes, and almost definitely by 20 pretty easily – any more than that and you're going to delay your other big items significantly. Since it's a farming item, you want to be taking advantage of it as early as possible.
If you want to be more aggressive, ganking and taking out key heroes insanely quickly in teamfights as well as doing insane amounts of physical damage, Ethereal Blade is the item for you. Amplifying your adaptive strike and waveform damage by 40%, as well as adding a decent chunk of damage to your adaptive strike's base damage, provides you with an insane amount of spell damage to dish out, frequently killing them outright, and putting you in position to finish them off easily if not. Ethereal blade can often let you snowball out of control in the midgame, dominating even enemy carries before they get their core items up and keeping them down while you get bigger and bigger. An ethereal blade at about 15 minutes can be truly devastating – if you find yourself delayed to the point where you don't think you're even going to be able to make a 25 minute eblade, other heroes will have more than enough time to get up the items required to survive your combo and destroy you afterwards. Consider leaving your ghost scepter as-is, or even waiting until you have enough for the eaglesong first, if you think you might not be able to get it as quickly as you wanted. Also, this is one of the cases where skipping upgraded boots is a good decision, since a REALLY fast ethereal blade can win a game outright if used well.
If you feel the need to push more heavily and earlier while also providing you with more teamfight presence than an early linken's will, you don't feel like your eblade will be able to do enough damage to be significant (ie. their team is really tanky), or you simply won't be able to get anything else with the big buildups required in the time period you really need them up in, Manta Style can provide what you need. The illusions can give you enough DPS to take down a tower quickly, and if left unchecked in a teamfight can do the same to a hero, while the bonus stats and movespeed give you more survivability and chasing power in sustained teamfights. It also has the benefit of being cheaper than a linken's while still providing much of the same benefit with regards to pushing. Manta is also a great followup to either linken's or ethereal blade, since it combines nicely with both the active on ethereal blade and your adaptive strike, and provides you with more of the teamfight presence you lack a bit of with linken's. Timings on manta are a bit looser than on other items, as you should be participating in fights with even just a yasha, and your GPM can be much more dependent on how your team is doing during the midgame. However, any less than a 25 minute manta is still going to cripple your lategame fairly badly.
Situational: Black King Bar, Drum of Endurance, Necronomicon
Black King Bar can be a great first item on Morphling against a really magic-heavy team – if they don't have much that beats BKB, it's cheaper and more generally useful than a linken's would be, providing you with tons of room in teamfights and a bit of extra strength and damage to play around with. It's a more defensive option than an ethereal blade, but an exceptional teamfight item if you feel the need to go that route.
Drum of Endurance can provide you with some awesome, cost-efficient stats in the early-midgame. While you'd usually prefer to be going for bigger-ticket items, especially on a solo mid Morphling drums give you a ton of early teamfight sustain and damage for very little money, and can let you come online a lot quicker than you normally would.
Necronomicon, as a substitute for manta or in combination with it, can really add to Morphling's split pushing ability, as well as being pretty cool in teamfights if you can micro the dudes well enough. Also has the bonus of giving you true sight when it's upgraded, meaning no more pesky Nyx Assassin ganks surprising you with vendetta and mana burn.
Lategame Items: Your lategame items should focus on making you into the hard carry you dream of being. Stats are your best friend, as they are on any hard carry, since more mana, HP, armor, damage and attack speed are exactly what you dream of having. If you didn't pick up a BKB earlier than this, you should consider doing so again before you start on any of these items, and probably again after every single one of them, since it's almost always a good item even if you didn't necessarily need it earlier on. Also, upgrade your treads into boots of travel at some point after your third or fourth item.
Pictured: Butterfly, Eye of Skadi, Satanic
Butterfly is every agility carry's best friend. The damage, attack speed and agility are second to none for someone who can use them well, and the evasion in the lategame can provide you with what you need to go toe-to-toe with another hard carry. As a bonus, it again has really good synergy with both ethereal blade and adaptive strike, which is never a bad thing.
Eye of Skadi grants you tons of those stats we love so well, as well as a bonus boost to both mana and HP, making you really difficult to kill lategame while giving you enough mana to do anything you could possibly want to do and a good chunk of bonus damage and attack speed to boot. On top of all this, skadi gives you an awesome move and attack speed slow on-hit, which when combined with butterfly makes you a vicious anti-carry. It also has the benefit of stacking with lifesteal, which means you can build...
Satanic. When you do this much damage, lifesteal is the last piece of the puzzle you need to be truly unkillable. Pop your BKB, or just wait out their disables, and then hit satanic and anything in sight to return to full HP instantly. Satanic, used correctly, is basically a free cheese on your carry every thirty seconds, which is one of the best actives in the game – however, it's not great if you don't deal a lot of damage, so don't get this until you do.
Situational: Monkey King Bar, Heart of Tarrasque, Daedalus, Pipe of Insight, Assault Cuirass
Monkey King Bar gives you a ton of damage as well as an excellent proc for even more damage. If single-target DPS is what you require, either this or Daedalus should be your first choice. MKB has the benefit of allowing you to seige tier 3 towers without a miss chance, which is great for a hero like Morphling who frequently wants to end the game before enemy carries get truly scary, and daedalus is better depending on how much damage you do, so if you're looking for more midgame strength, MKB is a pretty good option – but if you want to do tons of damage on top of the metric shitton you already do, daedalus will make you eat through enemies' HP.
Heart of Tarrasque will give you tons of tankiness, which you can shift into agility for extra damage and a bit of a buffer when you want to go back to strength. However, be warned that you can't shift any more strength than you have base strength, so strength items won't give you as much potential DPS as agility items will – however, they can give you comparable DPS and more potential strength to go back to, so if you need to survive insane numbers of things and being Morphling alone isn't enough, heart can be a great choice.
Assault Cuirass isn't usually an awesome option on Morphling lategame, as he would rather get his armor and attack speed from agility. However, if there's another carry on your team who'd really benefit from the AC aura (if you were mid, for example, and your Antimage is insanely fat), this can be a great pickup for both you and them.
Pipe of Insight is, again, not the best way for Morphling to get tanky – there are much better options to make him more survivable. If you're not the one that your team is relying on for primary DPS, though, and you really want to break down the base quickly, or your team is facing a ton of spell damage in teamfights, this isn't a terrible choice of item by any means.
IX. YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY! - FRIENDS, ENEMIES AND FOOD
As all heroes do, Morphling has some natural enemies and friends. This section will reiterate a lot of stuff that was mentioned in the when to pick section, but will focus more on specific heroes that are exceptionally good or bad for a Morphling to have in his game.
Friends: Most of the heroes that Morphling loves to have on his team are the heroes that give him the space he needs in the early game, which are great lane supports. Heroes that complement his aggression well in lane are great for Morphling at early levels, as are heroes that provide him with the sustain he needs to get his early farm without trouble. Also of particular note are aura heroes that can make Morphling scale a little better into the lategame, often providing the extra punch you need to win late teamfights.
Pictured: Crystal Maiden, Earthshaker, Omniknight, Wisp, Keeper of the Light, Beastmaster, Vengeful Spirit
Crystal Maiden is the classic friend of a carry who wants to be aggressive at very early levels. Earthshaker fills a similar role, though more of a niche since he's a melee hero and laning him with a melee carry can be tough – however, Morphling complements that weakness nicely and it can be an excellent lane. Omniknight is covered in the same way for his range deficiency, as well as providing an awesome addition to your waveform nuke damage since it brings you right up close. Purification is obviously excellent regen as well, making Omni an awesome choice to pair with Morphling.
Wisp and Keeper of the Light won't allow you to be quite as aggressive, but they will provide you with everything you need in terms of HP and mana (or just mana, in the case of Keeper, but it's still a great farming aid, and blast + wave can be enough to instagib a hero at level 3 or 5, which more than makes up for it). On top of that, their ultimates will let you be even more present on the map earlier than replicate would (since it's difficult to use precisely before level 11), and add to your midgame presence as well, which is an amazing complement for Morphling.
Beastmaster falls under the aforementioned 'aura heroes' category. The extra DPS from his aura can add to your lategame damage enough to tip the scales in your favor. Vengeful Spirit fills a similar niche, but can be laned with Morphling and provide the aggression that he so loves in spades, which makes her an excellent choice for a laning partner where Beastmaster kind of needs to be played somewhere else (though it's not impossible to lane them together).
Enemies: Strong gankers with a long-lasting silence can cause a lot of pain for a Morphling. If you manage to get your morph started before the silence hits you, it will continue, though you won't be able to turn it off. However, if you don't get it started, you won't be able to start it until the silence ends, by which point it's possible you'll already be dead, with neither morph nor waveform to save you. Also of particular difficulty to deal with are strong early-game pushers, if they're trying to take towers as early as they can, since Morphling doesn't really have what he needs to deal with them yet. Finally, carries that are made to be true lategame forces will dominate Morphling at that stage if they're given the space, and there will be little you can do to stop it.
Pictured: Clinkz, Riki, Death Prophet, Leshrac, Faceless Void, Spectre, Tinker
Clinkz and Riki will find you wherever you try to farm, silence you, and kill you before you can escape. Both of them are extremely potent with even less items than you, and during the stage of the game where they want to be picking off lone heroes, you want to be alone lots, split pushing and finding the farm you need to dominate them minutes later. Silences are the only disable that will give you serious trouble at this level since you can morph through most stuns, and sheepsticks are unlikely to be a problem for you at this point, while built-in hero hexes are much easier to see coming and avoid than the inevitable orchid from Clinkz.
Death Prophet's silence may be easier to dodge than Clinkz' and Riki's, but she also has the advantage of being able to take towers as soon as she hits level six, and either force Morphling to leave his lane to deal with her and her team properly or completely destroy all of his farming space. Leshrac, while not having a silence, is another great example of a hero who makes you do things earlier than you really wanted to if he's played properly.
Faceless Void and Spectre are, quite simply put, the most exemplary of the heroes that will be able to truly dominate you come lategame if they get any space at all. Chronosphere will either kill you or force you to morph away all your agility before you manage to even get a hit off, and dispersion will reflect huge amount of damage back on you – potentially too much for you to kill her before you die. Tinker gets a special mention here because he's one of the heroes who's best able to create that space for the heroes that need it, with march of the machines stopping you from ever taking the base until they're well and truly ready to fight you head-on.
Food: Heroes that you love to see on the enemy team are a bit more difficult to pick out for Morphling. One of his great strengths is how many different things he can do, meaning he doesn't really mind what heroes are on the enemy team as long as he has space to do his thing. However, some heroes stand out as particularly nice to play against, and the most prominent of those is squishy supports, especially those without hard disables, as they're unable to stop you from dominating them over and over again, and make building an ethereal blade an amazing option that can just continue to feed you gold and levels. Also easy for Morphling to play against are other midgame split-push heroes, since he can at least match them at their own game (if not outstrip them) and provides more lategame advantage than most of them do. Finally, in mid, heroes with weak rune control provide Morphling an awesome advantage that he can capitalize on really easily and either dominate his lane or all the other lanes.
Venomancer and Lich are both exceptionally squishy heroes with no hard disables, which means Morphling can take advantage of the slightest misstep in positioning to absolutely destroy them without consequence. Also, since it's easy to waveform away from them, they're not particularly effective in ganking him either, meaning they provide little difficulty in a game.
Nature's Prophet is a hero Morphling can trade pretty well with. While it's impossible for him to outpush the Nature's Prophet without some help, it's way easier for Morphling to gank than it is for him to be ganked, with adaptive strike to cancel teleport and simply overall more damage than Nature's Prophet is capable of doing. The fact that Morphling can hold his own in the pushing game and win in almost every other respect means Nature's Prophet is simple for you to deal with.
Invoker, as mentioned above, won't be able to contest you for runes in midlane at all, and his early weakness will let you score a lot of first bloods with the rune control afforded you by waveform. Unless he goes quas wex, he won't have ghost walk up in time to deal with an early double damage rune combined with a waveform on top of him, giving you a nice little advantage in lane early on.
Luna and Drow Ranger are very similar in that they're both again very squishy, while also providing awesome replicates with their auras and straight physical DPS. With your superior spell damage, you can shred through well over half of their hitpoints before they're able to attack you, and then steal half of their damage as well as their aura to finish the remainder. Though you do have to be careful of Drow's silence, it's usually easy to avoid as long as you have vision of her coming in, and it'll only be enough to kill you for a short while, while you destroy her in the lategame. Also, she suffers the same problems as Invoker if you face her in midlane, which makes it a simple lane for you to win.
Though Morphling has fallen a bit out of style in professional Dota lately, he's still an incredibly powerful hero, and on top of that, he's one of the more enjoyable ones as well. Learning to play Morphling well is a really fun challenge should you choose to undertake it, and if you're a more experienced Morphling player reading this guide, hopefully you learned something from it as well. If you managed to make it this far into this lengthy a document, props to you! And thank you for reading. May you be a better Morphling for it.
Note: A replays section is coming soon, I played a lot of games of Morphling to get back into playing him for this guide but all the replays from that I meant to use are outdated now because it's been so long since I started working on it =P I will have replays of both myself and pro players soon, stay tuned!
Don't really feel Heart/Pipe/AC really have a place even in situational items since you'll be going for one of the other damage/survivability items 99% of the time. Other than that it looks pretty good, lots of effort definitely went into this. Thanks. ^_^
Soul Ring, Diffusal, and S&Y should be mentioned. All are more common situational buys than Urn, Pipe, Crit, or Necrobook, and have actually seen competitive play.
Super organized, detailed and well written guide. I have always had huge troubles using replicate properly. It's like everyone says morphling is strong (well, not now, but whatever) yet he's one of my weakest heroes despite me being able to use other carries like TA and Luna effectively. Thanks for the guide!
On March 31 2013 10:34 TheYango wrote: Soul Ring, Diffusal, and S&Y should be mentioned. All are more common situational buys than Urn, Pipe, Crit, or Necrobook, and have actually seen competitive play.
Agree with this.
Excellent guide, well-written, just a notice, in your option 1 of starting items, you have 7 items, maybe you wanted to say 2 Tangos instead of 1 tango and 1 flask?
On March 31 2013 10:06 Firebolt145 wrote: Don't really feel Heart/Pipe/AC really have a place even in situational items since you'll be going for one of the other damage/survivability items 99% of the time. Other than that it looks pretty good, lots of effort definitely went into this. Thanks. ^_^
I actually kind of agree with you about pipe and AC at least - it's unlikely that you're going to be picking up either of those, but there are definitely situations where they're going to be useful. Heart I consider picking up on pretty much every hard carry at some point in the game so it definitely deserves to be in there, but one thing you have to remember is that this guide is geared towards solo mid players too and their item options are going to be a lot more open than someone who's carrying.
With that in mind, I should probably add something about soul ring/sny/diffu in there too - I've never seen them built or really considered building them on Morph but there's definitely nothing wrong with them, soul ring in particular.
On March 31 2013 16:26 wairai wrote: I guess in pubs BoT 1st can get away all the time since smoke ganks are rare and normal ganks only come in between.
Replicate + BoT , farming all over the lane all day
I never said travels first was a good idea =P though it's not necessarily awful if you pull it off right.
On March 31 2013 10:34 TheYango wrote: Soul Ring, Diffusal, and S&Y should be mentioned. All are more common situational buys than Urn, Pipe, Crit, or Necrobook, and have actually seen competitive play.
Agree with this.
Excellent guide, well-written, just a notice, in your option 1 of starting items, you have 7 items, maybe you wanted to say 2 Tangos instead of 1 tango and 1 flask?
This guide inspired me to give morph a serious go, and now I'm on a 5 game loss streak. Halp.
I'm particularly struggling with replicate; your section on it does a good job of explaining how it's useful, but seems to gloss over what I'm finding to be its biggest challenge; the fact that you have to have someone on-hand to replicate in the first place. How do you go about setting this up and keeping it consistent? What do you do in the (quite significant) period that replicate is on CD without an illusion on the map?
I feel like it barely gives me two waves of be-everywhere farming before it's gone, especially when I have to walk/tp from my team to an empty lane after replicating them. The rest of the time, I'm relying on waveform as my escape, and I really don't feel half as immortal as you describe...
I'm also curious about morph; how much strength do you walk around with when pushing/starting a teamfight? Do you go almost the whole way into agi and rely on morphing back during a fight, or do you float a good chunk of hitpoints at the expense of damage? I realise it's situational, but I didn't find anything regarding how to make the call.
Overall I felt like your guide does a fantastic job of outlining all the badass things that morph is capable of, but I found that when I went to execute the badassery I really still had no clue how it should be done. Mostly this is because I suck, but it's never fun sucking when you're supposed to carry...
Dont chase your team around to try and get a replicate. Get them to come to you, and have the replicate go to the opposite side of thr map or follow your team. Lvl 3 replicate lasts quite a while, so in the very short period where you dont have a replicate just dont go out split pushing past wherever you deem safe. As for the morph, keep enough to not get 1 shotted by nukes. You shouldnt be facetanking spells and hits anyway. Replicate and waveform are great positional spells, pop up somewhere on the side and burst the easy supports first. Then when its just a couple of heroes left you can use your morph if you have to without worrying too much about dying faster than the heal.
On April 02 2013 09:36 Belisarius wrote: This guide inspired me to give morph a serious go, and now I'm on a 5 game loss streak. Halp.
I'm particularly struggling with replicate; your section on it does a good job of explaining how it's useful, but seems to gloss over what I'm finding to be its biggest challenge; the fact that you have to have someone on-hand to replicate in the first place. How do you go about setting this up and keeping it consistent? What do you do in the (quite significant) period that replicate is on CD without an illusion on the map?
I feel like it barely gives me two waves of be-everywhere farming before it's gone, especially when I have to walk/tp from my team to an empty lane after replicating them. The rest of the time, I'm relying on waveform as my escape, and I really don't feel half as immortal as you describe...
Replicate's duration gets waaay longer as you level it up, so at level 16 and beyond you shouldn't have too much trouble keeping one up all the time. Like evilfatsh1t said, don't chase your team around to try and get a replicate, get them to come to you, or snag one of an enemy if you happen to see them. That being said, between level 6 and 11 in particular it's more useful for the free regen from going home to fountain and for switching lanes without losing much farming time.
Between levels 11 and 16, if you're going linkens you'll have the mana to really abuse replicate to its fullest, but you need to make sure you're getting the most out of wave as well - if you find a creepwave on the map that's pushed up close to your tower and yours is in a less safe spot, make a replicate of your lane partner (or whoever you can find), TP up there, push it out hard with waveform for 2-3 waves, and replicate back to either your original lane or the one you weren't farming, whichever you feel. Replicate won't be up all the time - but you can use it to easily collect three waves of farm from a lane you would never have reached without losing a LOT of time, and during that time, the replicate can be either with your team (if you think there's going to be a teamfight) or going to a lane (if there's not, or you don't want to go to it).
Also, keep it on CD - when you say you only get two waves of farm out of a replicate, you can boost that up to three easily by abusing waveform, and three waves of farm every minute or so is better than you would be able to get by just sitting in lane, so that's actually pretty good as long as you use it as often as possible. If you make sure your replicate is nearish to someone when you jump to it, you can hang out with them until it's off CD, then use it and rinse and repeat.
I'm also curious about morph; how much strength do you walk around with when pushing/starting a teamfight? Do you go almost the whole way into agi and rely on morphing back during a fight, or do you float a good chunk of hitpoints at the expense of damage? I realise it's situational, but I didn't find anything regarding how to make the call.
Overall I felt like your guide does a fantastic job of outlining all the badass things that morph is capable of, but I found that when I went to execute the badassery I really still had no clue how it should be done. Mostly this is because I suck, but it's never fun sucking when you're supposed to carry...
It really depends on how much damage the other team can do to you before you start morphing. Against a super nuke-heavy team, you'll need more strength, and against one that doesn't have as much burst DPS, you'll be able to have less when you initiate. You want as much agility as possible without dying instantly in the fight. Also, you shouldn't be starting fights unless they're ganks from your team - keep yourself away from taking insane amounts of burst damage and you'll be able to do more damage safely. It's a pretty finesse-based skill, as is replicate, which is why he's one of the trickier heroes to learn in the game - don't get too discouraged, you'll figure some stuff out soon! =)
Can morphling really mid without a babysitter? I feel like his base damage is so effing low that any strong mid will just deny cs for the first 10 minutes of the game... that or you've morphed too much AGI that you just die.
On April 02 2013 18:33 synapse wrote: Can morphling really mid without a babysitter? I feel like his base damage is so effing low that any strong mid will just deny cs for the first 10 minutes of the game... that or you've morphed too much AGI that you just die.
It's pretty managable - if you morph down to ~350 HP and be wary of ganks, you can safely trade hits a few times pretty effectively, or farm without worrying about harass, as long as you're not up against a serious burst hero, and you can also compete healthily for CS, even beating some heroes pretty seriously. Also, your bottle will be able to heal you for a much larger portion of your HP when your max is that low, so while you may feel like you're sitting at ~30% health all the time, your bottle will bring you up to full three times from that point. Bottle is pretty necessary for a solo mid morph but it's not terribly bad by any means.
On April 02 2013 18:33 synapse wrote: Can morphling really mid without a babysitter? I feel like his base damage is so effing low that any strong mid will just deny cs for the first 10 minutes of the game... that or you've morphed too much AGI that you just die.
nowadays no. you pretty much cant to get your dmg up to where it used to be pre-nerf you sacrifice WAY too much hp. id say its only viable against melee mid solos. any range hero such as qop/tinker/puck even invoker will destroy morph now
On April 02 2013 18:33 synapse wrote: Can morphling really mid without a babysitter? I feel like his base damage is so effing low that any strong mid will just deny cs for the first 10 minutes of the game... that or you've morphed too much AGI that you just die.
nowadays no. you pretty much cant to get your dmg up to where it used to be pre-nerf you sacrifice WAY too much hp. id say its only viable against melee mid solos. any range hero such as qop/tinker/puck even invoker will destroy morph now
Actually, it is damn hard even against melee heroes, most of them have some kind of slow stun, and they can burst down you quite easily. I was laning against Night Stalker, and he destroyed me with last hits, I couldn't get a creep... He started to kill me only after lvl 4-5, but I was like 1 level behind, and when he killed me, I was 3 levels behind. I could have a bad day, but it was pretty damn hard to lane against him. I couldn't harass him in any possible way, If I hit him 3-4 times, he use Void on me, and hit me 1-2 times and did a lot more damage than I did to him.
On April 02 2013 18:33 synapse wrote: Can morphling really mid without a babysitter? I feel like his base damage is so effing low that any strong mid will just deny cs for the first 10 minutes of the game... that or you've morphed too much AGI that you just die.
nowadays no. you pretty much cant to get your dmg up to where it used to be pre-nerf you sacrifice WAY too much hp. id say its only viable against melee mid solos. any range hero such as qop/tinker/puck even invoker will destroy morph now
Actually, it is damn hard even against melee heroes, most of them have some kind of slow stun, and they can burst down you quite easily. I was laning against Night Stalker, and he destroyed me with last hits, I couldn't get a creep... He started to kill me only after lvl 4-5, but I was like 1 level behind, and when he killed me, I was 3 levels behind. I could have a bad day, but it was pretty damn hard to lane against him. I couldn't harass him in any possible way, If I hit him 3-4 times, he use Void on me, and hit me 1-2 times and did a lot more damage than I did to him.
are you forgetting to use waveform or something? ns is actually quite doable until the 6th minute. from then on it becomes bullshit cause of his ridiculous silence vs your 500hp
On April 02 2013 18:33 synapse wrote: Can morphling really mid without a babysitter? I feel like his base damage is so effing low that any strong mid will just deny cs for the first 10 minutes of the game... that or you've morphed too much AGI that you just die.
nowadays no. you pretty much cant to get your dmg up to where it used to be pre-nerf you sacrifice WAY too much hp. id say its only viable against melee mid solos. any range hero such as qop/tinker/puck even invoker will destroy morph now
Actually, it is damn hard even against melee heroes, most of them have some kind of slow stun, and they can burst down you quite easily. I was laning against Night Stalker, and he destroyed me with last hits, I couldn't get a creep... He started to kill me only after lvl 4-5, but I was like 1 level behind, and when he killed me, I was 3 levels behind. I could have a bad day, but it was pretty damn hard to lane against him. I couldn't harass him in any possible way, If I hit him 3-4 times, he use Void on me, and hit me 1-2 times and did a lot more damage than I did to him.
are you forgetting to use waveform or something? ns is actually quite doable until the 6th minute. from then on it becomes bullshit cause of his ridiculous silence vs your 500hp
Dunno, aggressive waveform vs an NS seems like suicide (especially on a 285 base move speed hero). Even during the day his void hurts almost as much as waveform and he's faster than you.
I mean, yeah set up 2 creeps and lasthit them + harass with the waveform when the NS can't fight you because of creeps and/or it makes him choose between XP and a rune, but I still don't see how morph wins mid anymore (even with some pretty substantial pool aka tango + salve).
Most Night Stalkers (and melee mids in general) come to lane with the Bottle rush start now, which you absolutely have to punish. You have to abuse his lack of regen and no Stout Shield. Obviously if you let him get his Bottle out he will stalemate or better by the very nature of bottle-crowing.
On April 02 2013 18:33 synapse wrote: Can morphling really mid without a babysitter? I feel like his base damage is so effing low that any strong mid will just deny cs for the first 10 minutes of the game... that or you've morphed too much AGI that you just die.
nowadays no. you pretty much cant to get your dmg up to where it used to be pre-nerf you sacrifice WAY too much hp. id say its only viable against melee mid solos. any range hero such as qop/tinker/puck even invoker will destroy morph now
Actually, it is damn hard even against melee heroes, most of them have some kind of slow stun, and they can burst down you quite easily. I was laning against Night Stalker, and he destroyed me with last hits, I couldn't get a creep... He started to kill me only after lvl 4-5, but I was like 1 level behind, and when he killed me, I was 3 levels behind. I could have a bad day, but it was pretty damn hard to lane against him. I couldn't harass him in any possible way, If I hit him 3-4 times, he use Void on me, and hit me 1-2 times and did a lot more damage than I did to him.
are you forgetting to use waveform or something? ns is actually quite doable until the 6th minute. from then on it becomes bullshit cause of his ridiculous silence vs your 500hp
What? :D I Waveform to him, take his 1/4 off, and he use Void, takes my 1/3 off, and start hitting me a lot harder than I hit him. Don't really know what would I achieve with Waveform that costs 1/2 of my mana, while he can spam Void a lot even without bottle.
On April 03 2013 03:37 TheYango wrote: Most Night Stalkers (and melee mids in general) come to lane with the Bottle rush start now, which you absolutely have to punish. You have to abuse his lack of regen and no Stout Shield. Obviously if you let him get his Bottle out he will stalemate or better by the very nature of bottle-crowing.
Don't really know how can I punish smart NS player. He stays out of my range, and just come to deny/kill creep, which he will do with his base damage. Few hits of my pathetic damage won't do much, it is not like that he will let me hit him 10 times in a row. He will farm his bottle faster(Even if he needs, he can last hit those few creeps with Void that he needs for bottle, but not like that he has a tough time against Morph at first few levels...), and then he will keep spamming Void, and control the runes/use bottle-crow. Then I will be the one that has to stay out of the creep wave, since he will probably kill me in 2 Voids + some hits.
On April 03 2013 15:10 Firebolt145 wrote: Approach it differently. Instead of waveforming to him to hit him, walk up to him and hit him a couple times. Once he comes close, waveform away.
This.
Waveform's AoE hits slightly behind where you start, so even if you wave away, you can generally get it to hit him if you time it right.
On April 03 2013 15:10 Firebolt145 wrote: Approach it differently. Instead of waveforming to him to hit him, walk up to him and hit him a couple times. Once he comes close, waveform away.
This.
Waveform's AoE hits slightly behind where you start, so even if you wave away, you can generally get it to hit him if you time it right.
Guys, I know that, I don't see that doing much, really. As I said, before getting bottle, he won't really stay near creeps. And even if I manage to do that, I will not be able to kill him, and he won't be stupid enough to stay near creeps if he is on low HP. Even if he is on low HP, he will last hit few creeps here and there, from distance using Void, and get that bottle really fast if he started with 3 branches and 1 tango. And then with his strength growth, mobility and bottle you can't do much. He can be aggressive on you, and still not be in any kind of trouble.
I am really now convinced in what you are saying. If we had any kind of VOD or something to see Morph beating NS, or even getting ahead by little, I would gladly see it.
Okay, starting to get the hang of morph. Now 6-5 up from 0-5.
Now my problem is laning stage. He just feels so fragile; either I get a couple early kills and dominate, or I have to morph away all my mana and damage just staying alive and am totally impotent for the next five minutes. There isn't really an in-between...
Just ended up against a huskar and a silencer duolane and had absolutely no freaking clue what to do. That shouldn't even be a legitimate thing, but I found that Huskar's spears destroyed my hp and silencer obliterated my mana to the point where I barely got a creep till they left lane to gank.
I'm starting to wonder if it's actually safer to run carries in the offlane in pubs; at least then I'm likely to vs. another carry+support rather than some combo designed to ruin my day.
On April 04 2013 10:34 Belisarius wrote: Okay, starting to get the hang of morph. Now 6-5 up from 0-5.
Now my problem is laning stage. He just feels so fragile; either I get a couple early kills and dominate, or I have to morph away all my mana and damage just staying alive and am totally impotent for the next five minutes. There isn't really an in-between...
Just ended up against a huskar and a silencer duolane and had absolutely no freaking clue what to do. That shouldn't even be a legitimate thing, but I found that Huskar's spears destroyed my hp and silencer obliterated my mana to the point where I barely got a creep till they left lane to gank.
I'm starting to wonder if it's actually safer to run carries in the offlane in pubs; at least then I'm likely to vs. another carry+support rather than some combo designed to ruin my day.
Well, that's actually a pretty legit thing to run in the offlane in pubs - like you say, it's kind of designed to wreck your day. You have to play really safe against that lane. You're probably not going to get a lot of farm, so get what you can using the regen you have and try to get levels as much as possible. Also, playing safe while your support pulls a lot will help you get a level advantage in that lane, as will just having a good lane support in general, since it's just really brutal levels of harass coming from both of them, and you have a hard time getting rid of curse of the silent if he decides to level it. Also, this is probably a really good lane to go tranquils on if you're not already doing that against this kind of lane.
Overall, if you feel like you're going to be eating a ton of harass, it's okay to sacrifice some of your early farm for the sake of being able to stay in lane safely and get your levels up. You can flash farm pretty well later in the game with waveform (as we've already talked about) so you can make up for a bit of a farm disadvantage as long as you don't die.
Also, if you've morphed away all your mana and damage, just go back. It's an escape, not a sustain tool - it'll get you away, but it won't let you stick around.
Glad you're having a fun time with morph though =) you are pretty much exactly the kind of person this guide was written for, so it's wicked that you're sticking with it and doing better.
I mostly go with 2agil/1stren. Its slightly less hp than you'd normally have, but it makes you a potent fighter. I try not to be cute with morph ability. Sometimes I pop 'morph strength' in dire situations (when I'm not in a complete panic mode). Plus adaptive strike is gonna do max damage. Stun is kinda attractive, but having too much strength is useless on morhpling.
On May 06 2013 15:35 saddaromma wrote: What's the desired agility/strength ratio?
I mostly go with 2agil/1stren. Its slightly less hp than you'd normally have, but it makes you a potent fighter. I try not to be cute with morph ability. Sometimes I pop 'morph strength' in dire situations (when I'm not in a complete panic mode). Plus adaptive strike is gonna do max damage. Stun is kinda attractive, but having too much strength is useless on morhpling.
It's not something that's nearly as easy as that - it's a pretty situational skill. Mostly you want to be able to do your damage without getting burst down. As long as you manage your mana properly, giving yourself enough time to morph strength is all you need to do to survive, so judge the heroes you're up against. Playing against a Lina or a Lion? Might want to stick on about 900 hp throughout the early game, then when they start getting scary and you have a few more stat items go up to around 1200 in the midgame. Playing against a more physical DPS lineup? 700 hp will probably do you just fine throughout the early game and give you a ton of damage, once you have a few stats and everyone starts getting a bit scary 1000-1100 should be just fine. Learn how much damage the other heroes do, how much time you need to react and adjust accordingly.
On February 12 2014 00:26 Cerberus2589 wrote: I've just started learning how to play Morphling and it's great so far but I'm trying to decide how best to get Morphling into a mid game fighter. Especially in public matches it's not always the best to just sit in lane/jungle for 30 mins and hope that your team can hold out until you get fat. Of course if that does happen the game is probably won but I don't feel like that's the best way.
Right now I really like early HotD. Is there any particular reason why this is rarely advised until later on in the game? I find that is allows you to jungle really effectively early and farm quickly. Also EBlade after Linkens just feels like it takes so long early on and the build up isn't amazing. I feel kind of useless until this item is finished.
I like Manta a lot on Morphling and if left unchecked in a team fight can absolutely wipe supports in no time, perhaps I should be rushing this after Linkens instead of EBlade most of the time. EBlade is good against a squishy lineup I just feel like it's maybe a bit overrated.
Also as for Linkens although the stats are good a Perseverance often feels like enough if you don't need to spell block. I think sometimes I would rather go for a BKB since rushing Linkens every game just feels a bit silly.
If you actually want answers, the reason E-blade feels slow/low impact to you is because you aren't good enough to farm it fast enough. HotD doesn't give morph anything he wants until he's got at least 2 big items, probably 3.
If you actually want answers, the reason E-blade feels slow/low impact to you is because you aren't good enough to farm it fast enough. HotD doesn't give morph anything he wants until he's got at least 2 big items, probably 3.
I agree, high agility morph has lots of armor and dps, so clearing the jungle shouldnt be a problem. Since the hero is pretty hard to kill you can also farm the lane in situations where others cant, so the jungle isnt as important. Third you have an aoe-nuke to fasten up jungling. Morph also can't really clear stacked ancients very well.
E-blade is pretty insane. One-shotting supports is incredibly demoralizing for the enemy team and really beneficial for your teamfights.
On February 12 2014 02:06 Cerberus2589 wrote: Ah.. sorry I wasn't sure which thread I should post in. I knew about that other one but thought people would rather I post in this one since it's more recent.
Yeah I just thought perhaps quick lifesteal if your lane wasn't going well would allow him to keep in the jungle if needs be. Also since he has mana problems early on he wouldn't have to rely on the nuke too much since he can just right click everything down.
Yeah I guess I don't farm amazingly right now it's getting better but on a good game I am usually getting between 600 - 700 GPM. I need to make better use of replicate/TPs to farm around the map with Morphling.
Going fast HotD is almost always a bad idea on any hero. It's nearly 2k gold that does absolutely nothing for you and your team. The ONLY exception I would make this for is Gyrocopter as he clears ancients the fastest of any hero not named Alchemist and even then if the enemy is competent in any way they'll just ward your ancients.
What people don't realize is that HotD is a half item and rushing that only to delay your next item (in morph's case either linkens or manta) is like buying a perseverance and never using it to build anything. It's just bad decision making and you WILL get punished for it. In the one game that you don't, chances are your team was already winning the game for you anyways and you were a complete nonfactor.
Btw. Trashling is a bad hero and you should only pick it if you want to lose.
Does anyone have any recommendations for an active, lane-to-lane gank oriented, aggressive mid morphling?
Something like standard opening item slotting into aquilla-boots-drums-linkins followed by manta/eb/skadi, or even hand if you want to transition to hard carry mode?
On April 06 2014 16:39 nomufftotuff wrote: Does anyone have any recommendations for an active, lane-to-lane gank oriented, aggressive mid morphling?
Something like standard opening item slotting into aquilla-boots-drums-linkins followed by manta/eb/skadi, or even hand if you want to transition to hard carry mode?
gank if u get a rune, otherwise dont hold a tp to counter-gank enemies that dive allies on other lanes try to dive lane enemy at lvl 5 if uve already preharassed him bottle+ultimate orb is nicer than bottle+perseverance 15 wand charges on morph is pretty op also dont get drums also dont get manta unless its ur 3rd big item also satanic vs skadi vs butterfly has huge theorycrafting behind it, know when to get which, this will win or lose you games.
i dont think ive ever lost a game as mid morph prolly did tho
Could someone please enlighten me why Morph should't go Drums? Seems like he makes a lot of use of the whole item to me, why not get it (especially in pubs, where you have to fight early often)?
On April 06 2014 22:17 hrough wrote: Could someone please enlighten me why Morph should't go Drums? Seems like he makes a lot of use of the whole item to me, why not get it (especially in pubs, where you have to fight early often)?
On April 06 2014 22:17 hrough wrote: Could someone please enlighten me why Morph should't go Drums? Seems like he makes a lot of use of the whole item to me, why not get it (especially in pubs, where you have to fight early often)?
do u get drums on AM?
No. And i don't understand the point you are trying to make. I also don't go Battlefury on Morph, are you saying i should?
PS: Still confused why Drums are a "never get" on Morph, i'd rather build Drums on Morph than on other, not that stat-based heroes. Not saying one should go always Drums on Morph.
Is Soul Ring legit on a free-farming safe lane Morph? It allows you to farm the jungle at insane speeds and gives you enough mana to go straight to an E-blade afterwards.
Also, Bloodstone Morph? If the enemy lineup isn't suitable for Linkens. The respawn timer reduction is so good late game and Morph can make good use of pure +health. The mana reg can get a little over the board if you build up charges though.
PS: Still confused why Drums are a "never get" on Morph, i'd rather build Drums on Morph than on other, not that stat-based heroes. Not saying one should go always Drums on Morph.
I believe the theory is that Drums is essentially a discounted Ultimate Orb*. Since Linken's is a core Morph item, unlike on carries such as AM, spending 1775 on a Drum is a waste when for 325 more you can get the same item + build it into your first big core item.
On April 07 2014 02:03 ZerG~LegenD wrote: Is Soul Ring legit on a free-farming safe lane Morph? It allows you to farm the jungle at insane speeds and gives you enough mana to go straight to an E-blade afterwards.
Also, Bloodstone Morph? If the enemy lineup isn't suitable for Linkens. The respawn timer reduction is so good late game and Morph can make good use of pure +health. The mana reg can get a little over the board if you build up charges though.
Never ever go bloodstone. Doesn't give you any damage, the health regen is meh, the mana regen is completely overkill. Gold is muuuuuuch better spent elsewhere.
On April 07 2014 02:03 ZerG~LegenD wrote: Is Soul Ring legit on a free-farming safe lane Morph? It allows you to farm the jungle at insane speeds and gives you enough mana to go straight to an E-blade afterwards.
Also, Bloodstone Morph? If the enemy lineup isn't suitable for Linkens. The respawn timer reduction is so good late game and Morph can make good use of pure +health. The mana reg can get a little over the board if you build up charges though.
SR is legit. The rate at which Morph farms is dependent on how often he can spam Waveform. SR is a good item for that purpose, although many swear by solely Bottle usage + Aquila.
ye get sr over aquila, aquila falls off p quickly in terms of mana regen cuz morph gets so many stats (and the added wraith band also contributes to that), so i'd just go tango salve rop 3x branch early, turn rop into basilius, then at like lvl 7-8 u can turn it into a soul ring and just keep the rop for some time.
PS: Still confused why Drums are a "never get" on Morph, i'd rather build Drums on Morph than on other, not that stat-based heroes. Not saying one should go always Drums on Morph.
I believe the theory is that Drums is essentially a discounted Ultimate Orb*. Since Linken's is a core Morph item, unlike on carries such as AM, spending 1775 on a Drum is a waste when for 325 more you can get the same item + build it into your first big core item.
*Yes I know they are not the same.
Thx, that was helpful. I guess i should start building Linken's on Morph like Bfury on Am and get it every single game, that way i don't start wondering if i shouldn't get Drums on him anymore...
PS: Still confused why Drums are a "never get" on Morph, i'd rather build Drums on Morph than on other, not that stat-based heroes. Not saying one should go always Drums on Morph.
I believe the theory is that Drums is essentially a discounted Ultimate Orb*. Since Linken's is a core Morph item, unlike on carries such as AM, spending 1775 on a Drum is a waste when for 325 more you can get the same item + build it into your first big core item.
*Yes I know they are not the same.
Thx, that was helpful. I guess i should start building Linken's on Morph like Bfury on Am and get it every single game, that way i don't start wondering if i shouldn't get Drums on him anymore...
Not rly. There are games when you absolutely don't need Linkens and i'm pretty tired of people thinking that they can go linkens on Weaver/Morphling every game as first item even if there is no target stuns/cc in opposite team.
Sometimes manta as first item after pt is very legit, sometimes you get bkb which negates possibility of linken purchase almost for 100%, sometimes you just go eblade-butterfly when game is easy.
Manta, bkb and linken are pretty similar in case that you need them to survive, but getting all 3 make you ridiculously sad in damage output.
Linkens is not core on morph. The most important item is a relatively early eblade. It just so happens that linken is very useful in morph in many cases. It pains me however whenever I see a morph get linkens against a lineup with little single target lock down.
Even if ur opponents have actual 0 single target lockdown, linkens is still fine on morph. A) there's gonna be a hex or orchid in the game eventually B) you need the mana. Sure, there are games where you can't afford to farm for all of linkens+eblade and those games you have to go earlier fighting shit but that doesn't really have to do with what linkens blocks or not.
PS: I still think orchid morph is pretty good for a build that I've never seen anybody attempt.
On April 08 2014 00:49 DucK- wrote: Linkens is not core on morph. The most important item is a relatively early eblade. It just so happens that linken is very useful in morph in many cases. It pains me however whenever I see a morph get linkens against a lineup with little single target lock down.
Eblade is pretty volatile item, because you spend 4900 while having no combat stats outside of shotgun, so you're like, let's say, Lina, who just casted everything and she ran away.
Imho manta style -> eblade is most competent build on Morphling, which works with almost everything.
On April 08 2014 00:54 Sn0_Man wrote: Even if ur opponents have actual 0 single target lockdown, linkens is still fine on morph. A) there's gonna be a hex or orchid in the game eventually B) you need the mana. Sure, there are games where you can't afford to farm for all of linkens+eblade and those games you have to go earlier fighting shit but that doesn't really have to do with what linkens blocks or not.
PS: I still think orchid morph is pretty good for a build that I've never seen anybody attempt.
If your team can do at least anything, you won't die in that hex having manta/bkb/not 1 agility. And Morphling's cooldowns aren't competent enough to spam abilities anyway.
There's no reason to get linkens just for the mana regen, considering that soul ring is enough for that purpose. You end up spending 5k gold on an item that serves little purpose early on.
Manta as usual is a shit item to be getting as a first item. Yasha is good, manta is horrible.
you simply go linkens first because you want to max wave and morph before strike and if you're not super terrible you will get linkens + eblade around 14/15
On April 08 2014 17:08 Erasme wrote: you simply go linkens first because you want to max wave and morph before strike and if you're not super terrible you will get linkens + eblade around 14/15
Linkens and eblade at 15 minute? You're a God it seems.
On April 08 2014 00:55 Sn0_Man wrote: 40 agi 10 str is combat stats on morph bro.
manta -> eblade pretty much means u cant even cast all ur spells + items lol.
On April 08 2014 17:08 Erasme wrote: you simply go linkens first because you want to max wave and morph before strike and if you're not super terrible you will get linkens + eblade around 14/15
how're you supposed to get linkens + eblade in 14/15 minutes consistently
1) English please. 2) Linkens + Eblade finishes around LEVEL 14-16, which is exactly where you want it. People who rush e-blade and finish it at level 11 still can't combo people properly for like 3 levels.
However, indicating that it takes you 40 mins to farm 10K gold is helpful in establishing where your misunderstandings lie.
On April 08 2014 17:08 Erasme wrote: you simply go linkens first because you want to max wave and morph before strike and if you're not super terrible you will get linkens + eblade around 14/15
Building on this, if you are getting EB first, get a midas as you'll get EB before you hit 14, and you'll feel pretty stupid. (I'm a fan of bottle midas bots EB, though I only do that when im bored).
On April 09 2014 00:33 Sn0_Man wrote: 1) English please. 2) Linkens + Eblade finishes around LEVEL 14-16, which is exactly where you want it. People who rush e-blade and finish it at level 11 still can't combo people properly for like 3 levels.
However, indicating that it takes you 40 mins to farm 10K gold is helpful in establishing where your misunderstandings lie.
Ohwell, no reason to argue with Lesotho's guys, they're not messing up.
There's nothing really out there than encompasses everythign like that. Hop into a bot match, and give his skills a go, he's as easy as any other carry, all he has is a nuke, and the rest is stat management and right-clicking. Give him a try in unranked, not as reliable as other carries, but nothing glaring holding him back.
Well I'm not quite sure about a few things, like how to engage with how much HP in a teamfight, how to best ensure splitpush farm and so on. I've been trying, but not doing so well. I guess I'll watch something from the international.
On May 06 2014 15:40 son1dow wrote: Well I'm not quite sure about a few things, like how to engage with how much HP in a teamfight, how to best ensure splitpush farm and so on. I've been trying, but not doing so well. I guess I'll watch something from the international.
Okay you wanted something more content heavy, a lot of Morphling from that era. He's a niche pick up right now, but TI2 was when he was played more.
On May 06 2014 15:40 son1dow wrote: Well I'm not quite sure about a few things, like how to engage with how much HP in a teamfight, how to best ensure splitpush farm and so on. I've been trying, but not doing so well. I guess I'll watch something from the international.
Assess their burst damage capabilities. If you have enough HP that they can't burst you down immediately, you'll be fine as you can always morph more during the fight. Remember you can morph while under most kinds of disables. If they have silencing capabilities, be wary of that. imo Linkens is the best for splitpush farming, it lets you spam waveform which is your main farming spell. Having lots of mana also makes it incredibly difficult to kill you.
Morphling is really fun, I just don't really get why it's not in the meta right now
What are you guy's thoughts on Orchid for Morphling? While the Intelligence is mostly wasted on morph, the damage and mana regen seems really useful, allowing waveform spam and the silence is really useful. Not to mention the build up is very smooth.
rtz + ee single handedly bringing this hero back into competitive. expect morphling to have a big showing at ti4, at least in the hands of dk/eg/c9/empire
On May 06 2014 15:40 son1dow wrote: Well I'm not quite sure about a few things, like how to engage with how much HP in a teamfight, how to best ensure splitpush farm and so on. I've been trying, but not doing so well. I guess I'll watch something from the international.
Assess their burst damage capabilities. If you have enough HP that they can't burst you down immediately, you'll be fine as you can always morph more during the fight. Remember you can morph while under most kinds of disables. If they have silencing capabilities, be wary of that. imo Linkens is the best for splitpush farming, it lets you spam waveform which is your main farming spell. Having lots of mana also makes it incredibly difficult to kill you.
Morphling is really fun, I just don't really get why it's not in the meta right now
Morphling was heavily nerfed after TI2 and is only recently receiving his strength back, some nerfs are being slightly reversed.
On May 08 2014 10:59 stink123 wrote: What are you guy's thoughts on Orchid for Morphling? While the Intelligence is mostly wasted on morph, the damage and mana regen seems really useful, allowing waveform spam and the silence is really useful. Not to mention the build up is very smooth.
Okay orchid is not good at all on morphling. Here, I have been looking to make a guide on morphling but me being lazy has prevented me from doing so. Might as well put my thoughts here. Morphling has 2 main weaknesses as a carry...
1. Movement speed Morphling is slow as fuck, there are ~90 heroes that are faster than him. Movement speed is CRITICAL for farming, moving around the map, and positioning in teamfights. Lets look at other standard carries movespeed and compare it to morphlings
Luna - 330 Naga -320 AM - 315 Naix - 315 Ember Spirit - 310 Shadow Fiend - 305 TA - 305 Faceless Void - 300 Spectre - 295 DK - 290 Morphling - 285
In most games you will be at least 20 movement speed slower than the opposing enemy carry, and because you don't have a great disable, you are going to be kited HARD. Orchid does nothing to fix this first problem, and it gives you no legitimate solo killing potential because of how slow you are.
2. Mana issues It is very overlooked how low morphlings intelligence gain is, lets again compare this to other standard carries
Luna - 1.85 Naga -1.95 AM - 1.8 Naix - 1.75 Ember Spirit - 1.8 Shadow Fiend - 2 TA - 2 Faceless Void - 1.5 Spectre - 1.9 DK - 1.7 Morphling - 1.5
So on top of him having one of the lowest INT growths in the game, he consumes far mana than any other carry. You not only need mana regen, but you need raw intelligence also. A morphling at level 11 with a linkens only has 4.7 mana regen a second with a mana pool of 617. A shadowfiend at lvl 11 with linkens has 5.3 mana regen a second and a mana pool of 689, if Morphling had shadowfiends INT growth, there is no doubt in my mind he would be broken. Morphling needs approx ~ 600 mana to waveform, adaptive strike, morph strength, waveform again, replicate out. With waveforming being his primary farming tool, it is very rare to enter a fight with a max mana pool, leading to more sketchy situations/going back to base. Now lets compare Linkens to Orchid in terms of mana, a morphling at level 11 with a orchid has 5.7 mana regen a second, and a base mana pool of 710. While it is indeed superior to Linkens from that perspective, it does not give you any agility, it gives you no health regen, and most importantly Linkens allows you to farm on more dangerous parts of the map.
Here is also another reason why orchid is not desirable. You must remember that from switching from agility to strength you are losing armor, and in some situations you will overall take more effective damage by morphing strength. A morphling at level 11 with a linkens and everything morphed into strength has 5% physical damage resistence(0.XXXX armor), but if that same morphling has a orchid instead you will take 6% extra damage(-1.XXX armor) from physical attacks.
I have tried an unbelievable amount of morphling builds out, and even though I have found orchid terrible, I have had some success with a casual oblivion staff. bottle > phaseboots+ Show Spoiler +
I am eventually going to make a post explaining why I think phase boots are better than Treads in about 70% of games, don't freak out on me just yet
> oblivion staff > BKB is somewhat alright in the pub games I have played. To sum it up, I find it awesome how Icefrog has balanced morphling overall by giving him these weaknesses, and he is by far my favorite and most played hero.
On May 08 2014 10:59 stink123 wrote: What are you guy's thoughts on Orchid for Morphling? While the Intelligence is mostly wasted on morph, the damage and mana regen seems really useful, allowing waveform spam and the silence is really useful. Not to mention the build up is very smooth.
I have tried an unbelievable amount of morphling builds out, and even though I have found orchid terrible, I have had some success with a casual oblivion staff. bottle > phaseboots+ Show Spoiler +
I am eventually going to make a post explaining why I think phase boots are better than Treads in about 70% of games, don't freak out on me just yet
> oblivion staff > BKB is somewhat alright in the pub games I have played. To sum it up, I find it awesome how Icefrog has balanced morphling overall by giving him these weaknesses, and he is by far my favorite and most played hero.
I only have a question with imo only 1 valid answer: why not straight BoTs? It's not like any other boots are better on morph. The only answer i can think of is: 2000 gold in pubs is not something easy to get.
If you can afford to spend 2000 gold that early on and be safe then you should go for a midas every single time. Morphling LOVES levels probably more than any other carry. I also believe that Yasha is a better pickup early game for morphling, I have done some stuff like bottle > brown boots > Yasha > Linkens/BKB > S&Y/Manta/shotgun/Skadi > BoTs. I would only go Midas > BoTs if my team was WAY ahead, or if they have multiple strong ratting heroes and they have no way to put pressure on you early.
Dude u just wrote an essay on why linkens -> orchid because morph needs Movement Speed and Mana...
Its kinda a shame that people can ask for help in threads like this and get that level of advice.
On the topic of orchid: I think its almost there. In a vacuum its a sweet item on Morph but the way morph plays out you need a survivability item in general to be able to split-push safely for one thing. Plus, the silence is pretty meh on a hero that's kill "combo" is like 0.5s to cast 3 items/spells aka you rarely need to silence to get the kill. I mean, you could go mega-ultra-glass-cannon with orchid into etherealblade but even then you are suffering from quite a bit less agi/strength with orchid compared to linkens (although its cheaper and offers more mana).
Linkens remains the best option because it gives the mana and stats that morph craves combined with a useful spellblock that synergizes really well with morphling's slippery nature. I think you'd have to be planning to eschew E-Blade for orchid to be really legit, but E-Blade is so attractive.
E: Further orchid discussion: I think for orchid to be good you have to want the active ability, which means searching for kills shortly after completing it (clinkz style). However, while you have replicate to get out of whatever trouble you may find when searching for kills, you can't really compete with clinkz's right-click damage either. Even with waveform + orchid and right clicks I'd guess you are only gonna kill squishies with just an orchid. If the enemy has a few qop/storm/puck type heroes ratting it up in vulnerable locations, then I think you could justify an orchid. However, I bet you could justify linkens + Eblade those games too
Interesting stuff, but yeah Reuental, you made orchid sound way better by talking about Morphling's low intelligence.
I always feel like going Eblade or Linkens takes too long in most games, Linkens especially so because even after you build it, you're still pretty weak in a teamfight. Eblade has way better stats, but the lack of mana and terrible build up really hurts you. Then again, maybe its better to just build 1 oblivion staff with bottle/perseverance. However, I think if the enemy team has even 1 good silence target the Orchid would be a good choice.
On May 08 2014 10:59 stink123 wrote: What are you guy's thoughts on Orchid for Morphling? While the Intelligence is mostly wasted on morph, the damage and mana regen seems really useful, allowing waveform spam and the silence is really useful. Not to mention the build up is very smooth.
I have tried an unbelievable amount of morphling builds out, and even though I have found orchid terrible, I have had some success with a casual oblivion staff. bottle > phaseboots+ Show Spoiler +
I am eventually going to make a post explaining why I think phase boots are better than Treads in about 70% of games, don't freak out on me just yet
> oblivion staff > BKB is somewhat alright in the pub games I have played. To sum it up, I find it awesome how Icefrog has balanced morphling overall by giving him these weaknesses, and he is by far my favorite and most played hero.
I only have a question with imo only 1 valid answer: why not straight BoTs? It's not like any other boots are better on morph. The only answer i can think of is: 2000 gold in pubs is not something easy to get.
Sometimes Treads is your only option since you have to absolutely fight on your first item occasionally. It's not optimal, but if a team recognizes that their carry is weaker than Morph late game (in which most cases it actually is since most people don't run late game carries outside of Void, who is really ran as a teamfight carry), they will likely push the game along and try and be aggressive early. Sometimes I just rush BKB/Treads/Aquila because I absolutely have to.
On May 08 2014 10:59 stink123 wrote: What are you guy's thoughts on Orchid for Morphling? While the Intelligence is mostly wasted on morph, the damage and mana regen seems really useful, allowing waveform spam and the silence is really useful. Not to mention the build up is very smooth.
I have tried an unbelievable amount of morphling builds out, and even though I have found orchid terrible, I have had some success with a casual oblivion staff. bottle > phaseboots+ Show Spoiler +
I am eventually going to make a post explaining why I think phase boots are better than Treads in about 70% of games, don't freak out on me just yet
> oblivion staff > BKB is somewhat alright in the pub games I have played. To sum it up, I find it awesome how Icefrog has balanced morphling overall by giving him these weaknesses, and he is by far my favorite and most played hero.
I only have a question with imo only 1 valid answer: why not straight BoTs? It's not like any other boots are better on morph. The only answer i can think of is: 2000 gold in pubs is not something easy to get.
Sometimes Treads is your only option since you have to absolutely fight on your first item occasionally. It's not optimal, but if a team recognizes that their carry is weaker than Morph late game (in which most cases it actually is since most people don't run late game carries outside of Void, who is really ran as a teamfight carry), they will likely push the game along and try and be aggressive early. Sometimes I just rush BKB/Treads/Aquila because I absolutely have to.
Exactly, but unless you are implying that this happens every goddamn game (well, that better be because last time i checked harder carries than morph are not run too often and his counters are not exactly fotm) there is little point in treads/phase over BoTs, since treads give you 8 strength (that you almost have due to morph's strength passive bonus) and phase... welp, only movement speed that BoTs give much more of. And yes, i am fan of bottle/soulring-midas-BoT-eblade build with situational linkens against stuff like doom (you see what i mean here) or situational abandon of whole plan for stuff like treads-aquilla-bkb/skadi/whatever.
What are the pros and cons between bottle and soul ring. Surely bottle runs out of use after a while, unless you bottle crow or go looking for runes, whereas soul ring keeps its usefulness?
Bottle on morph is usually a mid build that you use to tide you over until linkens. Soul-ring is a "mana solution" itself but you need an HP regen solution since while soul ring breaks about even on HP (gives some regen, then takes HP when used), morph still needs HP regen to farm efficiently as a super-low ranged hero. Since you can't justify tranquils or any other common HP regen item soul-ring is preeeetty meh. For reference, it works on clinkz because clinkz gets a ton of HP from his ult.
On May 09 2014 23:27 Sn0_Man wrote: Bottle on morph is usually a mid build that you use to tide you over until linkens. Soul-ring is a "mana solution" itself but you need an HP regen solution since while soul ring breaks about even on HP (gives some regen, then takes HP when used), morph still needs HP regen to farm efficiently as a super-low ranged hero. Since you can't justify tranquils or any other common HP regen item soul-ring is preeeetty meh. For reference, it works on clinkz because clinkz gets a ton of HP from his ult.
Tbh, you only really need HP regen when you are farming jungle, while you only need to use soul ring itself for waveforms to farm creep waves.
Aaaaand what happens when you soul ring and waveform and clear ur creep wave? u go to the jungle...
Besides which, waveform also damages jungle creeps and lets you go through trees etc for jungle optimization. Soul ring morph really relied on old tranqs.
On May 08 2014 10:59 stink123 wrote: What are you guy's thoughts on Orchid for Morphling? While the Intelligence is mostly wasted on morph, the damage and mana regen seems really useful, allowing waveform spam and the silence is really useful. Not to mention the build up is very smooth.
I have tried an unbelievable amount of morphling builds out, and even though I have found orchid terrible, I have had some success with a casual oblivion staff. bottle > phaseboots+ Show Spoiler +
I am eventually going to make a post explaining why I think phase boots are better than Treads in about 70% of games, don't freak out on me just yet
> oblivion staff > BKB is somewhat alright in the pub games I have played. To sum it up, I find it awesome how Icefrog has balanced morphling overall by giving him these weaknesses, and he is by far my favorite and most played hero.
I only have a question with imo only 1 valid answer: why not straight BoTs? It's not like any other boots are better on morph. The only answer i can think of is: 2000 gold in pubs is not something easy to get.
Sometimes Treads is your only option since you have to absolutely fight on your first item occasionally. It's not optimal, but if a team recognizes that their carry is weaker than Morph late game (in which most cases it actually is since most people don't run late game carries outside of Void, who is really ran as a teamfight carry), they will likely push the game along and try and be aggressive early. Sometimes I just rush BKB/Treads/Aquila because I absolutely have to.
Exactly, but unless you are implying that this happens every goddamn game (well, that better be because last time i checked harder carries than morph are not run too often and his counters are not exactly fotm) there is little point in treads/phase over BoTs, since treads give you 8 strength (that you almost have due to morph's strength passive bonus) and phase... welp, only movement speed that BoTs give much more of.And yes, i am fan of bottle/soulring-midas-BoT-eblade build with situational linkens against stuff like doom (you see what i mean here) or situational abandon of whole plan for stuff like treads-aquilla-bkb/skadi/whatever.
If you can get away with doing that then it doesn't matter what you build because the enemy team is just bad. I don't think stuff like that is actually legit, I am a big fan of going phase > blink > bloodstone on SF in complete stomp games, but I don't consider it a serious or legit build.
On May 10 2014 00:16 ahswtini wrote: Bottle-midas-BoT looks so greedy. I don't think any other hard carry would even build so greedily.
Thing is: the greedy part here is midas. BoTs are just best morph's boots by a large margin and bottle/soul ring is just a sustain, nothing more. If you really need HP, get a bracer.
On May 08 2014 10:59 stink123 wrote: What are you guy's thoughts on Orchid for Morphling? While the Intelligence is mostly wasted on morph, the damage and mana regen seems really useful, allowing waveform spam and the silence is really useful. Not to mention the build up is very smooth.
I have tried an unbelievable amount of morphling builds out, and even though I have found orchid terrible, I have had some success with a casual oblivion staff. bottle > phaseboots+ Show Spoiler +
I am eventually going to make a post explaining why I think phase boots are better than Treads in about 70% of games, don't freak out on me just yet
> oblivion staff > BKB is somewhat alright in the pub games I have played. To sum it up, I find it awesome how Icefrog has balanced morphling overall by giving him these weaknesses, and he is by far my favorite and most played hero.
I only have a question with imo only 1 valid answer: why not straight BoTs? It's not like any other boots are better on morph. The only answer i can think of is: 2000 gold in pubs is not something easy to get.
Sometimes Treads is your only option since you have to absolutely fight on your first item occasionally. It's not optimal, but if a team recognizes that their carry is weaker than Morph late game (in which most cases it actually is since most people don't run late game carries outside of Void, who is really ran as a teamfight carry), they will likely push the game along and try and be aggressive early. Sometimes I just rush BKB/Treads/Aquila because I absolutely have to.
Exactly, but unless you are implying that this happens every goddamn game (well, that better be because last time i checked harder carries than morph are not run too often and his counters are not exactly fotm) there is little point in treads/phase over BoTs, since treads give you 8 strength (that you almost have due to morph's strength passive bonus) and phase... welp, only movement speed that BoTs give much more of.And yes, i am fan of bottle/soulring-midas-BoT-eblade build with situational linkens against stuff like doom (you see what i mean here) or situational abandon of whole plan for stuff like treads-aquilla-bkb/skadi/whatever.
If you can get away with doing that then it doesn't matter what you build because the enemy team is just bad. I don't think stuff like that is actually legit, I am a big fan of going phase > blink > bloodstone on SF in complete stomp games, but I don't consider it a serious or legit build.
Morph in general is a greedy hero, seeing as he really needs level14 and eblade to become a 2-hit-ko machine or skadi/bkb/linkens+dps item to become a serious right clicker.
On May 09 2014 23:45 Sn0_Man wrote: Aaaaand what happens when you soul ring and waveform and clear ur creep wave? u go to the jungle...
Besides which, waveform also damages jungle creeps and lets you go through trees etc for jungle optimization. Soul ring morph really relied on old tranqs.
Where suddenly you do not use active and thus end using only 3 HP regen part of soul ring. But yeah, it is not nearly as optimal.
On May 09 2014 22:52 lolfail9001 wrote: Exactly, but unless you are implying that this happens every goddamn game (well, that better be because last time i checked harder carries than morph are not run too often and his counters are not exactly fotm) there is little point in treads/phase over BoTs, since treads give you 8 strength (that you almost have due to morph's strength passive bonus) and phase... welp, only movement speed that BoTs give much more of. And yes, i am fan of bottle/soulring-midas-BoT-eblade build with situational linkens against stuff like doom (you see what i mean here) or situational abandon of whole plan for stuff like treads-aquilla-bkb/skadi/whatever.
You're actually incredibly under-selling Treads.
Treads preserves % HP/Mana when switching to the corresponding stat, while Morph adds the full value because it adds base stats. Because of how this works, Morph allows you to amplify the HP regeneration effectiveness of Bottle+Treads swap. Rather than being redundant with Morph, as you suggest, Treads' swappable stats interacts quite positively with Morph's inherent ability to swap stats given how they function somewhat differently.
On May 09 2014 22:52 lolfail9001 wrote: Exactly, but unless you are implying that this happens every goddamn game (well, that better be because last time i checked harder carries than morph are not run too often and his counters are not exactly fotm) there is little point in treads/phase over BoTs, since treads give you 8 strength (that you almost have due to morph's strength passive bonus) and phase... welp, only movement speed that BoTs give much more of. And yes, i am fan of bottle/soulring-midas-BoT-eblade build with situational linkens against stuff like doom (you see what i mean here) or situational abandon of whole plan for stuff like treads-aquilla-bkb/skadi/whatever.
You're actually incredibly under-selling Treads.
Treads preserves % HP/Mana when switching to the corresponding stat, while Morph adds the full value because it adds base stats. Because of how this works, Morph allows you to amplify the HP regeneration effectiveness of Bottle+Treads swap. Rather than being redundant with Morph, as you suggest, Treads' swappable stats interacts quite positively with Morph's inherent ability to swap stats given how they function somewhat differently.
Or rather i overvalue BoTs 50 movement speed over treads on a hero that certainly does not need even more attack speed nearly as much as movement speed. Stat switching is obviously fairly useful, though i find myself it having more uses primarily with bottle/soul ring usage to refill mana pool, but i still do not value it nearly as much as additional mobility (also, free bottle + hp/mp refill on 80 second cd and 100 mana cost).
On May 09 2014 22:52 lolfail9001 wrote: Exactly, but unless you are implying that this happens every goddamn game (well, that better be because last time i checked harder carries than morph are not run too often and his counters are not exactly fotm) there is little point in treads/phase over BoTs, since treads give you 8 strength (that you almost have due to morph's strength passive bonus) and phase... welp, only movement speed that BoTs give much more of. And yes, i am fan of bottle/soulring-midas-BoT-eblade build with situational linkens against stuff like doom (you see what i mean here) or situational abandon of whole plan for stuff like treads-aquilla-bkb/skadi/whatever.
You're actually incredibly under-selling Treads.
Treads preserves % HP/Mana when switching to the corresponding stat, while Morph adds the full value because it adds base stats. Because of how this works, Morph allows you to amplify the HP regeneration effectiveness of Bottle+Treads swap. Rather than being redundant with Morph, as you suggest, Treads' swappable stats interacts quite positively with Morph's inherent ability to swap stats given how they function somewhat differently.
Or rather i overvalue BoTs 50 movement speed over treads on a hero that certainly does not need even more attack speed nearly as much as movement speed. Stat switching is obviously fairly useful, though i find myself it having more uses primarily with bottle/soul ring usage to refill mana pool, but i still do not value it nearly as much as additional mobility (also, free bottle + hp/mp refill on 80 second cd and 100 mana cost).
Morphling LOVES attack speed in the early game, you have no where near enough agility at that stage of the game for the attack speed to not be incredibly good. That attack speed on treads is the primary reason why I am still not completely sold on Phase Boots.
I consider Phase boots or Treads clearly superior to BoTs in most situations for morphling. Phase boots have a distinct advantage in that they are incredibly good in fights for Ranged heroes with short range. If you remember a few months back the Chinese tried really hard to make phase boots work on Luna even though she is much faster and much more squishy than morphling. Even the raw mobility advantage for BoTs isn't that great.
Treads - 335 Phase boots if you are using active every time its off cooldown - 361.5 BoTs - 385 Phase boots during active - 388
You are paying a HUGE premium for that extra 20 movement speed compared to phase boots, and you will still not be as mobile in most fights. The primary reason you get BoTs late game is because you need a extra item slot. Ratting can be fought until the late game with intelligent Replicate usage.
(also, free bottle + hp/mp refill on 80 second cd and 100 mana cost).
Its free in terms of gold, but that 80 seconds where you can't use Replicate as a escape mechanism, a scouting tool, or a gap closer. I sound like a broken record, but but this is another reason why the health regen on Linkens is great, because using Replicate for healing is not something you want to do often. This is of course very situational, but its not something I would consider as a bonus to buying BoTs.
Here is my primary morphling build assuming I don't have to go BKB and I don't get a midas.
There is no good reason to sell the phase boots until you need the slot, so until you finish your 4th item you can enjoy the insane mobility. I buy a gem after Linkens 90% of the time because gem wins games in pubs more than any other item. The order I get them in is boots > Ring of Aquila > ring of health > phase boots > voidstone/ultimate orb > linkens > Gem > Eblade > sell Ring > Yasha > BoTs.
On May 10 2014 03:06 Sn0_Man wrote: Well theres some quality WTF going on in that post
Please stop shitting on my posts, I am giving quality and accurate as possible answers. I am not going to explain basic morphling shit like Orchid having the same problem as Eblade which is that you often get it before level 13/14, so you can't fully take advantage of what it gives you. I didn't reply to your previous post because I couldn't do so without insulting you, but I guess I have no choice now.
On May 08 2014 19:57 Reuental wrote:In most games you will be at least 20 movement speed slower than the opposing enemy carry, and because you don't have a great disable, you are going to be kited HARD. Orchid does nothing to fix this first problem, and it gives you no legitimate solo killing potential because of how slow you are.
I did not state anywhere that Linkens fixes morphlings movement speed problem, in fact Linkens isn't mentioned AT ALL.
On May 08 2014 19:57 Reuental wrote:So on top of him having one of the lowest INT growths in the game, he consumes far mana than any other carry. You not only need mana regen, but you need raw intelligence also. A morphling at level 11 with a linkens only has 4.7 mana regen a second with a mana pool of 617. A shadowfiend at lvl 11 with linkens has 5.3 mana regen a second and a mana pool of 689, if Morphling had shadowfiends INT growth, there is no doubt in my mind he would be broken. Morphling needs approx ~ 600 mana to waveform, adaptive strike, morph strength, waveform again, replicate out. With waveforming being his primary farming tool, it is very rare to enter a fight with a max mana pool, leading to more sketchy situations/going back to base. Now lets compare Linkens to Orchid in terms of mana, a morphling at level 11 with a orchid has 5.7 mana regen a second, and a base mana pool of 710. While it is indeed superior to Linkens from that perspective, it does not give you any agility, it gives you no health regen, and most importantly Linkens allows you to farm on more dangerous parts of the map.
Okay this is going to be a stretch for your little brain to understand, but I set a certain assumption in the movement speed section+ Show Spoiler +
it gives you no legitimate solo killing potential because of how slow you are.
Since in my opinion Orchid is not reliable for solo killing for completely obvious reasons. I discard the active ability and compare what is left to another item that fixes Morphlings mana problems.
On May 08 2014 19:57 Reuental wrote:Here, I have been looking to make a guide on morphling but me being lazy has prevented me from doing so. Might as well put my thoughts here.
The main part that you didn't read, this is a slightly edited version of my would be guide and I applied it in a format that addresses his question while still containing the useful information that was going to be in my guide.
Anyway. You are recommending buying a gem mindlessly every game as a farming hard carry. You are recommending having 2 boots over having Boots + Aquila. You are trying to tell people that casual oblivion staff is somewhat legit on morph.
I really don't even know what to say. I'd literally have to write an entire morphling guide to properly straighten out all the issues with your theory and I'm a terrible morphling player.
Actually, the OP has a fine guide spoilered so whatever. Its a bit outdated on starting items for example due to the 6.79 changes but w/e.
On May 10 2014 03:57 Sn0_Man wrote: Relax dude everybody's wrong sometimes.
Anyway. You are recommending buying a gem as a farming hard carry. You are recommending having 2 boots over having Boots + Aquila. You are trying to tell people that casual oblivion staff is somewhat legit on morph.
I really don't even know what to say. I'd literally have to write an entire morphling guide to properly straighten out all the issues with your theory and I'm a terrible morphling player.
Actually, the OP has a fine guide spoilered so whatever. Its a bit outdated on starting items for example due to the 6.79 changes but w/e.
With phase boots activated and BoTs you have 446 movespeed. +61 movement through units every 8 seconds vs Ring of Aquila, lets look at the stats morphling has at this point of the game with my build vs replacing the phase boots with a Ring of Aquila.
At level 17 with Phase boots, linkens, yasha, BoTs, Eblade
I would take the 485 movement speed every 8 seconds over that statgain any day. 485 man, so fucking fast. Its really unfortunate that you haven't tried it, its awesome.
Gem WINS GAMES when solo pubbing. Its preferable for a support to buy it for you, but if they don't I think it is worth the investment to get it. Its completely fine to buy sentries/gems as a hard carry, you are the person with money to do so, and it will help your team immensely.
EDIT: I also think that casual oblivion staff on morphling is pretty much the definition of 'somewhat legit'.
EDIT2: Oh god I am a idiot
You are recommending having 2 boots over having Boots + Aquila.
I actually didn't do this AT ALL. Its not even a question as to what is better. Lets look at the build before we buy BoT.
I just think its a huge shame that somebody might come here looking for tips on how morphling should be built properly and see your posts and take them as legitimate strategy.
On May 10 2014 03:57 Sn0_Man wrote: Relax dude everybody's wrong sometimes.
Anyway. You are recommending buying a gem mindlessly every game as a farming hard carry. You are recommending having 2 boots over having Boots + Aquila. You are trying to tell people that casual oblivion staff is somewhat legit on morph.
I really don't even know what to say. I'd literally have to write an entire morphling guide to properly straighten out all the issues with your theory and I'm a terrible morphling player.
Actually, the OP has a fine guide spoilered so whatever. Its a bit outdated on starting items for example due to the 6.79 changes but w/e.
you're dumb, you're really syaing you'd never buy a gem as a carry in pubstyle doto?
I thought he was going to bring up situations where Aquila should be kept. Since he didn't I will do so now. Before I start I will give you some armor stats
Morphling armor at lvl 1 with all agility morphed into strength - negative 1.58 Morphling armor at lvl 14 with linkens, Eblade, and everything morphed into strength(2772 health) - 6.XX Morphling armor at lvl 14 with linkens, Eblade, nothing morphed(1594 health) - 15.XX Yasha - 2.24 Linkens - 2.1 Eth blade - 5.6 Treads - 1.12 Aquila - 4.26 Butterfly - 4.2 Skadi - 3.5
This is something that not many people realize, but negative armor is very strong vs morphling. Since his survival tool is trading armor for HP, if they have at least two of the following, medallion, AC, Desolator, meld, wave of terror, acid spray, gush, and riptide you are going to explode if you morph strength. Ring of Aquila is HUGE vs these anti armor strats, its armor to cost ratio is just way to good and you should not sell it until you are making your last item.
The advice I am going to give right now is extremely situation specific and you should no way treat it as a rule, but you should probably stop morphing at 4 armor if they are only hitting you with physical attacks. That never morph below 4 armor is some serious theory crafting on my part, and I didn't do the math so you should probably ignore it, its just what I try to do vs heavy anti armor lineups. The reason why I try to do this is that 4 armor gives 20% physical damage reduction, 0 armor of course gives no damage reduction, and -2 armor gives 10% damage amplification. If they have 3 negative armor skills you pretty much have to throw away the gem for you to be viable, so just pray your team has detection.
As a side note, you should get Treads vs anti armor line ups, and the damage added to your combo by 9 agility is 50.4.
You may or may not agree with Reuental, but he's giving explanations, numbers, and everything you need to "understand his reasoning".
I also think some of the things he's saying are not "optimal" nor "standard", but since we're talking about pub doto and not The International Level of doto i think what he says is "legit".
morph is based waaay more on execution than builds. phase vs treads vs bots is an idiotic arguement, just get whatever u are comfortable with, or think is best for that particular game. i think ive played morph the most in dota1/dota2. my winrate with him got shrekt after ti2 nerfs coz i still picked him. but i think hes my best hero skillwise. aquila+treads+linkens+eblade+bottle timing is 24min get manta+skadi later on bkb/satanic in harder games butterfly against heavy rightclick dmg (ORCHID IS DUMB) i rarely ever get midas on this hero, feels like getting a midas on AM, suffer from no-slots issue. i get treads/bottle mostly in safelane/midlane coz i tell my supports to get off my lane coz i dont want them interfering they just ruin my 1v1 match up if enemy has timing based gankers like bat/centaur. magic wand is good. u can do lots of stuff with 15 charges tread swapping and morphing morph is actually mostly about how u use morph. i calculate all the nuke dmg / cooldowns they do and morph just enough to survive their burst while having optimal dps. as they use nukes repeatedly i morph in short bursts and never leave it on, if i get defocused i go back to agi. every player that hasnt mastered morphling yet ends up having 4k hp by the end of a fight.
It's matchup dependent. Get wraith band and tangos if you don't expect heavy harass. 3 branches, tangos and salve is better in hard matchups. Add a magic stick if you're facing Bat or Zeus.
Anyone know a good top pubber that plays mid regularly? I'd like to expand my mid hero pool a bit, and with the frequent mirana picks I thought Morph would be ideal (if my potm safelanes.) The good morphs I play vs play aggressive af with offensive waveforms -> morph if I stand and fight, and I just can't figure out when to do it.
On May 24 2014 07:42 EmilA wrote: Anyone know a good top pubber that plays mid regularly? I'd like to expand my mid hero pool a bit, and with the frequent mirana picks I thought Morph would be ideal (if my potm safelanes.) The good morphs I play vs play aggressive af with offensive waveforms -> morph if I stand and fight, and I just can't figure out when to do it.
I'm pretty sure Rtz plays Morphling mid quite often. Check him out.
after wb bottle boots, do you guys go aquila after or treads? also, stick or wand on this guy? edit: since beesa said wand can be good against timing based heroes, i would assume stick is the normal choice?
also what is the typical safe lane build for him? is basilus => wb better or wb => basilus?
On August 30 2014 03:26 zelphin wrote: after wb bottle boots, do you guys go aquila after or treads? also, stick or wand on this guy? edit: since beesa said wand can be good against timing based heroes, i would assume stick is the normal choice?
also what is the typical safe lane build for him? is basilus => wb better or wb => basilus?
Depends.
If i'm behind, (or died) i'll get the aquila. If i'm csing really well and courier is available I"ll get treads.
I would say on average, i usually get aquila first though.
Wand vs stick depends on starting build. If you were mid and didn't get 2-3 gg's, get stick. if you did get 2-3 gg's, always get the wand. Wand is really good.
Safelane start out with tango salve (or 8 tango if you are that kind of guy), 2/3 ggs (depending on boot timing and if you need an early stick [batrider or bristleback] and a RoP.) Finish basillius, finish treads (unless you died or are behind), and then bring in your wand and aquila via courier.
If you have bottle, I'm not entirely sure you need aquila too.
If you find 3 branches in your inventory, might as well go wand. If not, stick is probably just fine unless you're facing a bat or a zeus or a bristle or something similar, in which case you miiight want a wand (still not an absolute necessary upgrade).
Safe lane, I'd probably say wb would take priority of basilus. Extra stats are better for the early lane, and the point at which you can complete basilus is early enough that you won't need that much mana regen.
On August 30 2014 03:56 Xxazn4lyfe51xX wrote: If you have bottle, I'm not entirely sure you need aquila too.
If you find 3 branches in your inventory, might as well go wand. If not, stick is probably just fine unless you're facing a bat or a zeus or a bristle or something similar, in which case you miiight want a wand (still not an absolute necessary upgrade).
Safe lane, I'd probably say wb would take priority of basilus. Extra stats are better for the early lane, and the point at which you can complete basilus is early enough that you won't need that much mana regen.
Cheap stats are really good on this hero. I would say there isn't a situation where I wouldn't want an aquila on this hero (especially since it gives +7 agi now).
90% of games of morphling, you hit a situation around 10 mins where your team needs you to fight, and having the str treads, aquila, and a wand (or stick if you didn't get gg's) really help you fight a lot more effectively.
aquila is really important for mana regen too (which, if you have a bottle is less important) and for split pushing.
also aquila's so good for pressuring t1s which morphling is pretty useful for. question: if i am going the linkens build, and i have treads aquila stick/wand bottle Ulti orb (since according to beesa uo>pers) tp ^ should i replace stick/wand withpers? pers +10dmg and even during combat that lasts 20 seconds i get 100 hp from the regen vs 150/225. you see thats the reason im confused regarding getting wand (i still get a stick dont worry) since it feels like i need to sell it so fast :/
also @comeh, isnt salve morphling sub optimal at best for both mid/safe? i rarely find a situation where i get to use the full 400, or even 300
On August 30 2014 04:18 zelphin wrote: also aquila's so good for pressuring t1s which morphling is pretty useful for. question: if i am going the linkens build, and i have treads aquila stick/wand bottle Ulti orb (since according to beesa uo>pers) tp ^ should i replace stick/wand withpers? pers +10dmg and even during combat that lasts 20 seconds i get 100 hp from the regen vs 150/225. you see thats the reason im confused regarding getting wand (i still get a stick dont worry) since it feels like i need to sell it so fast :/
also @comeh, isnt salve morphling sub optimal at best for both mid/safe? i rarely find a situation where i get to use the full 400, or even 300
I typically would get the perseverance over ulti orb (well, it depends on farming and timings and rotations, but on average I get the perseverance) But in your case, I would stash the magic stick and finish the linkens that way.
I use the salve a lot. Not to mention it can save you from being first blooded a lot. I'd say about 90% of my games I get full usage of salve.
Agreed about mid though, I wouldn't get a salve mid - I go wraithband tangos
Small question i myself dont have the answer too. When i morph during a fight, is there a reset button or how do you determine how much hp is needed in which situation?
On August 30 2014 06:23 govie wrote: Small question i myself dont have the answer too. When i morph during a fight, is there a reset button or how do you determine how much hp is needed in which situation?
Entirely game-dependent. You need to have a sense of how much burst damage the enemy can do, and tune your HP such that you don't die in a full round of spells. There's no fixed answer to this, and simply requires that you have an understanding of about how much damage the enemy heroes can collectively do in a round of skills.
On August 30 2014 04:18 zelphin wrote: also aquila's so good for pressuring t1s which morphling is pretty useful for. question: if i am going the linkens build, and i have treads aquila stick/wand bottle Ulti orb (since according to beesa uo>pers) tp ^ should i replace stick/wand withpers? pers +10dmg and even during combat that lasts 20 seconds i get 100 hp from the regen vs 150/225. you see thats the reason im confused regarding getting wand (i still get a stick dont worry) since it feels like i need to sell it so fast :/
also @comeh, isnt salve morphling sub optimal at best for both mid/safe? i rarely find a situation where i get to use the full 400, or even 300
I typically would get the perseverance over ulti orb (well, it depends on farming and timings and rotations, but on average I get the perseverance) But in your case, I would stash the magic stick and finish the linkens that way.
I use the salve a lot. Not to mention it can save you from being first blooded a lot. I'd say about 90% of my games I get full usage of salve.
Agreed about mid though, I wouldn't get a salve mid - I go wraithband tangos
I think Beesa prefers the ulti orb because he constantly bottle crows with morph until he has the finished Linkens, so if bottle crowing is possible I think the ulti orb is the better choice.
On August 30 2014 08:58 zelphin wrote: uhm how much total str start is recommended for mid/safe morph?
i like to stay above 150-200 hp of total burst dmg in one cycle of heroes in my vicinity, most games i stay at very little str like 1 or 3 for the longest time bcoz im very comfortable with the hero even if enemies have more burst than my hp
On August 30 2014 04:18 zelphin wrote: also aquila's so good for pressuring t1s which morphling is pretty useful for. question: if i am going the linkens build, and i have treads aquila stick/wand bottle Ulti orb (since according to beesa uo>pers) tp ^ should i replace stick/wand withpers? pers +10dmg and even during combat that lasts 20 seconds i get 100 hp from the regen vs 150/225. you see thats the reason im confused regarding getting wand (i still get a stick dont worry) since it feels like i need to sell it so fast :/
also @comeh, isnt salve morphling sub optimal at best for both mid/safe? i rarely find a situation where i get to use the full 400, or even 300
I typically would get the perseverance over ulti orb (well, it depends on farming and timings and rotations, but on average I get the perseverance) But in your case, I would stash the magic stick and finish the linkens that way.
I use the salve a lot. Not to mention it can save you from being first blooded a lot. I'd say about 90% of my games I get full usage of salve.
Agreed about mid though, I wouldn't get a salve mid - I go wraithband tangos
I think Beesa prefers the ulti orb because he constantly bottle crows with morph until he has the finished Linkens, so if bottle crowing is possible I think the ulti orb is the better choice.
nothing is black and white, i get pers if i have freefarm and enemies dont have too much early/mid burst. so i get to waveform more creeps/neutrals for faster overall farm. i prefer ulti orb in harder games. a morph with 15 wand charges and ulti orb is rly rly hard to kill and it deters enemies from ganking u in the first place so u get more space?! i dont have fixed builds skill/item with any hero. i do everything based on feel and past experiences. morph is one of my auto-pilot heroes
On August 30 2014 08:58 zelphin wrote: uhm how much total str start is recommended for mid/safe morph?
i like to stay above 150-200 hp of total burst dmg in one cycle of heroes in my vicinity, most games i stay at very little str like 1 or 3 for the longest time bcoz im very comfortable with the hero even if enemies have more burst than my hp
so assuming if you get a good block is it recommended that you start with 1 str at level 1?( 2 branch 1 wb build, 321hp 73 avg dmg) since level 1 bursts from a single hero is at best 170 unreduced
From watching various pros go mid with morph they often seem to go either 9 11 or 13 strength, depending on lane as the damage you have from that extra agi should be enough to last hit while it also means you won't die if you get ganked before level 3. Even if you can survive a gank/large amount of burst at level 1 you'll have lost a lot of health and mana and won't be anywhere near bottle so you're kind of fucked anyway.
hey peps, low level guy here, i play morph as mid a lot and my item build usually goes: starting items -> Wraith band (sometimes i start with a WB if im feeling greedy) -> brown boots -> midas -> threads -> aquila -> linkens -> EB -> the rest. Is there anything i should change around or its decent enough? cheers
On August 30 2014 08:58 zelphin wrote: uhm how much total str start is recommended for mid/safe morph?
i like to stay above 150-200 hp of total burst dmg in one cycle of heroes in my vicinity, most games i stay at very little str like 1 or 3 for the longest time bcoz im very comfortable with the hero even if enemies have more burst than my hp
so assuming if you get a good block is it recommended that you start with 1 str at level 1?( 2 branch 1 wb build, 321hp 73 avg dmg) since level 1 bursts from a single hero is at best 170 unreduced
think for urself... srsly get dmg just above enemy mid
On August 31 2014 07:08 PukingMachines wrote: hey peps, low level guy here, i play morph as mid a lot and my item build usually goes: starting items -> Wraith band (sometimes i start with a WB if im feeling greedy) -> brown boots -> midas -> threads -> aquila -> linkens -> EB -> the rest. Is there anything i should change around or its decent enough? cheers
Depends on your bracket/reliability of team and your ability to farm. Your build comes online pretty late which is *generally* not ideal in pubs. At lower MMR I would almost always prefer treads/bottle/aquila/wand to ghost->eb unless they have heroes who can lock you down like lion rhasta bm doom sky
what are the reasoning for lvl 6 replicate vs level 9 rep? rep allows you rune control with illusion + being able to recover more quickly from ganks/harass with rep=>tp=>rep while extra point in morph gives you more survivability in ganks as well as the faster level 4 morph ( 2 4 6 10) and a negligible + 1 to both agi and str... for me i try to get the best of both worlds by saving a skill point and adding either when getting ganked, replicate if i determine that i can survive the burst with -1 level of morph then recover quickly with the tp + rep, morph if i think i think i need the extra str. in other words i sacrifice the other 2 advantages (rune control and +1 to str agi). thoughts?
Well, obviously more levels in morph might save you if you are being ganked, and the extra +1/+1 is nice, but I typically grab replicate (particularly if I need to TP back to base, regen, replicate back). I guess if you are like full HP free farming lovely life self 4/0/4/0 is fine.
4/0/4/0 is probably better mid / if you have a bottle too.
Level 1 replicate has too short duration to be really effective for escaping. It can be good if you want to go back, but morph can solo farm and supports won't be there to do this unless you ask for a tp. I would skip it most of the time until 10.
no I can't imagine a situation in which they're diving you and skilling replicate, turning around to make a replicate, running it in another direction, and jumping to it will happen successfully Asssuming you can't wave form, you're gonna run out of mana while morphing and you won't be able to replicate away, and if you stall to try to get your replicate far enough away while not morphing, you're gonna get blown up
On September 08 2014 22:09 KOFgokuon wrote: no I can't imagine a situation in which they're diving you and skilling replicate, turning around to make a replicate, running it in another direction, and jumping to it will happen successfully Asssuming you can't wave form, you're gonna run out of mana while morphing and you won't be able to replicate away, and if you stall to try to get your replicate far enough away while not morphing, you're gonna get blown up
u didnt read my post properly. i meant that if i judged that i could survive the gank with a lower level morph i would do a replicate on them and just tp home to recover after the gank and return back to lane.
Okay, it's time to talk support morphling. I just tried it out in a pub game and here are my thoughts
Pros - 4.25 second click stun (Icefrog, what are you even doing?) - Fuckhuge health pool - Waveform initiation, escape or damage - Replicate initiation, escape, regen trip, poor man's BoTs - Ranged hero, so can deward alone. Will take a while though. Cons - No right click. At all. Prepare to deal less damage than Techies. - No mana. Soul ring pretty much required. - No armour. You need some from items. - Bad movespeed
It was my experience that heroes really cannot handle being stunned for 4.25 seconds. I was able to catch and hold a QW turbo Invoker for my team, which was crucial that game.
On January 18 2015 12:34 beef42 wrote: Okay, it's time to talk support morphling. I just tried it out in a pub game and here are my thoughts
Pros - 4.25 second click stun (Icefrog, what are you even doing?) - Fuckhuge health pool - Waveform initiation, escape or damage - Replicate initiation, escape, regen trip, poor man's BoTs - Ranged hero, so can deward alone. Will take a while though. Cons - No right click. At all. Prepare to deal less damage than Techies. - No mana. Soul ring pretty much required. - No armour. You need some from items. - Bad movespeed
It was my experience that heroes really cannot handle being stunned for 4.25 seconds. I was able to catch and hold a QW turbo Invoker for my team, which was crucial that game.
Have you tried it? Thoughts?
You need level 7 for that 4.25 stun, and you have no damage at all before that, or even several levels after that.
How are you expecting to spend the first 10-15 minutes of the game? Leeching exp and monopolizing the pull camps without doing anything else?
Maybe as a greedy 4? Play it like a support Beastmaster?
You can also go splitpush and get some solo xp while you leave a replicate to roam with 1 or 2 other ganking heroes, so you're pretty much guaranteed some solid farm even if its not incredible. I think tranqs+soul ring would also be core, since it resolves most regen issues and provides decent armor.
I was also considering just running morph as an offlaner. He has solid escape and survability, so getting level 7 wouldn't be too hard provided the enemy safelane isn't absurdly strong. He is pretty slow though, so there's that.
Also, thoughts on a possible drow+morph combo? A 3/5 strength-morphed morphling with drow aura could probably still dish out some solid rightclick on top of the stun.
Im 3-2 with this, shits pretty fun when u get blink :p Viable or not, it does have its upsides especially when against heroes weak to lockdown (storm, AM, etc...).
You could try go offlane for supp morph and play like "normal" then switch to max adaptive from lvl 3 onward. Waveform is good at lvl 1 like at 4 as an escape anyway. So 2-4-1-0 at 7 i guess? Whatever.
While I'm not sold on the idea that he can be a support or offlane since he really need both levels and farm. I think he can be a situational mid (depending on matchup) where he can get easy CS with his high damage and Bottle for the needed regen to support his early levels in Waveform/Adaptive Strike. Morphling can still dish out sick damage just from Treads + Aquila + Armlet as you can get your long duration stun off with Armlet's active + Str Treads, then swap to Agi Treads and burn them down for some strong solo pick-off potential. I've been going S&Y after Armlet to further continue to snowball but you can make whatever.
Also why do people think Morphling has such a low pub win rate? He seems crazy strong to me honestly.
i think its mostly cus ppl suck at farming u p much have to go sr or bottle crow on morph to get decent farm also sr + tranqs offlane morph isnt that uncommon usually into euls, which i think is much better than armlet
If you're going offlane morph, I rather you play it with maxed adaptive or the support morph build. You get your levels and then you set up ganks. No point going the normal route since you're playing catchup and are useless without an advantage anyway
Any itemisation/playstyle tips against antimage? That hero makes my morph super sad.
Also, is there a consensus on when to skip Linkens? Morph converts mana to farm so effectively that RoA+bottle really doesn't seem like enough. Plus, there are so many Euls/orchids/sheeps etc these days that the single-target spells on the other team are almost irrelevant.
Linkens is an inefficient and expensive source of mana regen. So the only reason you choose to get it is to block key spells. Farming does not justify its purchase. If you need mana regen to farm, and find aquila bottle to not be enough, then get a soul ring.
i think roa soulring hotd is pretty strong too morph clears stacks reasonably fast, u can morph all agi if u know ur safe it also makes ur eblade come out earlier
linkens is more so u can splitpush forever whenever ur ulti is up
On March 04 2015 13:46 DucK- wrote: Linkens is an inefficient and expensive source of mana regen. So the only reason you choose to get it is to block key spells. Farming does not justify its purchase. If you need mana regen to farm, and find aquila bottle to not be enough, then get a soul ring.
how does urn fair on this hero? he could use the extra strength, mana regen, and i think the synergy between morph str/agi is interesting.
On March 04 2015 13:46 DucK- wrote: Linkens is an inefficient and expensive source of mana regen. So the only reason you choose to get it is to block key spells. Farming does not justify its purchase. If you need mana regen to farm, and find aquila bottle to not be enough, then get a soul ring.
how does urn fair on this hero? he could use the extra strength, mana regen, and i think the synergy between morph str/agi is interesting.
I don't think he gets charges actively enough to be worth it on him. Morphling does not look to fight. The fight comes to him or it happens and he responds via tp.
seems weak, BoTs first is too much to ask for. no linkens is not good. if ure not going linkens u need to play a completely different style to shotgun and go like hotd
seems weak, BoTs first is too much to ask for. no linkens is not good. if ure not going linkens u need to play a completely different style to shotgun and go like hotd
You can't say no linken, no shotgun. Sometimes pros go straight shotgun and skip linken entirely.
seems weak, BoTs first is too much to ask for. no linkens is not good. if ure not going linkens u need to play a completely different style to shotgun and go like hotd
Serious question: why would you not go shotgun if you don't go linkens. It's not like linkens is that good. I mean, let's be honest, the only thing that enables shotgun working is ton of agility and maxed adaptive strike and nothing else. Granted, you may need some mana pool to afford the full combo, but mana is cheap.
The primary weakness of shotgun morph is that you have to be mostly morphed into agi, leaving your hp VERY low and so you are insanely vulnerable to burst. Add that to being a short ranged carry and you die insanely quick to decent players. Linkens blocks the first disable or nuke that allows you to wave/ult/morph away when they focus you, that no other item offers except for bkb which is even more clunky on morph (still viable though of course, but you don't want bkb in your first couple items)
On March 06 2015 04:58 Varth wrote: The primary weakness of shotgun morph is that you have to be mostly morphed into agi, leaving your hp VERY low and so you are insanely vulnerable to burst. Add that to being a short ranged carry and you die insanely quick to decent players. Linkens blocks the first disable or nuke that allows you to wave/ult/morph away when they focus you, that no other item offers except for bkb which is even more clunky on morph (still viable though of course, but you don't want bkb in your first couple items)
I mean, the trickery here is that, really ou can afford to morph away 30 or so strength that leads to rather respectable HP pool anyways.
ur only gonna get bursted if your bad aka out of position. if the morph is free farming and gets a early shotgun (after yasha etc ofcourse) it really makes games alot easier for the team.
On March 06 2015 04:58 Varth wrote: The primary weakness of shotgun morph is that you have to be mostly morphed into agi, leaving your hp VERY low and so you are insanely vulnerable to burst. Add that to being a short ranged carry and you die insanely quick to decent players. Linkens blocks the first disable or nuke that allows you to wave/ult/morph away when they focus you, that no other item offers except for bkb which is even more clunky on morph (still viable though of course, but you don't want bkb in your first couple items)
That's not really the primary weakness of Shotgun at all. Even keeping a reasonable amount of Str, you still have really high burst damage. Shotgun isn't going to unnaturally force you to morph more Agi than necessary.
There are other issues with EBlade first, but that isn't one of them.
On March 06 2015 00:09 nojok wrote: You can't say no linken, no shotgun. Sometimes pros go straight shotgun and skip linken entirely.
Straight EBlade is really game dependent. It's really good if you're winning or the enemy team has targets that you can use the early burst damage to threaten and develop the game. But the weaker ability to take risky farm that Linken otherwise affords you hurts in games where you can't make that kind of threat.
A lot of issues with eblade first... You will have lvl 1-2 adaptive when u finish it... no sustain whatsoever everytime u shotgun a squishy guy (support or poor core) u go to 0 mana and have to ulti out or something and go base and come back... not worth
On March 06 2015 07:58 ChunderBoy wrote: A lot of issues with eblade first... You will have lvl 1-2 adaptive when u finish it... no sustain whatsoever everytime u shotgun a squishy guy (support or poor core) u go to 0 mana and have to ulti out or something and go base and come back... not worth
So what about (midas)-travels/treads-eblade with bottle? I mean, the question is about you having a good start, where you can easily go for greedier build, and let's be honest, linkens utility is rather situational.
midas + bots is really questionable morphs a pretty mediocre laner so u really need a couple small items (treads, bottle/sr, roa generally) to actually win ur lane morphs mana is pretty awful if u skip linkens, basically requires constant fountain trips on slahser's build the wraith roa wand bottle help a lot with controlling ur lane and managing ur mana and then he gets bots so he can go back to fountain constantly
im really liking hotd + sr + roa + treads > eblade. ive tried bots but treads are way too good on morph bots are amazing too but it really kills ur laning unless u get a bunch of small items like slahser
On March 07 2015 08:42 Dead9 wrote: midas + bots is really questionable morphs a pretty mediocre laner so u really need a couple small items (treads, bottle/sr, roa generally) to actually win ur lane morphs mana is pretty awful if u skip linkens, basically requires constant fountain trips on slahser's build the wraith roa wand bottle help a lot with controlling ur lane and managing ur mana and then he gets bots so he can go back to fountain constantly
im really liking hotd + sr + roa + treads > eblade. ive tried bots but treads are way too good on morph bots are amazing too but it really kills ur laning unless u get a bunch of small items like slahser
Well, i skipped mentioning small items, but yeah, i totally get roa or 2 wraiths before midas/BoTs . As for mana, bottle + some runes solve it.
On March 07 2015 08:42 Dead9 wrote: midas + bots is really questionable morphs a pretty mediocre laner so u really need a couple small items (treads, bottle/sr, roa generally) to actually win ur lane morphs mana is pretty awful if u skip linkens, basically requires constant fountain trips on slahser's build the wraith roa wand bottle help a lot with controlling ur lane and managing ur mana and then he gets bots so he can go back to fountain constantly
im really liking hotd + sr + roa + treads > eblade. ive tried bots but treads are way too good on morph bots are amazing too but it really kills ur laning unless u get a bunch of small items like slahser
Well, i skipped mentioning small items, but yeah, i totally get roa or 2 wraiths before midas/BoTs . As for mana, bottle + some runes solve it.
runes are hard to get, bottle crowing is not convenient in new patch
Solo offlane morphling into support works when you have a dumb jungler pick. Their supports will probably rape with their early game rotations against your solo support. And few offlaners can win against jugg/troll anyway after getting zoned out early. So might as well go full greed, lose lanes, win game.
This offlane max stun Morph thing is actually pretty stupid. Im winning more than losing with it, had another random in my team doing it to great effect too. Saw Bulldog try it once on stream too. Its too early to call viable/OP obviously but it's surprisingly effective. You dont have the issue of you being a shit support too if you try to run it as that. You can neither zone offlaners well nor gank. But in offlane you can just sit there and waveform/str-morph to survive, get Tranqs and you're good. Then from lvl 7-8 something you have a beastmaster roar every 10sec.
I can see support morph being viable. LGD tried it but i think they played it wrong, you need to give lane space to get the basic items (tranq and soulring) and some xp with a carry that can transition into jungle after they get couple of lvls like Lycan or when your carry get MoM to transition into jungle for a while like most of them are doing it now.
Offlane support morph kinda seems like a waste in the current meta.
On March 09 2015 19:55 SkelA wrote: I can see support morph being viable. LGD tried it but i think they played it wrong, you need to give lane space to get the basic items (tranq and soulring) and some xp with a carry that can transition into jungle after they get couple of lvls like Lycan or when your carry get MoM to transition into jungle for a while like most of them are doing it now.
Offlane support morph kinda seems like a waste in the current meta.
I mean, the thing is that you can probably do something like lane morph in offlane and then shift him into ward bitch role essentially, or use him to farm up blinks, hexes and stuff if you are playing against illusion carry. After all you need to give him some farm (as little as that is) and he does nothing to little useful in laning stage.
On March 09 2015 19:55 SkelA wrote: I can see support morph being viable. LGD tried it but i think they played it wrong, you need to give lane space to get the basic items (tranq and soulring) and some xp with a carry that can transition into jungle after they get couple of lvls like Lycan or when your carry get MoM to transition into jungle for a while like most of them are doing it now.
Offlane support morph kinda seems like a waste in the current meta.
Nah. They did it wrong by picking a lineup that doesn't make use of the 4s stun well at all.
On March 10 2015 01:44 Thetwinmasters wrote: Just pick lycan troll with Support morph
What about drow-visage strats? So, you automatically have a support being an actual core so offlane morph can easily turn into support after laning, solve no-damage problem of morphling and provide a way to push people away from drow.
I've played this for the past 9 games and went 5-4. I would have done better if I didn't have imbeciles on my team all the time who give up when some hero is played in a unconventional way. I think it's actually more viable than playing it is a carry right now.
The pros of the build are pretty obvious. You get insane control and you are a meatshield for towers/spells. Having a hugely tanky support gives the enemy team one less person to pick off, so it makes snowballing harder for them. I think it's more important to note some weaknesses.
1. Your armour is ridiculously low so you die surprisingly fast to right clicks. I played vs sniper almost every game and it was hit and miss. He can destroy you but your long range 4.25s stun can also ruin his day. 2. Your early game is really bad. You can do waveform into knockback once before you're totally out of mana at which point you're just a barely-ranged creep. 3. You really want a fast euls, but you have no way to farm it. You can't even weaken creepwaves for waveform easily unless you morph a decent amount of agi, which requires a fountain trip. I think this is the biggest problem and the reason why offlane > support. Having an offlaner who does no damage is kind of bad though. 4. If your team is too passive you will miss your window, which is pretty much as soon as you hit level 10.
In an ideal world you get level 10 and then your cores come with you and wreck anybody who comes close enough to get stunned. I think this is the best time to get your euls gold by taking all the towers. You're then pretty useful for high ground pushes because you can tank the tower and disable 2 people straight away. Stun the one you want to kill and euls the most dangerous of the remaining targets.
Not sure what to build after euls also. I've been going for shotgun but it's so luxury that if you get it the game is almost certainly over anyway. Maybe a forcestaff for extra initiation range/messing up their carries positioning. Or a vlads if it suits the game.
Playing with drow definitely helps btw. As a support it's much better if you're laning with a ranged carry, and if you initiate with your stun it knocks them away from you so it's just easier for a ranged hero to follow up than a melee hero. Also gives you damage to harass or get creeps if you're offlaning.
On March 13 2015 23:33 juracule wrote: blink is far more important on supp morph than euls
Yup.
Basically after Blink you don't need any other items. If you do have gold coming your way though, you just get whatever utility items that fits the game. Eul is common. Halberd is an option. Force Staff is always good. You could get auras or whatever.
On March 14 2015 00:04 bardtown wrote: Only way I'd go blink before Euls is if I had a reliable teammate who had arcanes, and I'm 3.6k. I've never had a reliable teammate in my life.
You go tranquils->soul ring->blink (first 2 are subject to swap). Soul ring and stick provide you enough mana for whole game, unless you actively farm with waveform.
On March 14 2015 00:04 bardtown wrote: Only way I'd go blink before Euls is if I had a reliable teammate who had arcanes, and I'm 3.6k. I've never had a reliable teammate in my life.
I think if you are playing support morph, and your first item isn't either blink or forcestaff (not including boots / sr / whatever), you are doing it wrong.
after blink i tend to go force staff, blademail vs uncontrollable aoe, dagon, very rarely pipe etc. etc. I like urn a lot as well, although I do agree with gkha the extra strength is fairly wasted.
Mek first is pretty good too when you want to group up and constantly teamfight. Gives you another +5 armor on your str morph.
Please don't morph into full str. Morph just enough str so that you can stun for max duration. It's best to have some damage for killing creeps and heroes.
Replicate is also a good source of damage in fights. Remember to use it.
I think the key thing is to make sure that your lineup has some other heroes to compensate your lack of damage and inability to farm
I disagree. Go full strength. Whether you are attacking with a piddly 28 damage or a slightly faster, slightly less piddly 60 damage is, it's both piss-poor. Might as well get that 32 str.
Mek is mediocre. You wont get it in time for it to be hugely relevant, and blink is generally far more important.
You kind of have to be full Str when you have low levels of Morph because rank 1 Morph swaps stats too slowly to be meaningful.
When you get to level 13/14, you probably want a closer split of Agi, because there's like no point being full Str from the start if Str Morph gets you to 100% Str during the fight. If you're going to stay 100% Str all the time, you may as well take Stats over ranks 2-4 Morph.
I take stats over 2-4 morph. At some point in the game when im happy with my items and dont feel i need the agi to last hit here and there i just morph it all in to str. Generally the fountain or sometimes in small amounts at a time to not ruin my mana if i have no other reason for a fountain trip. You probably wanna keep agi until blink at least though.
You're suppose to be taking stats over morph 2-4. No point having some agi when either way you are going to hit for negligible damage. Accept the fact that all you are suppose to do is stun + waveform + items in fights. No right clicks at all.
Tried blink. Was good. No point trying to run away from a blink morphling, and I had warlock on my team so he could harass in lane + his ult makes everybody want to run. Worked nicely.
Hadn't even considered skipping morph after level 11. Will do so in future.
Meh.. I still disagree. There's really no advantages, say having 2k hp over 1.5k as a support morphling in a teamfight. No good players in a right mind will try to burst down a full str morph. It's always better to balance your hp such that they will consider to kill you, but you still come out alive at the end of it. +20 dmg and 20 attack speed is nothing to scoff at. Every little damage count. You are not like those fragile support who has to constantly position yourself at the edge of engagement range.
On March 15 2015 06:47 babysimba wrote: Meh.. I still disagree. There's really no advantages, say having 2k hp over 1.5k as a support morphling in a teamfight. No good players in a right mind will try to burst down a full str morph. It's always better to balance your hp such that they will consider to kill you, but you still come out alive at the end of it. +20 dmg and 20 attack speed is nothing to scoff at. Every little damage count. You are not like those fragile support who has to constantly position yourself at the edge of engagement range.
+20 damage and +20 attack speed is nothing when you are hitting for 60 damage once per second. Having 2k HP over 1.5k HP however does matter even though nobody is going to focus you in teamfight, it reduces a risk of you getting picked off.
You don't get picked off as a support morphling when you don't put yourself in a position to farm. If you die in a teamfight, you should be getting really good trades by soaking up shittons of damage or you have already lost your entire team. But you give nobody incentives to hit you when you have that much hp and no damage. Nobody would bother touching you when they can use 2k dmg to burst your teammates instead. Agi stats doesn't boost your damage linearly because you are getting attack speed out of it too.
I'm just saying push the hero to the limits instead of blindly go full str without thinking.
On March 15 2015 07:06 babysimba wrote: You don't get picked off as a support morphling when you don't put yourself in a position to farm. If you die in a teamfight, you should be getting really good trades by soaking up shittons of damage or you have already lost your entire team. But you give nobody incentives to hit you when you have that much hp and no damage. Nobody would bother touching you when they can use 2k dmg to burst your teammates instead. Agi stats doesn't boost your damage linearly because you are getting attack speed out of it too.
I'm just saying push the hero to the limits instead of blindly go full str without thinking.
I mean, you totally have ability to farm some even as support morphling with literally 5 agility total, just on the back of nuking waves with waveform, or just scouting around. In fact, i totally see no point in not going full strength when playing stunling, as let's be honest, he won't do nearly enough damage to even farm well without spamming wave (in which case you totally make better use out of stats points than out of morph).
Of course, you still always get some opportunity to take creep waves that your carry can't take as a support. And unlike other squishy supports, you don't get picked off solo killed with 1.5k hp and waveform escape unless they decide to stupidly commit enough heroes. The difference between 30 dmg and 50dmg+20attack speed is huge, even more so in creep clearing. And I didn't even talk about adding morph. In fact it's still better to add stats, +12 morphable stats is definitely more worth it.
On March 15 2015 13:47 zelphin wrote: um guys is tranquil boots that important for him? what do you guys think about sr boots midas then gradually transition?
Why do you want midas? Midas is gotten on him just like you would on any other support. That said, his strength in early-mid game is so powerful that why would you want to take advantage of it by enhancing his potential with blink instead.
in order to become a semi carry late game i guess. like some pos 4 wks do it what so good about blink though, you already have 1000+900 which is longer than day vision
I am converted to blink, now. It's much much more reliable that using your waveform to get in range and means you will 100% get your waveform damage off. Just played vs a Tiny, and late game my illusion was basically our mvp. If Tiny wants to fight it it will take him like 10 swings (by then he's dead) so his team just have to kite it while fighting. Bye bye supports :p so fun.
Midas into semi-carry morph just seems bad. Morph is a weak carry until he has big items, and you will have to spend so much time morphing to and from agi to be at all useful as a semi carry + stunling that I think it's totally nonviable. One thing that's good about this support is that is does so much with so little. 200gpm in a really long game and it's absolutely fine, because you're still too tanky to die and you have your super strong stun and scaling ultimate.
On March 15 2015 07:50 babysimba wrote: Of course, you still always get some opportunity to take creep waves that your carry can't take as a support. And unlike other squishy supports, you don't get picked off solo killed with 1.5k hp and waveform escape unless they decide to stupidly commit enough heroes. The difference between 30 dmg and 50dmg+20attack speed is huge, even more so in creep clearing. And I didn't even talk about adding morph. In fact it's still better to add stats, +12 morphable stats is definitely more worth it.
I mean, if you want to leave agility to farm at a speed of a turtle while still having lvl1 morph, it is bound to backfire. Also, bonus stats points are not morphable, only base ones. Honestly, after tranquil-SR you need so little items (essentially, only blink), you are better off just going full strength and farming with replicate,since it will farm better than you even with 30 agility left.
On March 15 2015 16:20 zelphin wrote: in order to become a semi carry late game i guess. like some pos 4 wks do it what so good about blink though, you already have 1000+900 which is longer than day vision
You cannot play catch up with Morphling because Morphling without big items is nothing. To be relevant as a semi carry, you need to be mainly Agi. I'd rather have a no item str morph than a 2 item agi morph.
On March 16 2015 01:26 Shikada wrote: So, what exactly is the build if you go solo offlane morph, and how do you farm your tranquils + SR in the offlane?
If you can get farm, then good for you. Otherwise just survive and get levels. You can get your items by ganking once you're level 5.
On March 15 2015 16:20 zelphin wrote: in order to become a semi carry late game i guess. like some pos 4 wks do it what so good about blink though, you already have 1000+900 which is longer than day vision
You cannot play catch up with Morphling because Morphling without big items is nothing. To be relevant as a semi carry, you need to be mainly Agi. I'd rather have a no item str morph than a 2 item agi morph.
manta eblade morph is probably more useful than euls str morph but lets not bring any logic to this subforum
On March 15 2015 16:20 zelphin wrote: in order to become a semi carry late game i guess. like some pos 4 wks do it what so good about blink though, you already have 1000+900 which is longer than day vision
You cannot play catch up with Morphling because Morphling without big items is nothing. To be relevant as a semi carry, you need to be mainly Agi. I'd rather have a no item str morph than a 2 item agi morph.
manta eblade morph is probably more useful than euls str morph but lets not bring any logic to this subforum
I would rather have SR-blink strength morph 60 minutes in than manta-eblade agi morph same 60 minutes in.
On March 16 2015 03:20 Erasme wrote: Feel free to refer yourself to the second part of my post
Oh, but there is quite a simple logic to this statement: i would rather have 5k networth morph, and as he is 5k 60 minutes in, that in nutshell only means one thing: he was not given any farm aside from what he has, and as such he still provides replicate and 4.25 second stun on 10 seconds. Over manta-eblade morph 60 minutes in, who is primarily agility, has little damage or EHP and can't one-shot anyone, so such morph actually does nothing except well, being a foolbait.
Stunmorf's extensions should either be utility/aura or Dagon 5. Not worthing saccing your 4.25s stun and 2k HP pool for a couple more puny right click late game when you're bound to be blown up since you only have 1-2 items at best.
On March 16 2015 03:20 Erasme wrote: Feel free to refer yourself to the second part of my post
Oh, but there is quite a simple logic to this statement: i would rather have 5k networth morph, and as he is 5k 60 minutes in, that in nutshell only means one thing: he was not given any farm aside from what he has, and as such he still provides replicate and 4.25 second stun on 10 seconds. Over manta-eblade morph 60 minutes in, who is primarily agility, has little damage or EHP and can't one-shot anyone, so such morph actually does nothing except well, being a foolbait.
Yes. If a morphling cant farm more than those items at 60min, trust me, he will stun creeps or try to kill people with it. Also a lvl 25morphling with manta/eblade can blow a carry once his bkb is down to a half/third of his hp. Not to mention the ability to splitpush. But sure, w.e.
On March 16 2015 03:20 Erasme wrote: Feel free to refer yourself to the second part of my post
Oh, but there is quite a simple logic to this statement: i would rather have 5k networth morph, and as he is 5k 60 minutes in, that in nutshell only means one thing: he was not given any farm aside from what he has, and as such he still provides replicate and 4.25 second stun on 10 seconds. Over manta-eblade morph 60 minutes in, who is primarily agility, has little damage or EHP and can't one-shot anyone, so such morph actually does nothing except well, being a foolbait.
Yes. If a morphling cant farm more than those items at 60min, trust me, he will stun creeps or try to kill people with it. Also a lvl 25morphling with manta/eblade can blow a carry once his bkb is down to a half/third of his hp. Not to mention the ability to splitpush. But sure, w.e.
The entire discussion was about a semi-core Morphling building to transition into full carry, which is a terrible idea, not a terrible player who doesn't know how to cs.
On March 16 2015 03:20 Erasme wrote: Feel free to refer yourself to the second part of my post
Oh, but there is quite a simple logic to this statement: i would rather have 5k networth morph, and as he is 5k 60 minutes in, that in nutshell only means one thing: he was not given any farm aside from what he has, and as such he still provides replicate and 4.25 second stun on 10 seconds. Over manta-eblade morph 60 minutes in, who is primarily agility, has little damage or EHP and can't one-shot anyone, so such morph actually does nothing except well, being a foolbait.
Yes. If a morphling cant farm more than those items at 60min, trust me, he will stun creeps or try to kill people with it. Also a lvl 25morphling with manta/eblade can blow a carry once his bkb is down to a half/third of his hp. Not to mention the ability to splitpush. But sure, w.e.
Something tells me that if this morphling buys wards on cd, does not farm at all after blink and acts as a walking pair of wards with 4.25 second stun, he won't have much more farm 50 minutes in. Matter of farm distribution, eh?
As for lvl25 morphling with manta/eblade, nobody denies he is decent, but is he really worth it against twice farmed heroes of enemy? After all the context was trying to transition a morph into carry out of no-farm-little-levels position.
The point is not morphling "can't" farm, but rather not giving the morph farm. A Manta/E-Blade morphling is going to get blown up by the enemy carry, or just outright ignored, as the only thing you offer is puny 150-160 damage right click for 60 minutes into the game. Morphling is a shit carry from behind, the only thing he does well is split push.
On March 16 2015 03:20 Erasme wrote: Feel free to refer yourself to the second part of my post
Oh, but there is quite a simple logic to this statement: i would rather have 5k networth morph, and as he is 5k 60 minutes in, that in nutshell only means one thing: he was not given any farm aside from what he has, and as such he still provides replicate and 4.25 second stun on 10 seconds. Over manta-eblade morph 60 minutes in, who is primarily agility, has little damage or EHP and can't one-shot anyone, so such morph actually does nothing except well, being a foolbait.
Yes. If a morphling cant farm more than those items at 60min, trust me, he will stun creeps or try to kill people with it. Also a lvl 25morphling with manta/eblade can blow a carry once his bkb is down to a half/third of his hp. Not to mention the ability to splitpush. But sure, w.e.
Something tells me that if this morphling buys wards on cd, does not farm at all after blink and acts as a walking pair of wards with 4.25 second stun, he won't have much more farm 50 minutes in. Matter of farm distribution, eh?
As for lvl25 morphling with manta/eblade, nobody denies he is decent, but is he really worth it against twice farmed heroes of enemy? After all the context was trying to transition a morph into carry out of no-farm-little-levels position.
I'm sorry, I thought we always were talking about the highest level of games on teamliquid. I am now reminded that we only concern ourselves with 3 to 4k level, not unlike reddit. If you can't farm more with wave, you might as well go play LoL. Maybe you will learn how to use spells to farm. This whole discussion is useless. If a lion or an es can get on average a sub20min blink, i am sure you can get more in 60min as morphling. And if you can't you're either a) losing in 20min or b) terrible at dota So please, let it go
It seems to be more a matter of playstyle than what he can or cant do. I for one generally just morph litterally 100% of my agi to str at some point in the game (generally after blink), and I only play with 1pt in morph. And after that it is absolutely out of the question to try any kind of semi-carry transition.
Is it the best way to do it? Who knows. Could someone make a transition work? Probably. The whole spec and playstyle is just a few weeks old and we're all just theorycrafting.
But from my PoV you really dont have good tools to transition unless you go stuff like midas before blink or skip blink altogether. And you likely need to start to play greedy (TP to clear up waves approaching your towers etc), you likely only want to keep just 50% higher str than agi to ensure the 4.25sec stun and keep the rest as agi for farming speed. Maybe you could keep even less str and be ready to morph some in case a fight happens, but I doubt you'll be able to keep much extra agi without risking the stun duration. And theres the mana issue too of you try to morph back and forth a lot. And you obviously need to go all the way to morph lvl 4 and no stats until lvl 15.
Overall there just seems to be too many hurdles to overcome to me. Many other heroes just doesnt have those. A support Lina having a good game just needs an Eul and maybe bottle/soul ring or something as farming tool to start using her spells to farm. A support WK can start clearing creeps with ease and not having to worry about any mana or morphing issue with blink/treads and some lvls and maybe another 2-2.5k item on top. I dont really see how a morphling can do the same transition without meeting a few too many hurdles to play around effectively. I'd just work towards that sheepstick instead of manta/eblade even if it means I get the sheepstick and only that by 60min instead of 2x 5k items.
Besides, playing with a 60min goal in mind (or even 40min) is totally the wrong way to approach any game.
On March 16 2015 03:20 Erasme wrote: Feel free to refer yourself to the second part of my post
Oh, but there is quite a simple logic to this statement: i would rather have 5k networth morph, and as he is 5k 60 minutes in, that in nutshell only means one thing: he was not given any farm aside from what he has, and as such he still provides replicate and 4.25 second stun on 10 seconds. Over manta-eblade morph 60 minutes in, who is primarily agility, has little damage or EHP and can't one-shot anyone, so such morph actually does nothing except well, being a foolbait.
Yes. If a morphling cant farm more than those items at 60min, trust me, he will stun creeps or try to kill people with it. Also a lvl 25morphling with manta/eblade can blow a carry once his bkb is down to a half/third of his hp. Not to mention the ability to splitpush. But sure, w.e.
Something tells me that if this morphling buys wards on cd, does not farm at all after blink and acts as a walking pair of wards with 4.25 second stun, he won't have much more farm 50 minutes in. Matter of farm distribution, eh?
As for lvl25 morphling with manta/eblade, nobody denies he is decent, but is he really worth it against twice farmed heroes of enemy? After all the context was trying to transition a morph into carry out of no-farm-little-levels position.
I'm sorry, I thought we always were talking about the highest level of games on teamliquid. I am now reminded that we only concern ourselves with 3 to 4k level, not unlike reddit. If you can't farm more with wave, you might as well go play LoL. Maybe you will learn how to use spells to farm. This whole discussion is useless. If a lion or an es can get on average a sub20min blink, i am sure you can get more in 60min as morphling. And if you can't you're either a) losing in 20min or b) terrible at dota So please, let it go
Is this not a discussion of whether you can, but whether you ARE? To the point of "I am playing Morph in position 3/4/5 rather than 1/2, thus will not be farming waves". If you have a support morph with your carries farmed, is it better than a carry morph with other supports? Replication doesn't care how much farm you have. There's no doubting that Carry morph is powerful, but does a morph with X farm out do <insert other ranged agi carry> with X farm? If not, does support morph provide similar use to another support? The stun length is incredible and with blink you can potentially come in and get it off before a BKB is enabled. Yes, he loses out a little due to the fact of having a stun and replicant and occasional nuke only with the 3rd ability as useless. Other heroes have auras or buffs in that space, which could potentially be an issue. This is all theory-crafting, though. I am interested in trying it out.
Assuming that the lineup is such that Morphling is in the initiation/utility role, and there are others in the team that carry and deal damage, it seems obvious to, even in the late game, keep strength morphed and get utility items, like auras or hex/forcestaff/mek/pipe/shivas etc. after blink. Its weird to say "the damage build is better", since it is doing completely different things.
There of course remains the question whether there even is a relevant amount of scenarios where morph is the best pick to fill such a utility role. Don't know the answer to that one^^
On March 15 2015 16:20 zelphin wrote: in order to become a semi carry late game i guess. like some pos 4 wks do it what so good about blink though, you already have 1000+900 which is longer than day vision
You cannot play catch up with Morphling because Morphling without big items is nothing. To be relevant as a semi carry, you need to be mainly Agi. I'd rather have a no item str morph than a 2 item agi morph.
manta eblade morph is probably more useful than euls str morph but lets not bring any logic to this subforum
(tranq sr) manta eblade is (1800+)9850 networth, while (tranq sr) blink euls is (1800+)5100 networth. this difference of 4750 networth implies that you've spent time farming jungle or split pushing waves instead of sitting behind carries and smoke ganking and map controlling and such. aren't these completely different scenarios? i'm not saying the type of game that you'll want to be greedy and go for manta eblade doesn't exist, but i thought the entire point of picking a low-farm-prio morph was mainly to help make space and work with gank squads, not to help bolster the lategame?
if you're fielding a 3/4 morphling, isn't the point to walk around with your 4.25 stun and fight all throughout the midgame? isn't taking space and farming up a midas/manta/eblade during that period just going ultra greedy in a way that would be better served by like, a 3/4 enigma or something? don't you want sr/tranqs/blink/euls as your early progession precisely because it helps keep your space creating tempo up as a proper 3/4 position that isn't meant to eat up space ala a greedy visage or something?
i mean i imagine there's some stagnant high farm games where both teams focus on lategame where you'll get up to 12k networth as a 3/4 because of a long stagnant midgame/earlylategame where blink/euls wouldn't have really helped, but is that the norm you imagine for 3/4 morph?
i mean sry if you were trying to keep logic out of here
but speaking seriously i have to advocate against this recent trend of pudge+morph support duos. i don't know if it's particularly strong but it's definitely annoying.
morph/pudge just make a pretty good 4/5 combo because pudge can just roam and terrorize from like level 2 while morph pulls and soaks until level 5 or 7, and after that point, the two have pretty much a guaranteed hook from 1900 range away
From the testing I've done I would say that support morph is much better than offlane morph. It really hurts your team having an offlaner who does no damage, and if you were to try and farm a dagon or something you would have to spend too much time agi-morphed to be useful. My last bunch of games as support morph were pretty successful. I first pick it every game because it has no direct counters and people expect carry morph anyway.
Replicate their carry while he's stunned. I generally dont use it as an escape when playing support. As a carry you should use it when pushing and always save enough mana to get out
its 30s sometimes its useful to chase for kills, scouting, stacking neuts, fountain trips, etc but generally speaking u don't really use it. most morphs skip replicate until 9 anyway
-Fountain trips. -Defensive "teleports". Similarly to how PA can jump to a friend you can replicate a friend when you're being attacked and instantly move to it. -Tanking towers, farming, etc. Send Axe or Centaur replicates to jungle or creep-cut behind towers. Send PA replicates to a tower and let it tank. Use whatever passives available in the game. Some can even be used as DPS such as if you get a replicated TB during Meta.
Most of the time, you'll be using pre -11 replicate to tp back to base, fill up your bottle (if you ahve one), and then jump back to your replicate when you have full mana + hp. other than that, you MIGHT get a kill because of it
I find using early replicate to chase quite dangerous. You have to judge it really carefully.
Morph barely has enough mana for waveform and replicate before his first major. Even if you get the kill you usually end up stuck behind a tower with no mana, waveform on cd and too much agi.
I mean it does work but I see people commit suicide with it far more often than I see them make plays.
Most of the times it is for your fountain trip. Sometimes I try to do body block with it for kills. Very low success rate with it though unlike my Chen :D
On April 05 2015 03:56 TheYango wrote: How would you even spend SR mana at level 1, it's not like he's a super spammy hero until he has all his spells.
STR morph has a hard time farming, so might as well get it lol
I mean, you might get it eventually, but it's not going to help you farm until you have Waveform ranks anyway.
It just doesn't really do anything at level 1, so there's no reason to buy it at level 1. Even starting with the Recipe and buying other items so you can eventually get it at the side shop is better than starting with the whole thing at level 1.
On April 05 2015 03:56 TheYango wrote: How would you even spend SR mana at level 1, it's not like he's a super spammy hero until he has all his spells.
STR morph has a hard time farming, so might as well get it lol
You need sr, but not so early. Your nukes do nothing. You only get rank 2 waveform at level 6.
My post in the ESL One thread relating to ASUS.Polar vs Empire.
I don't agree with Mael pickup on Morphling. I think that stun Morph should never transition into DPS. You will always be keeping your Agi relatively lower. Even if you do get Mael, your DPS is mediocre at best. Basically, your right click remains irrelevant until you somehow get many many items up. I mean at this stage, his right clicks doesn't even hurt any of Empire's cores. I mean look at his 84 damage while Sky has 104...
Stun Morph should always be built with utility items like Force/Halberd/Hex/AC/Dagon/Eblade etc. And I haven't even talk about the lack of first item Blink.
I can sort of see the point of SR first. I mean, it's basically accepting that you'll be dead weight for a long time, so with starting gold and timer gold you'll probably have SR+Tranqs by the time you've leeched your way to 5.
Of course, no reason to go SR first instead of boots.
If you consider yourself "dead weight", then tying up 800 gold on an item that does next to nothing early game over wards/courier/consumables only serves to make you even more dead weight.
EDIT: Also, concerning the discussion previously about ranks 2-4 Morph and Agi Morph, I think it's actually probably worth it to take Morph 2-4 prior to level 23-25, and keep progressively more Agi morphed toward lategame. This is not for the damage, but because at high enough HP, the armor gain from Agi starts to surpass the value of the Strength provided on a hero that has only Tranquils and -2 base Armor. Accounting for the fact that Str Morphing will get you to full Str over the course of a fight anyway, having even a small amount of armor early on in the fight is a not-insignificant gain to your overall survivability. Offlane Morphs have typically been taking Morph at 12-14, and while I'm not sure that this is why, it does contribute to the value of those Morph points over Stats. Even if you have only rank 1 Morph, a Morphling that starts with ~30 Agi and morphs to 0 over 15s will be more survivable than a Morphling that starts with all Str once you have enough mana for this to not be restrictive (probably only after Eul's).
Thing is every morph have been going eul first instead of blink. I see very little reason to get eul over blink. Its not like you desperately need the mana pool and regen to function at that stage.
While I do agree that having some armour is good, I don't see any merit in doing so that early on even at levels 12-14. I think its better to delay it even more.
I regurarly die in 3-5sec with my 3.2k hp at lvl 20 or something. Theres absolutely no way you're getting full str morph during the course of a fight unless its quite a long drawn out one. Not to mention the first stun if often the most important one and if u want max duration on any stun it would be that one.
On April 06 2015 10:01 Kreb wrote: I regurarly die in 3-5sec with my 3.2k hp at lvl 20 or something. Theres absolutely no way you're getting full str morph during the course of a fight unless its quite a long drawn out one. Not to mention the first stun if often the most important one and if u want max duration on any stun it would be that one.
The idea is to adjust your strength to the level which ensures maximum stun (50% more than agi), and keep the rest at agi. That way you have some armour, you can strength morph if necessary, and you still have max stun.
On April 06 2015 09:37 DucK- wrote: While I do agree that having some armour is good, I don't see any merit in doing so that early on even at levels 12-14. I think its better to delay it even more.
I didn't mean to imply that 12-14 is right just because offlane Morphs are doing it in pro games, just that there's merit to leveling Morph 2-4 earlier than level 23-25, and that being full 100% Str morph is obviously not going to be right later on into the game because armor starts to gain more value than HP as physical damage heroes pick up.
Honestly, I think it kind of depends on your item development. Once your mana can support using Morph in fights without straining your other ability usage, it's probably worth it to start leveling it. That depends on your role as well as your item choices, and if you're going Blink first on support Morph, it'll definitely be later than that.
On April 06 2015 10:01 Kreb wrote: I regurarly die in 3-5sec with my 3.2k hp at lvl 20 or something. Theres absolutely no way you're getting full str morph during the course of a fight unless its quite a long drawn out one. Not to mention the first stun if often the most important one and if u want max duration on any stun it would be that one.
If you're dying in 3-5 seconds with 3.2k HP, the only possible reason for that is not having enough armor. Excepting some very specific heroes, magical burst doesn't run that high, and that's well above the HP values at which armor is giving you more EHP per Agi point than HP is giving you per Str. 2.7k HP with 6 armor and Str morph available is going to be more survivable than 3200 HP with 2 armor and no ability to morph more Str.
Max stun duration shouldn't even really come into play--you're still going to stay well above the max stun threshold, since your Str only needs to be 50% higher than your Agi to get the max stun (60/40 split of total stats, when if you only care about the armor from Agi, you'll probably be closer to like 80/20 anyway).
Right so this guy has a new toy and I'd like to say that it in my opinion, it doesn't quite fit into an Agi morph's item progression. So unless you have an Alchemist to feed it to you, I feel like it belongs on strength offlane morph much more. Probably SR+Tranqs into Midas into Blink then Aghs? Obviously this means it comes late, so I'm wondering if there's a better way to fit this into the item progression or if it is doomed to be a gimmick.
On May 03 2015 08:11 xAdra wrote: Right so this guy has a new toy and I'd like to say that it in my opinion, it doesn't quite fit into an Agi morph's item progression. So unless you have an Alchemist to feed it to you, I feel like it belongs on strength offlane morph much more. Probably SR+Tranqs into Midas into Blink then Aghs? Obviously this means it comes late, so I'm wondering if there's a better way to fit this into the item progression or if it is doomed to be a gimmick.
Question is basically this: is there any abilities in the game that you would want more than Adaptive Strike?
Generally, no, except in some really specific circumstances. And even in those, it still doesn't warrant the 4200 gold that could be something else.
there are a lot of heroes worth hybriding most str heroes (cent, spiritbreaker, ns, etc) a lot of casters (zeus, pugna, es, etc) illusion heroes (naga, pl, etc) also i imagine u can bait fights really easily with certain heroes (qop, puck, weaver, etc) especially since blink is off cd as soon as hybrid ends
theres some gimmicky stuff u can do too
for example techies suicide, sd double poison, bristle double quills
I used to really love playing morphling but it hasn't seemed like a very good hero for a long, long time. Slow, short range, shotgunning can be demoralizing on their supports if you can get it up soon, but still not particularly great... Also linkens is really useful but the buildup isn't that good and it wastes a lot of time etc etc. I might be wrong though--when can you pick morph and how should you play & itemize on the hero now?
He's actually not so bad right now, there are just other heroes that do his roles better. He fights well early and rats/farms well too, he just doesn't do either well enough to justify a pick over like gyro or antimage.
Carry morph also took collateral nerfs from tinker and offlane morph that make shotgun feel really sluggish, and the lack of a viable alternative to Linkens hurts.
I'd like to see him get a bit of love, but he's less terrible than you'd think.
lack of viable alternative to linkens? if you go bottle you don't need anything else for regen and a lot of games are definitely bkb games more than they are linkens games
Morph can use far more regen than bottle provides. If you're farming with just bottle for regen you're not farming as quickly as the hero is able to. You're welcome to disagree but I'd also point you to Beesa's posts a while back where he seemed to be going Linkens nearly every game.
This meta does favour fighting with BKB, so maybe it's changed, but in that case you really would rather just be a gyro.
first of all, morph isn't that strong right now (and probably won't be until huge reworks either to morph or the overall game)
that said, if you want to play him I recommend midas into skadi these days. (bottle wand boots aquila midas treads skadi, something like that)
then manta for move speed and as an alternative to bkb, and these days you kind of need dps instead of tank (on other heroes too), so instead of the classical satanic on morph I would get that later and mkb or something first.
Aghs is definitely situationally good (IE i got it when there was a pugna on my team the other game, double ward is pretty game changing) but i wouldn't blindly get it unless you just like having fun
Blademail is underrated on this hero given the amount of AOE that tends to exist in games.
Euls is okay - getting it early can be okay sometimes (i've won fights cause of rune purge / disable in fights between that and stun). It honestly depends on how much you need the blink dagger - worth noting the new morph stun is awful since its so easy to dodge, though blink doesn't change that VERY much.
blink is necessary, force is osmetimes good if you need it for your team. Extra points in morph are pretty important at some point.
soul ring tranquils should be standard boot (or just stay on brown boots).
I would max morph by 16 - not worth skipping for 3 points in str / agi and 6 points in int imo when you are already 16.
I'm also of the opinion that offlane morph is much better than support morph given how abusable lanes are these days.
I might be wrong, but Aghs as a 4th-5th item sounds really good on stats heavy agi morph. I mean according to the text the stats are transferred as well, doesnt that mean that morph get essentially 20 second aegis every 2 mins for 4.2k gold as long as you have a reasonable agi hero in your team? I mean morph doesnt amplify his damage or health in any way aside from morph itself.
how is the aghs ability like an aegis? the hybrid only deals half damage and can't use morph's items, and if you're heavy into agi the replicate won't have that much strength for survivability. it's not really comparable to actually having a second life as your actual hero
and if you use it in a fight it better be worth being that hero for 20 seconds because you can't manually end it early so you're trapped as a shitty version of your allied hero
not to mention you wont likely have another scaling agi carry if you're carry morph in the first place
pugna ward and tombstone are the only abilities i can actually see as worth getting the aghs for
So with the introduction of 6.86 I began thinking about a new build path for Morphling. I'd like to know what others think of it, it's all on paper so far however.
2 Variations, one with Linken's one with BKB (replace skadi with E. Blade if you want to shotgun)
Sange is chosen over Yasha because if you Morph the 16 Strength from Sange you can do more damage with Sange than you can with Yasha over 10 seconds (Calculated at level 9, 4 points in Morph, with Branch,WraithBand,AgiTreads), The difference in damage is below 100, so it's negligible, but I think Maim would be better than the movement speed, the added damage is just a nice bonus to Sange.
Dragon Lance is chosen ONLY because it can be disassembled.
I used a lot of math, and it's not impossible that I could have messed up. If you want to know how I found that Sange does more damage than Yasha (for Morphling alone), I can explain that.
why on earth would you buy linkens AFTER SnY Skadi? the whole point of it is to give you the mana regen to use waveform and safety to farm agressively early-midgame. Once you have skadi you aren't concerned about mana very much and you are also very likely to be tanky enough to farm aggressively with replicate anyway. It would take a very specific game to buy Linkens after SnY + Skadi (doom xd).
in the bkb version, regardless of which item you want to complete first I don't think you just buy casual parts of the other one. If you want bkb, buy it. If you want bfly, buy it. Don't buy all the parts for both THEN disassemble.
starting items->aquila->boots->bottle->eblade If The game is one where i can burst at least 2 or 3 of their players in the early-midgame (until 30-35m at least) then It depends.
If not you should go aquila->boots->linkens->manta-> whatever you want.
I mean morph is a really versatile hero in terms of the items you want to build and highly depends in your ability to read the other team and how the game and their items are going to pan out.
If you go linkens you usually dont go eblade (well you can but you will get it in a point were its not gonna be as effective as rushing it) and you usually want to build a normal carry.
IF you go eblade you probably rush it, but since you're gonna need the mana you need bottle and aquila probably, and then with farm and kills you keep on farming and shit.
I also tried the lance on this hero and its particulary good, I rushed it and it paid off because you can farm safer, better and you will most likely build butterfly and bkb (this depends on their teamcomp but if you have to sell it its only like 500g loss)
IDK, as sno said i dont like the order you get your items.
i think the old build still works fine with morphling, the dragon lance is a nice "theory" kind of thing but for 2k gold i think it just screws up everything else, cause u want aquila, wand, treads-> linkens -> yasha, (yasha becomes manta or sny) u can only fit the dragon lance after linkens. Which at that point i rather have a real item instead of bits of a breakable item.
I also prefer to playing farming style with morph, with the replicate u can farm super deep into lanes and in enemy jungles so the dragonlance range isnt that desirable at its cost
*slightly annoying* but the radiant camp changes means its harder to wave form and hit two camps, even if u pull them out a bit
im winning in my 7k pubs doing the same old build guys but now sometimes i max morph before waveform who even builds butterfly when u have 50 armour wtf
On December 19 2015 17:35 ChunderBoy wrote: im winning in my 7k pubs doing the same old build guys but now sometimes i max morph before waveform who even builds butterfly when u have 50 armour wtf
I mean, butterfly is kinda... DPS item, ya see?
Plus, spare 4 armor and flutter does not hurt either (i'll ignore evasion since everyone builds mkbs nowadays).
On December 19 2015 17:35 ChunderBoy wrote: im winning in my 7k pubs doing the same old build guys but now sometimes i max morph before waveform who even builds butterfly when u have 50 armour wtf
are you doing the early point in w since it does 100 damage guaranteed now?
On December 19 2015 17:35 ChunderBoy wrote: im winning in my 7k pubs doing the same old build guys but now sometimes i max morph before waveform who even builds butterfly when u have 50 armour wtf
are you doing the early point in w since it does 100 damage guaranteed now?
isnt that still too weak to warrant a point in it? maybe 4-0-4 vs 3-1-4, it is a tp breaker tho but how often are u fighting for it to make a difference in the early game.
On December 19 2015 17:35 ChunderBoy wrote: im winning in my 7k pubs doing the same old build guys but now sometimes i max morph before waveform who even builds butterfly when u have 50 armour wtf
are you doing the early point in w since it does 100 damage guaranteed now?
Checked out his last few replays. Looks like the standard Morph and Wave max first. No value point.
butterfly sucks coz magic dmg is strong vs morph and if ure forcing ppl to go mkb then thats 160 magic dmg per proc also satanic is too good late game to not get i hate having to go bkb but usually that replaces my skadi
travels is nice on this hero but i feel too weak and useless without treads also morph doesnt have any inventory slot problems so u can always keep a tp with treads
i guess id get a value point in adaptive strike depending on how many times i think ill be using it early on or if i level up during a fight
good morphling players are defined by how good they are with using morph in short bursts and how they use replicate bad players usually keep morph on when they get aggord in fights and end up with 6k hp and 1 agi and they also use replicate only for travelling to fountain or other lanes
On December 20 2015 20:05 ChunderBoy wrote: butterfly sucks coz magic dmg is strong vs morph and if ure forcing ppl to go mkb then thats 160 magic dmg per proc also satanic is too good late game to not get i hate having to go bkb but usually that replaces my skadi
travels is nice on this hero but i feel too weak and useless without treads also morph doesnt have any inventory slot problems so u can always keep a tp with treads
i guess id get a value point in adaptive strike depending on how many times i think ill be using it early on or if i level up during a fight
good morphling players are defined by how good they are with using morph in short bursts and how they use replicate bad players usually keep morph on when they get aggord in fights and end up with 6k hp and 1 agi and they also use replicate only for travelling to fountain or other lanes
what are good ways to use replicate? i occasionally use it to bait out spells or jump on a support with eblade but are there any other things u can do?
On December 20 2015 20:05 ChunderBoy wrote: butterfly sucks coz magic dmg is strong vs morph and if ure forcing ppl to go mkb then thats 160 magic dmg per proc also satanic is too good late game to not get i hate having to go bkb but usually that replaces my skadi
travels is nice on this hero but i feel too weak and useless without treads also morph doesnt have any inventory slot problems so u can always keep a tp with treads
i guess id get a value point in adaptive strike depending on how many times i think ill be using it early on or if i level up during a fight
good morphling players are defined by how good they are with using morph in short bursts and how they use replicate bad players usually keep morph on when they get aggord in fights and end up with 6k hp and 1 agi and they also use replicate only for travelling to fountain or other lanes
what are good ways to use replicate? i occasionally use it to bait out spells or jump on a support with eblade but are there any other things u can do?
jumping on someone from 1.5k range stealing auras manoeuvring in fights to kill escaping enemies after fight is over farming with replicated spectres/alchem or strong illu heroes scouting etc..
my last morph game ended by enemies using spells including laguna on a replicate in rosh pit :S
also replicating lycan gives u all his auras so ac+vlads+feral impulse
I've seen a lot of the Eblade first players gank with replicas as well. I am not that great with Morph (only have like 10-15 games or so), so the only things I do with replicate are jumping closer to escaping enemies, tp'ing to fountain then jumping back, and just generally using it as a getaway for unsafe farming/ratting
I didn't really think about stealing auras that sounds good.
Anyway, my main issue is knowing what HP I should always be at either before fights or just when I'm farming. I guess that's a feel thing where you need to judge how much burst they have and morph accordingly.
eblade first isnt even worth it coz u prolly dont have adaptive maxed by the time u get it and even if u have enough nuke dmg its prolly only good enough to kill a support and u use all of ur mana pool and spend the next 30sec-1min going to fountain and regening all for ~200g for killing a support eblade first also means u cant waveform every other creepwave/camp u see which means u get much less farm in the long run
On December 20 2015 20:30 Shock710 wrote: isnt it easy now too not mess up the overmorphing on str in fights now, its so quikc u just tap it on and than off, and see if u need to do it again.
Well most Morphs literally just hit it and leave it on for 5-10 seconds, lol
Also yea Beesa I wasn't recommending Eblade first or anything
On December 20 2015 20:30 Shock710 wrote: isnt it easy now too not mess up the overmorphing on str in fights now, its so quikc u just tap it on and than off, and see if u need to do it again.
Well most Morphs literally just hit it and leave it on for 5-10 seconds, lol
Also yea Beesa I wasn't recommending Eblade first or anything
i think eblade is always nice to get after linkens, even if im having a good game i like the ability to burst people instead of just going straight skadi/hotd or manta (after linkens).
On December 20 2015 20:30 Shock710 wrote: isnt it easy now too not mess up the overmorphing on str in fights now, its so quikc u just tap it on and than off, and see if u need to do it again.
Well most Morphs literally just hit it and leave it on for 5-10 seconds, lol
Also yea Beesa I wasn't recommending Eblade first or anything
i think eblade is always nice to get after linkens, even if im having a good game i like the ability to burst people instead of just going straight skadi/hotd or manta (after linkens).
i almost always get eblade after linkens no reason not to ppl are like but yeah sometimes u cant 1shot stuff doesnt matter u still oneshot them if they get to 80% hp
On December 20 2015 20:30 Shock710 wrote: isnt it easy now too not mess up the overmorphing on str in fights now, its so quikc u just tap it on and than off, and see if u need to do it again.
Well most Morphs literally just hit it and leave it on for 5-10 seconds, lol
Also yea Beesa I wasn't recommending Eblade first or anything
i think eblade is always nice to get after linkens, even if im having a good game i like the ability to burst people instead of just going straight skadi/hotd or manta (after linkens).
i almost always get eblade after linkens no reason not to ppl are like but yeah sometimes u cant 1shot stuff doesnt matter u still oneshot them if they get to 80% hp
if they had an abundance of silence would u ever put manta before the eblade? i lost a game where i think i could have gone manta
On December 20 2015 20:30 Shock710 wrote: isnt it easy now too not mess up the overmorphing on str in fights now, its so quikc u just tap it on and than off, and see if u need to do it again.
Well most Morphs literally just hit it and leave it on for 5-10 seconds, lol
Also yea Beesa I wasn't recommending Eblade first or anything
i think eblade is always nice to get after linkens, even if im having a good game i like the ability to burst people instead of just going straight skadi/hotd or manta (after linkens).
i almost always get eblade after linkens no reason not to ppl are like but yeah sometimes u cant 1shot stuff doesnt matter u still oneshot them if they get to 80% hp
if they had an abundance of silence would u ever put manta before the eblade? i lost a game where i think i could have gone manta
depends on the situation honestly but if enemy have eearly orchid on invoker and hes like ghost walking looking for kills ghost scepter is enough to survive also staying at higher str is good but im guilty of not doing it
idk if my keyboard or fingers are retarded, but i keep failing to double tap morph when i just want a bit of stat change. and it's so easy to overshoot with the new morph rate
With the new nerfs to bottle, is it worth it on the hero? I can see it to restore mana, but you only get one wave form out of a full bottle when its maxed.
And how do people feel about mangos as a starting item? I found them useful for emergency mana to morph at lower levels. But I have like 4 games total on this hero.
Finally, how do people deal with this hero being so slow? Is the casual yasha a common thing? Or do people just adapt.
I don't think you get bottle anymore, not worth the 660 gold that could go towards faster linkens. My starting items assuming I'm safelane not mid are always RoP, mango, tangoes and then extra regen or branches or w/e depending on what the lane will be.
i dunno im doing rop tango salve 2branches fairie fire or 3 branches but im sure mango is good too but i like the extra stats/dmg coz that hero does nothing at lvl 1-3 need all the help u can get i think so far im 7-2 in my 7k pubs
On December 24 2015 01:00 Plansix wrote: With the new nerfs to bottle, is it worth it on the hero? I can see it to restore mana, but you only get one wave form out of a full bottle when its maxed.
And how do people feel about mangos as a starting item? I found them useful for emergency mana to morph at lower levels. But I have like 4 games total on this hero.
Finally, how do people deal with this hero being so slow? Is the casual yasha a common thing? Or do people just adapt.
just be slow zzz atleast u can use replicate as a blink when its lvl 11/16 if there is a 6.86c it shud give morph +5ms coz boots and yasha nerfs are stupid for an already slow hero
On December 24 2015 02:35 Plansix wrote: I think mango might be more useful at the dumpster MMR. Stable lanes where an extra 2 points of damage makes or breaks you are not a thing.
the only reason I disagree with that is bc at the 2k mmr bracket ppl are also terrible at last hitting. if you get like 2 or 3 more last hits than you wouldn't have normally gotten without the extra dmg, then you've made the investment worth it (this goes for any hero).
you can easily get by with a ROP, turning into a basi as well as picking up a wand for mana regen at the side shop (and eventually getting your roa, full wand).
im not sure how much mana you're using early, but I don't think it justifies the mango pick up..i'd fix the reason you need to burn that mana first.
Last hitting is not the problem for me at those early levels. I am on a lower level for longer because the support never leaves or single pulls. If I have to wave form away and that leaves very little mana to morph str at low levels. Missing last hits due to the opponent denying is not the issue I have normally.
Mango can be really useful at lower levels if they try and dive you under tower, because it means you can waveform over them doing damage while morphing, pop it and use another waveform and get kills
On December 24 2015 05:11 Plansix wrote: Last hitting is not the problem for me at those early levels. I am on a lower level for longer because the support never leaves or single pulls. If I have to wave form away and that leaves very little mana to morph str at low levels. Missing last hits due to the opponent denying is not the issue I have normally.
ok this is a legitimate complaint I can understand, then lol
I saw a Morphling go recently just morph, stats, rushed a helm of the dominator and get an early rosh, then went more stat items like skadi and full right click build. Think that is viable?
On December 27 2015 02:43 the bear jew wrote: I saw a Morphling go recently just morph, stats, rushed a helm of the dominator and get an early rosh, then went more stat items like skadi and full right click build. Think that is viable?
it was always done as a meme build its shit i used to do it too but its not worth
On December 27 2015 08:24 ahw wrote: Do you think Midas fits in to any safe lane morph builds or does that item break his tempo too much?
Morph benefits from the locks moreso than other carries so I always feel I should be going Midas
Although that item seems pretty bad nowadays
midas doesnt fit into any safelaner since 6.82 very few heroes have midas as a core item invoker is #1 then arcwarden maybe od not sure, i think od might be a safelaner in this patch but he can also mid coz he makes support ganks so ez with 4 sec astrals
On December 27 2015 16:52 goody153 wrote: Can SnY be consired as good pickup for morph ? i mean it's good to most right-clicking cores nowadays (i thought sny+skadi would be strong for morph)
like after threads-aquila-bottle ? or just no and manta is just better for morphling ?
no morphling has the strongest manta illusions in the game due to having 300ish agi in late game 1 manta use can destroy a whole t3 manta+linkens makes u too hard to kill
On December 28 2015 02:13 Invictus wrote: hi beesa, would a butterfly after eblades linkens be better or is manta def the straight up better choice?
I keep thinking that butterfly allows me to manfight quicker or maybe im just too greedy for agi gains haha
u want to buy butterfly for almost 6k gold just for 30 agi? evasion is kinda meh when u have 40+ armour anyway its decent against am as a skadi replacement tho
On December 28 2015 02:13 Invictus wrote: hi beesa, would a butterfly after eblades linkens be better or is manta def the straight up better choice?
I keep thinking that butterfly allows me to manfight quicker or maybe im just too greedy for agi gains haha
u want to buy butterfly for almost 6k gold just for 30 agi? evasion is kinda meh when u have 40+ armour anyway its decent against am as a skadi replacement tho
Actually after checking i realise im dumb, manta gives 26 agi and the tip about the manta illusion makes alot of sense. Time to change up my itemisation for abit.
In games that you do not really need linkens, say bunch of aoe spells, what do you use to replace it? Probably skadi i think? Or would you just go for the linkens just to block item based targetted spells like hex?
On December 28 2015 02:13 Invictus wrote: hi beesa, would a butterfly after eblades linkens be better or is manta def the straight up better choice?
I keep thinking that butterfly allows me to manfight quicker or maybe im just too greedy for agi gains haha
u want to buy butterfly for almost 6k gold just for 30 agi? evasion is kinda meh when u have 40+ armour anyway its decent against am as a skadi replacement tho
Actually after checking i realise im dumb, manta gives 26 agi and the tip about the manta illusion makes alot of sense. Time to change up my itemisation for abit.
In games that you do not really need linkens, say bunch of aoe spells, what do you use to replace it? Probably skadi i think? Or would you just go for the linkens just to block item based targetted spells like hex?
go linkens how else do u get hp/mana regen linkens is like 30 agi 15 dmg on morph so its not bad for dmg
Morph player is my friend, he seen your replay yesterday and is trying to emulate it. I noted your disdain against butterfly right now and he's wondering what items are a good alternative as a 6th slot against this team. (I suggested BKB but he said he played well and didn't want to get one versus void anyway)
Morph player is my friend, he seen your replay yesterday and is trying to emulate it. I noted your disdain against butterfly right now and he's wondering what items are a good alternative as a 6th slot against this team. (I suggested BKB but he said he played well and didn't want to get one versus void anyway)
satanic/mkb never get butterfly vs void i mean u just force him into mkb which makes u get rekt coz he has 180 magic dmg bashes and 160 magic dmg ministuns u dont want to convert enemy rightclicks into magic dmg when u have 40 armour do u when its 74min and almost everyone is 6 slotted game stops being dota anyway
Morph player is my friend, he seen your replay yesterday and is trying to emulate it. I noted your disdain against butterfly right now and he's wondering what items are a good alternative as a 6th slot against this team. (I suggested BKB but he said he played well and didn't want to get one versus void anyway)
satanic/mkb never get butterfly vs void i mean u just force him into mkb which makes u get rekt coz he has 180 magic dmg bashes and 160 magic dmg ministuns u dont want to convert enemy rightclicks into magic dmg when u have 40 armour do u when its 74min and almost everyone is 6 slotted game stops being dota anyway
I'm the morph in question, just curious, what do you think of going diffusal as a counter to invoker on morph? Seems good in both an offensive and defensive capability, plus it adds some nice agi to ethereal.
Morph player is my friend, he seen your replay yesterday and is trying to emulate it. I noted your disdain against butterfly right now and he's wondering what items are a good alternative as a 6th slot against this team. (I suggested BKB but he said he played well and didn't want to get one versus void anyway)
satanic/mkb never get butterfly vs void i mean u just force him into mkb which makes u get rekt coz he has 180 magic dmg bashes and 160 magic dmg ministuns u dont want to convert enemy rightclicks into magic dmg when u have 40 armour do u when its 74min and almost everyone is 6 slotted game stops being dota anyway
I'm the morph in question, just curious, what do you think of going diffusal as a counter to invoker on morph? Seems good in both an offensive and defensive capability, plus it adds some nice agi to ethereal.
idk if invoker needs to be countered by morph who is already one of the better carries against him what does diffusal even counter that other items cant?
On December 28 2015 08:37 ChunderBoy wrote: idk if invoker needs to be countered by morph who is already one of the better carries against him what does diffusal even counter that other items cant?
My biggest issue was the fact that invoker just kept running the fuck away from teamfights with ghost walk, so even when we won, we couldn't capitalize on it by getting a kill on him. Couldn't think of a better way to catch him than that. Even though it can't be purged, it could at least slow him down to allow the team to catch up, also the mana burn on high level illusions might be pretty nice to just drain the mana from a naga or riki? idk
On December 28 2015 08:41 ahswtini wrote: getting silenced doesnt stop u from morphing if ur already morphing, right?
the way silence interacts with toggle abilities (including morph) is if you're silenced you can't toggle it on/off, but if it's already on then it stays on
On December 28 2015 02:13 Invictus wrote: hi beesa, would a butterfly after eblades linkens be better or is manta def the straight up better choice?
I keep thinking that butterfly allows me to manfight quicker or maybe im just too greedy for agi gains haha
u want to buy butterfly for almost 6k gold just for 30 agi? evasion is kinda meh when u have 40+ armour anyway its decent against am as a skadi replacement tho
how do you build against am these days
i feel awkward cause i feel like i need a linkens, a manta, a butterfly, a bkb, etc at the same time and eb feels awkward but necesary IDK anymore i eman i know am has a disadvantage against am but still there must be a better way to play against him
On December 28 2015 02:13 Invictus wrote: hi beesa, would a butterfly after eblades linkens be better or is manta def the straight up better choice?
I keep thinking that butterfly allows me to manfight quicker or maybe im just too greedy for agi gains haha
u want to buy butterfly for almost 6k gold just for 30 agi? evasion is kinda meh when u have 40+ armour anyway its decent against am as a skadi replacement tho
how do you build against am these days
i feel awkward cause i feel like i need a linkens, a manta, a butterfly, a bkb, etc at the same time and eb feels awkward but necesary IDK anymore i eman i know am has a disadvantage against am but still there must be a better way to play against him
same way replace skadi with butterfly or mkb depending on what am is going i think
On December 29 2015 02:07 ChunderBoy wrote: dont spread the word about how good this hero is yet i have 75% winrate 9kda only soloq in 7k+ this patch needs more time before nerfs
you've got a tier 1 player feeding his mmr on a bad hero to divert the attention of reddit front page posts so you're good for now.
On December 29 2015 02:07 ChunderBoy wrote: dont spread the word about how good this hero is yet i have 75% winrate 9kda only soloq in 7k+ this patch needs more time before nerfs
you've got a tier 1 player feeding his mmr on a bad hero to divert the attention of reddit front page posts so you're good for now.
I honestly think EE is spamming PA to make people think they will pick that hero in games
On December 30 2015 05:32 Fleetfeet wrote: All that unreliable gold though...
I mean, it only would be like 325 or whatever...
but yeah if you use your mana carefully you should be fine especially when you gets treads wand, eventually perseverance, and if you get a mango starting item you are definitely set.
On December 29 2015 02:07 ChunderBoy wrote: dont spread the word about how good this hero is yet i have 75% winrate 9kda only soloq in 7k+ this patch needs more time before nerfs
How have you been building him? :O
Also, is dragon lance useful at all on morph as a safelane carry?
any advice for closing out games with morph? Every time I play him it feels like I do alright until I get eblade then I spend 10-15 minutes murdering everyone then I lose because for some reason we can never break high ground
Well, just because you get eblade doesn't mean that you should stop farming outside of looking for supports. I've had a lot of success just pushing a lane and picking off anyone who tps to defend rather than team fighting with only eblade. Also, if you are solo carrying an eblade is usually not the item that ends the game unless you grab objectives afterwards.
Push out lane -> hide in fog -> slay -> push tower
Not really sure what the point of getting Yasha before EBlade is. The whole point of rushing EBlade without Linken is to sacrifice farming speed for an earlier, more powerful burst damage timing when you're ahead, since you can solo-kill a lot of people in that situation. Getting the Yasha first delays your EBlade by 2k gold while only adding 64 damage.
It feels like getting the Yasha subverts the whole point of having a faster EBlade.
Isn't the whole point of linkens eblade to have the timing line up? Linkens eblade finishes pretty much exactly when you hit lv 3 or 4 adaptive..
Usually like 15-16 mins linken 20-22 min eb?
You'd be hard to find an item that works with morph timings instead of linkens I think. Only other thing that makes sense in theory is Midas cause then you'll have adaptive levels, but that's not very good.
I'd assume that if you're getting EBlade earlier you'd max Adaptive earlier (lining up Linken's+EBlade with rank 4 Adaptive implies maxing Adaptive last), sacrificing some number of Morph ranks. Otherwise there's just no way to justify the faster EBlade.
There actually probably just isn't a way to justify the faster EBlade, lol.
On April 01 2016 05:20 BluemoonSC wrote: can someone outline what I should be doing with this hero in most games? I've played him a couple times, but I've been hit or miss.
what should my timings look like?
if I have a good lane, in your average game, is linkens really worth it?
if I have a crappy lane or my team is feeding, what should I be looking to pick up?
how should I skill for the above scenarios as well?
treads aquila wand into linkens into eb in 98% of games. If you can't go that build, you probably shouldn't have picked morph . linkens by like 18 on average, 25 max timing for linkens eblade, though you want to shoot for 23. Manta after that - depends on how the game goes post eb. Sometimes ill get bkb bfeore manta if the game is super fucked, but usually manta is better and linkens + manta will get you out of most things that bkb wlil do. after that typically skadi, and satanic is really good on this hero.
yes always get linkens unless you are suicide watch.
idk ask beeesa about that, i know there is that hotd into manta build that some players do but jesus idk thats a playstyle im not familiar with
4041 I know sometimes beesa maxes morph before waveform, but I value waveform more when I have decent space, as sometimes ill straight up kill the offlaner or at least force them back to fountain.
I know beesa gets Linkens into Eblade because the timing fits nicely with rank 4 adaptive. I can see where he is coming from. I personally think that's an erroneous approach to justify spending 5k for a mana solution and an active which you may not need.
That still doesn't answer the question of why the Yasha first.
If you want to farm, Linkens makes bigger contributions than a Yasha. If you want to kill people, Yasha doesn't improve your kill potential by enough to be worth a 2k gold later EBlade. Yasha->EBlade just feels like its hedging unfavorably between farming and fighting rather than going Linken first or EBlade first.
On April 01 2016 09:29 TheYango wrote: That still doesn't answer the question of why the Yasha first.
If you want to farm, Linkens makes bigger contributions than a Yasha. If you want to kill people, Yasha doesn't improve your kill potential by enough to be worth a 2k gold later EBlade. Yasha->EBlade just feels like its hedging unfavorably between farming and fighting rather than going Linken first or EBlade first.
Oh I didn't see the Yasha. I'm an Eblade rush person. I usually open with midas. Maybe I'm irrational because I dislike getting Linkens for the sake of getting it. I get Linkens only because there's a spell I wanna block, and nothing else.
ill have some time after work today (Friday, woo!) to play around with him a bit and improve. I was disappointed yesterday bc I didn't play great after randoming him.
the game was winnable too if I had played better earlier
On April 01 2016 09:47 SpiritoftheTunA wrote: ive gone veil eblade and it felt decent (with 4441)
Wait, what? How'd you manage mana deficiency- bottle and RoA? This is really intriguing tho...
the mana is definitely a problem and this builds probably ideal with a kotl or cm, and a bottle otherwise (dropping your veil pieces for efficiency while bottling)
i get aquila every game on this hero because i never feel like i have slot issues
when you go a non-linkens build without enough mana regen though, your efficiency definitely takes a hit, you probably have to use replicate for basing purposes instead of more interesting purposes
basically i still trust beesa that linkens every game is a solid template and very rarely clearly much worse than any sort of eblade rush build
i dont understand skipping the single point in replicate, even at 6. if the point is that you're ahead and you wanna stay ahead, there's a great deal more plays you can make with the single point in replicate than without. you can even treat it like an ember with bots. people also seem to forget it's like a full-sized hero, or like a venge agh illusion without the whole dying business. it creates a freaking illusion with auras. for double digit mana. how is that not worth a point by level 11 rofl. pretty sure you can even fountain regen with a bottle ticking right as you wave-form and go invul., so you can park it behind a camp much like ember does with remnants earlier into the game. free wave-form.
let's say in lane you clear the 3-stack of the pull camp with 2 or 3 waveforms and your creeps tanking. obviously hellbears are good targets for focusing since the auras. i mean it's around 400 gold, already starting to make up the cost of the bottle which synergizes well with your treads, and that's a bunch of xp that probably amounts to that level you saved in not skilling replicate in the first place, and it is not a long cd. going bots just to do this to farm or rejoin fights though is overkill, unless you somehow got the space to do all this shit rofl.
i played a bunch of morph earlier but didn't get to test or do any sort of math regarding it. but does morph still tick while you are waveforming? because it shouldn't take much time to morph str for 4 second stun and waveform-morph back into agi for actual damage. it may or may not be worth it at all but is a point to maximize stun and damage where mana is available. this is obviously, pre-items like eblade where your stats are much lower and easy to manipulate with morph for HP, stun, and damage. let me explain the situation with adaptive strike and the idea of morphing to and fro for higher stun duration. the cast time is there, and low, but the backswing is high; it's closer to a whole second. you can cancel most of that backswing into an instant agi morph right as you waveform to close distance from adaptive cast-range. as we all know, his attack range is shit so waveform is necessary to close the distance in after a long range adaptive strike. in those two half-seconds you sacrafice about 50-100 mana, the agi multiplier damage, perhaps some double digit agi worth of damage in order to have up to 3 seconds extra of stun. i mean it's worth thinking about imo. if you're really good you can toggle int for spellcasting this way since adaptive isn't doing much damage anyway.
regardless, it just seems ludicrous to skip ulti when it's a fully controllable hero that does decent damage and is essentially morph's answer to ember ulti. like who even brings gem or sentries early game with concerns to reveal which hero is a replicate? you can simply use it as a bait if you want, or dive someone under tower, and gtfo, for 150 mana.
Your opportunity to use replicate at level 6 is lacking. Most of the time on morph you are sitting at just enough mana for one wave form. It's not until you get to level 9/10 and have a pers and aquila that it really becomes useful. You also have to consider that morph and waveform are ridiculous when maxed and by getting it at six it means you are delaying one of them.
On April 07 2016 10:05 Theoren wrote: Your opportunity to use replicate at level 6 is lacking. Most of the time on morph you are sitting at just enough mana for one wave form. It's not until you get to level 9/10 and have a pers and aquila that it really becomes useful. You also have to consider that morph and waveform are ridiculous when maxed and by getting it at six it means you are delaying one of them.
i'm certain at 6 the need to morph is limited too. i've already described the whole TP replicate utility that many morph players use. it's fair to say that it delays everything by minutes or less as levels get harder and harder to come by. me saying that a point at level 6 is already value is exaggerating it past the idea of getting it pre-12, which was the case set out by someone earlier in the thread. if it's not even worth a point by then, you just don't value the ulti. i'd literally argue that it's worth using from the very moment it's available because in the absolute worst case scenario that you are skipping a point in waveform for it--75 damage--the 25 mana and time used in replicating the hero you're ganking already has the potential to make up for that loss in the form of a replicate.
I'm not much of a morph player (my avatar notwithstanding), but having Replicate available to regen or to more safely farm in a dangerous area seems like it is valuable enough to at least delay points in Adaptive. I don't see why you would delay Replicate beyond 9 (or maybe 10, if you skilled level 1 adaptive to cancel a TP or something). I find it difficult to picture a fight in which you would badly want max Adaptive but not want or need a Replicate, at least to escape to.
Whether to take a point in Replicate at 6 over more points in Morph is a trickier proposition and probably depends on the game and how badly you need to base. I don't see a case for Replicate over Waveform.
(I might also take a point in Replicate if I wanted to bait Doom or something, but that's a niche case.)
On May 08 2016 15:02 Birdie wrote: What's the correct order to combo with eblade? Eblade->Stun->Q? Or Eblade Q Stun?
Eblade projectile flies faster than stun IIRC so both work.
My question is about whether to stun-wave or wave-stun; perhaps it's situational or doesn't matter though. My guess is that you stun first to make hitting the wave more reliable.
Another question, is there any particular rule of thumb on how much agi or str to keep? Mostly the replays I'm watching show people keeping their strength very low as much as possible and only boosting strength after doing some wave form or their combo, but it seems quite challenging against invoker sunstrike.
On May 08 2016 15:02 Birdie wrote: What's the correct order to combo with eblade? Eblade->Stun->Q? Or Eblade Q Stun?
Eblade projectile flies faster than stun IIRC so both work.
My question is about whether to stun-wave or wave-stun; perhaps it's situational or doesn't matter though. My guess is that you stun first to make hitting the wave more reliable.
Another question, is there any particular rule of thumb on how much agi or str to keep? Mostly the replays I'm watching show people keeping their strength very low as much as possible and only boosting strength after doing some wave form or their combo, but it seems quite challenging against invoker sunstrike.
Rule of thumb is simple: you keep just enough strength to survive burst in case you get jumped on.
On May 08 2016 15:02 Birdie wrote: What's the correct order to combo with eblade? Eblade->Stun->Q? Or Eblade Q Stun?
Eblade projectile flies faster than stun IIRC so both work.
My question is about whether to stun-wave or wave-stun; perhaps it's situational or doesn't matter though. My guess is that you stun first to make hitting the wave more reliable.
Another question, is there any particular rule of thumb on how much agi or str to keep? Mostly the replays I'm watching show people keeping their strength very low as much as possible and only boosting strength after doing some wave form or their combo, but it seems quite challenging against invoker sunstrike.
if i know i can instagib a hero with just eblade adaptive, i'll wave to get into range and cast eblade adaptive while i'm in waveform. other times i'll do eblade adaptive, then waveform to finish them off or get close to finish them off with autoattacks. there may be times where i start close to them, attack them a few times, waveform to dodge a spell and then eblade adaptive to finish them off. u have to play it by ear as each situation is different
How do you guys feel about that new teardrop item thing for morphs laning? The mana regen alone is pretty amazing for a 225 gold item. Aquila / pers / droplet thing fixes his mid game mana issues and makes it easier to split push deep / dangerously
On May 09 2016 01:05 ahw wrote: How do you guys feel about that new teardrop item thing for morphs laning? The mana regen alone is pretty amazing for a 225 gold item. Aquila / pers / droplet thing fixes his mid game mana issues and makes it easier to split push deep / dangerously
It's fine if you feel you need it, not everyone does for every situation; it does take up a slot but that shouldn't be too much of an issue unless you run some weird slot-heavy build.
I feel like morph is one of the heroes that it benefits it the least, considering he has Morph STR. mana regen is nice, but idk i'm sure its not a huge deal.
with enough agi morphed, you honestly don't need to waveform at all bc you're a tommy gun
but ya like emu said, if you constantly wave form to last hit, it'll create an issue. the only time i'll do that is if I know that I've overstayed my welcome in lane. i'll hit the creeps so that my wave form will kill every one on my way out.
Armlet isn't good, per se, but it is funny. I'll give you that. If you need a meme bulid on this hero, that's the item. Its sorta okay, just not the build.
On May 10 2016 04:35 Laertes wrote: Besides, the item takes 20 minutes minimum to farm up
see here's your problem 18 minute linkens e-blade is considered an excellent timing. 20 is a bit more mediocre but still fine/good. if you take 20 mins to get half of that, then of course you are having issues.
well for one think armlet heart linkens is a lot more gold than linkens eblade for another you couldn't achieve the same networth total without linkens as it's a farm accelerant and lastly you'd be a much more useful hero with linkens eblade instead of armlet heart linkens.
I don't know where this notion that Morphling can't fight comes from. He gives decent damage for kills and depending on the draft he can take a lot of attention in a fight and be extremely hard to bring down. Obviously there are better heroes for fighting nonstop and that's not what Morph wants to do all the time but it doesn't mean the option is to be afk in the jungle. And also not sure why you can't pressure towers with Morph before your major items, unless he's somehow picked into a game where he is very easily brought down.
It wouldn't surprise me if armlet's quite good on morphling because armlet is insane atm on anyone. But getting heart etc. ROFL no point.
Linkens eblade is easy to get pre 25 minute in pubs, and you can fight early as long as you pick your fights carefully. People also underestimate the damage output of a max agi morph and waveform so you can get easy lane kills (even at 8k mmr beesa and illidan still crushing ppl in lane so it doesn't stop being possible at higher MMRs too).
normally u just get it after linkens eblade. i dont think it speeds up ur farm that much given that u have waveform, and 2k gold is a significant part of eblade. u pretty much always go manta anyway on morph
if ur having to manfight heroes and arent crushing fights cleanly. i normally get it after skadi (item progression goes linkens eblade manta skadi hotd). it just means i dont have to go back to base after a fight. the decision on when to upgrade to satanic depends on if u need a dmg item like mkb. i think bfly is kinda bad because it makes players buy mkb, which is magic minibash dmg that ignores all the armour u will have
On May 10 2016 04:35 Laertes wrote: And what is "the build" might I ask? Last progamer to play morphling was Sylar and he got roflstomped really, really hard. He went linkens first which pretty much doomed his team. Linkens is a good item situationally, but these people that get it every game are doing it wrong. Besides, the item takes 20 minutes minimum to farm up and then proceeds to not do anything but make it a little easier to farm. Armlet isn't a meme, it's a good item on a hero that struggles to do much early without it. Give me an alternative that's not linkens and I'll try it. But Linkens first is gross on any hero except weaver who has naturally high base damage and doesn't need health to fight.
Sylar's morphling is the best in the world. Just because his team failed doesn't mean he did anything wrong. Linkens is strong in most games since you can pressure the enemy really hard and force overreactions with little fear of death and good sustain.
On May 10 2016 04:35 Laertes wrote: And what is "the build" might I ask? Last progamer to play morphling was Sylar and he got roflstomped really, really hard. He went linkens first which pretty much doomed his team. Linkens is a good item situationally, but these people that get it every game are doing it wrong. Besides, the item takes 20 minutes minimum to farm up and then proceeds to not do anything but make it a little easier to farm. Armlet isn't a meme, it's a good item on a hero that struggles to do much early without it. Give me an alternative that's not linkens and I'll try it. But Linkens first is gross on any hero except weaver who has naturally high base damage and doesn't need health to fight.
Sylar's morphling is the best in the world. Just because his team failed doesn't mean he did anything wrong. Linkens is strong in most games since you can pressure the enemy really hard and force overreactions with little fear of death and good sustain.
On May 10 2016 04:35 Laertes wrote: And what is "the build" might I ask? Last progamer to play morphling was Sylar and he got roflstomped really, really hard. He went linkens first which pretty much doomed his team. Linkens is a good item situationally, but these people that get it every game are doing it wrong. Besides, the item takes 20 minutes minimum to farm up and then proceeds to not do anything but make it a little easier to farm. Armlet isn't a meme, it's a good item on a hero that struggles to do much early without it. Give me an alternative that's not linkens and I'll try it. But Linkens first is gross on any hero except weaver who has naturally high base damage and doesn't need health to fight.
Sylar's morphling is the best in the world. Just because his team failed doesn't mean he did anything wrong. Linkens is strong in most games since you can pressure the enemy really hard and force overreactions with little fear of death and good sustain.
On May 10 2016 04:35 Laertes wrote: And what is "the build" might I ask? Last progamer to play morphling was Sylar and he got roflstomped really, really hard. He went linkens first which pretty much doomed his team. Linkens is a good item situationally, but these people that get it every game are doing it wrong. Besides, the item takes 20 minutes minimum to farm up and then proceeds to not do anything but make it a little easier to farm. Armlet isn't a meme, it's a good item on a hero that struggles to do much early without it. Give me an alternative that's not linkens and I'll try it. But Linkens first is gross on any hero except weaver who has naturally high base damage and doesn't need health to fight.
Sylar's morphling is the best in the world. Just because his team failed doesn't mean he did anything wrong. Linkens is strong in most games since you can pressure the enemy really hard and force overreactions with little fear of death and good sustain.
On May 10 2016 08:30 BluemoonSC wrote: this is a hero ive been trying to learn for a while so i know this is prolly a stupid question, but...
lifesteal. when would i ever want lifesteal?
Satanic is one of the lategame items you want on this hero and an ideal 6 slot - reason being that if you are getting focused down on, morphing to a high hp is less valuable then satanic regening it up, asyou lose all of your damage when you switch from agi (i guess now that you have a 4 sec stun thats less true but). So yeah, getting a hotd after manta skadi is pretty reasonable, and then usually make that a satanic at some point.
Theres some hotd bots yasha build too for morph that i can't seem to make sense of though. IDK about that.
On May 10 2016 08:30 BluemoonSC wrote: this is a hero ive been trying to learn for a while so i know this is prolly a stupid question, but...
lifesteal. when would i ever want lifesteal?
Satanic is one of the lategame items you want on this hero and an ideal 6 slot - reason being that if you are getting focused down on, morphing to a high hp is less valuable then satanic regening it up, asyou lose all of your damage when you switch from agi (i guess now that you have a 4 sec stun thats less true but). So yeah, getting a hotd after manta skadi is pretty reasonable, and then usually make that a satanic at some point.
Theres some hotd bots yasha build too for morph that i can't seem to make sense of though. IDK about that.
I tried this build in a LDIH once and that's why im curious with how good it is if you want to do something else.
I guess linkens eblade is just too good tho
RE: when linkens is useless - im sure its still fine if you react the moment it gets popped. its basically an early warning mechanism so you can either replicate out or begin morphing strength/waveform if you're getting jumped.
On May 11 2016 02:21 Laertes wrote: To be fair, Linkens is a great item on Morphling, but do you still get it if the active is useless(I have friends who say NO). I had to come up with a non-ricing build though because I'm working on developing a unique carrying style for myself that involves fighting very early. I'm not trying to prove armlet to anyone and I just wanted to see what people thought. Seems people don't see the point, That's fine. I pretty much expected this. I chose armlet on morphling as a core item because I needed a way to make morphling able to fight every game at a reliable time. It may be inferior to e-blade in a sense, but it's more in line with the way I want to play.
u seem obsessed with developing ur own unique playing style instead of just getting fundamentally good at the game. like that blog post where u tried to justify feeding 15 times cuz thats the only possible way ur carries can get farmed
Intuitively, I actually disagree that Linkens is still good if you have no strong need for the spell block. One big argument for Linkens is the Mana regen for farming. So you spend 4.8k gold on an item that gives 4.1 mana regen per second (level 13 Treads Wand Aquila Bottle Linkens). Meanwhile SR costs 775 gold and its active itself is essentially 5 mana regen per second. Surely there must be better ways to spend your gold.
Now carry Morphling is one of my weakest heroes so I won't aggressively push out any ideas. I actually haven't really figured a build that fits my style as well, so I usually just go cookie cutter. Furthermore I usually play support Morphling anyway XD
well, its not just regen, but its 15 stats which is super important, mana regen which there really sin't a good subsitute, a little damg and whatever, and the item is cheaper than ever, and the spellblock at some point will probably be useful (people will itemized around locking down morph at some point) and lets you actually split push and farm safely. If you don't get that item, you can't play morphling like morphling.
i mean, maybe there's other builds which i have only lightly played around with, but theres a reason why linkens is standard.
On May 11 2016 03:48 Comeh wrote: well, its not just regen, but its 15 stats which is super important, mana regen which there really sin't a good subsitute, a little damg and whatever, and the item is cheaper than ever, and the spellblock at some point will probably be useful (people will itemized around locking down morph at some point) and lets you actually split push and farm safely. If you don't get that item, you can't play morphling like morphling.
i mean, maybe there's other builds which i have only lightly played around with, but theres a reason why linkens is standard.
If people are itemising to lock down morph (Orchid), then that's a good reason to go Linkens in the first place. Point is that SR provides greater mana regen, which is the next biggest draw of Linkens after spell block. Surely with 4k gold you can spend it on something else that gives you the comparable 15 stats. An earlier Skadi for example.
I do understand the rationale why Linkens is standard. I do not disagree that Linkens is "bad" even if you do not need the spellblock. But that doesn't mean there isn't other builds that could be better.
I think that you also see a benefit from the HP regen too, it allows you to delay that lifesteal which is why I was asking when people pick it up. Definitely one of my most misunderstood carries atm which is why Im askin questions heh
On May 11 2016 03:48 Comeh wrote: well, its not just regen, but its 15 stats which is super important, mana regen which there really sin't a good subsitute, a little damg and whatever, and the item is cheaper than ever, and the spellblock at some point will probably be useful (people will itemized around locking down morph at some point) and lets you actually split push and farm safely. If you don't get that item, you can't play morphling like morphling.
i mean, maybe there's other builds which i have only lightly played around with, but theres a reason why linkens is standard.
If people are itemising to lock down morph (Orchid), then that's a good reason to go Linkens in the first place. Point is that SR provides greater mana regen, which is the next biggest draw of Linkens after spell block. Surely with 4k gold you can spend it on something else that gives you the comparable 15 stats. An earlier Skadi for example.
I do understand the rationale why Linkens is standard. I do not disagree that Linkens is "bad" even if you do not need the spellblock. But that doesn't mean there isn't other builds that could be better.
no other item gives morph all of these things that he likes. stats. regen so he can farm fast and still have the mana to join fights. and a spellblock that at worst case, saves you some hp from a nuke, and best case, stops a silence or hex which are the main things u need to be afraid of. skadi first is dogshit on pretty much all heroes and morph is no exception.
Even If there aren't any good spells for linkens to block immediately, having one dissuades people from buying sheep/abyssal etc later on and that's very significant.
About the only time the spell block is truly useless is when there's a bunch of small spells around to constantly pop it at long range, like PA dagger etc.
Even then, you're ungankable and it pays its cost back many times over in farming speed and safety. Linkens makes morph morph.
even with small spells, the moment your linkens pops, that's your cue to back. its an early detection system. it just gives him a lot of things that he wants in order to be safe until he can really punish the other team.
I've seen morphs come out of no where with their linkens -> eblade timing and just completely wreck my team, myself included. that timing is potent.
How do you play this hero after having a bad laning stage? It seems really hard to come back with morph if you have no items after laning stage and no T1s. Partly this may have been due to my team not really being a very good lineup but with a lot of heroes I can farm really aggressively and not die. Doesn't seem to be as much the case with morph.
It's been mentioned a few times but wave form is borderline exceptional mid game and morph is actually strong lv 7-9. If your lane goes bad you can take treads Aquila stick and try to make things happen with your team because of a 300 burst Q and strength morph for bad situations.
Once you are lv 11 split pushing becomes a lot easier with lv 2 replicate
And if you are far enough behind sometimes u just gotta make space for your team by drawing 3 heroes and morphing full str while your team accomplishes something
Why would you want to delay the e blade though? I mean you want the e blade at that 20-24 minute timing because it means every fight starts 4v5 and your solo pickoff potential goes through the roof. What does armlet provide exactly that makes delaying that impact worth it?
On May 12 2016 12:28 Laertes wrote: After a lot of testing Linkens -> Armlet is most optimal. I get e-blade right after the armlet. Still gotta test if its more optimal than just linkens e blade. My suspicion is that the item will serve a similar purpose for morphling that vlads does for AM.
given that ur am winrate is like 15%, and that ur comparing armlet morphling to vlads am, i dont think u know what vlads is for
I like armlet on many heroes but I wouldn't even consider it on morph. Morph doesn't need to boost its DPS early on. That is why you can get away with linkens first.
The problem with saying arm let helps survival is you are delaying ghost sceptre which literally does the same thing but builds directly in to the next logical item
On May 12 2016 12:28 Laertes wrote: After a lot of testing Linkens -> Armlet is most optimal. I get e-blade right after the armlet. Still gotta test if its more optimal than just linkens e blade. My suspicion is that the item will serve a similar purpose for morphling that vlads does for AM.
Okay I tried it last night. Was a fun game, dealt tons of damage, got a lot of flames because you know, armlet. But hey, we won the game, and I had fun. Although, I feel like it's really not the go to items on morphling. Fast e-blade is crucial for my style of play.And most morphling pickers style of play.
I can imagine the flame -founder of cow's milk- got.
"Look at that freak, squeezing cow's nipple, eww" "Dude, you need to get your brain checked" "Weirdo" "I bet his wife don't give none to him, poor guy" "sick bastard"
Don't be rude. Lighten up. The guy is trying to make innovation. Trying is a good word. We should encourage it.
On May 13 2016 12:22 brinepumps wrote: I can imagine the flame -founder of cow's milk- got.
"Look at that freak, squeezing cow's nipple, eww" "Dude, you need to get your brain checked" "Weirdo" "I bet his wife don't give none to him, poor guy" "sick bastard"
You know female humans secrete milk from their nipples as well right? Or you know... you can see cows feeding their young.
On May 13 2016 12:22 brinepumps wrote: I can imagine the flame -founder of cow's milk- got.
"Look at that freak, squeezing cow's nipple, eww" "Dude, you need to get your brain checked" "Weirdo" "I bet his wife don't give none to him, poor guy" "sick bastard"
Don't be rude. Lighten up. The guy is trying to make innovation. Trying is a good word. We should encourage it.
This is the guy that bought a 3k account.
3k.
Look i'm not mr MMR MEANS EVERYTHING in fact i find once you get past the 4-5k bracket mmr becomes rather meaningless.
Laertes seems to be a perosn obsessed with building a personal brand than actually being a person with a good skillset.
This isn't the guy squeezing the cow's nipple
This is the guy going GUYS I CAN GET MILK FROM THIS BULL'S UDDER (That is not milk, and thats not an udder. Please stop).
Yea I know that, read that somewhere here (off-topic iirc). He also had several posts on the blog section I reckon.
Let's say it's true he bought a 3k MMR. And for argument's sake, let's also go with "building a personal brand" although, several facts show exactly the opposite from "building a personal brand" + Show Spoiler +
Joined 2010, 126 posts. Not a good marketing strategy. "My suspicion is that the item will serve a similar purpose for morphling that vlads does for AM". "Maybe it's an improvement!" Being dubious is really not good for your personal image.
I still don't see how these should be seen as a green light to be rude. "hey, I don't see how armlet is good on morphling, and frankly, i think it's a bit stupid item on him. Care to elaborate?" would be a better response and it leads to a discussion which I believe that is what this thread is all about. It's a tough world I know, I guess I just don't want to be a part of it.
And last thing, if you are still disagree with me, maybe we should be satisfied to the term agree to disagree. No further arguments from me since it's oot.
To OP/Moderator: I brought this non-morphling discussion to this thread, sincere apologize for me. Hope I won't get banned.
It is simple. Armlet on morph is the most antisynergetic bullshit one could come out with. The hero can already pop insane amounts of health quickly. Be logical and keep your need to look special out of the discussion.
he says that he buys armlet because it makes morph good at fighting. then he compares it to vlads on am, when vlads is not a fighting item, it's a farming and splitpushing item
On May 14 2016 03:33 Jaaaaasper wrote: This entire thread is the result of one dude taking a meme build seriously, and refusing to accept that hes taking a meme build seriously
All right so in enjoying morph quite a bit the only downside is AA picks are more popular now because of arm let heroes
But in terms of itemizing, I am going linkens/eblade, is it worth going manta for illusion damage every time regardless? I have heard conflicting things. I do not particularly like ranged hero manta because of the cool down. Giving up 250 agi illusions kind of sucks but they often melt.
Would linkens/eblade/Skadi be better? Or even something like linkens/eblade/lance/skadi ?
Then satanic.
Overall I just feel the manta isn't as effective as 5000 gold should be
On May 17 2016 23:47 ahw wrote: All right so in enjoying morph quite a bit the only downside is AA picks are more popular now because of arm let heroes
But in terms of itemizing, I am going linkens/eblade, is it worth going manta for illusion damage every time regardless? I have heard conflicting things. I do not particularly like ranged hero manta because of the cool down. Giving up 250 agi illusions kind of sucks but they often melt.
Would linkens/eblade/Skadi be better? Or even something like linkens/eblade/lance/skadi ?
Then satanic.
Overall I just feel the manta isn't as effective as 5000 gold should be
99% of the time manta after eblade is the play. Some situations BKB after eblade.
Most of the time (except against AM, or when you need to time a BKB) you want skadi after Manta,
Morph is one of the best manta heroes because all of his damage comes from Stats, so his illusions pretty much hit as hard as a normal hero. For split push purposes alone, manta illusions can kill a tower by themselves (and something to tank hits), so it forces the enemy back.
silence is also one of morph's big enemies, and manta deals with that nicely, because you really dont want to have to get bkb. manta is definitely core unless you're in one of those really really strange games that u have to itemise specifically for. like in my last game i was against a freefarming naga and ember, my team lacked disables so i ended up buying mjollnir to deal with illusions, and hex to deal with the ember. manta would probably have caused more problems there due to the ember
ok! so great -- i know illus do a truckton of dmg. however...
when im @ 30 mins in game with linkens/eblade/manta, my illusions have 12-1300 hp and collapse to aoe almost instantly. i have a hard time practically sieging with them so tbh i generally save it for team fights to try to disjoint or just dps something.
is this like a 6 slot kinda deal where you have linkens eblade manta skaadi satanic and ur illusions have 2k+ hp? or should i morph 30 strength for manta? cause it seems pretty useless sometimes tbh
It's not like CK where you just pop illusions at the start of a fight every time
Manta is a resource that you need to find the optimal timing for. While it's great for dps hitting buildings or even pushing out a wave ur hero can't safely stay at, in fights you need to figure out what you need it to purge or when you can create the illusions to have an actual effect instead of just dying to AoE spam as you mentioned.
You definitely aren't like FORCED to go manta every game, but it's simply very good most of the time.
not seeking for fights @30min applies to pretty much every hard carry, u join the fights if u see the opportunity.
I have skipped linkens quite frequently like month or 2 ago but now with the decreased cost i dont see reason skipping it (unless u practically have 0 spells to block).
Usually going RoA Treads yasha/HotD Linken/Eblade order game dependant, after that its Butter if im stomping, skadi otherwise, maybe finishing manta if i went yasha and need to remove silence.
I get skadi instead of manta right after eblade quite regularly, but manta's pretty good and I usually end up with it unless I want a BKB and MKB at the same time.
is dragon lance a good early game pickup on this dude? roa/dl/hotd and you can potentially skirmish with him or just start to split push?
should i be taking his ulti at 6? the duration never seems to be justifiable at the point over a waveform/morph point but i am so rough with this guy.
the dragon lance seems like such a good fit on him and perhaps even the buildup into pike is worth it? what are your thoughts on this? do you need some sort of lifesteal component before you start fighting/split pushing or no? (is that because you just rely on your ulti as an escape, or what?)
sorry i just dont get this dude, and i want an excuse to use his ugly-ass immortal
In ideal circumstances you want to be going something along the lines of Wand/Treads/Aquila/QuellingBlade, and get linkens as your next major item. If you have linkens you should not need any lifesteal (or indeed just having perseverance).
I like to get a force staff against riki and build it into dragon lance/hurricane pike after eblade but otherwise I don't think it's the "optimal" morph build. Linkens Eblade are your big pickup items you want, and you want to be getting them before 25 minutes.
Having said that, rightclick no-eblade morphling is somewhat legitimate and if you prefer playing that way then go for it.
Get ulti at 6 if you're about to use a TP back to base for HP, cos then you can jump straight back out without losing time by jumping to the clone. Otherwise I usually delay till needed.
I feel like that quote implicates me in suggesting armlet on morph which makes me unbelievably uncomfortable
One thing I'm trying to figure out is laning items. A lot of people like QB. Assuming treads / Aquila / pers / tp, you fit 2 of 3 of [wand, QB, raindrop]. I assume the choice is either raindrop or QB. When is QB better
I believe the only time you'd see QB morph is when you retreat to the jungle with a view to staying there for quite some time
I guess also if you are dire safelane and need to farm your own hard camp for efficiency and lane-pulling reasons a QB enables that at a reasonable price (QB's end cost is only 100 gold if you sell it back eventually)
But yeah especially on a ranged hero that already has a way to "blink" through treelines etc QB is hard to justify. It's safe to say even if QB is just barely optimal you aren't missing out on that much if you skip it.
i'd imagine morph's unusually high base dmg in lane makes it legit too. 15% translates to 10~ dmg very early which can make denies you wouldnt get otherwise. i dunno though.
Has anyone crunched the numbers on qb vs blight stone for morphling? I assume qb's creep dps would be slightly better but blight stone can be quite significant esp. when going for kills on enemy offlaners.
I'm just a plebian who copies progema like beesa and aui who build qb for a short time. It definitely helps for speeding up jungle rotations inbetween waves. I don't think you worry about getting it before aquila though, it's something to think about after maybe treads RoH aquila wand.
On June 28 2016 21:38 ahw wrote: I feel like that quote implicates me in suggesting armlet on morph which makes me unbelievably uncomfortable
One thing I'm trying to figure out is laning items. A lot of people like QB. Assuming treads / Aquila / pers / tp, you fit 2 of 3 of [wand, QB, raindrop]. I assume the choice is either raindrop or QB. When is QB better
Wasn't my intention, was just giving my opinion on the discussion on the page before. Wasn't directed to anyone specifically.
Don't feel like wand really fits the hero well. His mana costs are super high, he needs early stuff already and he's somewhat slot-starved cause more mana equal more farming speed. So unless you want to fight early on I don't think it's great on him. It's somewhat similar to wand on am.
Also RD more or less gives the same defensive applications.
I've just theorycrafted that raindrop and iron talon instead of quelling/aquila is probably amazing on morph, so I'm gonna be trying that next to see how it goes. I reckon that should make linkens ~1-2 mins faster, with only minor weakening of the hero (basically subtract a wraith band, but increase neut farming speed and mana regen and magical EHP).
On July 07 2016 12:38 Birdie wrote: Wand is insanely good on morph O_O
I've just theorycrafted that raindrop and iron talon instead of quelling/aquila is probably amazing on morph, so I'm gonna be trying that next to see how it goes. I reckon that should make linkens ~1-2 mins faster, with only minor weakening of the hero (basically subtract a wraith band, but increase neut farming speed and mana regen and magical EHP).
You want the aquila - it helps split pushing and you to take the t1 out, plus it gives 19 damage which is in general good. also the stats are nice. wand is a must unless you get a bottle or something.
On July 07 2016 12:38 Birdie wrote: Wand is insanely good on morph O_O
I've just theorycrafted that raindrop and iron talon instead of quelling/aquila is probably amazing on morph, so I'm gonna be trying that next to see how it goes. I reckon that should make linkens ~1-2 mins faster, with only minor weakening of the hero (basically subtract a wraith band, but increase neut farming speed and mana regen and magical EHP).
You want the aquila - it helps split pushing and you to take the t1 out, plus it gives 19 damage which is in general good. also the stats are nice. wand is a must unless you get a bottle or something.
I don't know that not having an aquila is going to be the difference between taking the t1 and not taking it. You do lose damage vs heroes but you have almost the same DPS vs creeps due to iron talon active. I do agree aquila is a nice item, but because of how fast the game is played at the moment, anything you can do to speed up the acquisition of major items (linkens eblade for example) is good.
Again though, having an aquila is not the difference between getting a t1 and not getting it, most of the time. With morph you usually aren't hitting the t1 directly unless you're going for the final finishing push on it, and the rest of the time you don't care how long your creeps last or turn it off.
Sure it's slot efficient, but if having it slows down your linkens by a couple minutes then it doesn't matter how efficient it is.
Nah usually you get some space of ur team is doing something on the map, and you are lv 7+ so you waveform the wave down and right click the tower. You can take a tower with treads/Aquila in 1 or 2 waves. The creeps tanking extra hits and the 18 dmg makes a big difference
I tried iron talon+ raindrop and iron talon aquila and even though im still in the 2k bracket, the iron talon is definitely a justified pickup, but the raindrop didnt feel as good as having those aquila stats to work with when i was getting heavily pressured in the early game.
For me atleast, i hold on to aquila for as long as i can since the midgame splitpushing (before you are super farmed) really helps vs.when you dont have it and raindrop is more like a psuedo-consumable so its not reliable every game.
P.s. i only tried raindrop/talon in a bot game and aquila/talon in a bot game+real game.
Guys , like linkens first item is often times bad, I'd rather go like manta first item with a casual aquila wand and dragon lance , and go and fight. Having early stats often times make or break the game. People will try to gank you and having stats with waveform makes you near unkillable and with TP support , often times you can turn a gank around really easily and linkens is just a bad item to rush IMO unless you really have to. The build I go for is Aquila--> Threads/+wand -->Yasha/Dragon lance --> Skadi/Eblade/Manta and then I go from there.
Linken's allows you to escape ganks that you normally can't and gives neat amount of hp/mana regen to use waveform and sustain. Yasha/lance don't do those.
linkens is fine if u can farm it in sub 16 mins, if you can't do that then it's probs not a morphling game or you're not very good at laning mechanics.
On July 11 2016 01:42 MirageTaN wrote: Guys , like linkens first item is often times bad, I'd rather go like manta first item with a casual aquila wand and dragon lance , and go and fight. Having early stats often times make or break the game. People will try to gank you and having stats with waveform makes you near unkillable and with TP support , often times you can turn a gank around really easily and linkens is just a bad item to rush IMO unless you really have to. The build I go for is Aquila--> Threads/+wand -->Yasha/Dragon lance --> Skadi/Eblade/Manta and then I go from there.
having 1k hp with 1str and linkens is a pretty good fighting build if u dont put any points in ur ult and instead max strike
On July 11 2016 01:42 MirageTaN wrote: Guys , like linkens first item is often times bad, I'd rather go like manta first item with a casual aquila wand and dragon lance , and go and fight. Having early stats often times make or break the game. People will try to gank you and having stats with waveform makes you near unkillable and with TP support , often times you can turn a gank around really easily and linkens is just a bad item to rush IMO unless you really have to. The build I go for is Aquila--> Threads/+wand -->Yasha/Dragon lance --> Skadi/Eblade/Manta and then I go from there.
having 1k hp with 1str and linkens is a pretty good fighting build if u dont put any points in ur ult and instead max strike
I really dont like that idea because your W scales off your agi which you can get from. Maxing morph. The flatline 100 dmg is plenty so leaving it level one before maxing morph might be ok imo but i did what you suggested when i was learning morphling and it was not good
On July 11 2016 01:42 MirageTaN wrote: Guys , like linkens first item is often times bad, I'd rather go like manta first item with a casual aquila wand and dragon lance , and go and fight. Having early stats often times make or break the game. People will try to gank you and having stats with waveform makes you near unkillable and with TP support , often times you can turn a gank around really easily and linkens is just a bad item to rush IMO unless you really have to. The build I go for is Aquila--> Threads/+wand -->Yasha/Dragon lance --> Skadi/Eblade/Manta and then I go from there.
having 1k hp with 1str and linkens is a pretty good fighting build if u dont put any points in ur ult and instead max strike
I really dont like that idea because your W scales off your agi which you can get from. Maxing morph. The flatline 100 dmg is plenty so leaving it level one before maxing morph might be ok imo but i did what you suggested when i was learning morphling and it was not good
I don't think he's recommending not maxing morph, just not getting points in ult until having several in W. Ult is really useful if you're actually doing anything with your team though, and getting it to lvl 2 is super heaps better than lvl 1, so I think most of the time I would get 1 point in ult at lvl 9 and second point at lvl 11.
Linkens eblade 22 mins still the best possible build I think
That build compliments morph too much and comes online right around lv 14 when you've got adaptive maxed. Linkens is extra good with eblade because you can safely do aggressive shit and pop your ult when it breaks
Yasha/lance is ok but certainly not better for fighting. Early ur dmg is mostly waveform, linkens and linkens components let u wave form aggressively
I'm little surprised how no one even mentions HotD as a farming item / step towards linken/skadi/eblade, arguably gives the mix of both needed regen to stay at full health (perseverance) and almost same damage as yasha does (not ms tho) but only costs half as much as yasha+perseverance. Also builds into satanic which is great late game pick up.
Usually its RoA (Wand) Treads HotD Eblade for me if i dont need linkens that game, after that normal Bfly Satanic Travels Skadi BKB etc.
Also HotD is way better than regen or yasha to farm ancients, with HotD and nearly maxed Agi u hit like a truck and have 30 armor or something.
Really only downside with HotD is the movement speed u dont get so opting for early manta/Travels is recommended.
Skill build should be 99% of the time q>e>w>r with one point in r 6-9 imo and line up maxed adaptive strike with eblade.
E: also missing the mana regen from linkens/perseverance with HotD but u have RoA + free tp to home every 80 seconds.
On July 13 2016 02:29 Velzi wrote: I'm little surprised how no one even mentions HotD as a farming item / step towards linken/skadi/eblade, arguably gives the mix of both needed regen to stay at full health (perseverance) and almost same damage as yasha does (not ms tho) but only costs half as much as yasha+perseverance. Also builds into satanic which is great late game pick up.
Usually its RoA (Wand) Treads HotD Eblade for me if i dont need linkens that game, after that normal Bfly Satanic Travels Skadi BKB etc.
Also HotD is way better than regen or yasha to farm ancients, with HotD and nearly maxed Agi u hit like a truck and have 30 armor or something.
Really only downside with HotD is the movement speed u dont get so opting for early manta/Travels is recommended.
Skill build should be 99% of the time q>e>w>r with one point in r 6-9 imo and line up maxed adaptive strike with eblade.
E: also missing the mana regen from linkens/perseverance with HotD but u have RoA + free tp to home every 80 seconds.
I feel like HoTD is pretty useless - the active component doesn't feel particularly relevant, morph doesn't benefit from stacking much, it doesn't give any + stats, and he can farm camps pretty much with just perseverance. Lategame its ok, but otherwise its whatever. Morph can pretty much do ancients pretty early anyways, so its not...particularly great. Morph also doesn't need any +armor items really.
IDK theres better items. Everytime I build it I think "why the fuck do i have a hotd"
i think hotd rushing on any character is quite oldschool now. ofc, there is nothing wrong with doing rosh with it, if that's your team's strat. you would used to build one or keep it at morbid mask and walk into jungle, but now there's armlet, players have gotten better at spending their time farming and at securing lanes. mid ganking for you is more seldom now and sidelanes will come gank that lane instead. people will move from lanes more quickly (lessened tp costs), and you can tp to those lanes to farm.
right now i feel you have to be quite scary as morphling as quickly as you can be. imagine you're farming on their side t2 with a replicate out. one support isn't enough, two might not be enough, and even with a strong core they may not be able to down you in time. hotd slows down plays like that a heavy amount. if you cannot do them early and often, you will probably not be able to do them at all or at least exert the same pressure. and the great thing about pressure? you can let off the gas any time.
linkens/eb is timing sensitive, the effectiveness sky rockets when ur ahead and come online fast. its still pretty good when behind, better than alternatives. there isn't really room for in between items.
i think maybe you could do aquila/raindrop/yasha/lance/dom/eb instead but i think people underrate linkens its pretty useful no matter the game
So the weird thing about morph is he's really strong at lv 7, cause waveform does so much damage. you can / should fight if there are openings when you are strong.
Early Mid game (9-12 mins let's say)if u have something like treads Aquila perseverance wand you can make some really good things happen
After that early spike, you generally want to cool off until you have linkens. Then you want to fight / farm out Eb. Generally you want to split push enough to force their heroes back so your team can take a favourable fight which you can clean up
I think most will agree fighting over farming this meta seems best, because you get a lot more gold and xp by being involved.
On July 17 2016 00:27 DazzleEnthusiast wrote: should you avoid fighting if you dont have eblade and or linkens yet? or at least a -few- agi items on him?
You farm because you can't fight properly yet. Fight only via tp to clean up, or if fights/food come to you. Otherwise you should just be farming wherever.
On July 17 2016 00:27 DazzleEnthusiast wrote: should you avoid fighting if you dont have eblade and or linkens yet? or at least a -few- agi items on him?
Think it's a game to game call, if fights are close and you can just come in late and clean up safely, there's nothing wrong with that.
But yeah in general morph shouldn't fight before his first two or three items are finished, Since he's a pretty safe splitpusher esp. after linkens and not a good fighter before eblade (and even with linkens eblade is a lina with a lot ehp).
I think nowadays participating in fights and seeking them out with your team and smokes is better than static farming by a long shot. obviously you want to avoid the running between lanes doing nothing syndrome, but buying a smoke, tping to a lane, getting 2-3 kills and a tower when ur strong is the way to do it
Being active does a couple things.. It takes ur highest net worth hero (safe lane carry) and forces the other team to react to you. It frees up your safe lane for a support to get their lv 6 / important items. It can delay ur timings by a few mins, or it can stay on par but get ur team experience and gold. Generally worth the risk
Morph early can take so much abuse / spells that u can swing fights and take good engagements
Obviously it's not black and white but I think morph has a lot of opportunities for aggressive players
morph has a lot of opportunities, but that doesn't mean you shouldnt have 100cs at 12min. Just carry a tp. When you have linkens, you can safely take down the opponents safelane tower and farm their jungle
I am having a major problem with this hero, think I need some serious help.
So I get that for this hero timing wise I should be looking at a 15-17min linkens followed by a ~ 25min EB, after that go for whatever suits the situation. Laning wise CS 100 by 12min minimum. Play is to not die, split push, pick off supports with shotgun combo, and outcarry opponent cores late game.
My first problem is that I can hardly hit the CS benchmark, which ONLY HAPPENS on this hero! It's so strange and frustrating for me. Generally when I play carry heroes like Gyro/Sven/LD etc I can hit my timing OK, it's only for morph that I am struggling REALLY HARD on. What bothers me more is that I DO NOT KNOW WHY is that so.
Maybe it's because of a contested lane. As usual in SEA pub/ranked games you could never get 2 lane supports, normally 1 is off jungling and the other is a bh/mirana roaming, nobody protects you in lane. Then you have all these meta offlaners like Timbersaw/Beastmaster who just pressures you. Thing is if I am a Gyro/Sven I know I can get a dom and stack camps/ancients and clear later, if I am a LD this wouldn't be a problem at all. If I am spec I know I can regain momentum from midgame haunt plays. What's the plan for Morphling when from the get go your lane is fucked up?
2nd problem derives from the first, since my laning isn't good enough my item timings are delayed. Then shotgun loses its effectiveness because of glimmers and such. What do I do then?
Currently I just feel like Morphling is so dependent on a good laning phase that if it doesn't go well, I am fucked basically. Is this just not a good meta to learn Morphling? I look at all my other carry heroes' winrate and they're about at least 50%, and for morphling alone I am <30%...Should I just give it up for good?
My dotabuff if anyone's interested..http://www.dotabuff.com/players/85212414/matches?date=all&hero=morphling&timezone=Etc%2FUTC
Just an addon. I understand that a solid laning mechanic(with much finesse) is required for heroes such as Morphling/Antimage, so how do I achieve that? For any other hero it seems that I know what to do as a standard carry during laning phase, be it looking for kills on opponent offlaner or just general CSing. For morphling it just seems all I could accomplish is CS, even at that it's kinda hard with the shitty base dmg and strong meta offlaners.
for general farming efficiency, aui has a video on it:
also on morph, you can increase efficiency with smart use of waveform when farming jungle. for example i attack every creep down to <300hp and then waveform away from them towards the next camp. this kills them and i save a few walking seconds. you can be even more efficient by pulling a camp ur killing close to another camp so you when you waveform, you also hit the second camp, but that requires good timing.
unfortunately, morph easily gets bullied in lane if he has no support. especially if you morph a lot of agility to make up for the bad base dmg. if u have a bad start, theres not much u can do except adapt your item choices.
I find with morph you wanna bully and harass the offlaner from the start, more so than most other safelaners. Most offlaners who get experience will be too hard to deal with but you can at least make their life difficult
If you don't have a good lane partner, make sure you start with a ton of regen (I like 4 branches 8 tangos) morph a ton of agility and trade right clicks
Eventually they will catch up but giving yourself a bit of space / making them worried about a rotating support helps in a lot of ways
On July 25 2016 22:05 ahw wrote: I find with morph you wanna bully and harass the offlaner from the start, more so than most other safelaners. Most offlaners who get experience will be too hard to deal with but you can at least make their life difficult
If you don't have a good lane partner, make sure you start with a ton of regen (I like 4 branches 8 tangos) morph a ton of agility and trade right clicks
Eventually they will catch up but giving yourself a bit of space / making them worried about a rotating support helps in a lot of ways
Ah..thx.. I always go out with stats item and a set of tangoes maybe a salve...now that you put it this way maybe I could try this instead.. thx!
On July 25 2016 22:05 ahw wrote: I find with morph you wanna bully and harass the offlaner from the start, more so than most other safelaners. Most offlaners who get experience will be too hard to deal with but you can at least make their life difficult
If you don't have a good lane partner, make sure you start with a ton of regen (I like 4 branches 8 tangos) morph a ton of agility and trade right clicks
Eventually they will catch up but giving yourself a bit of space / making them worried about a rotating support helps in a lot of ways
Ah..thx.. I always go out with stats item and a set of tangoes maybe a salve...now that you put it this way maybe I could try this instead.. thx!
i like buying 8 tangoes circlet and 4 branches, lets you finish wand in lane. i also morph a lot of agi in fountain
On July 27 2016 09:10 Erasme wrote: because rob and roa are really good items do u realize what u get from rop for just 325g ?
sure but on morph I would want 6 stats lvl 1 over 2 armour. 2 sticks = two more tangos so you get 10 tangos and 6 stats at lvl 1, buy wand asap, ship out 3 components of RoA after like, boots and health ring.
2 branch + circlet + tango + salve + mango seems a bit more efficient than 4 branches. I could be underestimating the effect of tangoing branch trees, but that many branches seems overkill. Mango is valuable with morph's low max hp and mana hungriness.
In a clearly secured lane I'd rather start with wb components (circlet + recipe) than RoP, as I feel that it more effectively spends your starting gold. It is also completed in 150g compared to RoB's 325g, meaning that you'll be able to complete wb & benefit from +9 damage very early on (possibly even pre-first wave if you get a bounty rune).
RoP is the middle option, alright when you suspect it's a lane that's almost secured. But these days I feel most offlanes will either be incredibly strong or completely absent, giving more merit to the other options.
i agree with the mango, however starting with a recipe seems bad. If you're in a contested lane rob is better than wb. And if you're in a free lane u can morph everything to agi, making the wb even more useless compared to rob
The only starting build on morphling is 8 tangoes 4 branches 1 circlet, you get 10 tangoes worth of regen, 6 int, 12 damage and fast wand. Just ferry out your ring of protection later on. If you are picking morph into a heavily contested lane you are doing it wrong.
On July 27 2016 17:51 Clarty wrote: The only starting build on morphling is 8 tangoes 4 branches 1 circlet, you get 10 tangoes worth of regen, 6 int, 12 damage and fast wand. Just ferry out your ring of protection later on. If you are picking morph into a heavily contested lane you are doing it wrong.
mango build is alright sometimes, depends on game. Have to be flexible.
On July 27 2016 17:51 Clarty wrote: The only starting build on morphling is 8 tangoes 4 branches 1 circlet, you get 10 tangoes worth of regen, 6 int, 12 damage and fast wand. Just ferry out your ring of protection later on. If you are picking morph into a heavily contested lane you are doing it wrong.
then why would you need 10tangos in an uncontested lane ? better get that rob fast to wave over lanes and push the tower quickly..
So I have been spamming morphling for the past couple of days in unranked and have a decent WR even though I still struggle with the laning phase sometimes, due to it being unranked and people don't pick proper supports and jungle and such. I think I am ready to go ranked with this hero at the 4k-5k bracket(international ranked).
Guess I am trying to ask how do I ensure I get to play him under favorable circumstances? Because it's SEA ranked, if you don't first pick carry you most likely won't get to play that role. However, if you do, you tend to get counter picked with heroes like AA, who they probably picked to counter potential mid alche picks. Or those timber/void offlaners who is just difficult to deal with. Do I just give him up for good for ranked games? If I don't start with him at 4k it's gonna be even harder once I get to 5k mmr games(my original solo mmr range).
Laning phase I was fine, most of the time 1v1 tidehunter(NS jungle, VS is just non-existent). Our offlane WR wasn't really feeding or anything, but Sven just farms way faster than me and mid game they just steamrolled us with better farm on their carry and better teamfight line up. What can a morphling do in games like this against a carry who can clear stacks?(Sven/Gyro etc) and just 5man deathball you? I think I got linkens EB around 26min but by then I don't really have any chance to pick off anyone as they sticked as 5. I tried to split push but I was not as fast as Sven...
I'm pretty sure this is one of the best heroes for solo ranked right now, although first picking it is fairly awful because it does have counter picks. I highly recommend buying dragon lance at some point on this hero especially against Sven, makes the hero feel a lot nicer in fights and is really cheap and stat-efficient.
Against deathballs you need to either split push so hard they can never afford to group as 5 without losing an objective or take out a key hero with eblade before the fights begins. Get replicate at level 9 and 11 also idk why you would skip that skill.
vs sven you wanna split push and generally you wanna try to bait out gods strength somewhere on the map and replicate away. easier said than done but yea.
contest his stacks. you can't farm faster than him but you can fight him late game. he relies on gods strength, you can pick his team off around that.
you can abuse your mobility when they try to take objectives. make sure your team doesnt die following you, but if you get your linkens/eblade up around 22-24 minutes, you can waveform/shotgun/eblade + replicate out, picking off supports and the like.
basically sven is gunna farm stacks and jungle, you are gunna farm out of position support players.
morphling straight up teamfights really well against sven and matches well vs him in lategame. As his bkb gets low, eblade because stuipdly effective vs him, and then when you get a skadi you really just start messing with his ability to fight in games. The hardest part is when sven gets that huge boost in gold relative to you from ancient stacks (you can try to get your supports to block it but...), but basically if you can survive until you get an eblade, its sustainable and as the game goes later it should be easy to fight vs him. Honestly morph is my go to carry if the enemy picks sven
Morphling is a good carry against Heros without much mobility like Sven, that I agree. He kinda is good against pushing teams just because he can comeback easily by splitpushing and keeping up pace with in terms of farm. he can also burst down weaking pushing supports like Shadow shaman
thank you all for the help....now what do I do in a classic morphling vs AM matchup? I don't recall any recent meta where this MU consistently happened so I didn't really know what to do. Here's the matchid http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2538558432
Basically I had a really good start with me and AA zoning out Void and I hit my item timings really on point. Mid game we rolled them pretty hard, took mid rax and bottom range rax. I understood that as a morphling that's the window of opportunity to close out the game as that is when morphling is at the power peak(~30-35min, items linken+eb+ 1 more).
However due to some clowny plays and slight throwing we could not finish the game then and there. And that's where it hits me that I do not have a good understanding of the Morphling AM matchup. Seriously what the fuck do I do?
How do I itemize against AM? When I had eb+linkens he had bf+offering, I was doing my job picking off people with the shotgun combo, he was just jungling and split pushing(but always gets ganked by legion). I went mantas because I wanted to manta dodge Axe calls and also because that's usually what I go for next, then Skadi for more hp and stats But come late game I realized that EB+Manta+Skadi does nothing against AM. When it comes to manfighting we both pop manta and fight, maybe I combo him for about 1/3 of his HP then that's about it, I could never finish him off, and he couldn't really kill me as well. Once he went butterfly that was it, I couldn't stand up to him anymore.
Play-wise when it came to late game both of us were split pushing. I always used replicate on my teammate and used that to get around the map and make sure creep waves were in their half of the map. If I group up with my team and 5 man high ground, he's gonna split push. So I replicate my teammate to get back to my team but then a teamfight happens and I couldn't replicate on the AM.
Should I dissemble EB into a faster butterfly? But that would lose the shotgun combo and the kinda make it all pointless?
Was manta/Skadi necessary? Should I just go BKB+butterfly(without dissembling EB) after Linkens+eb and just try to end the game ?
On July 31 2016 16:22 Eetee wrote: thank you all for the help....now what do I do in a classic morphling vs AM matchup? I don't recall any recent meta where this MU consistently happened so I didn't really know what to do. Here's the matchid http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2538558432
Basically I had a really good start with me and AA zoning out Void and I hit my item timings really on point. Mid game we rolled them pretty hard, took mid rax and bottom range rax. I understood that as a morphling that's the window of opportunity to close out the game as that is when morphling is at the power peak(~30-35min, items linken+eb+ 1 more).
However due to some clowny plays and slight throwing we could not finish the game then and there. And that's where it hits me that I do not have a good understanding of the Morphling AM matchup. Seriously what the fuck do I do?
How do I itemize against AM? When I had eb+linkens he had bf+offering, I was doing my job picking off people with the shotgun combo, he was just jungling and split pushing(but always gets ganked by legion). I went mantas because I wanted to manta dodge Axe calls and also because that's usually what I go for next, then Skadi for more hp and stats But come late game I realized that EB+Manta+Skadi does nothing against AM. When it comes to manfighting we both pop manta and fight, maybe I combo him for about 1/3 of his HP then that's about it, I could never finish him off, and he couldn't really kill me as well. Once he went butterfly that was it, I couldn't stand up to him anymore.
Play-wise when it came to late game both of us were split pushing. I always used replicate on my teammate and used that to get around the map and make sure creep waves were in their half of the map. If I group up with my team and 5 man high ground, he's gonna split push. So I replicate my teammate to get back to my team but then a teamfight happens and I couldn't replicate on the AM.
Should I dissemble EB into a faster butterfly? But that would lose the shotgun combo and the kinda make it all pointless?
Was manta/Skadi necessary? Should I just go BKB+butterfly(without dissembling EB) after Linkens+eb and just try to end the game ?
Please help....
item wise - dont get a skadi vs am. Ever. On any hero. vs am, you will likely need a bkb, butterfly, or a mkb (two of those three. In fihgts, you are typically better off not man fighting the am and kill the supports with ur eblade or some other core. If you can help to save replicate for fights (you typically can't), save it and make one of am - it helps. in that game you needed a bkb and mkb instead of skadi (manta is fine). Keep the eblade, you just have to learn around fighting against am. Takes practice, and you have to keep farming if there is no opportunity to push.
thing about morph is that he fights much better than am does early on, so if your team is playing agressive and pushing down towers (which they should b edoing vs am around 10-12 mins), then join them if you can help it, or take down t1 + t2 of your safelane.
Thanks...that game was a really tough call. There was axe call and Void chrono which makes bkb useless...But I also needed bkb for invoker and disruptor...
But I think I got it..against AM less stats padding more manfighting items.
On July 31 2016 16:59 Eetee wrote: Thanks...that game was a really tough call. There was axe call and Void chrono which makes bkb useless...But I also needed bkb for invoker and disruptor...
But I think I got it..against AM less stats padding more manfighting items.
having +int items is literally counter productive vs am, so try not to do that when possible
On July 31 2016 16:59 Eetee wrote: Thanks...that game was a really tough call. There was axe call and Void chrono which makes bkb useless...But I also needed bkb for invoker and disruptor...
But I think I got it..against AM less stats padding more manfighting items.
having +int items is literally counter productive vs am, so try not to do that when possible
Yeah but the thing is he gets all ur mana which is super important to morphling...I get that you don't want to have a huge mana pool for the mana void bomb...but your shotgun combo doesn't really hurt him
I'll just get a quick mkb/butterfly next time, I think 1 of those 2 is minimum to fight am
you'll probably end up farming in the same lane as AM at some point. there's a blurry point where if he's slowed down slightly through the early game and then ends up getting contested a bit later, it wastes an important chunk of the player's time on that hero.
they may be forced to build an early headdress, a completed vanguard (you'll be able to tell from if he finishes the PMS early in lane) or just dawdle around in jungle camps with RoH. when you end up in the same lane, little to no risk to you, just walk up and place AM's replicate on himself. this isn't an insignificant nuisance and depending on the player, it might just force him to wane off pressuring a lane to blink into jungle instead. each time you do this, he has to spend 10 seconds or more to deal with the illusion that he doesn't want to deal with. now he can't come to ganks or fights with no mana. he can farm creeps though. that's great, you know where he is exactly.
if you've got linkens eblade before he has manta, that's great imo. you're ahead by a good margin. and because you're ahead, you can fight earlier than he can. i would have made bkb or butterfly instead most of the time. imo, there's nothing wrong with skadi if you've got a teamfight plan from start to finish and it involves the slow with 450 more HP. that's not the plan for AM, that's the plan for the rest of his team.
Ya don't go skadi this is pretty much the only time u want butterfly on morph. Am does not / can't afford to go mkb in a tight game.
Also 30 mins is the window where am is at his peak, not morph. Don't feel like you have to end the game. If you itemize properly linkens/shotgun/manta/butterfly/satanic or bkb, and you use replicate well, you can fight him late
You want to avoid mana pool items beyond linkens (can't mana void/abyssal as ez) and manta (sieging tool). Mana burn in to void is his only play against you but it's a strong one and will kill you mid game
Also be aware of ur team mates mana pool and keep your distance. I have died frustratingly to an ally mana void when I'm on full agi despite being far far ahead
the biggest advantage of morph that i haven't seen mentioned here is role versatility. they fifth pick AM while you still have a pick? Why not just pick a hero like Sven that shitstomps AM throughout the game and go support morphling (itself a counter to AM).
On August 01 2016 08:29 juracule wrote: the biggest advantage of morph that i haven't seen mentioned here is role versatility. they fifth pick AM while you still have a pick? Why not just pick a hero like Sven that shitstomps AM throughout the game and go support morphling (itself a counter to AM).
Cause honestly support morph is a bit stretchy and unless you waveform from trees or get blink, you'll never stun am before he gets blink out or just mantadodges adaptive strike. Add to that that morph needs levels to do stuff and can't really pressure am in the laning stage and I'm not convinced support morph is anywhere near being a counter.
I'm sure against AM you get an early dragon lance and tp to his lane when you are level 9, not much he can do about that. Also fast butterfly is really good against AM, sometimes I skip eblade in this matchup for a straight butterfly if there aren't any other decent eblade targets. Don't get skadi it won't help you manfight AM and just makes you a juicy target for mana void. If your team has a couple of stunners you are fine playing ultra lategame, with satanic+bkb+replicate he loses the manfight advantage and you have the mobility to deal with his rat dota.
Also a cheesy tactic if you are having trouble catching a ratting AM is to morph strength so that you get the full duration stun, stun him then morph agi and hope your allies back you up to finish the job.
On August 01 2016 08:29 juracule wrote: the biggest advantage of morph that i haven't seen mentioned here is role versatility. they fifth pick AM while you still have a pick? Why not just pick a hero like Sven that shitstomps AM throughout the game and go support morphling (itself a counter to AM).
Cause honestly support morph is a bit stretchy and unless you waveform from trees or get blink, you'll never stun am before he gets blink out or just mantadodges adaptive strike. Add to that that morph needs levels to do stuff and can't really pressure am in the laning stage and I'm not convinced support morph is anywhere near being a counter.
A support morph should get lvl 5 at about 5 or 6 mins in, which is really all he needs as it is already a 3.25s stun at that point. This timing is still squarely in the laning stage. Most AMs won't have a manta before 20 mins. And if the enemy AM has to save his Manta and his blink for my 4.25s stun hows he ever gonna kill anyone? Morphling can also Waveform from fog so you better have some quick reaction times.
i'd like to see you manta dodge adaptive strike, hahaha. if by dodge you mean hoping he chooses the illusion, then totally.
i'd also like to see a legit morphling support game the way you describe. personally and truthfully i'd barf if i had someone in the 6k+ range picking and playing the hero to be a 3, 4 or a 5. maaaybe offlane if there's a drow on the team and playing against solo LD or something.
On August 02 2016 01:06 nanaoei wrote: i'd like to see you manta dodge adaptive strike, hahaha. if by dodge you mean hoping he chooses the illusion, then totally.
i'd also like to see a legit morphling support game the way you describe. personally and truthfully i'd barf if i had someone in the 6k+ range picking and playing the hero to be a 3, 4 or a 5. maaaybe offlane if there's a drow on the team and playing against solo LD or something.
you just go cliffjungle with him for 5 mins and in return you get a stunbot. Dunno why you barf at a 4.25s stun every 10s. even if they try to mess with you with a riki or whatever who cares - this means that riki is not bothering your mid or your offlaner. All you need is lvl 5 really and you're nearly completely item-independent. clan_iraq has made a more thorough guide to supp morphling.
I just played a game with a supp morphling at ~5.4k, although he didn't itemize or play like i would.
On August 02 2016 01:06 nanaoei wrote: i'd like to see you manta dodge adaptive strike, hahaha. if by dodge you mean hoping he chooses the illusion, then totally.
i'd also like to see a legit morphling support game the way you describe. personally and truthfully i'd barf if i had someone in the 6k+ range picking and playing the hero to be a 3, 4 or a 5. maaaybe offlane if there's a drow on the team and playing against solo LD or something.
lol just by saying you can't manta dodge adaptive strike you tell us how bad you are i've seen plenty of 6k+ support/offlane morph and played a couple of myself. Works totally fine.
Yeah I can see him work as a 3 or greedy pos 4 who aoe-nukes jungle stacks, I just don't see him do much vs am either way until you have blink, which is likely after am got manta.
Support morph is legit, but you need a good team to capitalize on your stun. Help setup Pudge hooks, arrows, sky ulti etc. Otherwise you'd feel a severe lack of damage.
Support morph timing is also kinda too late to counter AM.
The way Wings used support morph against OG (Miracle AM) is a great, although not likely repeatable, example if you're looking for how to do it. That team had stuns for days and was so well coordinated..again, not your standard issue pub.
Support Morph is great if, and this is a big if, you can get through the laning stage.
You're awful at harassing offlaners. You're awful at zoning. You cant use the jungle. You cant roam. You can pretty much stack, pull, soak exp. Which is absolutely fine if your safelane is secure and your mid is ok. But there will also be those pub games where you have a WK carry against a timber offlane. Or you're up against a strong duo offlane. And you're supposed to secure WK his farm. Which.... wont go well.
Support/offlane morph really needs lvl 5 before hes a hero, preferably lvl 7 since thats when his stun is maxed. Offlane is the safer choice for that reason. You're "supposed to" lose the offlane, so sitting there soaking exp while being hard to kill with waveform is fine. As support you cant just always sit and leach exp from a lane and be fine, as offlane you can most of the time.
That said, if you can get through those early levels its probably preferable with sup morph over offlane. Neither will scale well and both will buy utility stuff. The offlane version will get slightly more and get items slightly faster, but thats really not game breaking. Its better you're sup and you have a somewhat better scaling offlaners in that case. But remember the big if.
On August 06 2016 07:12 Kreb wrote: Support Morph is great if, and this is a big if, you can get through the laning stage.
You're awful at harassing offlaners. You're awful at zoning. You cant use the jungle. You cant roam. You can pretty much stack, pull, soak exp. Which is absolutely fine if your safelane is secure and your mid is ok. But there will also be those pub games where you have a WK carry against a timber offlane. Or you're up against a strong duo offlane. And you're supposed to secure WK his farm. Which.... wont go well.
Support/offlane morph really needs lvl 5 before hes a hero, preferably lvl 7 since thats when his stun is maxed. Offlane is the safer choice for that reason. You're "supposed to" lose the offlane, so sitting there soaking exp while being hard to kill with waveform is fine. As support you cant just always sit and leach exp from a lane and be fine, as offlane you can most of the time.
That said, if you can get through those early levels its probably preferable with sup morph over offlane. Neither will scale well and both will buy utility stuff. The offlane version will get slightly more and get items slightly faster, but thats really not game breaking. Its better you're sup and you have a somewhat better scaling offlaners in that case. But remember the big if.
If given the space, you can use the jungle to get to level 5. Not the fastest, but it is still levels on a hero that wants levels if played as support.
On August 06 2016 07:12 Kreb wrote: Support Morph is great if, and this is a big if, you can get through the laning stage.
You're awful at harassing offlaners. You're awful at zoning. You cant use the jungle. You cant roam. You can pretty much stack, pull, soak exp. Which is absolutely fine if your safelane is secure and your mid is ok. But there will also be those pub games where you have a WK carry against a timber offlane. Or you're up against a strong duo offlane. And you're supposed to secure WK his farm. Which.... wont go well.
Support/offlane morph really needs lvl 5 before hes a hero, preferably lvl 7 since thats when his stun is maxed. Offlane is the safer choice for that reason. You're "supposed to" lose the offlane, so sitting there soaking exp while being hard to kill with waveform is fine. As support you cant just always sit and leach exp from a lane and be fine, as offlane you can most of the time.
That said, if you can get through those early levels its probably preferable with sup morph over offlane. Neither will scale well and both will buy utility stuff. The offlane version will get slightly more and get items slightly faster, but thats really not game breaking. Its better you're sup and you have a somewhat better scaling offlaners in that case. But remember the big if.
You don't lane support morphling. You cliff jungle him (which is significantly easier on dire-side, while still possible radiant). You get like a 5 min lvl 5.
On August 06 2016 03:47 BoZiffer wrote: The way Wings used support morph against OG (Miracle AM) is a great, although not likely repeatable, example if you're looking for how to do it. That team had stuns for days and was so well coordinated..again, not your standard issue pub.
Funny how this occurs a few days after I say supp morphling is a good counter to AM... And no, that is usually how my supp morph games play out. The first few stuns allied people don't realize how long the stun is, then they realize they can wail on the AM for 4.25s.
On August 06 2016 07:12 Kreb wrote: Support Morph is great if, and this is a big if, you can get through the laning stage.
You're awful at harassing offlaners. You're awful at zoning. You cant use the jungle. You cant roam. You can pretty much stack, pull, soak exp. Which is absolutely fine if your safelane is secure and your mid is ok. But there will also be those pub games where you have a WK carry against a timber offlane. Or you're up against a strong duo offlane. And you're supposed to secure WK his farm. Which.... wont go well.
Support/offlane morph really needs lvl 5 before hes a hero, preferably lvl 7 since thats when his stun is maxed. Offlane is the safer choice for that reason. You're "supposed to" lose the offlane, so sitting there soaking exp while being hard to kill with waveform is fine. As support you cant just always sit and leach exp from a lane and be fine, as offlane you can most of the time.
That said, if you can get through those early levels its probably preferable with sup morph over offlane. Neither will scale well and both will buy utility stuff. The offlane version will get slightly more and get items slightly faster, but thats really not game breaking. Its better you're sup and you have a somewhat better scaling offlaners in that case. But remember the big if.
You don't lane support morphling. You cliff jungle him (which is significantly easier on dire-side, while still possible radiant). You get like a 5 min lvl 5.
On August 06 2016 03:47 BoZiffer wrote: The way Wings used support morph against OG (Miracle AM) is a great, although not likely repeatable, example if you're looking for how to do it. That team had stuns for days and was so well coordinated..again, not your standard issue pub.
Funny how this occurs a few days after I say supp morphling is a good counter to AM... And no, that is usually how my supp morph games play out. The first few stuns allied people don't realize how long the stun is, then they realize they can wail on the AM for 4.25s.
It wasn't so much the morph countering miracle that game though. The entire wings team together were a nuisance. Disruptor ulti, doom, chrono etc. Just morph alone doesn't do anything to AM, but when you have a team to help out, support morph becomes nasty against any carry.
On July 27 2016 17:51 Clarty wrote: The only starting build on morphling is 8 tangoes 4 branches 1 circlet, you get 10 tangoes worth of regen, 6 int, 12 damage and fast wand. Just ferry out your ring of protection later on. If you are picking morph into a heavily contested lane you are doing it wrong.
On July 27 2016 17:51 Clarty wrote: The only starting build on morphling is 8 tangoes 4 branches 1 circlet, you get 10 tangoes worth of regen, 6 int, 12 damage and fast wand. Just ferry out your ring of protection later on. If you are picking morph into a heavily contested lane you are doing it wrong.
the bsj build
And Aui, and comehdoter, and beesa, and idk who else but a lot of ppl. Illidan does mango build which is also pretty good I think, but gives less stats.
Alright been spamming morph the last month, slowly improving. Need some insight on the following:
1. Dragon lance(or the first "Big Item" in general). Should I get it, if so, when? I get that it is a very cost efficient item and fits into the item build of generally any ranged agi carries. In theory this item fits perfectly for morph to compensate for the lack or attack range plus the good stats it provides. But I have some trouble figuring out when to get it. Standard timing for Morph has always been aquila during laning phase, linkens<17, EB~25, where does DL fit into this then? If I get DL before EB it just makes EB less effective, I think.
To me it feels like getting an early DL on morph is like getting an early vanguard on AM. It enables you to fight a little in the early-mid game, but it doesn't accelerate your farm like linkens/BF? Is this a good comparison?
2. How do you deal with TB/Drow + Shadow Demon line ups that starts pushing as soon as laning phase is over? Since TI is over I am seeing a lot of these line ups that puts so much pressure on you pre-20 or even pre-15 mins. As a morph this is just when I am finishing up on my linkens and I feel so useless to the team. It's like if we don't have some form of de-push we're basically fucked. In this type of games should I then be getting an early DL and starting fighting around lvl 8-10? Help out the team a little instead of just pressuring safelane's T1/T2?
On August 24 2016 00:11 Eetee wrote: Alright been spamming morph the last month, slowly improving. Need some insight on the following:
1. Dragon lance(or the first "Big Item" in general). Should I get it, if so, when? I get that it is a very cost efficient item and fits into the item build of generally any ranged agi carries. In theory this item fits perfectly for morph to compensate for the lack or attack range plus the good stats it provides. But I have some trouble figuring out when to get it. Standard timing for Morph has always been aquila during laning phase, linkens<17, EB~25, where does DL fit into this then? If I get DL before EB it just makes EB less effective, I think.
To me it feels like getting an early DL on morph is like getting an early vanguard on AM. It enables you to fight a little in the early-mid game, but it doesn't accelerate your farm like linkens/BF? Is this a good comparison?
2. How do you deal with TB/Drow + Shadow Demon line ups that starts pushing as soon as laning phase is over? Since TI is over I am seeing a lot of these line ups that puts so much pressure on you pre-20 or even pre-15 mins. As a morph this is just when I am finishing up on my linkens and I feel so useless to the team. It's like if we don't have some form of de-push we're basically fucked. In this type of games should I then be getting an early DL and starting fighting around lvl 8-10? Help out the team a little instead of just pressuring safelane's T1/T2?
Many thanks in advance.
DL should be for when you're not going Shotgun. Really, there aren't any situations where you'd actually want both...it either delays your shotgun timing, or it comes too late and you should be building bigger items by then.
And you don't deal with pushes. Early/Mid game timings are the counter to Morphling and other hard carries. Your team as a whole can stall and delay until you can actually start contributing, but the game plan should be to outlast their push and beat them late where you're stronger.
If the game's going that poorly, you're basically stuck hoping your Waveform and Adaptive Strike contribute enough damage to help. Maybe even build a Veil just so you can nuke down waves, and cheese with Waveform+Replicate. And question the futility of playing against push with no de-push.
I pretty much always buy dragon lance on morphling, it is just so efficient that I never feel like it is worth skipping. Usually I either go for it after perseverance if I don't particularly need spell block, alternatively I build it after eblade for the cheap stats. It does delay your eblade a little bit but it allows you to join fights where you just wave on top of supports then chop them down with your autoattacks.
Another item I don't see many people get but I think has a lot of potential is blink dagger after eblade. Against good players they often will hide the squishy supports in the backline and it can be hard to pick them off without overcommitting with waveform. Blink helps a lot in that regard. Also much like the way ember uses dagger in fights you can blink in to right click and hold your waveform for an escape or some extra chasing power. Being able to instantly kill somebody from 1500+ range is just disgustingly strong in my opinion.
On August 24 2016 00:11 Eetee wrote: Alright been spamming morph the last month, slowly improving. Need some insight on the following:
1. Dragon lance(or the first "Big Item" in general). Should I get it, if so, when? I get that it is a very cost efficient item and fits into the item build of generally any ranged agi carries. In theory this item fits perfectly for morph to compensate for the lack or attack range plus the good stats it provides. But I have some trouble figuring out when to get it. Standard timing for Morph has always been aquila during laning phase, linkens<17, EB~25, where does DL fit into this then? If I get DL before EB it just makes EB less effective, I think.
To me it feels like getting an early DL on morph is like getting an early vanguard on AM. It enables you to fight a little in the early-mid game, but it doesn't accelerate your farm like linkens/BF? Is this a good comparison?
2. How do you deal with TB/Drow + Shadow Demon line ups that starts pushing as soon as laning phase is over? Since TI is over I am seeing a lot of these line ups that puts so much pressure on you pre-20 or even pre-15 mins. As a morph this is just when I am finishing up on my linkens and I feel so useless to the team. It's like if we don't have some form of de-push we're basically fucked. In this type of games should I then be getting an early DL and starting fighting around lvl 8-10? Help out the team a little instead of just pressuring safelane's T1/T2?
Many thanks in advance.
DL should be for when you're not going Shotgun. Really, there aren't any situations where you'd actually want both...it either delays your shotgun timing, or it comes too late and you should be building bigger items by then.
And you don't deal with pushes. Early/Mid game timings are the counter to Morphling and other hard carries. Your team as a whole can stall and delay until you can actually start contributing, but the game plan should be to outlast their push and beat them late where you're stronger.
If the game's going that poorly, you're basically stuck hoping your Waveform and Adaptive Strike contribute enough damage to help. Maybe even build a Veil just so you can nuke down waves, and cheese with Waveform+Replicate. And question the futility of playing against push with no de-push.
If I don't go for Shotgun I just feel that there's no need to pick Morphling in the first place. Isn't the whole point of picking Morphling is so that you can nuke someone down quick and teamfight 5v4? And split push? If I want to forego EB in place of DL+stats wouldn't a Drow/TB pick be better? Or better yet, pick anti-mage who basically fits the same functionality of Morph minus the shotgun(since not going EB build).
On August 24 2016 00:11 Eetee wrote: Alright been spamming morph the last month, slowly improving. Need some insight on the following:
1. Dragon lance(or the first "Big Item" in general). Should I get it, if so, when? I get that it is a very cost efficient item and fits into the item build of generally any ranged agi carries. In theory this item fits perfectly for morph to compensate for the lack or attack range plus the good stats it provides. But I have some trouble figuring out when to get it. Standard timing for Morph has always been aquila during laning phase, linkens<17, EB~25, where does DL fit into this then? If I get DL before EB it just makes EB less effective, I think.
To me it feels like getting an early DL on morph is like getting an early vanguard on AM. It enables you to fight a little in the early-mid game, but it doesn't accelerate your farm like linkens/BF? Is this a good comparison?
2. How do you deal with TB/Drow + Shadow Demon line ups that starts pushing as soon as laning phase is over? Since TI is over I am seeing a lot of these line ups that puts so much pressure on you pre-20 or even pre-15 mins. As a morph this is just when I am finishing up on my linkens and I feel so useless to the team. It's like if we don't have some form of de-push we're basically fucked. In this type of games should I then be getting an early DL and starting fighting around lvl 8-10? Help out the team a little instead of just pressuring safelane's T1/T2?
Many thanks in advance.
DL should be for when you're not going Shotgun. Really, there aren't any situations where you'd actually want both...it either delays your shotgun timing, or it comes too late and you should be building bigger items by then.
And you don't deal with pushes. Early/Mid game timings are the counter to Morphling and other hard carries. Your team as a whole can stall and delay until you can actually start contributing, but the game plan should be to outlast their push and beat them late where you're stronger.
If the game's going that poorly, you're basically stuck hoping your Waveform and Adaptive Strike contribute enough damage to help. Maybe even build a Veil just so you can nuke down waves, and cheese with Waveform+Replicate. And question the futility of playing against push with no de-push.
If I don't go for Shotgun I just feel that there's no need to pick Morphling in the first place. Isn't the whole point of picking Morphling is so that you can nuke someone down quick and teamfight 5v4? And split push? If I want to forego EB in place of DL+stats wouldn't a Drow/TB pick be better? Or better yet, pick anti-mage who basically fits the same functionality of Morph minus the shotgun(since not going EB build).
Often the idea is to get a solid lategame carry who can fight once he has 10k gold and never dies against teams without silences. Suddenly the other side picks Huskar or AM and you are kinda forced to go righclick.
Just because there are better alternatives for the situation doesn't mean that you'll never find yourself in it. Morph isn't always last-pick.
On August 24 2016 00:11 Eetee wrote: Alright been spamming morph the last month, slowly improving. Need some insight on the following:
1. Dragon lance(or the first "Big Item" in general). Should I get it, if so, when? I get that it is a very cost efficient item and fits into the item build of generally any ranged agi carries. In theory this item fits perfectly for morph to compensate for the lack or attack range plus the good stats it provides. But I have some trouble figuring out when to get it. Standard timing for Morph has always been aquila during laning phase, linkens<17, EB~25, where does DL fit into this then? If I get DL before EB it just makes EB less effective, I think.
To me it feels like getting an early DL on morph is like getting an early vanguard on AM. It enables you to fight a little in the early-mid game, but it doesn't accelerate your farm like linkens/BF? Is this a good comparison?
2. How do you deal with TB/Drow + Shadow Demon line ups that starts pushing as soon as laning phase is over? Since TI is over I am seeing a lot of these line ups that puts so much pressure on you pre-20 or even pre-15 mins. As a morph this is just when I am finishing up on my linkens and I feel so useless to the team. It's like if we don't have some form of de-push we're basically fucked. In this type of games should I then be getting an early DL and starting fighting around lvl 8-10? Help out the team a little instead of just pressuring safelane's T1/T2?
Many thanks in advance.
DL should be for when you're not going Shotgun. Really, there aren't any situations where you'd actually want both...it either delays your shotgun timing, or it comes too late and you should be building bigger items by then.
And you don't deal with pushes. Early/Mid game timings are the counter to Morphling and other hard carries. Your team as a whole can stall and delay until you can actually start contributing, but the game plan should be to outlast their push and beat them late where you're stronger.
If the game's going that poorly, you're basically stuck hoping your Waveform and Adaptive Strike contribute enough damage to help. Maybe even build a Veil just so you can nuke down waves, and cheese with Waveform+Replicate. And question the futility of playing against push with no de-push.
If I don't go for Shotgun I just feel that there's no need to pick Morphling in the first place. Isn't the whole point of picking Morphling is so that you can nuke someone down quick and teamfight 5v4? And split push? If I want to forego EB in place of DL+stats wouldn't a Drow/TB pick be better? Or better yet, pick anti-mage who basically fits the same functionality of Morph minus the shotgun(since not going EB build).
Often the idea is to get a solid lategame carry who can fight once he has 10k gold and never dies against teams without silences. Suddenly the other side picks Huskar or AM and you are kinda forced to go righclick.
Just because there are better alternatives for the situation doesn't mean that you'll never find yourself in it. Morph isn't always last-pick.
Ah..if you put it that way then it's very reasonable haha. thanks.Guess I must learn to be flexible.
Can someone tell me how is morphling strong this patch? I mean yes hes a pretty decent split pusher, but his kill potential solo wise is really not a lot, and he actually takes quite a lot to come online. I mean ideally, you can have a 25 min linkens + EB if you have a decent game, but compare that networth to something like a TB with manta Diffusal, or split pushers that have better sustain, i just feel that even as a split pusher, the moment even a support or core shows up in lane, you have to bail immediately.
LOL, actually thats not true at all. His escape mechanism like Replicate actually has pretty high up time. And if you wave form in to do dmg, you actually just used ur escape mechanism into 3-4 heroes.Most of the time morphs will just uise their nuke, and honestly W just doenst even do ALOT of damage. Waveform has good damage if you use it to chase but thats only if you are winning fights unless you are wave forming in and the replciating out, which costs like 60-70% of his mana poool early on and you are still useless outside of the fight. Honestly, he just doenst feel like he do A LOT. If u are forced to str morph, you are basically useless the rest of the fight. Yeah they will blow a lot on u and dont kill you which is good, but you have almost no follow up then. Someone comparable will be like an Alchemist, If you fail to blow him up, he still contributes a shit ton via acid spray and stun/radiance burn. Hell even heroes like TB feels like they contribute so much more to the fights than morph do.
Not to mention with how good hood is, Eblades effectiveness is really reduced when cores that can comfortably build this item builds it.
Almost any carry outside of AM feels like they contribute way more to team fights with similar farm of an Eblade Linkens morph, while still having some kind of recovery mechanism that is better. Like literally i have watched a lot of morph games in 6-7k where if morph has a bad start, he literally just afk farms until eblade linkens or whatever, anbd his only contribution in a team fight is a 400 dmg nuke on a 10 sec cd. Lol...
On August 31 2016 04:14 Kaj wrote: Not to mention with how good hood is, Eblades effectiveness is really reduced when cores that can comfortably build this item builds it.
Almost any carry outside of AM feels like they contribute way more to team fights with similar farm of an Eblade Linkens morph, while still having some kind of recovery mechanism that is better. Like literally i have watched a lot of morph games in 6-7k where if morph has a bad start, he literally just afk farms until eblade linkens or whatever, anbd his only contribution in a team fight is a 400 dmg nuke on a 10 sec cd. Lol...
400 damage nuke is about 600 damage off. E-Blade+Adaptive should instantly kill a support or a less tanky mid/offlaner.
Now, a lot of other heroes can do that with less farm. Very few can do that while also having a 200ish damage right click with really high Aspd after. Fewer can do it with a get-out-of-dodge button. And none can have all of that while having ridiculous late-game damage and tank.
yeah i stopped listening to kaj ever since he claimed spirit breaker hard counters slark.
can u list some cores (read: mid/carries) that actually build hood? shotgun combo = 400 dmg LOL have u even played morph? not to mention thinking that a morph that has had to str morph is useless (nobody says u need to morph ALL of ur agi into str, use your brain and only morph whatever u need to survive).
Morphling is picked because he is versatile in terms of the type of damage output (magic damage nuke combo that can instantly make a fight 4v5, consistently high physical dps for hitting towers and BKB'd heroes which is not cooldown reliant) although probably not being the absolute best in either of those, and extreme survival skills, meaning he can actually deliver that tower damage with little risk. He has decent mobility, which means he usually doesn't need a blink like jugg or sven do, although his low base ms makes him somewhat kitable (which is solved by him not being solely a physical DPS carry).
His physical EHP in full agi is oftentimes somewhat overstated though, primarily because of his relatively low HP, and his magic EHP is poor when silenced/hex. It is here that where we see that the hero doesn't actually have a "real" steroid, outside of his lower-than-average BAT. The hero has to get items that provide HP and/or protection, so that he can morph enough strength to deal significant damage without dying to a rightclick.
He also pairs well with SD, who is a popular pick. One last thing is that he provides versatility in drafting. He is both a competent support as well as a carry.
Excellent hero right now, I wish I were better on him. Shotgun combo has never really been about killing cores, its about killing supports / ppl with who die in combo so you start a fight 5v4. It can also be leveraged for map control so the enemy is forced to group up to defend etc.
Against lineups lacking in magical burst / silence you can comfortably float at 600 hp or w.e and still be ridiculously hard to kill early game. Morph creates pressure by virtue of being Morph, QB is godly on him.
Definitely a hero that needs a lot of practice in terms of balancing agi/morph throughout the game, but the amount of gank attempts you can bait and countergank (if your team tp's in) is insane.
Pretty much what baggage says, think morphling is in a pretty good place right now. I say this from personal experience because I have been spamming morphling quite a lot in the past couple month or so in TI ranked in the 4k-5k bracket.
First step of playing a good morphling is knowing when to pick morphling.. During the first 3-4 minutes of the game I feel like it's the hardest part of playing morphling, because a lot of the laning phase rests on your support(s) and opponent offlaners and less on you. For example when you get rekt by Undying+1(which abuses morphling high agi low str morphs) dual offlanes or you're basically solo vs timber/void with your solo support single pulling and not zoning offlaner, etc. Point is don't pick morphling knowing you are going to have a shit time. Also, remember to ban TB/Drow+SD/Medusa, because that line up just comes online faster than you do and will end the game before you're of any use to your team.
For morphling to get a good game you absolutely need to have a decent laning phase. at least the first 3-4 levels. Preferably you want to have at least a level advantage over your opponent offlaner, eg. lvl 3 morph+ say a lvl 2 support against a lvl 2 timber/void. Then you're support can leave you alone and roam mid or do their shit honestly. Waveform is really a good skill in the early game, you just need to know how to use it. Trade right clicks with offlaner, waveform behind him, during waveform you can squeeze in another couple right clicks, do this once and the offlaner should be <half hp and either use up his salve or get back to base/hide under tower with slow tango regen. Keep doing this or request ganks from your support/jungler till offlaner retreats to jungle.
It's a very routine pattern for a standard morphling game. Laning phase farm up/Zone out offlaner> get opponent offlane Tier 1 tower under/around 10 minutes > farm up linkens/EB, from here on either stick with your team and start teamfights 5v4 with shotgun combo or split push with replicates/boots of travel. In a sense it's pretty similar to a spectre game where you join your team whenever it suits the situation or you go for pick offs when you see the opportunity and take objectives after.
There are line ups/heroes that cause trouble for morphling in the current meta, some of which makes picking morphling a bad choice. Eg Drow/Tb line ups like mentioned above. Riki/LC/Axe picks(when coordinated). Sometimes AM picks as well.
I mean huskar is a special case vs everyone, you basically need to have a team comp that won't roll over and you need to play tightly regardless of heroes.
Morph is probably one of the best "hard carry" vs huskar cause you can split push down towers faster than they can 5 man them and at least trade around the map. You also do a fuckton of physical dps very quickly which is hard for him to itemize against
But yea if ur team is getting rolled and feeding kills instead of avoiding and you picked too greedy you'll probably lose
As a Huskar picker Im pretty damn happy to see a Morphling as enemy carry. If I dont get snowballing it sure as hell wont be because of Morph. Yea he can obviously be an issue lategame, but most carries can be. Morph is probably one of the slowest carries to reach "being a threat" status due to his physical damage coming online so late.
The point i am trying to make is that, morph depends on your team being ahead. Or slightly behind so much that the supports are not farmed enough to get enough defensive items like cloak or glimmers that can survive his initiation at 22-25 min mark, He also depends on the draft to lack good magical burst and silences in order to thrive. His laning is insanely weak at early levels, and if he gets shutdown early, its not like he can go into jungle like some heroes do without any items at all. he NEEDs a ring of health, and some items in order to properly semi jungle,
On September 02 2016 20:22 Kaj wrote: The point i am trying to make is that, morph depends on your team being ahead. Or slightly behind so much that the supports are not farmed enough to get enough defensive items like cloak or glimmers that can survive his initiation at 22-25 min mark, He also depends on the draft to lack good magical burst and silences in order to thrive. His laning is insanely weak at early levels, and if he gets shutdown early, its not like he can go into jungle like some heroes do without any items at all. he NEEDs a ring of health, and some items in order to properly semi jungle,
1. Which hero carry doesn't somewhat depend on your team not getting roasted? Also not entirely true, morph can push out waves with replicate that only ember could else and he pushes faster without items. He's probably the safest splitpusher in the game. 2. Magical burst isn't as much of a problem as it seems because you get linkens in most games anyways, which blocks most big magical burst spells. Same reason why you are pretty safe vs most silences and all hexes. Unless you get hit by 5 nukes within 2 seconds you probably won't die to nuke damage. 3. His laning is pretty good for a hard carry. Yeah he sucks in a lost lane, but so does pretty much every hard carry. Am, spectre, luna, pl, ember and naga all won't get farm out of a lost lane either and have a harder time bullying a solo offlaner. Morph can really burst heroes at low lvl already if you have a disable on your sup.
On September 02 2016 11:06 Birdie wrote: Pretty sure you don't pick morph into huskar unless the rest of your team can deal with huskar already.
Agreed. Yeah morph splitpushes fast, but morph also can't really deal with Huskar until far later than most carries and for most teams it's easier to stop a splitpushing morph than a pushing huskar.
On September 02 2016 20:22 Kaj wrote: The point i am trying to make is that, morph depends on your team being ahead. Or slightly behind so much that the supports are not farmed enough to get enough defensive items like cloak or glimmers that can survive his initiation at 22-25 min mark, He also depends on the draft to lack good magical burst and silences in order to thrive. His laning is insanely weak at early levels, and if he gets shutdown early, its not like he can go into jungle like some heroes do without any items at all. he NEEDs a ring of health, and some items in order to properly semi jungle,
Yes, and all of this is why Morphling is considered a hard carry.
No, the point, i am trying to make is, until you get lvl eblade and linkens and are lvl 14. Your contribution in team fights where the enemy has an advantage is close to zero. Your only real reliable nuke is Waveform, and you cant wave from into the enemy team because it is also your only means of escape. And lets say you are lvl 10, and you only have a lvl 1 adaptive strike, which does shit for damage. Your ultimate basically contributes very very little, unless theres a sick radiance carrier like alch, or someone like axe. Nearly all harry carry have a bigger impact in team fights with the same amount of farm that he has, Hell, PL even without diffusal has pretty good nuke that he can spam safely. there is almost no worse carry than morphling that has so little contribution early on with how much farm he has and levels.
I said before, morph is GREAT at chasing where your team has the advantage and is allowed to right click ppl. In a full fight engagement, for the amount of networth morph HAS, he is still usually the last one in, and the first one out in team fights. in a game where you are the MOST farmed on the map, and still if you have no intitators, you still cant go in. This is pre eblade ofc, And even so if the enemy support is farmed enough to survive a eblade combo and have enough sustain you are still fucked because your replicate is down.
i can tell you that, even if you have one or even two more items, like a manta skadi oin top of eblade linkens as a morph ur primary contribution is still gonna be magical damage through eblade adaptive.
if you are behind morph is such a horrible comeback hero. You have a bad start, your contribution to team is almost close to zilch in team fights. if your team is behind, unless the enemy's team is much slower than hitting towers than you are, your contribution is still only split push. Morph is HORRIBLE when he has to defend towers. Almost close to no wave clear, and hes horrible at stalling/halting pushes.
Why is the discussion seemingly centered around who does more in a full scale teamfight? One primary strength of Morphling due to his mobility with ultimate is to force engagements where you have the man advantage. You can force 1 or 2 enemies to come defend one lane and quickly be elsewhere.
Especially after eblade it's also impossible for most heroes to defend a lane against you alone as they will either die or will have to go to base and heal after you throw your combo on them. This gives you even more control over the moves the enemy can make. Moreover, when you have eblade even if you can't kill a core with it you can generally force premature BKB charges or force him to back away, which again gives you a chance to get an advantageous fight a few moments later.
Also I don't really agree with the statement that you somehow can't waveform into early fights. Of course it depends on the situation, but waveforming in to give burst and finish a guy off with right clicks can be completely fine. You don't need to be able to solo kill the guy. Your teammates offer disable and additional burst, then you go in, when they start targeting you, you start morphing strength and tank stuff which allows your teammates to get their spells off. But it's hard to make broad statements that hold here, it depends so much on the game what you can get away with. Sure he is not that good in coming back from a bad start and can be underwhelming against some quick 5 man pushes for example, but he has his strengths too.
Thats because even if carries that are worse at defending towers are a notch above morphling in terms of ability to team fight. Hell, an AM with mana void can be gaming changing on a hero. Spec's haunt is an incredibly team fighting ult even when she only has 1-2 items, it is still very strong.
hard to imagine a game where the team with morph is getting pushed in honestly. it would have to be a DK push, drow push, something like that, but meanwhile morph actually offers counterpush or some way of slowing it down by pressuring a lane.
i don't know how much you hold value to this paraphrasing, but era himself has rationalized on his stream that morph does the AM splitpush faster and harder, etc.
On September 03 2016 16:50 Kaj wrote: No, the point, i am trying to make is, until you get lvl eblade and linkens and are lvl 14. Your contribution in team fights where the enemy has an advantage is close to zero. Your only real reliable nuke is Waveform, and you cant wave from into the enemy team because it is also your only means of escape. And lets say you are lvl 10, and you only have a lvl 1 adaptive strike, which does shit for damage. Your ultimate basically contributes very very little, unless theres a sick radiance carrier like alch, or someone like axe. Nearly all harry carry have a bigger impact in team fights with the same amount of farm that he has, Hell, PL even without diffusal has pretty good nuke that he can spam safely. there is almost no worse carry than morphling that has so little contribution early on with how much farm he has and levels.
in your example here and then your later example with AM, at level ~10 (around 14-16m in) he's not going to have manta either. it's a naked battlefury, or a full vanguard. same with spectre, infancy stages right before they hit their stride. you don't think a morph with dragon lance, perseverance can help with a defense as much as most other farming carries? because morphling does have some build variation too.
unless you mean defending t1's, i think the point is to lane properly so that it does not get to that point where your middling morphling is needed for a defense. even so, there are ways to stall out a push without directly contributing or even being there. i know you know this, but it can't be overstated.
one of those ways is morph can replicate and pressure a t2 for one or two waves.
i agree adaptive that early on isn't as strong as [spirit] lance, but what is? i don't know it's getting hypothetical but at the least morphling can burst 500, replicate out and call it a day, all in the same invulnerable, untargetable combo. wave form + auto + adaptive [300 + 100 + 100]
In a game where Morph is having a decent/okay game, you can start looking at like a 22-25 min Linkens + EBlade. What I am talking about is the pre 25 min window where hes still extremely weak in fights for the amount of farm that he has. Most teams get their core items at around the 20 min mark. What I am saying is that he is extremely weak compared to most other carries, especially when you have to play from behind.
In fact in order for a good morph game, there are alot of factors
1) He must have a good start 2) Team must not feed too much 3) Enemy team lacks silences
Hes GREAT to play from ahead, because in fights where your team is crushing your morph can just idgaf and use waveforms to secure kills and what not when you tp in, but when you are behind, even the morph is pretty farmed pre eblade, and pre lvl 14, there is very little he can do because you have to reserve wave from for escape. And dont give me the crap about OH but he does 500 damage burst OMGG. Its like actually one of the worst burst you can do. A morphling has about 700 mana or so at the 14-24 min mark. Give or take. And the actual wave form adaptive replicate out takes a SHIT ton of mana. about close to 500 to be exact. If you do that shit, you are probably gonna cry yourself back to base afterwards because you are so low on mana, and u cant split push safely either because ur replicate is on cd.
you were basically painting a picture of a do or die defense based on some hypotheticals; i happened to give you the '500 burst' crap because it's true. if push comes to shove, he can do that and instantly get out with replicate if needed. opinion: i view that as an actual strength. both arguments get weaker and weaker but you're taking it a bit far by trying to overpersuade. i'm not sure what the dealio is. do you have a replay or something of a salty morph game?
could you be slightly less biased and offer some more insight on what heroes are definitely better in your situations and how? i'm not asking you to go out on a limb and to prove there's flaws or w/e in your game knowledge/philosophy or anything like that.
morphling with linkens can't split push safely without a replicate out?
if you're not convinced about the str. of the hero or none of what's been said here is convincing enough (or true), all i can try to say is watch some games and keep an open mind. morphling is a top pick right this moment.
pretty unrelated, but i don't know why these dota strat. forums have to be so contrary and know-it-all sometimes. you should see some of the other discussion out there such as in dota 2 subreddits, it can be a lot more constructive and less confrontational in my opinion at least.
I'm sure if you are having issues being 5 manned down before you get your core items you are going to have the exact same issues if you are AM, Spec, Slark, anything really. You are probably just failing to apply pressure on enemy objectives properly and just flash farming your own jungle/safelane then wondering why your team is super poor and you have 1 tower down to their 6.
If you are going to say hes useless when your team loses lanes then gets midgame deathballed it's a fair criticism but on any other hard carry you are just as fucked in that situation if not more so because only AM and Naga can really apply similar levels of pressure on the sidelanes to stop the 5 man train.
I wouldn't go armlet unless you know for certain that game will be 100% lost if you do not participate in the fight, and that is after considering letting 1 set of raxes go. Reason being that if you are that far behind, perhaps buying back may be more important and impactful; in addition, if you were to hold you will be very close to eblade which will make next hold a lot easier.
Alternatively, with that gold maybe ghost sceptor + raindrop will make the difference as well.
I did a lot of testing since I first posted about it. I am extremely certain that it has to be after the linkens, the item takes only a minute to get once you have linkens, but can take as many as three if you do it pre-linkens.
where can I get that 2370 GPM bro, can I have pls
@everyone else, what's everyone's opinion on going brown boots into linkens without aquila or treads, vs getting a bunch of smaller items first?
I been playing morph lately and I like brown boots only. I tend to skip treads but it's on my quick buy just in case I'm about to die and don't wanna lose unreliable gold. I'd say the same thing for aquila, but less important. there's so many small items you'd want and aquila takes a valuable slot.
1. boots (treads if forced to buy) 2. wand 3. TP 4. QB (I guess this is the aquila slot if forced to buy like treads) 5. perseverance 6. rain drop
I also watch BSJ streams (he kinda spams morph because he has good winrate on it), and so far he does same thing, only gets treads/aquila when about to die while saving for ulti orb.
skipping treads and aquila if possible can you give an early timing on the linken's and allow you to split push/farm more aggressively for your next item. and since morphling is generally a hero you want early-ish travels on, that's another reason to skip treads.
this is 4k mmr talking though. so take my advice lightly. of course assess the game as it goes on... I'd buy the treads and aquila if it's gonna be lots of fighting early on or your laning phase sucked so bad that you need to have some items.
I did a lot of testing since I first posted about it. I am extremely certain that it has to be after the linkens, the item takes only a minute to get once you have linkens, but can take as many as three if you do it pre-linkens.
where can I get that 2370 GPM bro, can I have pls
@everyone else, what's everyone's opinion on going brown boots into linkens without aquila or treads, vs getting a bunch of smaller items first?
Don't know the math on it, but it feels like if you're getting completely freefarm lane, then Treads+Aquila is still going to be better because you can do Hard camp pulls and spam Waveform more.
And of course if you're not getting freefarm, those extra stats are probably needed.
On September 05 2016 07:27 trinxified wrote: armlet on non STR heroes, please stop this nonsense guys.
it's the same when people recommended it on PA. it's all a gimmick, and if you won with it, you would've won without it too.
It is legit on PA. On morph nope, because unlike pa, morph is not meant to be skirmishing or fighting. He doesn't rely on much right clicks early on, primary damage comes from waveform (usually able to use twice in a kill). There is no early 'fighting' dps morph because his skill set isn't build for it.
On September 05 2016 07:27 trinxified wrote: armlet on non STR heroes, please stop this nonsense guys.
it's the same when people recommended it on PA. it's all a gimmick, and if you won with it, you would've won without it too.
It is legit on PA. On morph nope, because unlike pa, morph is not meant to be skirmishing or fighting. He doesn't rely on much right clicks early on, primary damage comes from waveform (usually able to use twice in a kill). There is no early 'fighting' dps morph because his skill set isn't build for it.
well yeah armlet is better on PA than on morph, but no way is it an item you should consider nowadays. so many small items can make you fight better and not end up being a dead-end item.
if you're looking for tankiness, I'd get vanguard over armlet anytime with PA.
In the situation where you need an item at around Armlet's price point because you must have an item for the next fight, I am pretty sure that Dragon Lance (plus a casual bracer/band/cloak/wand if so inclined) is the item you want on Morph. If you already have a dlance, maybe Yasha.
I think the question of whether Morphling is (comparatively) good in the earlygame or not depends on your team composition and that of your opponents. In some situations, Waveform and some rightclicks can turn a losing fight for your team into a winning one (this isn't necessarily a game where you're ahead - consider a game where your team has a fair bit of burst damage, but needs a little more to get enough kills quickly to cleanly win a fight). Another thing is how early you have to go in - if you're the first or second person who has to run into a fight on your team, you're going to have a bad time early on Morph. I am speaking in very broad generalities here, but the important thing is the following.
tl;dr: Morphling can be good or bad in earlygame fights, depending not only on whether you're ahead or behind but also the pattern of how your team wants to take fights.
Personally I like Aquila and get it nearly every morph game, but it is probably skippable depending on your preference. RoB is pretty core tho, it just helps with your mana/armour early game and as mentioned really helps with pushes.
BoT is just too good on morph because one of the best thing he can do is split push. When you get BoT it makes you extremely good at splitting. You mitigate a lot of morphling's early game problems by split pushing and discourage enemy team from 5 manning.
In this vein morph is like PL, there is this mid-game awkwardness where the nuke damage from waveform/lance isn't enough contribution to a team fight, so you need to use mid-game to split push and make space while avoiding a full 5 man confrontations until you get enough items to actually carry. Fighting 5v5 early-mid game as morphling is a pain in the ass, so I think just fight more early game w/ waveform to secure kills and get your linken/BoT and start ratting until you can really fight for real.
On September 07 2016 03:01 Dead9 wrote: i think treads r too good to skip it helps a lot with mana and the extra as/damage is very noticeable early game
Yea I agree I feel like treads is what makes u farm and contribute mid game, without treads the hero loses - huge chunk of dps cause of how high his phys dmg is early.
I don't like seeing skipped treads, although I guess you could make an argument for dragon lance instead of treads but it seems not efficient
I skip treads when I can but if game looks like you need to fight soon grab treads basi (aquila) wand tp + pers/ultimate orb. Infused raindrop when needed, likely instead of basi/pers/ultimate orb.
If I go greedy it's brown boots, parts of linken's, basi/aquila, QB and tp. Grab bots when you can.
On September 08 2016 01:16 ahw wrote: Fighting or not the farm speed of +33 as and 8 dmg is considerable for towers and neutrals, especially if you go qb.
Treads are really good, but I skip them more often then not. I just like timing my items in a certain way, and feel like QB delays my linkens timing a bit.
Also, I really value being able to switch into bots whenever I want.
Hi guys I think I hit another bottleneck lately with morph, need some help again..(was from a few pages back).
Alright the situation now: I brought my Morphling's win rate from a shitty 25% to nearly 50% over the course of 50 ~ 60 games, slowly improving.
I am currently good at: Nearly perfecting laning phase, e.g >90 cs in a free lane, hitting the item timings, split pushing, pressuring enemy T1/2 or even T3s, etc. Also good with finding pick offs with shotgun combo, especially with blink daggers, as well as evading blademail return damage from shotgun combo etc.
Here's the problem: I play morphling almost exclusively, or rather been criticized of(rightfully so), like a flanker in Overwatch or a lurker in CSGO if you get the comparison. I do not know how or when to man up effectively and 5v5 with my team once push comes to shove. The meta now is that at some point of the game you've got to commit yourself to a teamfight and have to win it in order to establish advantage in the game or just outright close the game after the fight, and I have trouble doing that as a morphling.
Thing is I do not have this problem at all when say I am playing Gyro, Sven or Tiny, but when I play morphling I always instinctively hide first and wait for the chance to burst someone down with shotgun, and that caused our line up to be lacking of a front liner. My timing or approach to join a 5v5 teamfight always seem off somehow, and this is especially obvious when I am up against Axe/Kunkka/LC utility + Sven/TB/Invoker/OD core line ups which seems to be rather popular these days.
When I watch replays or reflect on my games I realised that I always opt for the linken shotgun item build, and never go the DL+manta/EOS right click build, which may be the reason why my man fighting was so bad. Say I am playing against a Sven who can obviously farm faster than me, should I just try to stall out the game until I am 5-6 slotted before picking a fight with him? When I have EB+linkens+aquila a competent Sven should have something like blink+Echo Sabre+BKB+Dominator and at this point of time he can wreck my whole team while I can only nuke 1 person from his team. I think the root problem is I have trouble out-carrying an opponent core who peaks earlier and stronger than me at the specific timing, and for the current meta Sven and to a certain extend Lifestealer/TB/Drow are the best examples I can think of who fit into this category.
The above leads to another question, when do I forgo EB and just go right click?(other than AM).
The thing is that you dont about 80-90% of the time man fight unless its a 4v5 or until you have something like 2 additional items on top of linkens + EB, something like skadi, manta or even bkb. Honestly, even BKB after EBlade if you really feel the need to. Your team has to play around you, but if you are against a lineup that can push harder and faster than you, and your team cannot stall, or you are behind then about 80-90% of the time you are fucked.
I think most of the time your job is to slither around and snipe 1-2 heroes, rather than manfighting. Realistically you can only do so when you have 3-4 items. Morphling is not a hero that can yolo engage into 5 enemies unless he has items.
morphling definitely can yolo but it requires 1) enemy team has no silences to fuck you up 2) enemy team relies on sustained damage, not burst and 3) u have way to escape if things to south.
Its actually pretty effective to jump in as morph, pick one off and man fight. You start off the fight 5v4 and enemy team uses all their damage to kill you while u stay alive and rest of ur team can clear rest. Obviously this is not possible if u are behind but thats not where u want to be as morphling, u are not spectre who can comeback with one teamfight.
Personally i rarely go BKB unless they have some real shit u have no other way to deal with. One item i rarely see noticed is satanic, thats the item u want if u plan to manfight f.e. Sven, way worse vs illusions based heroes for obvious reasons.
If you pick somebody off before the fight begins properly I don't see how you should struggle with Sven that much unless he has a massive gold advantage. He is very kiteable and morphling is one of the slipperiest heroes in the game so you should have no trouble taking out his backline while he tries chasing you around the fight. If he goes for your supports hopefully they should be able to kite his bkb out while you pick off the squishy heroes with your high mobility and eblade.
Skadi helps a lot in this matchup as well because the slow makes it nearly impossible for him to stick to targets during his precious bkb time and you can just waveform away when he gets close enough to hit you.
Skipping eblade is only when you need other items way more. It is more as if you are forced to skip it by other choices being more critical rather than a decision to buy other stuff. For example in this game:
I had to go for manta after my linkens+travs to deal with silencer. After that I needed bkb to not die to od, sand king and meepo and also give me an additional way to deal with silence. Finally after those items I felt like eblade would no longer have as much impact as a straight right click item like butter, especially as OD and Meepo both suck against evasion.
On September 14 2016 21:56 Clarty wrote: If you pick somebody off before the fight begins properly I don't see how you should struggle with Sven that much unless he has a massive gold advantage. He is very kiteable and morphling is one of the slipperiest heroes in the game so you should have no trouble taking out his backline while he tries chasing you around the fight. If he goes for your supports hopefully they should be able to kite his bkb out while you pick off the squishy heroes with your high mobility and eblade.
Skadi helps a lot in this matchup as well because the slow makes it nearly impossible for him to stick to targets during his precious bkb time and you can just waveform away when he gets close enough to hit you.
Skipping eblade is only when you need other items way more. It is more as if you are forced to skip it by other choices being more critical rather than a decision to buy other stuff. For example in this game:
I had to go for manta after my linkens+travs to deal with silencer. After that I needed bkb to not die to od, sand king and meepo and also give me an additional way to deal with silence. Finally after those items I felt like eblade would no longer have as much impact as a straight right click item like butter, especially as OD and Meepo both suck against evasion.
I have no problem picking off heroes, especially supports.
Let me elaborate on the scenario on my past couple of games. Basically around my first "peak" timing of Travels+aquila+linkens+EB I say to my team that I wanna split push and find occasional pick offs and stall out the game, I tell them not to actively look for fights against the Sven who at that time had Treads+Blink+Echo+Dom+BKB, since he is at his strongest. But sometimes there're fights that you're forced to take, like highground defence fights, roshan fights, smoke encounters, etc. So fight begins, I take my replicate's place and take someone out, but due to the nature of pub games and general uncoordinated positioning, Sven would jump on a couple of guys and wipe them out within the duration of his stun. Sometimes I get caught too, due to cleave damage and Sven aiming the stun at the one person next to me to avoid linkens blocking the stun. I have high armor and low HP, get cleaved and die within 2-3 slashes.
I know it's absolutely my fault that I get caught in bad positions, but the thing is there're times like this where I have to join fights like this which often than not play out to Sven's favour. If I let my teammates die and continue ratting I would not push any faster than Sven because of god strength. And if I am forced to take these fights I know I am not at my full potential yet and fights would normally go sour for my team.
I figure the key to preventing such fights from happening in the first place is to make huge space by myself and forcing reactions from the opponent team, but that tend to be hard.....
since you seemed to have a good timing on items compared to the rest of the pack what kind of engagement happens with the rest of your team is up to you. as you said, you make huge space just by being in the game
sometimes you have to get creative and waddle around looking to eblade combo early for some pre-fight damage. sometimes you feel the need to wait out the 20s cd on replicate before taking the engagement.
i'm not sure if you've played starcraft but in Protoss vs Terran it was often a struggle to have enough for the main engagement as protoss. the terran has units that do massive damage in AOE and once their units are set up into position it's very unfavourable to attack into all this cost effectiveness. however, protoss players naturally developed a style to slowly combat it over time. it started with the very first terran move. they (protoss) would send ranged units to trade shields to damage kite-able units (terran) and slow down the first push, ever so slightly. again and again until the actual force they met was much more weakened and the protoss had enough back at home with all the stalling.
against sven it's hard to say what you need, but kiting the BKB is always solid if possible. what can force the BKB early and thus make the player uncomfortable to commit to a fight? an eblade combo works, you can do it from waveform and from an even further away starting point if you built a blink dagger on morph.
pickoffs is like weakening the terran army by numbers. the bulk of the army loses the support units that actually hold everything together and allow for the push to deal damage at the end. to slow the army down, or in dota to slow the push down, you can choose very opportune times to rat. a sven without god's strength on doesn't necessarily damage buildings faster than you do on morphling. therefore if you trade heroe(s) early for sven to overcommit the spell, he can't base race you later on and they actually do need to respond to your rat at that point and your teammate will probably be able to come up in time to hold the main engagement down.
since you are pushing at least one lane down at a time that lane's push will be stalled at least a minute at a time just based on how far the creeps need to travel. you know all the little things you can do. bait with heroes that have blink dagger for disjointing and snuffing smokes thankfully, morph is one of such heroes with a couple nearly-untouchable methods of escape.
maybe really, you just need to figure out who is going to be hitting buildings on their team. if you make that hero or set of heroes uncomfortable enough, they will call back. that is what highground defense is all about. as the offense you put yourself in a predictable area and eat all sorts of spells at a chokepoint that you woudln't normally have to eat out in open field.
so count your cooldowns, ethblade 20~, replicate 20s~, god's strength ~60s, bkb ~60s, boots of travel, 45s, two adaptive strikes, one with ethblade, one without. same deal with waveform. these are all quite low CD's that you know all the untouchable comboes with. he on sven is reliant on cooldowns (and sometimes mana pool) much more than you are and perhaps that would have given you more windows to abuse.
and sometimes, you're just at the point that you replicate their farmed heroes and use it to fight.
I mean if literally every single fight Sven catches 2-3 heroes including you and bursts them in stun duration then your team is doing something horribly wrong and I don't think you can win a game like this ever. Just spread out, try to make a pick happen early and bait out the Sven's important cds with your inherent slipperiness. Once he has blown his bkb/hammer/warcry you should be able to clear out the backline faster than he can because Sven is so immobile. If he tries to take you out it should work even better because he should never be able to kill you while his bkb ticks down if you play correctly.
Firstly I think I am still not stretching Morphling's capability enough, be it ratting and forcing reactions from opponent team, or finding and making use of the fine balance between tankability and damage. Like some1 posted pages back, this hero really require a lot of finesse, and I mean a lot of finesse, played right this hero could really make pub games 1v9 and simply outcarry the opponent team...guess I gotta work on that.
@Clarty.
I only got caught once, by being next to my teammates whom Sven stunned and cleaved me to death. still it's one too many. My other teammates on the other hand is not always on the look out for Sven's entry into fights and got wiped a couple times.
Not sure if you agree with me on this but Sven(or other similar carries) at his peak really only need to win 2-3 crucial fights to close out the game. 1 fight to gain advantage/map control, 1 for Aegis and 1 more for high ground pushes. The couple games that I lost to Sven was 2 lost fights and Sven knocking at my highground, forcing a buy back from me and it all went downhill from there. I could no longer keep up in terms of farm.
Guess when playing morphling/Am like carries I should be more resolute about not taking unfavorable fights and just let my teammates die if they're that stupid. I always feel this compelling need to "help" my team and join fights even if I know somehow it's gonna end up in their favor, this is especially true in pub games where you get flamed the moment your teammates impulsively took a fight and die, and if I being the smart guy avoided death by not joining I get ping spammed and "report morph" in all chat..
The thing with morph is that you depend heavily on ur team in the first 6-7 mins or so, in which they are able to secure your farm and let you have an ez aqulia roh whatever. Then in return you will create space for them. What morph wants are teammates that group up as 4 and keep fighting allowing him to split push as much as he wants to his hearts content.
The doomsday scenerio for morph is NOT having a ton of silences on the enemy or whatever, but your laning phase is sub par and you even feed, and you are unable to get items, due to a cancerous dual lane top, and your supports cant secure your farm, and you end up having items at a way later timing, and when you split push a lane you have to run at the sight of even a solo support. Then you are truly fucked as a morph.
And props to be mentioned is OD. The hero that is the hardest counter to Morph. DO NOT PICK MORPH into OD EVER. Unless you wanna be fucked 3 ways over.
On support morph, sure. On carry morph you'd need a very specific teammate whom copying would win the game for you. Unless you have basically incontrovertible evidence that a 2nd copy of that teammate's non ultimate abilities is game winning, aghs is a no-go.
On September 15 2016 18:52 Eetee wrote: ... Guess when playing morphling/Am like carries I should be more resolute about not taking unfavorable fights and just let my teammates die if they're that stupid. I always feel this compelling need to "help" my team and join fights even if I know somehow it's gonna end up in their favor, this is especially true in pub games where you get flamed the moment your teammates impulsively took a fight and die, and if I being the smart guy avoided death by not joining I get ping spammed and "report morph" in all chat..
just responding to this portion of your post: your winrate will probably noticeably go up if you start telling your teammates what to do in your games or what to expect in general. if it's true, it's not necessarily because the plans are good (as mine are often not) but because most if not everyone is on the same page that way, and it works anyway.
if it means telling your team to try and dodge or avoid certain parts of the map as they're most certainly warded, that could prevent the timeline of chain feeding into the jungle fight and losing buildings and maybe a buyback afterwards. as the quote goes... the best laid plans... etc etc. often go wrong in other words. so just ask your teammates if they can do something that gives them a high chance of not dying for free and gets you something, like one extra wave of lane clear.
sure you will miss kill opportunities and your teammates can actually be saved sometimes if you show up, but your game sense doesn't give you a high chance to get the most of the situation in the first place because you don't recognize that opportunity yourself. if you just keep playing to get the where you yourself need to be then you'll find time to look around the map for extra, like kills, timings, etc.
what you're doing shouldn't exactly be regarded as smart either. there's probably a glaring hole in your play (as there is in most people's) that ends up triggering your teammates to underperform. i should word that better, but i can't atm. but what i'm trying to say is that there is not one good way to play, there's 5 similar situations throughout the game and you all share the same sort of fate. figure it out together if possible, then work on the miniaturized plays that nobody bothers to micromanage. you're not showing up to fights because you feel the expectations or pressure of your teammates to do something, you're showing up, instead, so that they don't get away with murder each and every time the other team decides to make a move on your side of the map.
"can't fight", or, "don't fight" at least if your teammates understand what you're going to do instead [of showing up], they can try and buy extra time with the little heads up they have. also, your movements get less hesitant and you instantly go for the structure trade instead of thinking about the TP back.
On September 16 2016 00:28 DazzleEnthusiast wrote: is morphling aghs ever something you should pick up or are similarly priced items just always better
On support, it's good with strength carries, as the agh's illusion has morph' stats, creating an agi carry with 30 agi is not super dope, the only I truely appreciated was DK, use it after he popped his ulti, if he has some items increasing attack speed to make up for your lack of agi it can really make a monster. On carry morph, I would say never, unless for some crazy pugna strat for the double nether ward value and double nether blast to take down towers in seconds while zapping opponents out of the map if they dare to spend mana.
I think when you're playing something like Morph/AM (who have very similar farming game plans), it's important to recognize that your hero forces your team to cater to a certain style of Dota that is centric to your timings as a carry. The tricky thing is, as nanoei has mentioned is recognizing when you need to adjust your playstyle to respond to the needs of your team.
A common pub scenario you'll encounter is where your team handily wins the laning phase 4v5 and you're comfortably farming without contributing. Mid-game comes around and your team starts losing 4v5 fights and falling behind. As much as your instincts want you to farm even more, it's important to learn which fights you can and should take and how to orient your goals with the teams. I'm a real believer in ping gaming and minimal communication, but in games where YOU need to dictate movement as carry simple statements like "I don't want to fight/push here cuz x hero has ulti" or "I really wanna get x item before we fight" can help get the team back on track and realise how to approach the mid to end game.
I am pretty sure while morphling is a really good hero, hes definitely NOT a low mmr hero. By that i mean sub 5k hero. in which not only you are against the enemy team but you also need to have your teams mates not pick against you. Morph is 100% a split push hero. IF you are NOT picking morph to split push you are not playing the morph game right.
Well I saw how ridiculous Morphling is. Watched MSS timber with ritsu on enemy team as Morph, god damn if it was any other hero that game would of been over a long time ago, instead turns into 67 minute game.
if you got decent enough experience with playing morph, you can practically win games on your own.
you just really need to tell your team and be clear with the SPLIT PUSH ONLY mindset.
but the pick really needs to be towards last pick or you're in trouble. good news is, if you picked it early, then bait out the "counters", then just go support morph.
Far from it Eblade is still the item to go for in most games. I legitimately don't understand the impression people have that Morphling is super about the split push and not fighting whatsoever. Perhaps some clarification on the "split pushing" would be better.
Pre-Eblade you don't feel so comfortable about being forced to join/actively seeking fights, but you are more than capable should your presence be required. You bait an insane amount of focus on your hero and still live while your team cleans up. Once you have Eblade you'd much rather defend a tower and take a fight than split pushing because of the absurd and abusable power spike you're getting (unless you're really behind of course).
how come hero who can make fight 5v4 and after that deal as much damage as any other carry while soaking every single fucking spell from the enemy team without dying be teamfight god? i wonder..
On September 20 2016 03:07 Baggage wrote: Far from it Eblade is still the item to go for in most games. I legitimately don't understand the impression people have that Morphling is super about the split push and not fighting whatsoever. Perhaps some clarification on the "split pushing" would be better.
Pre-Eblade you don't feel so comfortable about being forced to join/actively seeking fights, but you are more than capable should your presence be required. You bait an insane amount of focus on your hero and still live while your team cleans up. Once you have Eblade you'd much rather defend a tower and take a fight than split pushing because of the absurd and abusable power spike you're getting (unless you're really behind of course).
Not to mention its not like eblade isn't a good split push item - effectively having hte item in your inventory forces the enemy to respond to your split push very carefully, as if a support gets a little out of position you can kill them with eblade combo and replicate out, while forcing TPs. And it gives quite good stats.
Morphling is insane at lower MMRs u can destroy ur lane through playing rly aggressively and knowing the limits of waveform and morph since it's pretty much guaranteed the person ur laning against will not have that same understanding, meaning u can bait them and then turn it around very very easily
1v1 lanes he's pretty good. Personally I struggle in a lot of 2v2s unless the support is familiar with his limits as well. A lot of the kills he picks up end with him in a super exposed position that could easily mean a death or a full-str walk of shame if his lanemate doesn't respond correctly.
Idk I'm sure I'm just bad at him, but I do feel like his laning stage is very... brittle. Either you get what you need and then use high agi and waveform to crush your lane and then the game, or you get owned by some cancer duo and spend the whole game chasing your own powercurve.
On September 21 2016 08:49 Belisarius wrote: 1v1 lanes he's pretty good. Personally I struggle in a lot of 2v2s unless the support is familiar with his limits as well. A lot of the kills he picks up end with him in a super exposed position that could easily mean a death or a full-str walk of shame if his lanemate doesn't respond correctly.
Idk I'm sure I'm just bad at him, but I do feel like his laning stage is very... brittle. Either you get what you need and then use high agi and waveform to crush your lane and then the game, or you get owned by some cancer duo and spend the whole game chasing your own powercurve.
Mirrors my experience, but I suck on the hero anyways. 2v1 is easy, 1v1 is doable in most MUs, 2v2 is a nightmare if their lane isn't super-weak. 2-3 base armor, low starting hp and low range just isn't great if you can't bully single people with your burst damage.
Then again the hero adds a lot of damage early on, so if you have an aggressive lion f.e. I can see him winning 2v2s as well. But yeah it's neigh impossible to make a go in a 2v2 MU without having to morph strength in the process, which means b2b in most cases. So even won 2v2s will still be far behind a 2v1 lane.
I mean he can win 2v2s just fine, I'm not saying he's a weak laner. His base stats are compensated by his excellent nuke, customisable base damage/armour and hp on demand. He's quite a strong laner and he can wreck things with a good support.
It's just that if he comes up against a lane that's even stronger, or something goes wrong even in a fair matchup, his entire game gets super hard. Cancer dual offlanes are pretty common right now, as well.
Even if you get owned in lane you can still catchup it just means you will have to rely on your allies to do stuff midgame while you farm up. With low agi you farm fairly fast and you can clear jungle reasonably decently with aquila+qb+ring. Also you have wave so you can tp to shit and contribute unlike other hard carries. Compared to other carries like Slark or Drow who becomes really useless if the lane goes bad morph is pretty decent.
a pretty moot comparison from me but i like that at least with slark that no matter how bad the lane is (dual lanes and all) all you need is 6 and a manageable amount of farm like iron talon + makings of an aquila or ideally closer to completed aquila with treads and 7 with max Q. you can still get that shadowblade in and around 13-16m despite the suffering in lane and that is your instant catchup. a lot of newer slark players have the trap of spending too much time trying to find kill bounty with SB and not abusing the jungling while they can, or using it as the primary way of catchup in the first place.
it sucks more for drow and you're not picking it to have an awful lane either (or on any safelane hero for that matter) but there's at least something with the naked morbid mask and level 6. the catchup takes quite a bit longer for that hero and i don't like it either, but there's something.
AM's catchup can be slow and is dependent on team, generally hopeful that there's a free lane about to push in, but the escape and mobility is there and widely accepted.
w/ morphling i think it's closer to drow/luna level of desperation farm as you'll most likely only have treads aquila or some mix and match with RoH. he's doing 100-something per auto attack, maybe 115+ with quelling but there's probably some deaths to your name, or low CS, or a dead tower and it is easy to see you're not in a lane and roam in on the jungle with wards. pudge in this event is pretty annoying ):.. riki... sadnewsbears
so to this start i think perserverance + dragon lance is the most obvious and stable build right now, but you need to be able to walk a lane to tower and finish the lance, and then linkens so you're on the same power level for quite some time.
I find Morphling easier to play when people just start to gank train you all the time honestly because usually they'll under commit heroes and then your team TPs in and you counter kill the lot of them. Much simpler decision compared deciding when to TP in to join fights or w.e.
It's never ideal but you do jungle really fast on Morph even with a bad start you just go close to Max Agility + QB. I got stomped in lane 1v1 by a Timber the other day and jungled my way to 25 min Linkens + EB. Rotate between camps and waveform lane creeps to keep it pushed and it'll deter people from randomly roaming into the jungle. You will have to rely on your team to create space for you though, but thats the case for the majority of carries when they fall behind. Obviously a bit different depending on some of the heroes they might have.
Morph is definitely better to play from behind than an AM or something because you still have the tools to contribute and fight whereas AM is stuck down the path of searching the map for farm and maybe occasional end of skirmish mana void.
Honestly? heroes like AA Disruptors Rikis are really not that much of a problem for a morph. Maybe disruptors, kunkkas etc can prove to be a challenge pre linkens, and even after it, but it doesnt affect your overall split pushing strategy much, and its not particularly hard to split push against those once you have linkens, or play around disruptor/AA ult in team fights.
I find that those heroes which morph are pretty bad against are high burst magical heroes, something along the lines of zeus, because u can very easily get random bursted down because u are always so low hp pools. Hes also pretty bad against tinkers because of how well tinker can handle morph's split push as well as aghs + aether lens is kinda hard for morph to fight/push into.
tnx for the input. i mean ive been playing only support for a while for disrupter is an option glimmer is good i think (glimmer is like a free bkb in 2k mmr lol)
its also quite hard for morph to fight into heroes such as TB especially when he goes full agi morph when he has like 2-3 big items only because reflection is soooo good that during the 4 sec you would literally rekt yourself to death and be forced to waveform away.
mana burners like AM/OD/PL is also quite hard for morph to deal with. AM is 50/50 while OD and PL holds quite a significant advantage against morph in fights. if a PL is good he can easily dodge Eblade adaptives with dopple, and OD, just fucking rekts morph.
is there anyway of dealing with a tinker that has gotten a sub 9 min bots and just counter depush whatever lane you are in? I find it extremely hard to play the split push game especially when morph doesnt have much kill potential on tinker and has to basically content with hiding till tinker is gone then depushing the wave. but it makes split pushing extremely difficult as u are never able to force a 4v5.
WOW i just played mid voker vs a morph and went like 0-3 and lost the tower in like 10 minutes
it was like, he is on 500 hp and i right click him once and he just waves into me under the tower, kills me in 3 hits then is instantly on 1000 hp and hitting creeps like i wasnt even in the game
i'm literally standing at my tier 2 after that staring at a guy on 500 hp afk farming while my team says report voker gg ez mid
after that i finish my midas and make a glimmer and turn into ward bitch coz my supports are not doing it and farm a linkens and we get back into the game with an AM / pudge stun (morph didnt make a linkens i guess)
I had a reasonably good success vs morph as PL. All you need is a good team so that they let you last pick and play around you. But its too much to ask in pubs. FeelsBad.
On September 29 2016 02:58 FFGenerations wrote: WOW i just played mid voker vs a morph and went like 0-3 and lost the tower in like 10 minutes
it was like, he is on 500 hp and i right click him once and he just waves into me under the tower, kills me in 3 hits then is instantly on 1000 hp and hitting creeps like i wasnt even in the game
i'm literally standing at my tier 2 after that staring at a guy on 500 hp afk farming while my team says report voker gg ez mid
after that i finish my midas and make a glimmer and turn into ward bitch coz my supports are not doing it and farm a linkens and we get back into the game with an AM / pudge stun (morph didnt make a linkens i guess)
That uh shouldn't happen. Can't watch ATM but morphling is a bitch in lane, you just gotta abuse forge spirits and your base dmg.
At best the morph should be useless till lv 5-7 when he can get a wave pushed out. At worst you should dominate the lane so hard that he has to iron talon jungle
have a look if you're curious, i was clueless , probably i should have been more aggressive earlier on , idk i'm fucking shattered now, i managed to win 9 games in a row after being gimped down to 3k rofl should probably just watch a high level replay sometime and that will answer all my questions
LOL fucking soul ring is the best item in dota i decided today except when i was walking around with a soul ring recipe for 20 minutes on lion that was just a bit awkward
U can go QE and get wraith band lvl 1, it's better. But ya null or wraith lvl 1 with 2x faerie fire or 1x faerrie fire and a branch, get forge spirits, destroy him every time he tries to hit anything cos your range >>>>> his and your damage >>>> his and your HP and regen >>>>> his. There's no way you should lose that lane.
Soul ring on invoker only makes sense if you're bad and can't use mana properly. Don't do that.
If you're QE, get aquila, midas, raindrop, brown boots, go farm lane and jungle for 15 minutes and use sunstrike to "help team". Easiest dota of your life.
u guys talk like invoker vs morph is so invoker favored, but its not really. :D It's all dependent on the first wave of creeps. If morph is able to get a good block off and get lvl 2 safely then hes completely fine. In fact the most dangerous part for morph vs invoker is before he gets his bottle. If he or a support is able to secure his lane in the first 2-3 mins and he gets a bottle on invoker, he has pretty good harass and kill potential on invoker, especially if creep equilibrium is not on invoker's side. Not to mention his kill potential with suipports is way higher than invoker has with supports.
On September 29 2016 07:02 ahswtini wrote: ok watever dude
try to be nice bro
On September 29 2016 08:25 ahw wrote: yeah you need null and basi thats pretty much it. that is not worth analysing more than you tried to clown and you got dumpstered on
ya too many ez games i haven't been forced to adapt and play like a higher tier player -__-
On September 29 2016 08:30 Birdie wrote: U can go QE and get wraith band lvl 1, it's better. But ya null or wraith lvl 1 with 2x faerie fire or 1x faerrie fire and a branch, get forge spirits, destroy him every time he tries to hit anything cos your range >>>>> his and your damage >>>> his and your HP and regen >>>>> his. There's no way you should lose that lane.
Soul ring on invoker only makes sense if you're bad and can't use mana properly. Don't do that.
If you're QE, get aquila, midas, raindrop, brown boots, go farm lane and jungle for 15 minutes and use sunstrike to "help team". Easiest dota of your life.
oh so wraith builds into aquila, and i guess its VERY slightly better than basilius in terms of stats and VERY slightly worse than null in terms of stats (but null doesn't upgrade)?
yeah i'm decent with my mana, i was getting soul ring on oracle and it was god tier so i thought i'd try it out on voker for a bit , thanks for pointing out how much it gimped me everyone
i'm actually 73.5% with voker (19 games, various low tier) so yeah i enjoy the buttfuckery very much :D
On September 29 2016 12:00 Kaj wrote: u guys talk like invoker vs morph is so invoker favored, but its not really. :D It's all dependent on the first wave of creeps. If morph is able to get a good block off and get lvl 2 safely then hes completely fine. In fact the most dangerous part for morph vs invoker is before he gets his bottle. If he or a support is able to secure his lane in the first 2-3 mins and he gets a bottle on invoker, he has pretty good harass and kill potential on invoker, especially if creep equilibrium is not on invoker's side. Not to mention his kill potential with suipports is way higher than invoker has with supports.
you got my back bro haha :D *tries not to go 0-3 next time*
i'm gonna go calibrate now so i can cut down on my playing lul
On September 29 2016 12:00 Kaj wrote: u guys talk like invoker vs morph is so invoker favored, but its not really. :D It's all dependent on the first wave of creeps. If morph is able to get a good block off and get lvl 2 safely then hes completely fine. In fact the most dangerous part for morph vs invoker is before he gets his bottle. If he or a support is able to secure his lane in the first 2-3 mins and he gets a bottle on invoker, he has pretty good harass and kill potential on invoker, especially if creep equilibrium is not on invoker's side. Not to mention his kill potential with suipports is way higher than invoker has with supports.
i'm assuming you mean "he gets bottle on morphling" right?
mid morphling has to start with tango + salve and some branches, or a full wraith band with pool and bounty rune-salve. on top of a bottle he also needs early boots, then there's wand and drops. the point is, he needs a lot of early farm in the mid lane which you should not allow so easily.
like with any mid that starts with little regen, but especially against morphling, you can trade with spells and make it uncomfortable from the get-go because he's going to start with morph lvl 1. waveform at level 2 isn't very good either. it's 3 bottle charges used to be able to have one waveform on the ready. he has to crow upon or shortly after getting the bottle that you have made quite late, so again 30s to 1m of harassing him (without bottle, possibly without boots yet where as you have them) where he feels uncomfortable.
if he is particularly good he'll use waveform invulnerability to damage you and dodge your spell simultaneously. only then can he contest you at that point IMO, but he basically has to guess when to waveform that way if the spell used on him is not a slow projectile.
Actually thats not true :D. I played against a few 5/6k invokers, and i never really got dominated as a mid morph to the point where i felt that invoker had a huge advantage in the matchup. the only times i am really pressured is when the creep equilibruim is heavily in invoker's favor in the first 3 waves that im forced to give up some cs, since i cannot sit on top of my ramp and last hit.
Man you guys talk like invoker starts with 8+ hp regen, but its not really :D Most invokers will choose to go for like 2 or maybe 3 pts in q before lvl 5, and his regen is really not that impressive as long as u get a bottle on him, Once you get lvl 2 wave form, you can start fucking around with him once u get a bottle using waveform to trade aggrressively. And once invoker is on Q balls, his right click is not really that impressive. And trading spells for invoker is extremely extremely bad for invoker. Because 1) if you can force out a sunstrike or cold snap early, when his spells are shit, it drives his mana pool so low that with abottle u can easily bully him hard, and he wont be able to contribute to other lanes. Every invoker that has used a lvl 1 SS or lvl 2 SS at lvl 3 on me has more than often not lost their lane, because they cant do their forge spirit spam + cold snap, and they have to play scared as fuck, because whenever i see them use a forge spirit, i just wave form at lvl 2 in and right click the forge spirits down, and walk away, its even sweeter if they throw in cold snap because it fucks up their mana pool even harder and screws their laning even more. Honestly, once u get lvl 4. you can wave form in with impunity, as long as he has forge spirits out and u get him and the forge, you kill the forge and hes a sad sad panda.
Past lvl 6, u shld just push out waves and wave form in whastever because u get full HP/mana regen every 70secs. I would just push out waves and go farm camp whatever because its more efficient, because invoker cant contest the lane once u have somewthing like wand aqulia bottle, boots at like 7 mins onwards :D
I quoted you because my reading comprehension is awful or I just don't get it. bottle on invoker? or who? again I'm assuming you mean morphling.
"you guys" or 'you guys talk like' is a misnomer. each time you're referring to people in thread it's just one statement or one person saying something you specifically disagree with.
my own recent post is just basic and general advice against morphling @mid and directed towards FFG. he can try trading early levels against his opponents and see how it feels compared to his experience where he let the morphling get levels early. this game the morphling started LVL1 with 4 naked tangoes and 1STR. that is punishable no matter how you slice it.
the dude even dies to a max-channeled illuminate in plain sight, later on.
that's really good to know, i'll try to play more aggressive and lane control as morph while riding the bottle regen against invoker in my games. usually the bottle only takes until the 4th wave (2nd minute) if CS is perfect and invoker is also pretty weak early, only having the range advantage as you say.
so what's the concept here? you morph a shitton of agi to guarantee last hit enough under 2 pooled tango and a salve to get bottle by min 2 and go from there?
personally go down to 4-8 str for ~60 atk as you do in safelane, you can do with less atk around 55/56. it balances out when you level up. some mids have 60-70 as laning happens and they get items, so Aquila can give you the firm edge up again without putting you in danger zone.
I've barely run mid morphling but I like the idea of /WB + pool/ more than /2 sets of tangoes, circlet, branch spam/. the latter build is for max 10 tangoes worth of regen, 2/8 of those tangoes used on the two extra branches you start with and it goes directly into a wand rush. I think it's much more sensical from safelane, but hey I'm sure someone's made it work. if you random it you can have the best of both worlds or have an all but late bottle. I feel salve is necessary in some lanes, not in others. purely guesswork for that point. 4-8str at the start is standard. I think any less than that is disrespecting what can happen to you early levels.
if you wave form forward, it is 300 damage with an auto during the wave. you can trade with medusa this way once you see the snake come out, I don't know of any other spell that you can reasonably dodge and harass off of. morph typically doing 80 at this point so 4 autos and you should be done with the added option of FF and/or str morph at the same time. we've all seen the str-morph trading, it's pretty potent past the early levels of morph or levels 5-7.
but really, that's all it is, lane shoving or last hitting under tower both good on morphling, +80-160HP a second if needed, and autoattacks. since you are mid, raindrops are a good bonus and you can plan around having one.
it positively affects you more than some mids because at least half of your overall damage/harass in lane is in autoattacks and not waveform, though they recently nerfed the drops proc rate.
On October 05 2016 03:45 nanaoei wrote: personally go down to 4-8 str for ~60 atk as you do in safelane, you can do with less atk around 55/56. it balances out when you level up. some mids have 60-70 as laning happens and they get items, so Aquila can give you the firm edge up again without putting you in danger zone.
I've barely run mid morphling but I like the idea of /WB + pool/ more than /2 sets of tangoes, circlet, branch spam/. the latter build is for max 10 tangoes worth of regen, 2/8 of those tangoes used on the two extra branches you start with and it goes directly into a wand rush. I think it's much more sensical from safelane, but hey I'm sure someone's made it work. if you random it you can have the best of both worlds or have an all but late bottle. I feel salve is necessary in some lanes, not in others. purely guesswork for that point. 4-8str at the start is standard. I think any less than that is disrespecting what can happen to you early levels.
if you wave form forward, it is 300 damage with an auto during the wave. you can trade with medusa this way once you see the snake come out, I don't know of any other spell that you can reasonably dodge and harass off of. morph typically doing 80 at this point so 4 autos and you should be done with the added option of FF and/or str morph at the same time. we've all seen the str-morph trading, it's pretty potent past the early levels of morph or levels 5-7.
but really, that's all it is, lane shoving or last hitting under tower both good on morphling, +80-160HP a second if needed, and autoattacks. since you are mid, raindrops are a good bonus and you can plan around having one.
it positively affects you more than some mids because at least half of your overall damage/harass in lane is in autoattacks and not waveform, though they recently nerfed the drops proc rate.
If I was going mid on this hero i'd probably go wraithband + 2 gg branches + 2 pooled tangoes, ferry a salve after getting 0:00 rune, and just work on that bottle. IDK maybe you just need to go 4 tangoes wraith band and ferry a salve though, probably depends who you are laning against.
bonus damage stacks with all that agi, and great for split push or the teamfights
probably delays your much more needed items, but just a thought
aquila = almost 1k vlads = 2.3k It is just not the right comparision. Also I'd say that if you want a vlads in teamfights, someone else can make it (if there is a decent hero to get it), and morph still gets basically the full benefit while spending his money for something else.
Given the fact that (in my pubs) most morphs still go for shotgun builds with eblade, means that the earlier they are able to (ideally) instakill enemies, the better. Vlads does virtually nothing to help for this style of play.
On October 13 2016 10:28 trinxified wrote: don't beat me up here guys, but isn't vlads a great item on morph? get this instead of the typical aquila
bonus damage stacks with all that agi, and great for split push or the teamfights
probably delays your much more needed items, but just a thought
I can see the idea, but morph needs stats to tank up or nuke down. He doesn't really right-click a lot in fights before manta/skadi because he can't really tank a lot before having to morph. LS is nice but since you often go for RoH, you don't really need it. Damage amp outside of fights is too expensive compared to quelling blade f.e.
Also yeah if anything you'd compare it to perseverance or dragon lance.
I imagine it could be useful together with an early dragon lance while transitioning into skadi/manta later on since it combines your basi and your hp sustain into one slot while scaling a bit with your more expensive items. Definitely useless when you are going for Linkens and/or Eblade though.
On October 14 2016 18:50 ForTheDr3am wrote: I imagine it could be useful together with an early dragon lance while transitioning into skadi/manta later on since it combines your basi and your hp sustain into one slot while scaling a bit with your more expensive items. Definitely useless when you are going for Linkens and/or Eblade though.
Problem is basically that the 1400 gold difference between Aquila and Vlads means Vlads is actually the worse damage option if you're going something like Aquila > Lance > Manta.
Aquila is +10 raw damage, and +7 more Agi than Vlads, then the 1400 gold is most of a Yasha or Lance.
So really the only thing you get from Vlads is lifesteal...and if that's all you want, Morbid Mask or HotD is still better value with better damage, more stats, faster progression to other items, etc.
On October 16 2016 16:36 evanthebouncy! wrote: So when do you go for right click and when you go for shotgun? What's the build order for items?
Presumably both can start with Aquila tread and wand. But then what?
On the one game I played I got linken into eblade...
You pretty much always want to go shotgun, but you'd go for not-shotgun if your lane got rekt most likely.
Build order for item varies, but a pretty common opener is 4 branch, 1 circlet, 8 tangoes (giving you 10 tangos worth of regen). From here, complete wand and get brown boots, aquila, quelling blade.
After this there's a choice to make about skipping treads. Some people go from here straight into linkens, others get treads first, then linkens, then eblade.
Item choices after linkens boots eblade varies but you should consider: bkb, butterfly, skadi, manta, satanic. Satanic's a last-item kind of item. Butterfly and bkb are particularly important when playing vs antimage (a common matchup).
You could also mix things up, like getting a blink or hurricane pike. I like getting hurricane pike against a riki and a reliable stun but technically bkb is probably better. Pike is more aggressive than bkb.
Did anyone see Aui's morph build in game 2 of NP vs FDL Summit AM qualifiers? It was pretty cool imo, running a core morph, but morphing strength most of the time. I only have one question, given you get all the utility out of strength adaptive strike if your strength is 50% higher than your agility, what was the reason for Aui sitting on like a 600% strength-to agility ratio?
Im pretty sure it wasnt 600%. Only the base stats (green numbers) were around that. You have to take into account the bonuses from items (red numbers) also. Not sure it was perfect 40% agi 60% str for max adaptive duration, but it was a lot closer than 14%/86% which your 600% number indicates.
I'm bumping this because of Morphling's dramatic changes in the latest patch. There's a lot of room for cheese with his skills and talents, but how is everyone running this hero?
I notice some still go for the tried and true Etherial Blade, but I'd also really like to see something janky done with the Waveform attacking enemies talent since those attacks can proc modifiers.
I've seen Draskyl go Drums+DL+ghost, then he decided to skip ethereal and go for manta and bfly iirc. Game was rough though, so he might have thought that he needed the manta because he was dying too much.
Overall I'd say that the change to his ult is quite the nerf for the shotgun build, since you lack the replicate teleport to get out of aggressive waveforms. Ofc you can morph into another hero and add a nuke from there, but most (non-ultimate) nukes are worse than waveform in terms of damage as well as range.
Still morph is now somewhat useable. I doubt we'll ever see a pos1 morphling morph for more than 2-3 seconds, but the ability is pretty good on offlane or support morph and the two lives play, despite risky is at least good on paper for carry morphling.
Still morph is now somewhat useable. I doubt we'll ever see a pos1 morphling morph for more than 2-3 seconds, but the ability is pretty good on offlane or support morph and the two lives play, despite risky is at least good on paper for carry morphling.
I mean if there's a Terrorblade on the other team, you are definitely Morphing into that.
all else aside, i tell you what. he uses shrines really well, and lanes well with a good start.
i think morphlings ult will be used to buy time and to do niche actions. some buffs persist when you morph back. i'm pretty sure press the attack works for instance. i say niche, always, because you're losing a lot of dps to do this if this is your role in the game. there's also the issue of vision and getting to the hero you need to replicate. terrorblade for example is perfectly fine with sitting back and taking what he can get. that, with his range talent. or you can take brewmaster, throw a haze on someone pre-bkb. shit like that. you're a rubick. i think the often forgotten trait about replicate is you can use it on illusions.
for builds, i've seen arteezy do diffusal dragon lance into skadi butterfly. because of the way his waveform talent works, i think you can ditch the eth blade. with the new change, i think linkens-first is a waste. perserverance is a weak first item when the mana regen can be replaced by other smaller items and morph obviously not taking any mana now and shrine/wand can take care of HP topups.
i think uptime for morph goes up a lot because the morphing takes no mana. that means more waveforms, more fighting, and i think safelane goes pretty well this patch, so far. your supports will naturally gravitate to your lane to control the rune trifecta. i feel like some of the offlane players i've played against get more desperate than ever and end up feeding trying to stretch limits for XP, or fighting for runes/control of the lane earlier on when they are susceptible.
there are strong offlanes and strong duo offlanes that will crush a morphling early. it's not as bad as when a drow gets run at now, but xp will be tight when it happens, and it's not for weaker players who just want to farm and right click to win.
EPT![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/c/c7/Morphling_Large.png)
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![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/c/c9/Ethereal_Blade.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/b/b3/Manta_Style.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/8/85/Black_King_Bar.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/a/a9/Drum_of_Endurance.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/7/78/Necronomicon.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/1/10/Butterfly.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/6/64/Eye_of_Skadi.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/0/0e/Satanic.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/0/0a/Monkey_King_Bar.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/a/a6/Heart_of_Tarrasque.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/3/39/Daedalus.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/1/1e/Pipe_of_Insight.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/4/40/Assault_Cuirass.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/a/ab/Crystal-Maiden.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/b/bd/Earthshaker.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/a/ab/Omniknight.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/e/e7/Wisp.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/5/5c/Keeper_of_the_Light.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/d/d6/Beastmaster.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/7/78/Vengeful_Spirit.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/9/9c/Clinkz.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/3/39/Riki.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/1/1f/Death-Prophet.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/e/e9/Leshrac.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/0/03/Faceless_Void.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/9/90/Spectre.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/e/ec/Tinker.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/f/f0/Venomancer.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/8/86/Lich.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/a/a4/Natures-Prophet.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/3/39/Invoker.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/1/13/Luna.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/3/36/Drow_Ranger.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vFncVjr.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/sHtBYBj.jpg)
Hope I random the hero more.
