E-Sport Portal: Spectre Guide Dota 2

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Spectre Guide Dota 2

Spectre - Mercurial

Just as higher states of energy seek a lower level, the Spectre known as Mercurial is a being of intense and violent energy who finds herself irresistibly drawn to scenes of strife as they unfold in the physical world. While her normal spectral state transcends sensory limitations, each time she takes on a physical manifestation, she is stricken by a loss of self--though not of purpose. In the clash of combat, her identity shatters and reconfigures, and she begins to regain awareness. She grasps that she is Mercurial the Spectre--and that all of her Haunts are but shadows of the one true Spectre. Focus comes in the struggle for survival; her true mind reasserts itself; until in the final moments of victory or defeat, she transcends matter and is restored once more to her eternal form.

Spectre is a hard carry who relies on applying constant pressure on the enemy team with her global presence.

She has the ability to excel in both teamfights and solo pickoffs, all this while having all the free time in the world to farm on her own, since her ultimate allows her to join any fight, anywhere, just by pressing a button.

She is well known for being one of the very best late game heroes in DotA, able to decimate entire teams with the combination of her ultimate, and one of the best scaling abilities in the entire game, Dispersion. However, she can do much more than simply farm to secure your team's late game.

She is a very versatile carry who can be built in a lot of different ways, and can adapt to almost every situation. She has no rigid item build, and a lot of items are actually surprisingly good on her, giving a lot of room for experimentation, definitely the most fun part about the hero. This adaptability can make her a good pick in many lineups.

Having a very strong mid-game, significantly more so than most hard carries, since she has the ability to have high damage and chasing power even without items...her ability to gank and teamfight even early into the game should never be underestimated.

Pros:

+ One of the hardest carries in the game. A farmed Spectre can almost win teamfights 1 vs 5
+ Fairly tanky. Dispersion makes survivability items scale really well on her
+ Global presence. Can jump instantly on any enemy hero!
+ Lots of free time to farm thanks to Haunt
+ Good ganker
+ Great teamfighter
+ Can initiate teamfights. Good synergy with other AOE initiators.
+ Counters enemy initiation (disables Blink Daggers)
+ Desolate is the strongest attack modifier for illusions in the game
+ Can be played both as a farmer and as a ganker. Great balance between fighting and farming, since she can farm and look for kills at the same time with her ultimate.
+ Doesn't need a lot of time to come online. Already very strong in the early-mid game with limited farm thanks to Desolate and Dagger
+ No, seriously, doesn't need to farm for 35 minutes to be useful. Can contribute a lot to early teamfights and defend against early push attempts. Perfectly viable as a mid-game fighting carry.

Cons:

- Terrible lane presence. Can't do much in lane besides farming...or at least trying to.
- Needs a lot of babysitting from supports to secure your early farm in lane - don't expect much of that in pubs.
- Extremely easy to shut down in lane (e.g aggressive trilanes)
- Gank magnet
- Level-dependent (needs fast level 10)
- Bad agility gain. Weak right-click without Desolate (luckily she doesn't rely on it)
- Has no hard disable. Gets easily kited by mobile heroes
- Desolate bonus damage is unreliable, and easily countered (e.g illusion heroes).
- Slow farmer without an (expensive) farming item
- Long cooldown on ultimate (2 minutes). Haunt cooldown can make you vulnerable to 5-man pushes (luckily pubs suck at pushing)
- Partially countered by Black King Bar / magic immunity in general