Spectre, The Mercurial Guide & Walkthrought

A darkness who was ancient even in the early days of the world's existence, Mercurial is the embodiment of rage and vengeance in the souls of those long dead. Haunting her enemies with relentless fervor, she is able to throw a dagger-like projectile that allows her to chase her prey beyond physical boundaries, and the fear and the desolation struck in the hearts of those who have the misfortune of encountering her alone is a pain impossible to withstand. Spectre's thirst for destruction is insatiable, and the upcoming struggle seems to be just what she was waiting for.


Pros and Cons of hero
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[+] Good attack animation
[+] Strong mid game, excelent late game
[+] Global (maphack) ultimate
[+] Very strong nuke which can be abused at many ways
[+] Almost one of the best escaping mechanisms (details below)

[-] Fragile
[-] Item dependant
[-] Melee
[-] High mana cost nuke and ultimate
[-] Hard early game

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


Lanes to chose
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Dual lane: Spectre is fragile hero, so she needs to chose dual lane. Always. Best lanes for Spectre (your side) are: (Sentinel) Bottom and (Scourge) Top lane. That way you'll maximize your chasing potential.

Solo: Never go solo (mid), no matter what, since you'll be underfarmed, underleveled and you can't chase since tower is only few steps away. Same applies for top/bottom lane. You'll just be feeder or total disaster.

Jungle: No way. No matter how much you're good with pulling, stacking or timing. Evade jungle, or at least wait your first core item.


Item build VS Physical attackers
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Explanation: Quelling Blade (next time will be QB) is your core first item since it gives you really nice boost for last hit and it stacks with your diffusal blade (other orbs don't)! Buy Stout Shield with QB and tangoes. Proceed to your lane, and buy 2 slippers of aggility as fast as you can. PMS will auto-assemble. Buy one Town Portal which will save you or fast teleport for regen, we don't want to loose time. Then rush your first core item, the Diffusal (when you use about 5 charges upgrade it). It gives you nice damage, armor, attack speed, mana pool, purge and most important thing, everything works on illusions!. Now you buy boots of speed, and then upgrade it to STR/AGI Treads. Continue with Yasha which gives you more +MS, +AS, Armor and works on illusions too. Make Manta out of it and the game should be over already. Also, illusions from manta benefit all above things mentioned!



Item build VS Spell Casters
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Explanation: QB is again your first item, you just can't miss good last-hitting since you are item dependant. Proceed with 2 bracers which give you nice + stats for survivability and some last hit power. Then proceed with Belt of giant strenght which will become STR Treads. 2 Bracers and STR Treads give you 22 STR which is 412HP. Thats almost 50% of you current Health Pool. That will guarantie your way to Diffusal and everything else will be the same.



Late game/luxury items
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Play Style
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Early game (Lvl 1 -> 9): Try to last hit as much as possible. You have good DMG, nice boost from QB/PMS. Save dagger as much as possible for killing purposes, your mana pool is small and you can't spam it. If you're facing against melee heroe/s its sometimes really nice to hurt him with desolate when there are no ally creeps. You'll notice the power of pure damage. When someone asks for a gank, try to cast your dagger between both enemy heroes (don't click on one hero, click on ground), so both will be damaged, both will leave trails, and you'll get some creep kills also. Use haunt at lvl 6 if you really need to change lane to top.

Mid game (Lvl 10 -> 16): This is where you start to shine. When you get your diffusal, the game becomes interesting. Try to harrast as much as you can with your mana-burning attacks. Enemies will get frustrated with such low mana pool. Also, use dagger to farm large creep waves (but don't spam it on 4 creeps, be rational). Again, try to cast dagger on ground for its max power and maybe you hit 3-4 heroes. Use Haunt at the Beggining of battle, not at the end to chase fleeing hero. Abuse your illusions, also, don't use reality at battles, it cancels haunt. Let your 5-6 seconds illusions drop your enemies almost to 60% of their hp/mp. They will be confused which is real, you'll burn their mana so as life, and your team will get insane advantage. If the whole enemy team is missing, its sometimes good to cast Haunt to see if they are Roshaning/Neutraling. Wait for at least 3 seconds before casting Reality, since if you use at instantly, you'll waste 5 seconds of free global harras.

Late game (Lvl 17 -> 25): Don't waste Haunt on one hero neutralling in forest. Now you must focus on 5vs5 battles for full potential. If you have Manta, cast it before battle. Next, cast dagger and then haunt. Don't use reality, you need all 6 seconds of illusions. Continue to damage with your manta illusions which are also almost strong as you. Enemies just can't know which is the real hero when 5 haunt illusions and 2 manta illusions are attacking them. Abuse that strategy untill you win.


Dagger using
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Hero attacking: Always try to target ground for maximum usage. That way you can hit more than one hero. Use hero-clicking only if there is one hero, otherwise abuse its ground-clicking power!

Creep attacking: Try to find the best angle to harass all creep wave, not just few of them

Collision: Abuse it! Don't use straight lanes, which is the most common mistake! Go through woods, creeps, obstacles, cliffs . . . Everything!

Neutraling: Try to get 2 camps so you can finish them faster!

Example :