Gameplay

Playstyle
Spectre is a hard carry who can dominate the late game if she gets the necessary farm. Her Desolate ability lets her take on solo opponents with the upper hand, and Dispersion makes her a tanky foe who deals damage by reflecting incoming attacks. However, her early game is one of the worst in the game, being squishy and her only escape using up a lot of her mana pool. Get past this, however, and Spectre will be a force to be reckoned with.
Pros	Cons
Global map presence. Extremely strong in late game when full items. Difficult to catch. Fairly tanky. Abilities can pierce spell immunity.	Awful in the early game. Weak lane presence. Slow farming. Reliant on Radiance to farm. No disables. Her escape abilities does not really useful and high mana cost. Extremely item dependent and powerless without it. Low agility gain for an agility hero. Not really good when playing solo compared to other carries.

Carry

The standard Spectre build, it focuses on taking advantage of Spectre's amazing late game while compensating her awful early game. Early game, Spectre can't do much but farm for Radiance, but after getting it Spectre can become a huge threat with Haunt. She can Haunt and push lanes while harassing enemies, or even use it to kill fleeing enemies. In a teamfight, Spectre becomes a huge threat. She has plenty of area damage to constantly wear down opponents, while being durable enough that punishing her for it is extremely hard. She is heavily item dependent with this build, but once she gets Radiance farming her other items becomes really easy.

Ganker

Another build she has is an early to mid game ganker build. Instead of focusing on rushing Radiance, she grabs items like Drum of Endurance and Urn of Shadows to help dominate the laning stage, and can transition into a very effective carry late game, but it won't be as strong as the standard hard carry build.

Ability Builds

Generic Spectre
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Talents

Tips & Tactics

General

• Spectre has a terrible early game, so enemies will likely try to take this advantage. Make sure you always have enough mana for Spectral Dagger while laning so you can escape from enemies who are trying to kill you.
• Spectre has a weak lane presence. Picking her requires a team that will largely be able to support her in the laning phase.
• One of Spectre's biggest strengths as a carry is her ability to participate in teamfights and ganks instantly through Haunt without wasting valuable farming time.
• Spectre's main focus should be getting Radiance, which makes her significantly more powerful, both at fighting and farming.
• Using Manta Style to farm is a common tactic, allowing Spectre to farm areas of the map in which she would be in risk of a gank. Combined with Radiance, Spectre can be a rather effective split pusher.
• In late game teamfights, Haunt and Desolate will allow your illusions to wither down support heroes at the back at significant speeds. In addition, you should always be in the middle of team fights to maximize the damage reflection of Dispersion.
• Blade mail also helps you farm and makes you more durable in team fights
• More tips needed.

Abilities

Spectral Dagger

• Level up Spectral Dagger first to provide Spectre with extra mobility so that she is harder to pin down during ganks.
  • However, be wary of its mana cost, as a single Spectral Dagger will typically consume half your mana pool per cast in the early game.
• Early on, always make sure you have enough mana for Spectral Dagger in case you need to make a quick escape.
• During fights, instead of aiming at an enemy, aim it at the ground in a way that it will hit as many enemies as possible, increasing the overall damage dealt.
  • However, target it at fleeing enemies when the fight is ending to guarantee the hit so they do not escape.
• There is a grace period after getting off the dagger where you still have free pathing. Use this to your advantage.
• The shadow path left by Spectral Dagger lets her keep track on her prey even if the are invisible or have blinked/teleported. It also slows her target and enemies who came into the path.
• When ganking or escaping, use Spectral Dagger over terrain obstacles and travel through them.
• Spectral Dagger gives vision over its target.
• More tips needed.

Desolate

• Desolate works on creeps, so it makes farming in jungle slightly faster when you can kill that last creep faster. Try to kill the weaker creeps first to maximize the damage bonus.
• Similarly, the bonus from Desolate still works if the enemy is near neutral creeps, so engagements in the jungle will not lower your overall damage.
• If you attack a lone enemy creep but do not get the bonus damage, invisible enemies are nearby.
• Do not forget that Desolate only works on solitary enemies. Try to chase targets away from allies, causing them to take more damage.
• Desolate damage is done before the attack, and cannot miss. While it does not serve as an alternative to Monkey King Bar, do not hesitate to engage evasive enemy heroes who are alone.
• Illusions of Spectre, from Haunt for example, do apply Desolate to reduce enemy vision.
• More tips needed.

Dispersion

• Dispersion effectively reduces all damage you take by 20% at max level (25% if talent level 25 taken), scaling well into the late game.
• Dispersion is classed as HP Removal, meaning it will not proc things such as Bristleback, but it also won't cancel items such as Healing Salve.
• Because the effect lessens with range, heroes with long attack range like Sniper will take less damage from you than a melee hero would. The amount of damage you take is still fully reduced, however.
• Dispersion synergizes well with both raw HP as well as damage reduction like armor and damage block.
• More tips needed.

Haunt

• The illusions from Haunt carry the same things regular illusions would, making Radiance and Diffusal Blade effective on Spectre.
• Always keep an eye on the minimap to Haunt to teamfights when needed.
• Use Haunt to finish off fleeing enemies with low health.
• Spectre usually wants to have buyback ready as she can use Haunt to return to fight after dying.
• Use Haunt to assist in fights across the map while you farm in the jungle, and to even drop in if you're needed in the fight.
• Use Haunt to quickly return to defend your base when the enemy is pushing a lane.
• Haunt can be used to escape from a bad situation if you're being ganked by 3 or 4 opponents & counfused enemies team.
• Haunt can be used in fights to outnumber enemies.
• More tips needed.

Shadow Step

• Shadow step can be used to kill low health supports, or enter teamfights that you usually would be too far away to get to while Haunt is on cooldown.
• Shadow step is effective against heroes who rely on range.
• More tips needed.

Items

Starting items:

• Tango regenerates health to keep Spectre in lane as long as possible.
• Healing Salve also restores health which can save Spectre at the last moment.
• Enchanted Mango gives passive health regeneration and burst mana for one more usage of Spectral Dagger.

Early game:

• Quelling Blade helps with getting last hits to farm for later items.
• Boots of Speed help her escape gankers and chase down weakened enemies.
• Infused Raindrops gives a large amount of magic damage block, which is calculated after Dispersion. It also gives much needed early-game mana regeneration, which allows her to farm and fight without breaks.

Mid game:

• Power Treads benefit Spectre's illusions with attributes. Against weakened targets that cannot deal with the illusions, the extra attacks with Desolate may produce a kill.
• Radiance speeds up Spectre's farm and deals burn damage to all enemies during Haunt, complementing her tanky and AoE fighting style.
• Manta Style lets Spectre farm fast by sending illusions either into lane or into other jungle camps that, with Radiance, lets them take out the camps, and combines with desolate to deal a ton of damage to unwary foes.

Late game:

• Heart of Tarrasque gives a huge amount of health and health regeneration, coupling with Dispersion's damage reduction to make Spectre tough to kill and reflecting that damage back on her enemies.
• Butterfly grants agility and evasion to increase Spectre's and her illusions' damage output and survivability.

Situational items:

• Urn of Shadows is a great early game item to take advantage of Haunt to get a lot of charges.
• Phase Boots grant movement speed and attack damage to hunt enemy heroes.
• Diffusal Blade increases the damage your illusions deal, gives you some much needed mana and agility, and has a slow to keep up with enemies.
• Mask of Madness is a good early-game farming tool. Once you've haunted, rifted to a target and thrown your dagger, you don't mind being silenced, and will gladly take the bonus movement and attack speed.
• Drum of Endurance raises attributes. It combos well with Urn of Shadows.
• Vanguard gives a large amount of damage block, which is calculated after Dispersion. It also gives much needed early-game HP, as well as HP regeneration, which most farming heroes need to farm without breaks.
• Blade Mail works well with Spectre's constant AoE damage and punishes enemies who try to focus you down. Also, it can help you easily farm ancient stacks.
• Sange and Yasha is a midgame snowballing item. The stats transfer well to illusions and the extra movement speed will help Spectre stick to her target.
• Eye of Skadi is a good luxury item on Spectre. The stats benefit dispersion and your illusions, the slow means enemies won't be able to escape you, and the mana can help sustain the low cooldown Spectral Dagger talent.
• Assault Cuirass adds extra durability and damage and makes Haunt a global -5 armor for the duration while giving any teammates in range extra armor and attack speed.
• Abyssal Blade adds some damage and HP along with spell immunity-piercing disable and chase potential that again forces attention onto her.
• Mjollnir adds significant farming and push potential, while filling the AoE damage role of Radiance while also scaling better and having an easier buildup. Illusions can benefit from the attack speed but not the lightning effect.