The Heroes in Dota 2 - An Introductory Guide for Templar Assassin

Introduction

Dota 2 offers one of the biggest selection of heroes out of any MOBA Game. Some of them are pretty hard to play, whereas others - not so much. However, ever those heroes that might seem easy can be very tricky, especially in specific scenarios.

Today we will take a look at one hero who can single-handedly win a game for his team. What's more, he can be played by any Dota 2  player, regardless of his or her experience. That hero is called Templar Assassin, and let's see what the main things you need to know about her are.

General Information about Templar Assassin

Lanaya (Templar Assassin's DotA name) is an agility carry that has one of the highest physical damage burst out of any hero in the Game.  She uses an arsenal of her deadly ability to slow down her enemy and kill it very swiftly.

Even though the hero is mainly played in the mid lane, you can often see a TA playing as a carry. However, she is definitely a lot stronger and has more impact when put in the middle. After all, those fast levels can go a long way, especially on heroes such as thins. Similar to Storm Spirit, Lanya is considered as one of the best snowballers in the game.

These are her abilities:

• Refraction - this spell is capable of completely turning the course of a team fight. It gives Templar Assassin a shield that absorbs the next six damage types done to her. Even though it seems a bit overpowered, the strength of this spell depends on what kind of enemies are you facing. If there is nothing that can tear apart your refraction, this can be a game-winner. However, certain heroes are a huge pain to deal with.
  Apart from damage absorption, refraction also gives Lanaya a lot of bonus damage, making it easy to last hit on the lane. 
• Meld - this is a stealth ability that turns Templar Assassin invisible. However, she can't move while being intangible, as this will reveal her. Once she uses meld, her next attack does bonus damage and removes a certain amount of armor from the enemies. This makes Meld and Dagger do wonders, especially during the mid-game. 
• Psi-Blades - TA's passive skill that gives her that precious range which she desperately lacks. Apart from that, this spell also allows Lanaya to attack the enemy that is located behind her main target. In other words, you can easily harras the enemy laner while attacking the creeps. This makes it very useful, especially during the laning stage.  The cool thing is that the damage also stacks with your Refraction so that each hit will do a lot of harm to your enemy.
• Psionic Trap - unlike many other heroes in Dota 2, TA's ultimate is not her most flashy ability. In fact, it barely does any damage, which is why many people even tend to avoid it early on. However, don't let that fool you. Psionic Trap is capable of doing around 300 damage, but its real strength is in the slow and vision it provides.
  A good Templar Assassin player will always put the traps on tricky places where you can easily catch your enemies off-guard. Also, let's not forget that you can have a free vision in the Rosh pit.

Item choices

This hero has an extensive range of items that you can buy, depending on the game you're in. However, are some of the must-haves that every player gets:

• Desolator - this is the most reliable item you can buy on Lanaya, period. It's relatively cheap, which means you can get it pretty early. Once you do, the one-shotting begins because when you combine this with Meld, you can 100-0 someone in just a matter of seconds. In fact, this is every support players'  nightmare - a TA with a Desolator. However, you have to keep it in mind that you need to try and get this item as fast as possible if you want to take full advantage of it. It's very strong early on but tends to fall off later on. So, if you fail to get it in the first 22 minutes or so, it's better to go towards something else.
• Blink Dagger - another must for every Templar Assassin player out there. This item provides you a lot of mobility, both defensive and offensive. There are many combos you can do, such as the most obvious - Blin + Meld. This combination will make sure that you land your Meld attack on your enemy because he won't have enough time to react to it.
  Another widespread usage of the Blink Dagger is with Refraction. Many people don't know this, but until your Refraction is down, the blink does not get triggered by damage. This means that you can use it freely and move blink even while you're fighting, as long as you have Refraction up.
• Black King Bar - this is an essential item, especially against the spell casters. TA needs as much uptime as possible to be active, and BKB provides just that. However, you should only get this item once you get something else beforehand. It's not advisable to buy this as your first item.

Bad Matchups

Lanaya doesn't have that many counters in Dota 2. However, there are a couple of heroes that definitely stand out:

• Pudge - even though he has very low armor, which makes him an easy kill, pudge is able to quickly burn through TA's Refraction, which is one of her biggest strengths. 
• Arc Warden - another big counter that can make TA's life a living hell. He has tons of range, a spell that makes him immune to damage and a slow that can be cast from miles away.

Of course, other heroes are pretty hard to deal with as well, but these are the worst when it comes down to laning. Once that time is over, every single card carry is a potential threat to Lanaya.