The viability of Tinker’s Phylactery build in Dota 2

Ever since it was introduced, Phylactery has been regarded as a strange item. But recently, Dota 2 players have started to understand its potential and put it to good use.

Some will buy it on heroes like Morphling, while others have decided to test it on spellcasters like Tinker. And its effectiveness is surprisingly high, even in high MMR brackets.

Phylactery’s power

Phylactery is an item whose win rate is 53.5%, which isn’t bad at all. It costs 2375 gold, has no recipe (so you’re not wasting any gold), gives you excellent stats, and has one powerful passive ability that grants your next single target spell 150 bonus damage and 50% move speed slow for 1.5s.

The cooldown of this ability is just 6s, which makes the item perfect for heroes like Tinker, Morphling, and others, who regularly use single-target spells. Any such spell, if it already deals 300 damage at level 4, will deal 450 damage with the help of this item.

This means that you can essentially augment the damage of one of your low-cooldown abilities by 50%, in addition to slowing the target significantly for 1.5s and gaining all the powerful stats provided by the item.

Here’s what Phylactery will give you in total:

• +7 to all stats
• +200 HP
• +200 mana
• +0.7 mana regen
• Empower Spell (passive)

If you wanted to buy for yourself an item such as Ultimate Orb, which gives you +10 to all stats, it would cost you 2050 gold. For just 325 more gold, you can get something with +7 to all stats and a lot of other great benefits.

Heroes like Tinker are obviously perfect for a Phylactery-first build, but you can also buy the item on Zeus, Leshrac, and many more heroes that want to use their abilities frequently.

The Tinker Phylactery build

This build works because the item is cheap and you can purchase it before the 8-minute mark. After that, simply move around or kill the enemy mid as often as you please. In most cases, you’ll be able to do it with ease because the item is broken and you can Rearm it.

Tinker’s ability to refresh his abilities, combined with the massive damage of his Laster and Heat-Seeking Missle, will make any hero think twice before getting close to you.

All you need to do is hit them once with a right click for around 100 damage, Laster (450 damage), and Missle (360 damage). And you’ve dealt 900 damage. Rearm and the target dies immediately if you have enough mana.

Header: Valve