Aui and Dignitas picked spectre in a game today so be ready to see alot of spectre/warlock the next few days.

I thought i'd give us somewhat of a head start on how to play him/how to stop him.

These charts.... you need to sell them atlas, big money awaiting

The chart could be edited for Spectre/Medusa

Well really any squishy agi carry

True, but Spectre and Medusa are really in their own class of squishy early

Yeah, medusa at least has mana shield to help a little, and spectre gets 22% resist to all damage pre mitigation (before armor) if he maxes dispersion) so they help a little bit but by no means is it the be all end all. i usually max dispersion last anyway lol

Spectre also has ult which at least is a insta-tp to a fight if you can make room in your busy schedule of farming

Both are kinda a toss up Medusa's damage block is better but Spectre can at least fight earlier because of desolate

Bottom line is they both need at least a solid 20 min of afk farming to be relativly effective which is why void, am, and pl will still be better

Yeah, usually you wait for spectre to get his first big item first and then you go, but like if dusa can get phase boots up and then max her nuke then you might be able to take something pending the other teams hero composition

I'd pick Medusa over Spectre any day, Medusa's ult is amazing at escapes and has a pretty quick CD. Spectre is made purely to jump on people all alone and early game teamfights can be suicide if the enemy realizes that all they need to do is bunch up to prevent a possible fifth member joining in on the fight.

Its the fact that she can farm completely away from her team and be anywhere important on the map at the same time which makes her strong. Back when the meta was about farming up and having 2 hour long games it was hard to play against spectre because her team would just split push another lane while she farmed and split pushed. If she got jumped she could just dagger into some odd places and be all good, Never underestimate her damage potential and tankiness too. Medusa is only as good as her mana pool where as spectre is a strait 22% reduction pre mitigation (before armor) and it gets reflected so it adds to her possibilities. Blademail wasnt uncommon back then too so you are reflecting 100% back

Medusa is the much weaker hero, of course this is in a battle between the two of them and a Treant as to who is currently the worst hero in Dota.

Medusa has mana shield, which is what makes her unkillable in late game, however, until she has at least a linkens, most likely a few other ulti orb items, all its going to do is make sure she has no mana ever. Contrast, Spectre has dispersion which is a 28% eHP boost without needing any items to do so. Point spectre.

Medusa's Mystic Snake is decent laning damage, and some nice mana steal if you can get it to hit a few. Spectre's dagger is the worst mana to nuke ratio in the game and will most likely be spent running from fights more than to them. Point Medusa

Medusa's split shot ability can absolutely mow down enemy teams when shes got that second rapier, but until then, its pretty trash and won't do much of anything until you have damage out the wazzoo, however it does allow her to farm slightly faster than some other ranged carries. Spectre slaps solo heroes with a shitton of pure damage. Point Spectre.

Medusa's ult is a trash tier ult that gives her a little bit of tankability in slowing attack speed but won't win or lose a teamfight. Against illusions like PL its handy, but again, its trash because it has a 60 second cooldown which you don't want to have to blow on an army of illusions that will be replaced 10 seconds later. Imho, the duration is too short to be effective, so it needs to either be buffed to where it is a hard disable if it goes the full duration or have the duration increased. Ults are generally not judged based on their ability to avoid fights and run away, but on their ability to have an impact during the fight. It doesn't even help to gank/chase because they won't be looking at you anyway. HOWEVER, I have seen some clutch counter intiations by Medusa using it, but those are very rare exceptions to the generally crappiness of her ult. Spectre's ult when she is fed will win you the teamfight, hands down, it can be used to gank with synergy from her pure damage against solo heroes skill, can be used to chase, to scout, to initiate, and ensures that your carry will always be in the fight, as well as just the general disruption that occurs when she ults because there are 6 spectres running around attacking people. Even the most worthless Spectre can contribute something to her team by ulting to check if the other team are doing roshan, farming, ganking or what not, unlike Medusa. Point Spectre.

Add in the fact that Spectre needs about half the farm of Medusa to be relevant and she's obviously the better pickup than a Medusa. And don't you dare bring up that whole ancient stacking Medusa trick off that video. In the past two weeks alone I've had two games completely destroyed by a Medusa trying that crap. Everyone knows that trick and when you don't show up in lane, you're just a free kill whenever the other team desires. On top of that, most will screw it up and not even do it properly and so you don't even get the 5 minute midas.

Either way, if you random and get Spectre or Medusa, just suck it up and repick. If you willingly pick these heroes, god help you.

Ill willingly pick spectre its just that ive played her so much that i know the ins and outs and what it takes in any given situation to get by. It's really taxing in the decision making department and the what do i need to get in this situation department but after a few hundred games it gets easier

What it basically comes down to is laneing. Both Spectre and Medusa need a VERY easy lane so they can get their farm fast. Medusa can potentially do more damage later as split shot will do much more as the game goes on + I doubt that if there is a nice squishy support lina or lion wont resist ulting them instead of risking the linkens proc. Not to mention when the AoE damage on Spectre requires her to take damage (which means butterfly actually has a con on her) while Medusa can just auto to spread the damage.

My Opinion: Medusa requires a bit more farm to be effective, but she not only more tanky, but dealing damage to multiple enemies split shot is FAR more effective late game not to mention her ult which turns everybody that doesn't have magic immunity into a maybe 1 attack in 5 seconds with 0 movement hero. Spec's ult is better mid game so she can farm and be at any fight in a sec, but late game its more of a nuisance than a threat.

Late game spectre becomes more of a split pusher to pressure elsewhere and then ult into a fight to follow up the initial damage from the initiation because usually spectre teams will have really strong initiation like either ES tide or Sand King on top of a good mid initiator

ES wrecks house with spec because of the instant 5 extra units to echo off of.

Im saying playing with ES on the team with spectre, albeit thats true too