It's time for another Dota 2 Item Guide! Ethereal Blade cheaper than ever, and there are many reasons to buy it. Here's our take on the item, and when you should get it!
Looking for more Dota 2 Item Guide entries? You can find a lot of them on our website. Today we'll be going through Ethereal Blade: Ghost Scepter and Eaglesong's child is dangerous!
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Dota 2 Item Guide: Ethereal Blade
Let's take a quick look at Ethereal Blade:
- Patch created: Patch 6.67
- Total cost: 4300 gold
- Grants: +10 Strength, +40 Agility, +10 Intelligence
- Active: Ether Blast - Converts the target unit to ethereal form, rendering them immune to physical damage, but unable to attack, and 40% more vulnerable to magic damage. Lasts for 4 seconds on allies and 4 seconds on enemies. Enemy targets are also slowed by 80%, and take 1.5x your primary attribute + 125 as magical damage.
Ethereal Blade builds from just two items - Eaglesong and Ghost Scepter. There's no recipe involved, and the recent decrease in the price of Eaglesong (changed from 3000 to 2800 in 7.28) has also reduced the cost of Eblade. Ghost Scepter is a great item in its own right, but things get even better when you upgrade it to Ethereal Blade.
Ghost Scepter gives you 5 all stats and the active makes you ethereal and immune to physical damage for 4 seconds, on a 20-second cooldown. Eblade does the same, but doubles all stats and gets you an extra 30 agility. What's even better is the improved active. With Ethereal Blade, you can not only target yourself but also enemies, applying a massive slow for 4 seconds, plus magic damage based on your primary attribute.
Here are some interesting facts about Ethereal Blade's active part:
- It turns the target ethereal, disarming, rendering them attack immune, and granting them 100% physical damage resistance.
- The blast applies the magic damage debuff, then the damage, then the slow debuff. In a way, it amplifies its own damage.
- Ether Blast's magic resistance reduction does not stack with other ethereal effects, the one with higher value takes priority.
- Ether Blast doesn't pierce spell immunity, and can be disjointed by any sort of blink.
- Shares cooldown with Ghost Scepter.
The damage of Ether Blast is equal to 125 + 1.5x your primary attribute. Naturally, heroes with high stat gain per level, or those that can stack a lot of it into the late game, are prime contenders. The most common hero you'll see Eblade on is Morhpling. It's no wonder, since with Attribute Shift, he can achieve hundreds of agility. This easily leads to bursts of over 1k when combining Ether Blast with Adaptive Strike (another spell that's based on Morphling's agility).
You'll occasionally see it on strength heroes like a really late-game Pudge, who has hundreds of stats or casters that deal heavy bursts of magic damage.
Heroes that it's good on
- Morphling
- Meepo
- Pudge (really late game)
- Tiny
- Shadow Fiend
- Tinker
- Necrophos
- Nyx Assassin
- Skywrath Mage
- Silencer
If the game drags on for long enough, a lot of supports would usually get it as an upgrade to Ghost Scepter.
When to not get it
Since Ether Blast deals magic damage and it doesn't pierce magic immunity, any opposing hero with access to it (Juggernaut, Lifestealer) will avoid the burst. Then again, you can use it to farm enemy supports who'll be easy kills. Ghost Scepter/Ethereal Blade is usually a good pick versus heavy physical damage like Phantom Assassin and others, but the item can backfire hard versus magic. Consider carefully when you're about to use it or a Tinker might nuke you with a combo.
That's the basics of it, now go out there and blast them!
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