“ Terrorblade is one of the hardest carries in the game. He is much like Anti-Mage in the fact that he can farm extremely fast and with the accumulated gold he can take over the game and end it mercifully when he has the chance. The holy trinity of hard carries is Medusa, Faceless Void and Spectre but with proper positioning and item build Terrorblade can kill any one of those heroes one on one. ”

–DTH.RampageJohnson

Play style

Terrorblade is not made for teamfights. He has no stuns and needs time to create images to get to his full damage output. What he excels at is pushing. When playing him you should seek to avoid confrontation while applying constant pressure to the enemy team's undefended lanes.

The minimap on the left shows the movements of a terrorblade during a typical game. Note his movements - always applying pressure in lanes that are undefended, leaving the lane when the team comes to defend, and taking objectives when the enemy team is looking to take their own.

If the enemy team is initiating a heavy push, your job as Terrorblade is to counterpush a different lane so the other team has to decide between trying to outpush an undefended Terrorblade or to cancel their push and TP to defend their own buildings.

If you trade objectives it's usually worth it for Terrorblade since teleport boots are an integral part of his early game build. He'll thrive on enemy objectives being down and creeps pushing deeper into enemy territory. It creates more opportunities to teleport into unguarded areas and take objectives. If they teleport to defend, then you've wasted the other teams time. Both are wins for Terrorblade as long as you don't die in the process.

If you're trying to decide whether or not to pick Terrorblade in a match, consider your teammates. Make sure that they have heroes that can survive 4v5 skirmishes, and that they can control the early game so you have space to farm and push.

Item build

RJ's core item build is fairly static, with differences in starting build depending on laning. You choice of luxury items will largely depend on the composition of the team you're facing. In general, you have to ask yourself three questions when deciding your item build:

Jungle

Terrorblades high base starting armor and solid agi gain make him a fairly viable jungle. You wont exceed the GPM you'd get from a safelane freefarm, but few enemies expect it, and you can sustain a respectable income during the process. Be sure to use the techniques below to maximize your efficiency.

Chokepoints and Cliff Jungling

With any jungler, you'll want to minimize the damage you sustain as you take down the creeps. Carving choke points with quelling blade will allow you to only fight one or two creeps at a time, as opposed to the whole camp.

Carving choke points with quelling blade.

Since terrorblade has a ranged mode as well, it opens up opportunities for him to cliff jungle. Use your quelling blade before the game starts to carve lanes for you to attack creeps from. Be sure to pay attention to your timing - you'll want to stack as many creeps in these camps as you can before you use metamorphosis and take them out.

Cliff jungling on dire.

Cliff jungling on radiant.

Deathheals

One oft-overlooked technique while jungling is dying to heal. Running back to base and then running back to jungle wastes more time than simply buying out, letting yourself die to creeps, respawning, and running back. The seconds you save doing this can often lead to another stack of a camp or another collection of a rune. Don't discount its usefulness. If you are going to death heal, make sure you communicate it to your team - dying to neutrals is often surprising and can easily push already agitated teammates over the edge. Even if something is technically advantageous, it might not be advantageous for the mental state of your team.

Death heals often take less time than walking back to fountain.

Below is a map showing the max level at which dying is faster than walking back to base for each camp. Note that at the furthest camp it hits level 7 for a terrorblade with brown boots. The map will be different for slower heroes (a CM without boots can die and respawn at level 10 faster than it takes her to walk back from the furthest camp), but the values below are a good rule of thumb.

Death heal levels by camp

Skill Build

Lane

If you have supports who can lock down the enemy hero long enough for you to get a Reflection off, pick up an early level of it as a value point. After that, continue to max out your Conjure Image and Metamorphosis. A single level of Sunder is all you need - additional levels only reduce cooldown and manacost, and since you're avoiding teamfights you shouldn't be using it that often. Once your Metamorphosis and Conjure Image are maxed, pump everything into stats.

Radiant Jungle

Radiant jungle is a bit more difficult, so you'll have to rely on cliff farming earlier to get your levels. Take Metamorphosis at level 1. After Metamorphosis and Conjure image are maxed, take a level of Sunder then pump everything into stats.

Dire Jungle

Dire allows for choke point jungling at level 1, so grab your Conjure Image first. After that prioritize Metamorphosis. Again, after you have Conjure Image and Metamorphosis maxed, take a single level of your ult then pump the rest into stats.

RampageJohnson's thoughts on other items

“ Cheap and effective, why not, but generally doesn't give you as much mobility as the Boots of Travel and Yasha build does, AND you lack the global presence which would unnerve the enemy team. ”
“ Terrorblade's illusions only take the burn effect and your goal is to molest towers, not melt creep waves! An illusion hero like Naga Siren can afford the Radiance since she has a teamfight ultimate that allows high ground to be reached, hence late game she becomes more of a 5 man carry, and the damage mainly comes from the rest of her team. Her illusions don't last as long as Terrorblade's illusions do and they can do only so much damage. Radiance does okay damage but it gives no tankability at all. Terrorblade is all about the stats! ”
“ Great tankability but it isn't generally THAT good of an idea unless your enemy team has a lot of magical damage and it can be expected since you are Terrorblade. It doesn't offer as much EHP as Butterfly does and the strength does not translate to your base damage which is derived from your agility. All in all, a so-so item to build on Terrorblade. ”
“ I find lifesteal on Terrorblade pointless since you splitpush all the time and you have built-in life swap and if careful enough you can pull it off during a fight. You are ranged as well so by the time the enemy comes to you and deals damage so you can steal your health back, they'd be already dead. ”
“ It's just... gimmicky. Falls off quickly the more the game progresses. ”
“ The Blinkin N' Slammin build. Buy Dagon, E-Blade and Blink Dagger. Blink next to an enemy, E-Blade+Dagon him and use Sunder. PROFIT! (just don't. Please.) ”

I'M OUT OF WISDOM. GO WRECK HOUSE.

GOOD LUCK.

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