4Game

Morphling is in a pretty bad spot right now with around 47% wr as carry and 37% wr as mid in immortal bracket (pro dota). It seems that he has lost his place in the meta after losing his shotgun mobility and his old aghs cheese strats. However, I think people just haven't realized the utility behind his aghs because of how badly it is worded. ,

If I tell you that you can buy an item for 4200, give at least all 40 agi and 40 str AND either 35% status resistance or 50 attack speed, you would say that it's broken in most cases. However, this is exactly what the aghs does for morphling and there are 3 different builds that you can go for depending on the game.

Utility 1: Did you know that when you use morph on a strength hero, you steal 20% of each stat AND 35% (flat amount) status resistance? 22% status resist on KnS was so broken they had to nerf it. Morph aghs gives you 35% and it completely negates an enemy's SnY or halberd. If they don't have (aka tiny doesn't buy sny), they end up with -35% status resistance. Just to make this clear, -35% status resist is a 35% debuff amp, on ALL spells including your teammates. Your E becomes a 5.4 second stun on a 10 second cd. If for some reason you are carrying a timeless relic, your E is a 6.5 second stun. Oh and it hits 2 heroes on a 900 range radius of yourself for a 4 second stun on the 2nd target with shard.

Utility 2: Typical agi morph vs. agi carries. If you are up against an agi core like jugg, drow, or even FV, you will steal 50 attack speed and at least 30 agi (if they have 150 or so agi and 100 str). This translates to at least 400 max HP reduction (20 str), 30 damage reduction (negligible in most cases) and a whopping 80 attack speed slow which is almost 2x the attack speed slow of shivas. To morph an aghs + ult will net you a total benefit of 775 more HP (175 HP + 200 HP [10 str from aghs] + 400 HP [20 str stolen]), 40 damage [10 agi from aghs + 30 agi stolen], AND 90 attack speed [40 agi from aghs and stolen agi + 50 flat atk speed from aghs effect]. These stats are not outright broken by any means but consider that these are from just 4200 gold.

Utility 3: Magic burst build w/ eblade aghs against int cores (puck, vs, storm). The last benefit of the aghs when used on an int hero will give you a 20% spell amp on top of completely removing your enemy's spell amp from KnS. This is the main reason I think eblade morph is not completely dead. Consider a level 20 necro with 2500 max hp and 150 int. If you use aghs on necro, you would steal 30 int and 20% spell amp. Add this to your eblade spell amp and you get a total of 32% amp. If you have 250 agi (not unreasonable at level 18 to 20 with just treads + aghs), your total burst with eblade + adaptive + wave form is around ~1800 damage on any target with 25% magic resistance.

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In summary, the aghs effect on morph can be totally broken in the right situations for how cheap aghs is. The best part is that when you pick morph, there are numerous builds that open up from being a CC hero with 35% status resist and can stun a tiny for 7 seconds every 10 seconds, an anti-agi carry who can man up with 30 damage and 90 attack speed drain against drow, fv, or luna, or the typical shotgun morph who can deal upwards of 1500 damage in a split second but this time you also make the enemy int mid 20% weaker.

TLDR; Aghs on morph will give on average 40 str, 40 agi, 20 int, a total of ~800HP, 40 damage and one of the following: 35% status resist, 90 attack speed (inclusive of agi gain), or 20% spell amp.