This guide was created by MemeKingNick on twitch with some help of Munky (onepricktony) for his twitch channel MunkyS https://www.twitch.tv/munkys . If you are a more advanced Samuro player looking for a deep explaination on matchups, maps, things you should be doing early/mid/late game, or just a different perspective check out Derenash's guide here https://www.heroesfire.com/hots/guide/samurebs-en-16848 . You can also join the Samuro Discord run by Blackstorm https://discord.gg/yPRYAed .

These builds are focused entirely on the benefits of Illusion Master, your damage will come from your auto attacks and Illusion Master will allow you to go deep into an enemy team's backline and swapping back to safety with a clone you control away from the team fight. Illusion Master will allow you to mindgame your opponent convincing them an clone is you and allowing you to sneak a few hits in, mitigate damage and burn enemy abilities in fights.

It is important to know that swapping will negate most negative conditions on you and refresh the health of clones to (half) that of Samuro.

Illusion Master will also grant you an extremely efficient macro playstyle, cutting down on most if not all travel time. Allowing you to clear a wave and swap to another lane and dual soak, or swap to a camp, scout areas of the map, and confuse your location.
For example, you can take a camp while a clone stays in a lane, making it less obvious that you are taking the camp. Another use is to disguise the numbers in a fight, an enemy will be less likely to engage in a 3v2 because they see Samuro with your teammates, when in fact it would be a 2v2.

Illusion Master's utility is only limited by your imagination and raises the skill cap of Samuro to viable in Grand Master rank.

First things first to better understand the effectiveness of your talent choices it's important to understand why some talents are NOT useful. The following talents for this style of play (and any style of play in higher ranks) are considered useless and even detrimental to your ability to play Samuro. Do not pick these talents.*

Spoiler: Click to view One With the Wind This talent is your worst option for survivabilty, as it costs you your escape ability Wind Walk and only gives you it's value during, and 3 seconds after. Since Wind Walk has a long cooldown, you will get less value from this talent, while your other options Mirage or Deflection can give you survivability more consistantly without compromising your Wind Walk ability. Also since this talent gives your clones armor while you are invisible it will reveal yourself to knowledgable enemies. Crushing Blows This talent is a tremendous joke, offering significantly less damage then the other options Burning Blade or Phantom Pain There is no reason to ever take this talent, your crits will do so little damage that having many of them is pointless. Bladestorm This heroic offers so little compared to Illusion Master With a huge cooldown, and a pathetic amount of utility compared to Illusion Master, compromises your survivabilty and consistancy for less damage then a few more basic attacks, taking bladestorm will make your playstyle worse. Kawarimi By itself it's a very interesting talent that can dramatically change your playstyle but paired with better options at 16 it's detrimental to this playstyle and will more often then not confuse you by overloading your escape ability Wind Walk . Wind Strider There is nothing inherently wrong with this talent, in fact it is a good talent, however Three Blade Style is just always better option for this playstyle, the increased clone health and duration is way more beneficial in the late game. Blademaster's Pursuit There is nothing inherently wrong with this talent, in fact it is a good talent, however Three Blade Style is just always better option for this playstyle, the increased clone health and duration is way more beneficial in the late game.

With the most crucial information out of the way we can start to analyse build options. There are 2 primary builds that affect your playstyle with a few varied options. The most critical option begins at level 1 as it will affect your entire early game and can easily mean the difference between winning or losing a lane.

Level 1 Talent

Way of Illusion. Greatly boosts your double crit burst at the cost of questing early game and overall dps. Good for tough solo lane matchups that you can stack on and for late game Harsh Winds or Merciless Strikes burst damage. Take this if you plan on sniping targets with burst and can afford losing the early game potential of Way of the Blade .

Way of the Blade. Usually the go to option, with the benefit of armor reduction you can greatly increase your damage WITHOUT QUESTING and power spike at level 7. Take this talent if you do not need the mobility from Way of the Wind to finish off enemies or to escape and prefer late game dps over burst. Most of the time this option is necessary depending on your lane matchup, for example, without this talent you have no chance competing against Sonya in lane.

Way of the Wind will give you incredible movement speed at the cost of much needed damage. You'll want to pick this talent when the enemy heroes have high mobility and are difficult to pin down or against ganks that would otherwise kill you without it's mobility benefit. However, in a large majority of games you will need Way of the Blade to have a presence in fights. Remember to use the double crit combo to take advantage of the -10 armor this talent gives you, this enables burst damage and trading in the laning phase.

As a general rule: If you can hit your enemies take Way of the Blade , if cannot hit your enemies take Way of the Wind .
Depending on which level 1 talent you pick the rest of the build will usually follow suit of the goal you have in mind.

Level 4 Talent

Mirage. Nine times out of ten you'll want this talent, it greatly increases you and your clones survivability against spell damage which will be the majority of damage you would take. Since the stacks last until used, you can reset them with your Mirror Image ability to reduce spell damage 4 times in a row. Take this option unless the enemy composition is extremely auto attack reliant.

Deflection is a situational option that you will unlikely need, if a majority of the damage you will be taking is from auto attacks the entire game you'll need this talent. It is important to remember that Advancing Strikes needs to be active to gain the physical armor benefit. Otherwise take Mirage .

Level 7 Talent

Burning Blade gives you better waveclear, increases your crit damage more reliably than Phantom Pain , however, overall this talent will do less than Phantom Pain . Burning Blade is a safer talent choice for newer players and is still a viable pick on infernal shrines or tomb of the spider queen to help with the obj.

Phantom Pain is the go-to pick for players that understand how the hero works and can utilize Illusion Master to keep clones alive for longer during fights, this talent outputs a tremendous additional amount of damage compared to Burning Blade while you have 2 clones alive, and roughly the same amount as Burning Blade while you have 1 clone alive. That said this talent is going to be your most picked level 7 talent when you master this hero, as the single-target damage is much better for taking towers, keeps, and bosses than Burning Blade can in addition to it's superior pvp damage. Depending on what you took at level 1 can affect your choice at level 16, Way of the Blade with this talent provides the highest dps available with this hero and benefits greatly with Press the Attack and if you took Way of Illusion , providing the highest double crit burst, you should take Harsh Winds or Merciless Strikes .

This level is where you get your power spike, especially if you took Way of the Blade at Level 1. Start dealing effective damage with your double crit combo. (save your natural crit, hit an enemy and use Critical Strike to instantly crit again without waiting for your auto attack timer.)

Finally Illusion Master!
Do not even glance at Bladestorm, be extremely cautious as to not misclick and bring great dishonor to your name. This is the second half of Samuro and this is where you really shine.

The first thing that will greatly improve your effectiveness is your ability to have self sustain, by this I mean with Illusion Master you can make a clone hearthstone back to base, swap to that clone, heal to full, and swap back to a clone before they expire. You should practice this tactic as you will only have a 3 second window before the clones expire. (5 seconds to back, 10 second cooldown after swapping, and 18 total seconds before clones expire.) It's very important to know that picking Illusion Master will not reduce Image Transmission's cooldown if it's on cooldown when you pick the talent.

Now that you have control of your clones you can begin to greatly expand your macro effectiveness, mindgame enemies and win fights you otherwise would not be able to. Refer to the beginning of this guide for a more in depth explanation of what you can do with Illusion Master.

Level 13 Talent

This talent option is more often then not strongly tied to your option at level 16.

Mirrored Steel This talent greatly improves your staying power in a team fight, by allowing you to use your Mirror Image ability more often, you can have more uptime on your clones if they die quickly, have more mini-teleports with the directional clone spawning. Allowing you to chase more, or disengage/juke. Solid talent option but offers a small bit less mobility than Shukuchi gives, as you can use Mirror Image and Shukuchi in the same instant where Mirrored Steel mobility is more over time.

Shukuchi. If you did not take Way of the Wind at Level 1, and are lacking quick decisive mobility you should take this talent. This talent is great for closing distance quickly, it is useful for finishing off an escaping enemy or to escape yourself. However you can use this as a hard engage with a Mirror Image mini-teleport and Shukuchi teleport combo to cover a great distance, usually into the enemy team's backline, deal damage with a double crit instantly and have your clones back where you originally used Mirror Image ready to swap to. Keep in mind that this combo will expend your two most important abilities and you will have to wait for your cooldowns to reset before you can reliably fight again, this combo is ONLY worth it if you have Way of Illusion and Harsh Winds or Merciless Strikes . If you need to stay in a fight longer than an instant you should refrain from using this combo and use the abilities seperately.

Shukuchi is a great talent when paired with the level 16 talent Harsh Winds or Merciless Strikes , and on the other side Mirrored Steel is a great talent when paired with the level 16 talent Press the Attack .

Level 16 Talent

Harsh Winds. You should only take this talent if you took Shukuchi at level 13, otherwise it is too risky as it costs you your escape ability Wind Walk . This talent will greatly improve the Mirror Image and Shukuchi combo explained in Shukuchi's talent explaination. This combo paired with Phantom Pain can deal massive amounts of damage very quickly and makes it a more viable engage. Again, you should not do this if you cannot afford to burn your two abilities' cooldowns instantly in a fight.

Press the Attack is the more reliable and consistant talent option, increasing your ability to deal damage, and maintain Advancing Strikes , and triggering the effect of Mirrored Steel faster makes this talent a very good pick.

Merciless Strikes is a niche pick that is rarely ever useful, in some situations where you have good communication with your team you can deal a lot of damage with, but as this relies on your teammates to apply stuns, roots, or slows, it is far more often then not a better option to pick Harsh Winds or Press the Attack as it keeps your potential tied to your hero and not potentially weakening your solo power.


Level 20 Talent

Three Blade Style is going to be the final piece of the Illusion Master build, never will you not take this talent. This talent allows you to greatly increase your clones' value, you can stay in team fights a lot longer. Your enemies can no longer tell the difference between clones and you by their health. You can tank tower shots effectively with clones, and by refreshing their health with swapping you can deal considerable siege damage. You can swap a maximum of 3 times instead of 1 before the clones expire, allowing you to greatly increase your macro effectiveness.

Mirror Image spawns Samuro in the direction of your mouse cursor, you can use this as a mini-teleport to escape or chase.

Clones will follow current attack move commands when you use Mirror Image, you can use this to move clones into bushes, jungle, or even other lanes as long as they don't spawn near minions or heroes.

If you took Way of Illusion a more reliable way to get clones to attack a hero is to hover you cursor over the hero within vision range when you use your Mirror Image, this will make the clones act as if they used attack move on that hero, clones can still lose aggro if they are behind minions or dip outside your sight radius, if you hit the hero with the real samuro immediately the clones will attack them. (OUTDATED but still useful to make clones attack a hero)

After getting Illusion Master keep a clone in a safe area to swap to in case things get dicey where you are.

Clones can body block your enemies, you can use this to pin people down or help allies escape or tank skillshots for your team.

After immediately using Mirror Image there is a very short timeframe where you cannot control the clones even if they are visable (very short period, .1th a second maybe), if this happens to you often, double press 4 or select by dragging a box over the units.

After using Wind Walk you can swap immediately without losing your stealth to give the illusion that you became unrevealed as a getaway tactic. The time frame for swapping is considerably short.

You can also use Mirror Image immediately after using Wind Walk and you will remain invisible for the unrevealable duration but will become invisible again after, you can use this to conceal your directional spawn position from Mirror Image and quickly hide in a bush.

You can use Mirror Image to teleport over a gate and kill someone by their fort and swap out, some walls are too thick to teleport but you can angle a clone to appear on the other side and swap to it.

When fighting camps or solo bossing, you can micro clones to tank damage for you, swapping to refresh their health and not take any damage yourself.

With Illusion Master you can make one clone hearthstone back to spawn, swap to that clone, and swap back to your clone. Letting you heal while only being gone for 16 seconds.

Swapping and using Mirror Image negates most negative conditons such as blinds, roots, and slows. This includeds poison and DoT effects, effectively healing you for damage you would have taken. Be careful because you cannot use these when you are stunned or silenced, if you're against a hero that can do these things be quick to swap as a second too late can mean death.

You can also remove things like Tracer's Pulse Bomb, Chromie's Temporal Loop, Xul's Bone Prison and Butcher's Mark, but not things like Malthael's Last Rites, Illidan's Hunt, or Kael Thas' Pyroblast. (You can swap to core and Illidan will follow you.)

There is a frame of invulnerablity when you use Q or swap, it's very difficult to pull off but with the right timing you can iframe Malthael's Last Rites, Kael Thas' Pyroblast, DVa's Self Destruct, Azmodan's Globe of Annihilation and any other similar things.

Staggering your clone timers with Kawarimi allows you to push two lanes non-stop without having to walk a clone between lanes, by spawning a clone with E before teleporting to another lane the new clone will allow you to get your Image Transmission's back before it expires.