Wraith Build Guide

Table of Contents

1. TL;DR
2. Overview
   1. Strengths
   2. Weaknesses
3. Abilities Analysis
4. Deck Considerations
   1. Deck Build #1
5. Gameplay
   1. Early Game
   2. Mid Game
   3. Late Game
   4. Tips and Tricks
6. Heroes Synergy
7. Updates History

TL;DR on Wraith

Wraith is a graduate of Echelon, a Special Operations program, and was apprenticed to the only other graduate, Kallari. Though she specializes in assassination, he specializes in surveillance. Wraith is a recon specialist who uses high-tech tools to gather intel on his targets and outmaneuver his enemies.

Focus on building Power and Utility.

"Back it up!" will allow you to warp an enemy back to where they were moments ago. If enemies aren't careful, they will have a bad case of deja vu. This can also be used defensively when you need to make a quick escape.

"Knock, Knock!" will cause Wraith to deploy his sniper rifle. This high-tech rifle has incredible range, and can even penetrate walls. Landing a killing blow on an enemy will refund the mana used and reduce the cooldown, allowing you to take aim sooner.

"Who's there?" allows Wraith to deploy a tactical drone. This drone emits a sonar pulse that reveals enemies within the radius, even if they're behind walls, or in the Shadow Plane. This is great for tracking enemy movement, sieging towers from behind walls, and setting up killshots.

Utilize "Knock, Knock!" and "Who's there?" to keep a safe distance from your enemies.

And finally, your ultimate is "Surprise, Surprise!" Wraith activates his cloaking device, putting himself and all nearby allies into the Shadow Plane, increasing their move-speed. "Surprise, Surprise!" is a very versatile ultimate. It can be used offensively to set up game-changing plays, or defensively to help protect you or your allies. Wraith's versatility makes him extremely impactful in game, and in the right hands, can be extremely deadly.

Utilize "Who's there?" to track enemy movement and control objectives. Because "Knock, Knock!" penetrates walls, Wraith can set up outside of Line-of-Sight, and still harass enemies trying to hold the line. Be careful though, if you aren't careful when scouting, it could result in your death.

Be the ultimate reconnaissance expert as Wraith!

Lore of Wraith

• Kallari Believes he is addicted to the Shadow Plane.
• He is banned from several bars on Omeda. Frequents them away.
• Can be glib, but has never shared classified information. Except that one time.

Explore Wraith Lore

Wraith Overview

Wraith's Strengths

1. Outstanding capabilities for map control.
2. Short cooldown and long range weapon penetrating geometry. Strong poking

Wraith's Weaknesses

1. No escape abilities at all. (except an expensive Ultimate).
2. Requires good aiming and positioning skills.
3. Vulnerable to CC

Wraith's Abilities Analysis

- Bang! (Basic Attack)

Ranged basic attack dealing Basic Damage.

A good scaling but it's just one of the two abilities for Wraith to deal damage.

- Knock, Knock! (Alternate Ability)

A long-range (2400 units) scoped shot that penetrates geometry and deals Ability Damage. Killing a unit with this ability will refund the mana cost over a short time and reduce the cooldown to two seconds.

Knock, Knock! - the second damage dealing ability. It is a low cooldown skillshot with a pre-cast state (aiming). Works pretty much similar to Murdock's Long Arm of the Law but with limited range. You can move while aiming but very slowly.

Mastery. Knock, Knock! requires both position and execution mastery. You shall have good positioning since your vision and movement is limited while you are aiming. You shall also be able to lead your target to land your shots without a miss.

Penetration. Knock, Knock! penetrates geometry like Revenant's Obliterate does but it does not penetrate targets (Minions, Heroes). One shot one target. Or no target if you miss it.

Vision. Even though this ability penetrates geometry it does not grant vision through terrain. You will have to have your ally, a ward or your Sonar to grant you vision if you want to hit somebody around the corner.

Laning. Since Knock, Knock! refunds mana and significantly reduces cooldown you can do laning (landing killing blows) with it from a very safe distance. Knock, Knock! is good for one-shoting River Buffs but you should be in the basic attack range from them, otherwise they will just ignore your damage.

- Who's there? (Primary Ability)

Launches a sonar ward that pings with short intervals to reveal enemy heroes in 1300 units range around it for a short period of time. It has no line-of-sight restrictions.

Vision. Sonar is the only way to grant you vision without line-of-sight restrictions besides Kallari's Death Sentence of course but that ultimate is another story. It can't be destroyed and exists in the world for a good amount of time. Note that it does not reveal enemy shadow wards.

Mastery. Who's there? is all about your position mastery and how well you can cover important areas with sonars and how well you can pay attention to their pings and control the mini-map.

Pings. Sonar does not ping for heroes on the mini-map and a corresponding audio cue is much quieter than from wards. Not only you should place sonars wisely but also listen to them carefully.

A perfect anti-gank solution though it has a bit smaller range than wards.

- Back it up! (Secondary Ability)

Marks an enemy hero to be teleported to his location from a short time prior prior. Teleportation occurs after a brief delay. Range increases with ability level.

Back it up is a lock-on cast ability with a decent range. Upon activation it sets a shadow of a target enemy Hero. After a short delay it will be teleported back to that shadow. This is how it works.

How it works. Back it up works through any geometry and and interrupts any channeled ability of the target when teleportation happens. However there are exceptions like below:

• Gideon's Void Breach will not break if he remains vision and is in range of his target after rewind.
• Phase's Telekinetic Link will not be broken if after teleport she is still in tether range with her target.

Back it up as any other ability with a delayed effect can be cleansed by let's say Purity Censer.

Utility. Back it up is very versatile. It can be a good tool to chase an enemy, to get away from a chasing enemy and to deny a lot of impacting ultimates. The most obvious example is with Gideon's Black Hole. Back it up will just interrupt it and there is no way to miss it since it is a lock-on.

Special case. Casting Back it up! on a Hero who has just teleported back to their base will bring that Hero back to the battlefield.

- Surprise, Surprise! (Ultimate Ability)

Wraith sends himself and nearby allies (in 2200 radius) into the Shadow Plane and grants a movement speed boost for a short period of time.

Surprise, Surprise! is a channel ability granting invisibility to nearby allies after about 1 second of channel. I works absolutely the same way like if you carry a Purple River Buff.

Sound effect. When the ultimate is triggered a specific audio cue is played to everyone around in a pretty big radius around Wraith. It means that if you execute this ultimate being just a couple of basic attack distances from your enemy (Let's say you are grouped at the Raptor's Pit and ganking towards Mid Lane) they will definitely hear that and be ready to react.

Mastery. Surprise, Surprise! is mostly a position mastery ability. The result of using this ability is heavily depends on how choose your position to start the group Shadow Plane dive and how well nearby locations are covered with Sonars.To add to that it requires good team coordination as well.

Execution. Surprise, Surprise! is a very powerful and versatile.

1. You can use to help yourself or/and a nearby ally to escape. This is the least effective way to use your ultimate but some times it is the way to go. Remember that it will not help you if your enemies have wards in place.
2. You can organize a group gank by cloaking your allies and then traveling to your desired destination in the Shadow Plane. Remember about sound cue though other wise you'll just cause enemies to take cover.
3. And finally in some cases you just need a slight speed boost and disorientation caused to enemy when you are chasing them after a successful team fight. You may want to spend your ultimate on that. It will work like Narbash'es March!

Wraith's Deck Considerations

1. Utility. Wraith has very limited set of tools to deal damage. In fact only one ability is there besides basic attacks. But it is very interesting one. Knock, Knock! has both long range and short cooldown (especially if you land killing blows). Wo when building your deck you might be willing to look for cards with effects triggered on ability hit.
2. Escape. Wraith lacks reliable escape. For sure he can cloak himself with his ultimate or rewind one enemy back. But he can't re-position himself. So he needs a blink card.
3. Power and Pen. His Knock, Knock! has good damage and scaling. Combined with an outstanding range it screams for Power cards. And Penetration in order to not suffer from Ability Armor.

Core Cards for Wraith

Wraith Deck Build #1

Explore Deck

Gameplay with Wraith

Early Game

Put your dummy ward from the very beginning. Read more about dummy wards here.

Use your Knock, Knock! to land killing blows on minions from the safe distance as it refunds mana cost and reduces cooldown upon a kill.

Who's there? should be constantly placed prevent ganks. Early game it is very important since you have no way to escape and you have no ultimate yet.

Mid Game

You should not participate in team fights directly. Your position should be one of the safest ones and your job should be close to what all the good snipers do. Pick them off from the distance. Your Knock, Knock! is a way to go. During a siege or defending a tower always keep sonars revealing opponents in the Jungle so that it will be hard for them to strike from behind.

Stuns, Roots and Knockups are very dangerous for you. Some strong CC combo of Phase + Khaimera can delete you instantly if you get caught by Energy Lance with Ambush and Cull as a follow up.

Late Game

In general your main goal while playing Wraith is to provide map awareness, and set up outplays based on that. Your enemy shall always think they are being monitored when they "sneakily" navigate the map and shall expect some Knock, Knock!s everywhere. Any lack of warding from their side - it is your job to punish them with your ultimate. Of course it is not only one Hero's goal but an entire team in general.

Tips and Tricks with Wraith

Heroes Synergy (Coming soon)

Wraith and Dekker

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Wraith Updates

v42.3-patch (Aug-29 2017)

General

• Base Attack Time (BAT) increased (0.95 → 0.85) (increases attack speed)
• Base health increased (554 → 566) 
• Health per level increased (57 → 61) 
• Base health regen decreased (0.96 → .94)

v41.0-patch (Jun-30 2017)

An ad hoc patch to improve Wraith's poor performance upon launch.

Knock, Knock!

• Base damage increased (80/130/180/230 → 92/150/207/265)
• Scaling increased (1.0 → 1.15)

General

• Base health increased (500 → 540)
• Health per level increased (67.4 → 72.8)

v41.0 (Jun-28 2017)

Wraith Released.