The three or four times I've played against a well managed PL, my team always got destroyed and no one really knew how to handle him.
Is there a way to pick out the real one from the phantoms?
dota-2
The three or four times I've played against a well managed PL, my team always got destroyed and no one really knew how to handle him.
Is there a way to pick out the real one from the phantoms?
The composition of your team is the first line of defense against Anti-Mage. Having a good core of gank-tasked heroes (3+) and ideally, no more than 1 hard carry. With Anti-Mage, like many of the late-game carries (Spectre, Void, Antimage), your game should not fixate on countering him late game, but instead ask what counters Anti-Mage?
Wards, Ganks, and Pressure
You need to shut down these hard late-game carries early. Even allowing the completion of a single core item uninterrupted is a bad sign. Where you listed 3 high tiered items, the momentum for Anti-Mage was likely far out of your control to rein in late game.
So you're looking to gank him frequently. Note that if the enemy team has more than one late-game carry this becomes more difficult for both teams, where your team will need to keep both late-game heroes in check and from the enemy team's side they need to [1] not die, and [2] wait you out. So logically, you need to do the opposite, gank them far more often than you would consider necessary and push down towers.
While "kill them and push towers" is a bit too simple-minded of an approach, the crux of the issue is defined.
The problem is that in execution, as is commonly the case especially on randomly assembled teams, not many players risk leaving their lane, leaving behind their potential farm-able gold, and losing experience roaming from one lane to another.
But what is important here is to reframe the issue, again, and that is a successful gank does not always need to result in a kill. Pushing Anti-Mage out of the lane to hug the tower, deny his gold/experience gain, return to base to heal, or even just added pressure that you guys are coming for him stacks up for an effect in your favor. Understanding that 'yes he has blink' and 'no you probably won't kill him' you are primarily focused on disrupting his acquisition of gold and experience.
Laning against Anti-Mage should involve 2 heroes that can stun or disable, understand when picking a lineup against Void, Anti-Mage, or even Spectre, their escape mechanisms (blink, timewalk, dagger) are going to allow them to get away from most gank attempts. Understanding this, a gank would ideally involve a third hero circling into the lane to stun/disable first (unexpected) and then following up with the 2nd and 3rd from the heroes already in the lane stacking the disable duration for a kill and to prevent the blink out.
Tri-Laning (3 heroes in your lane against Anti-Mage from the start) - is a decent option as well, all 3 heroes need to have a stun, disable, or a decent slow skill for this to be appropriate. You're looking to press hard on the enemy heroes and push through their towers when they linger back. The general idea being heavy pressure and pushing down towers early and getting in the way of the usual progression a carry needs to farm/level.
Heroes
Lion - an excellent ganking hero early game (even before level 6), leveling hex and stun, coupling Lion with any other hero (or two heroes!) is an easy combination for early harassment. Lion should also be looking to incorporate a blink dagger
into his build sooner than later, to quickly get the drop for ganks (few people stand around as Lion charges at you) and also in order to keep up with Anti-Mage when possible.
Blink in, hex, wait, wait, stun, wait wait. This is a long time to be disabled. You can blink to chase as well, but the key here is to get in his face before he realizes stuns are incoming so ideally you are blinking in and disabling before he can blink out.
(Rhasta could potentially be an option, though less recommended as his second disable, Shackles, requires him to be in the line of fire and also immobilized for the length of the disable, making it less reliable to get the full duration of shackle time)
Spectre - if you're looking for a late game carry that will stand up to Anti-Mage when a game has gone 50-60+ minutes. The problem here is that you are relying on a number of other factors: [1] that you can out-farm anti-mage, [2] the enemy team allows you to get to late game without too much gank interference, [3] the enemy team does not push through to your barracks before your core items are farmed.
Outworld Devourer is the Anti-Anti-Mage. Anti-Mage. In practice AM's skills have excellent synergy with each other. Draining mana until he can ulti you. But OD has essence aura. AM's ulti is basically useless now. Also his resistance to magic is very misleading towards OD. Although it's technically magic based it's pure damage meaning it goes through all resistances. Only magic immunity can shut OD down, but building a bkb isn't something an AM wants to do. And as for his blinking bullshit do not worry as Scythe of Vise is a very very common item on OD. And if evasion from a butterfly is keeping you down a hex plus the pure damage will surely bring him low. Then after that just imprison him and finish him off with Sanitys Eclipse.
Items
Scythe of Vyse - nothing too surprising on this recommendation, hopefully. Later in the game you're looking for a sheep-stick on one or two heroes to help with a few more Hex casts as Anti-Mage becomes more difficult to kill outright.
Other items - most other items are going to focus on dealing damage, because while mass disables are good, you still need your carry/semi-carries to start taking down his HP (not necessarily with nukes).
Countering Bloodseeker is a matter of winning the first few levels before he can get his Bottle. The typical Bloodseeker build is QB+Stout Shield+Healing Salve. Assuming you're a ranged hero, trade as much damage as you can as soon as possible. If he ignores you and goes for last hits, you can pound him harder than he regenerates. After you've done this twice, he's out of regen and too low on health to come to the creep wave. If you're a melee hero, you'll have a bit harder of a time because you'll take a lot of creep damage doing this, but the same concept applies.
If you let him get an early Bottle or Boots or a few extra levels and extra points in Blood Bath, winning the lane becomes significantly harder. Instead, you need to take whatever damage he and the creeps deal to you and harass him for all it's worth, as you can be safe in the knowledge that he has no surprise spells to pull on you (other than a 120 damage DoT which just allows you to hit him harder).
Abuse creep aggro constantly. When the Bloodseeker goes in for last hits, draw the creep aggro on purpose by right clicking him and then backing off. This will cause his creeps to harass you and your creeps to chase those creeps. You can then drop the aggro, step in front of the wave, and deal extra harass damage if he goes for the last hit, or simply mess with his timing and then deny the creep. If he tries to trade with you, just micro well and this is exactly what you want because you have adequate regen where he's relying on a single Salve to last him until his Bottle. As a melee hero, Bloodseeker needs to have a health buffer to go for last hits, because you can kite him as he tries to run out of range and hit him 4-5 times if necessary.
If you're a melee hero, it's a bit different. You have to be equally aggressive in trading harass but you also have to expend mana (if you're a melee hero without a nuke you probably shouldn't be mid in the first place) to force him off the wave. This is actually usually really easy.
Bloodseeker is a very weak hero: his only strength is his Silence which can be useful against heroes that rely on mobility spells. In order to counter him, all you have to do is carry a TP Scroll. If he uses his ultimate on you and there's no tower close by to retreat to, you just TP away. He can't stop you, and has wasted a lot of time and effort ganking that he can't afford to as a carry.
Alternatively, you can just dual lane mid and he automatically loses the lane badly, usually even if an ally comes to make it a 2v2. Specific heroes can also beat Bloodseeker 1v1 without any real effort in solo mid simply because they're much stronger heroes or have strong slows to force him off the creep wave:
I'd link to a couple of replays but I literally haven't seen a Bloodseeker in weeks because the hero is just terrible once people learn to always carry TP's.
EDIT: I finally came across a Bloodseeker!
Best Answer
Spotting the real Phantom Lancer is a pain. Good Phantom Lancer players won't often show the real one during pushes and let their illusions do the work. Same goes for teamfights: once the army of illusion is here, they tend to dopplewalk away and wait for a good opportunity to show again. If an illusion army is pushing a lane, the real one might be jungling on a nearby neutral camp.
Spot PL before a gank
If you want to spot him before a gank (or spot the real one on the map if visible) you have some options:
Things to remember
My best advice against a Phantom Lancer army is to: Massive AOE > spot the real one (the one who took the least damage). This will work in most situations, then it's up to you to focus correctly.
PL players tend too often to doppleganger away when they feel insecure. When they do so you only have 3 remaining possible choices (2 illus and the real one) : One of the illu doesn't deal damage, the other take 600% extra damage so spotting the real one quickly is a matter of reflex and game sense. With a bit of training you shouldn't be annoyed by those anymore. Be carefull though, the illusion that doesn't deal damage doesn't only for normal attack, it the PL has diffusal blades, both illusion will still deal the feedback damages.
Shut down a PL
Prevent him from farming. Come in his lane as early as you can to harass him. Take down the outer tower as soon as you can. PL tends to farm tranquil boots > ring of aquila > diffusal blade whereas other carries will tend to farm farming items first (battle fury on void/magina, midas on Alchemist etc.). This means that Phantom Lancer is shut down early on, he won't be able to catch up as other carries can. But remember: no matter how much ahead you think you are, a good PL can win the game by himself.