Earlygame (Levels 1 – 8):
Until you are level 5, I can’t stress something enough - be passive. Morphling has some of the worst base damage in the game, mediocre range, and barely enough mana for one or two Waveforms. Don’t try to pick up kills at this point unless your opponents screw up and get low on health, or your lane partner has some good spells to back you up with. Basically just try to farm up your Wraith Bands and Void Stone so that you’ll become a real threat.
Once it’s level 3, Waveform will finally be worth its mana cost. From that point on, make good use of it to take control of your lane and farm up your core items. You can occasionally grab kills with level 2 Waveform, but that requires good allies or stupid enemies, don’t use it unless a really good opportunity comes up.
At this point in the game, the Morphling is basically a caster. Most of your damage will be dealt with Waveform, so make good use of it and your mana. If you run out of mana, you’re basically useless, keep that in mind.
Mid-game: (Levels 9 – 15):
There will be lots of ganking and smaller team fights going on at this point. Since Morph is still a good caster in the midgame, you should be helping out with all of this, but you shouldn’t spend all your time constantly running around ganking or you won’t be farmed up for the lategame. This is why having Travel is key - it lets you move around the map quickly, so that you can keep up with the action while still having plenty of time to farm. Also, try to get to your Diffusal Blade during this time, since the Purge is extremely useful as a chasing spell.
When ganking with the Morphling, the first thing you should do is Waveform in right behind the enemy. If there are multiple enemies, try to angle you Wave so that you hit all of them. Wave is still your strongest asset, so the faster you cast it, the faster it cools for a second use (which might be needed to finish a chase or if enemy backup arrives). Since your range is so bad, as long as your target is in range, just keep attacking them - save Adaptive Strike as a last resort for if they’re getting away.
If your team really doesn’t have any good stuns, you may need to provide the disable for ganks. Use Str+ to get your strength equal or just slightly above your agility in order to use Adaptive Strike as a stun. Since the numbers can get a bit messy it can be hard to tell at a glance which attribute is higher, in FAQ section there’s an explanation of how to tell quickly. When using Adaptive as a stun, make sure to Waveform to a position where the knockback will push your target into the open arms of your team.
Late-game: (Level 16+):
By now your role as a caster is pretty much over. Adaptive Strike will still do pretty solid damage, but Waveform will mostly be used to move in and out of battle quickly or to catch up to people, instead of as a heavy damage spell. You should be farming up pieces of bigger items like Manta and Skadi, so that you’ll remain dangerous in combat.
Once you have Manta, save your Replicate for getting a third Morphling image. However, before Manta, in a team fight you should Replicate whoever on your team that you expect will get focused first. The Replication will cause a bit of confusion and buy them some time to stay alive.
If you’re the strongest hero on your team, you should wait to enter fights until someone else goes in first, so that you’re not soaking up all the damage. However, if your team has some other lategame hero like a stacked Viper or Visage, feel free to Waveform into the battle first to draw the attention away from them. Str+ will allow you to do a lot of tanking for them.
