Revenant's Brooch

The old Revenant's Brooch — the toggle that converted your attacks to magical damage and let you hit ethereal units — is gone. What exists now is a completely different item, and most players are still thinking about it in terms of the old version. Let me be direct: the current brooch is a damage and spell lifesteal item built around one specific mechanic. Every attack has a 30% chance to proc Phantom Critical, dealing an additional 80% of your attack damage as bonus magical damage on top of the physical hit. That bonus damage is magical — it bypasses armor, it does not care about the target's physical resistance, and it interacts with spell lifesteal, meaning every proc heals you based on the bonus magical damage dealt.

That is the entire point at 3300 gold. Against high-armor targets where your physical damage is being heavily reduced, the Phantom Critical proc hits at full magical value regardless of how much armor they have stacked. A Bristleback with 30 armor is reducing your physical attacks significantly—the Phantom Critical proc on top does not care. And if you are a hero with spell lifesteal already in your kit or from other items, the proc is simultaneously dealing damage and healing you every third attack on average.

The 15% spell lifesteal for heroes also applies to your actual abilities, not just the Phantom Critical proc. Any spell damage you deal heals you for 15% of the value. On heroes who spam abilities constantly while right-clicking—Lina, Death Prophet, and Gyrocopter—the lifesteal from both spells and Phantom Critical procs stacks into real sustain.

Late game, the fourth or fifth item on right-click heroes with built-in magical or spell damage components who are fighting high-armor targets—Lina, Luna, Muerta, Death Prophet, Dawnbreaker, Gyrocopter, and Razor. The timing is 30 to 40 minutes when armor values are high and a source of magical damage on your attacks becomes meaningfully more valuable than more physical damage.

The draft signal is a tanky, high-armor enemy lineup. If the enemy team has Dragon Knight, Bristleback, Axe, and Mars all stacking armor, your physical damage carries are hitting them at reduced effectiveness. Brooch's magical Phantom Critical proc ignores all of that armor. Against a squishy enemy team with low armor, the distinction matters less, and a pure damage item like Daedalus or Desolator closes games faster.

Where you skip it: heroes whose game plan revolves around critical strikes. Phantom Critical counts as a critical strike and cannot stack with other crits simultaneously—when both proc at the same time, only the higher value applies. On Phantom Assassin with Coup de Grace, on Wraith King with Mortal Strike, on any hero whose primary DPS comes from physical crits, Revenant's Brooch actively competes with and can cancel out your own crit procs. The wiki is explicit about this—the item is not recommended for crit-dependent heroes.