Dragons! - Green, Red & Blue!!!

I'm talking about the three dragon forms of Knight Davion. All of them have the same name Arc Honist. They even share some common properties:

1. 315 base movement speed

2. 500 attack range

3. Increased attack speed (It's actually more complicated... not discussing now)

Green Dragon

The normal attack converts to "Corrosive Breath". It's corrosive attack deals 20 damage per second for 5 seconds. This extra damage per second follows spell resistance rules for heroes and is unreduced for towers (would work even when glyph is activated).

Red Dragon

The red dragon has 5 bonus base damage and has splash attack. The Splash deals 100% damage in a 75 AOE, 75% damage in a 150 AOE, 50% damage in a 250 AOE.

Blue Dragon

It has 14 bonus base damage and has splash attack similar to red dragon. The attack changes to Frost Breath which slows movement speed by 30% and IAS (attack speed basically) by 20% in the whole AoE for 3 seconds.

Last Updated: 16th Feb. 2009

Changelog: Added more information for Green Dragon.

Broodmother's Web

 

So what do webs do? They grant Broodmother invisibility in an area, regeneration, sight, as well as a passive movespeed increase.

- How much increase?

lvl 1: +2 HP regeneration per second. +20% movespeed.

lvl 2: +4 HP regeneration per second. +23% movespeed

lvl 3: +6 HP regeneration per second. +26% movespeed

lvl 4: +8 HP regeneration per second. +29% movespeed

- Broodmother loses invisibility when silenced.

- A trigger checks every 1.5 seconds if Broodmother is under a web. If she is, she's given Permanent Invisibility with a fade time of 2 seconds. If she is not, then she loses the invisibility. This means the actual fade time of brood can be anything varying from 2 secs. to 3.5 secs. when you enter the web.

- The Area of Effect of web is 370 (from it's centre).

- The Web has a sight range (normal vision) of 150 during both day and night. (Not true sight)

- Can destroy trees. (Everyone knows about it)

Losing Tower aggro... just a tip

Many a times you must have hated that tower for hitting you for no reasons. Well, I will include why in another post. For the moment, let us know how to get rid of that tower assault?

Answer 1: The solution that most know:

Get out of range of the tower, let it hit a creep then go back and the tower normally goes down the line of creeps before it hits the hero again.

Answer 2: The solution known to few:

Just attack a non deniable allied creep/hero. You may not actually need to attack allied unit. You just need to initiate the attack.

Guess some learnt something new today. :)

Hero - Kills, Deaths & Resurrection

Hero Bounty

The formula used to calculate how much gold is earned for each enemy kill:

200 + 5*lvl + 50*(streak - 2)

where "streak" starts at 3 kills in a row (Killing Spree), ending at Beyond Godlike (counted as 10, no matter how many kills in a row the hero actually had). In case of a hero with less than 3 kills in a row, the streak part isn't considered.

- does not depend on enemy gold.

- double/triple kills do not change the values.

Gold Lost

Gold is also lost upon death, equal to his level multiplied by 30 gold. i.e. (30*lvl)

This means that at level one you only lose 30 gold?? And that at level 25 you lose 750! (For obvious reasons you won't lose gold if you don't have any.)

With Bloodstone, you lose less money than usual (with no charges you lose 20% less gold, with 1 or more charges you lose 40% less gold)

Resurrecting Heroes

A dead hero will revive after a period of time equal to his level multiplied by 4 seconds.

Cost of Buyback = 

(150 + [50 * Hero level]) gold

So you need 150G to resurrect lvl1 hero and 1400G to resurrect lvl25 hero.

Remember this when selling a diffusal

This is more like a did you know?? The resale value of a diffusal blade depends on the number of purge charges left on it. This means if you decide to sell a diffusal after using all its charges, you will sell it for 0 gold!

The only thing to do to not loose all money is to upgrade it to Manta Style and then sell it. Manta sells for 2900, uprading it costs 1100 + 1400 = 2500, a profit of 400g. :D 

Although, in most cases it is better to keep it. I think this will soon be changed in newer maps making 10 different versions of diffusal blade, with different amount of charges.

Actual Disable time of Impale

  As we all know, impale is one of the favourite disables of the game.

It is a skill of only four heroes in DotA. These are - Lion (.5/1/1.5/2 secs. stun duration), NerubianAssassin (.75/1.25/1.75/2.25 secs. stun duration), SandKing (Burrowstrike: 1.65 secs. stun time at all levels) and Tidehunter (Ravage: 1.5/1.8/2.25 secs. stun duration).

Apart from this stun duration, there is an "airtime" which units undergo before the actual stun. The duration in the air (airtime) is 0.52 seconds for all types of Impale (Impale, Burrowstrike and Ravage).

So the actual disable time for:

Lion: 1.02/1.52/2.02/2.52 secs.

Nerubian Assassin: 1.27/1.77/2.27/2.77 secs.

Sand King: 2.17 secs.

Tidehunter: 2.02/2.32/2.77 secs.

Also to note, you can attack these units and cast spells at them while they are in air. So you can take these as the actual stun durations effectively.

Damage Blocking - stouts, vanguards, ...oh my!

Damage can be blocked in 3 ways:

1. Stout Shield: 40% chance to block 30 damage. (equivalent to 12 damage block on all attacks)

2. Vanguard: 65% chance to block 40 damage. (equivalent to 26 damage block on all attacks)

3. Kraken Shell (Tidehunter): 100% chance to block 7/14/21/28 damage.

Now for the mechanics:

- Damage block comes before armor reductions and reduces physical attacks.

Explanation:

If a unit with 1 Stout Shield and 5 armor (equal to 23% damage reduction) takes a 70 damage attack then:

A. The unit has a 40% chance to take 31 damage - Stout Shield takes effect ((70 - 30) * (1 - 0.23))

B. The unit has a 60% chance to take 54 damage - Stout Shield does not take effect (70 * (1 - 0.23))

- If you have more than one damage block source, they are individually checked in reverse order of acquisition, and only one can trigger.

Explanation:

That is, let us suppose you have a stout and a vanguard in your inventory. You drop your stout and pick it up again. Then the last acquired item is stout.Now when attacked, the stout is checked first, then the vanguard. If the stout's block succeeds, then the Vanguard will not be checked anymore. This is highly unwanted and it should be made a point not to make this mistake.

- Here is a list of some scenarios:

2 Stout Shields => 64% chance to take 30 less damage & 36% chance to take normal damage. [Note that you do not get a chance to take 60 less damage, since only one source will ever trigger]

2 Vanguards => 87.75% chance to take 40 less damage & 12.25% chance to take normal damage. This is why 2 vanguards is not a good investment. You pay 2275G for 22.75% chance to block 40 damage (+extra benefits of vanguard).

1 Stout Shield then 1 Vanguard [Ideal Scenario]=> 65% chance to take 40 less damage, 14% chance to take 30 less damage, 21% chance to take normal damage.

1 Vanguard then 1 Stout Shield [Unwanted Scenario] => 40% chance to take 30 less damage, 39% chance to take 40 less damage, 21% chance to take normal damage.

- The rules apply similarly for Kraken Shell(Tidehunter). If you bought a Stout Shield THEN learned 1 level of Kraken Shell, your Stout Shield will never be used. Kraken Shell was acquired last and is thus checked first, but since it always goes off, the Stout Shield never has a chance to kick in.

Inspired from DA-Wiki.

Dispersion - The Devastating skill

What is dispersion? It is Spectre's skill to reduce and cause any damage taken by her to be reflected onto all enemies in a 1000 AoE. Now the mechanics part:

- With level 4 Dispersion, Mercurial receives only 80% of the physical, piercing, and magical damage she takes.

- Dispersion damage is Pure and every enemy unit in the AoE is damaged for the percentage.This is what makes dispersion a devastating skill.

- Dispersed damage depends the damage you receive i.e. armor, damage block and spell resistance would reduce the amount of damage that would be returned.

Let me explain: Suppose an enemy hits you with 500 physical damage (normal attack). You have fully leveled dispersion means you would receive 80% damage. Your armor gives you 40% reduction. Then the damage you receive = 0.8*[0.6*500] = 240 and the damage you disperse = 0.2*[0.6*500] = 60 pure damage and not 0.2*500= 100 pure damage. This means every enemy in 1000 AoE will get 60 pure damage. The same applies for spell resistance and damage block. This is the reason items like stout shield/vanguard, butterfly, chainmail/platemail/armor items are not preferred on spectre.

- 2 to 3000 damage can be dispersed. This means it would not disperse a killing blow by culling blade (Axe) (which deals 100,000,000 damage).

- dispersion damage is blocked by magical immunity.

Diffusal Blade - The new agility favourite

With the recent buff to manta style and nerf to lothars edge, diffusal blade has become the new agility favourite. Some important points that one should know about diffusal:-

Feedback

- Unlike magina's manaburn (which deals 0.6 damage per mana point burnt), diffusal feedback deals 1 damage per point of mana burnt. Damage dealt is physical (i.e. reduced by armor). So by calculations, each hit will deal 20 extra damage. (This will not apply if enemy's complete mana is burnt to 0 i.e. no extra damage after burning all of enemy's mana.)

Purge

- Slows by a factor of 5, affected units recover their speed gradually. Allied units are not slowed.

- Purge lasts 4 seconds. [Updated for version 6.58]

- Range is 600. Cooldown time is 12 secs.

- Unlike Medusa's purge, diffusal purge is not able to target magic immune units except Omniknight's Repel.

- deals 99999 damage to summoned units.

- Purge is able to dispel certain buffs off both allied and enemy units. I will be producing a list of these shortly.

Omnislash - The Perfect Finisher

Omnislash is Yurnero's ultimate skill. It is one of the best finisher skills in my opinion. You can read the description of the skill in the game itself. I'm here to mention the useful points not described in the game.

- The first slash has a ministun.

- The cooldown between slashes is 0.4 seconds.

- Omnislash works by teleporting Yurnero to a certain enemy unit around every 0.4 seconds, playing Yurnero's attack animation (the animation of attack, not Attack Animation), and dealing the slash damage by trigger. This means if enemy gets into fog of war somehow then omnislash would stop!

- The search range of each teleport is 450. This means that if an enemy manages to blink/instantly move greater than 450 range, the next slash would not bounce on him which may eventually stop omnislash if no bounceable unit is present in range.

- Each slash deals 150 - 250 Normal Hero damage which is reduced by the target's Armor and is blocked by Stout Shield, Vanguard and Kraken Shell, but not Magic Immunity.

- Linken's Sphere blocks the ministun on the first slash. The damage from the first slash would still be dealt and the other slashes would still occur.

- During an Omnislash period, Yurnero is Invulnerable and Unselectable (if you selected him, a trigger would make you instantly unselect him).

- With enough IAS, Yurnero can 'extra' attack while Omnislashing. If the attack cooldown is short enough so that right before Yurnero is teleported to another unit, he can finish an attack, then this will count as an extra attack (dealing Yurnero's true damage, and applying Orb Effects, Bash and Critical Strike if any). These "extra" attacks can be evaded but not the actual slashes of the skill.

Range of Sight

While playing DotA, many of you must have cursed yourself for letting that enemy escape with 10hp. Why? Just because that hero got out of your sight. What is this sight actually? The term Range of Sight, or Sight Range, is used to describe how far a hero will see on day/night without taking the terrain modifications into account. Allied units share vision around the map. You share sight with allied creeps, buildings/towers, heroes, summons, and illusions. Use the following information to organize team battles.

Hero Sight Range

The Sight Range of most of the heroes is 1800(day) / 800(night). There are some exceptions:

Aiushtha, Enchantress: 1800 / 1200

Rooftrellen, Treant Protector: 1800 / 1200

Gondar, Bounty Hunter: 1800 / 1000

Traxex, Drow Ranger: 1800 / 1700

Mirana Nightshade, Priestess of the Moon: 1800 / 1200

Puck, Faerie Dragon: 1800 / 1200

Leshrac the Malicious, Tormented Soul: 1800 / 900

Balanar, Night Stalker: 1200 / 1800. So you now know that balanar can see you at night even when you can't.

Meepo, Geomancer: 1800 / 1800. Ganking a nice meepo is never easy.

Alleria, Windrunner: 1800 / 1200

Skills which grant enemy hero sight

These skills "mark" an enemy unit for a period of time.

Slithereen Guard's Amplify damage

Dwarven Sniper's Assassinate

Spiritbreaker's Charge of Darkness

Alchemist's Unstable Concoction

Bounty Hunter's Track

Spectre's Haunt

Lord of Olympia's Thundergod's Wrath

Bloodseeker's Strygwyr's Thirst

Skills which give extra sight at a certain place

Summoned units

Dwarven Sniper's Scattershot

Goblin Techies's Land Mine, Stasis Trap, Remote Mines

Templar Assassin's Psionic Trap (Use at rune spots and roshan)

Treant Protector's Eyes in the Forest

Broodmother's Spin Web

Goblin Clockwerk's Rocket Flare (Used to check rune spawning)

Spectre's Spectral Dagger (Used to predict ganks)

Priestess of the Moon's Elune's Arrow

Keeper of the Light's Illuminate

Items which give extra sight

Bloodstone if charged, gives sight of the place where the owner of the item died.

Sentry Ward: 200/ 200. (700/ 700 True Sight range)

Observer Ward: 1600/ 1600.

Animal Courier / Flying Courier.

Shiva's Guard: The projectiles have 800/600 vision.

Facts on Experience

What is experience? It's the sole thing that levels up heroes making them stronger and unlocks new skill points to use. Some crucial points on experience:

- Experience is given in a 1000 AoE from the unit that was killed. This means that an assist has nothing to do with the experienced gain. This also means that if you were in 1000 AoE but did not contribute/assist in the kill, you still get experience.

- Experience is sharely evenly among all allied heroes within that 1000 AoE.

- Buildings (except fountain) give 25 experience when destroyed.

- Using the Bloodstone Item will give you experience in the area in which you died until you revive.

- Chen's dominated creeps will give regular Neutral Creep experience values, but if those creeps are Enchanted or Dominated via HotD, then their experience values will decrease.

- Getting experience depends on the location of your hero. So, killing a hero with Zeus' ulti will not give you experience unless you were in 1000 range of the killed hero.

- Your summons or dominated creeps or anything excluding your hero do not help in gaining experience in any possible way.

Now a special mention to DENYING. Denying refers to when you kill your own creep or building, to deny the enemy of getting experience as well as gold. Why is this important? Because if you constantly deny your enemy of experience, you'll end up at a higher level then them and you'll probably have more gold as well. Now on to the actual mechanics of "denying."

- A denied unit grants (36/n)% experience for melee heroes and (18/n)% for ranged heroes, where n is the number of heroes within a 1000 AoE.

- Player owned units do NOT grant any experience, when denied.

- Skills of denying such as Death Pact (Bone Clinkz), Dark Ritual(Lich) and Conversion(Enigma) will not grant experience to the enemy at all.

Counter Strategies

Below are some ugly things you might face in games as well as how to counter them.

1. High Resistance Heroes (Dragon Knight)

Recommended Counters: Obsidian Destroyer (Pure damage), Slithereen Guard/Dazzle (Armour reduction).

Other Counters: Silencer(Pure damage), Witch Doctor(Maledict), Necrolyte(ulti), Chen/Pugna/Undying(Damage Amplifiers)

Item Counters: Desolator, Orchid

2. Invisibility (Rikimaru)

Recommended: Bounty Hunter/Slardar(Track), Zeus(Bolt gives truesight)

Other: Spiritbreaker(charge gives sight), Alchemist(stun gives sight)

Items: Gems, Sentry wards, DoA

3. Mass Disable (Lion, Rhasta)

Recommended: Omniknight(Repel)

Other: Abaddon(Shield)

Items: Black King Bar (Magic Immunity)

4.  Jungling Carry (TerrorBlade)

Recommended: Beastmaster/NerubianAssassin(solo ganking)

Other: PotM/Spectre(Semi-scouting/Semi-solo ganking), Lion/Lina/Leshrac (semi-solo ganking), Luna/Juggernaut(Ganking carry)

Items: Warding jungle area

5. Buffed Carries (Omniknight)

Recommended: Medusa/ImageHeroes going for diffusal(Purge)

Optional: Chen/Enchantress(Purge by controlled creep), Mangix(Split's semi purge)

Items: Diffusal Blade(Purge), HotD(Control purge creep)

6. Mass Ganking (Beastmaster, Vengeful, Zeus)

Recommended: Weaver(Watchers), Beastmaster(Scout), Treant(Eyes), PotM/Chen(Helping with ulti)

Optional: Furion/PitLord(Teleport when needed)

Items: TeleportScrolls, Observer wards

7. Strong Summons (Warlock)

Recommended: Obsidian Destroyer(Orbs bonus damage), Medusa (Purge)

Optional: Chen/Enchantress(Convert strong summons like beastmaster's pig and neutrals), Earthshaker(more summons, more damage)

Items: HotD

8. Mass nukes (Puck)

Recommended: Omniknight(Repel), Pugna(Nether Ward), Storm Spirit(Barrier)

Optional: AntiMage(Shield)

Items: HoodOfDefiance(Damage Reduction), BlackKingBar(Avatar), Bracers/Str.Treads (more hp).

Zeus - Lord of Olympia

Zeus is a typical nuker. Unlike other nukers, his ability to deal damage depending on enemy's current hp makes him fierceful even at later stages of the game. Here are some facts one should keep in mind while playing with him:-

[Arc Lightning]

  Unlike other Chain Lightning-based spells, this skill's damage is not reduced with each bounce.

  Like the other Chain Lightning-based spells, you can't cast this spell while it's still bouncing. This is the reason good zeus players take only a single level of it so they'r free to spam it as soon as the cooldown is over.

[Lightning Bolt]

  It reveals the area around the target. A dummy unit provides hovering true sight over an area of 900, and hovering non-true sight over 1000/750 (day/night). The dummy unit lasts for 3 seconds.

  Lightning Bolt stuns/ministuns the target for 0.1 second.

[Static Field]

  This skill gives Zeus a chance to deal massive damage late game.

  This skill is not blocked by Linken's Sphere.

  Does not work if Zeus uses active Items.

  The damage by Static Field is done before the damage by casted spell.

[Thundergod's Wrath]

  This skill also has a revealing effect, identical with Lightning Bolt. However, it does not have a Ministun.

  This skill is blocked by Linken's Sphere.

  Units under wind walk are revealed but do not get damaged.

Skill Build:

1-3-2-2-2-4-2-3-3-3-4-S-S-S-S-4-S-S-S...till lvl22. Don't level chain lightning past level 1.

Item Build:

Basically zeus is not the one to build inventory in a team. However, every hero has his build...

Core: Boots + Bottle + 2xNulls + TownPortal

Optional/Later: BootsOfTravel + Guinsoo