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Earthquake Mechanics... oops sry... Epicenter Mechanics
Last updated 21 May, 2009.
Skill Description:
Sends a disturbance into the earth, causing it to shudder violently. All caught within range will take damage and become slowed. The closer to the epicenter, the more damage taken.
Level 1 - 2.0 second casting time, 6 pulses of 110 damage.
Level 2 - 2.0 second casting time, 8 pulses of 110 damage.
Level 3 - 2.0 second casting time, 10 pulses of 110 damage.
Mana Cost: 175/250/325
Cooldown: 140/120/100 seconds
Skill Mechanics:
- The skill uses a 2 second channeling before the epicenter starts (Crixalis' sting starts glowing green. He swings his tail/sting two times for a duration of 1 sec. each.). After the pulses have begun, nothing can stop more from coming until epicenter finishes.
- There is an interval of 0.35 secs between each pulse.
- The pulses follow crixalis as he moves i.e. crixalis always remains the center of pulses.
- The AoE of epicenter increases by 50 each wave starting with 300 AoE so they end with 550/675/750 AoE at the three levels. Note that the 8th pulse is coded to have 675 AoE for unknown reason.The following pic will give a better idea: (Click the image to enlarge it)
The damage done by each pulse is 110. The above image makes clear that anything in 300 AoE relative to Crixalis would receive maximum damage.
- The slow is 30% for every pulse but does not stack. This means that you will be slowed by 30% even if get hit by one or more pulses. The duration of the slow is 3 second on heroes and 5 seconds on creeps.
- Once the skill has been channeled, it will continue dealing AoE damange, even after disabling Sand King, hiding Crixalis like with Obsidian Destroyer's Astral Imprisonment, or killing him.
- Epicenter deals Magical damage which is reduced by the target's Spell Resistance and is blocked by Spell Immunity.
- The damage is triggered (It is not based on base-skill Thunderclaps as thought by many) and the AoE search for possible targets increase with each pulse as shown in figure.
Using Epicenter:
[Taken from DA-Wiki]
This skill is powerful and can be devastating in group battles, but the fact that it channels for 2 seconds before starting is what puts off some players. However, in the hands of a clever player Epicenter can be put to devastating use. Shift-queueing or simply stunning the enemy can solve this problem. Have some allies to stun the enemy or use Burrowstrike or use a blink dagger, which many consider a core item for Sand King. Keep in mind that the spell actually starts 2 seconds AFTER you cast. The glowing stinger animation is the 2 second casting, if you blink afterwards the effect of Epicenter will follow Crixalis.
Extra Notes:
- Items n spells that do not stop channeling like lothars, shiva's guard, activating/de-activating armlet, etc. can be used anytime without stopping epicenter/channeling.
- Even if you use shift-queuing blink to cast epicenter, you lose 1 pulse == 110 magical damage.
- Tiny and Crixalis are together used as a combo sometimes. What happens here is, tiny throws sand king amongst enemies after he has channeled epicenter. But there are a few things to be noted.
(1) Channeling stops if Tiny throws crixalis before channeling completes.
(2) You lose around 3 pulses (== 330 magical damage) while travelling in air.
- As opposed to many beliefs, impaling a unit won't save him from the damage/slow of epicenter waves.
- Vengeful's "Nether Swap" will stop epicenter channeling for both allied as well as enemy sand king while Pudge's "Meat Hook" will stop channeling only for enemy sand king.
Credits:
antiweltteilchen
DA-Wiki
Robzor (He's always involved anyhow :D)
Foede
Changelog:
21 May, 2009
- updated aoe of 8th pulse.
Skill Description:
Sends a disturbance into the earth, causing it to shudder violently. All caught within range will take damage and become slowed. The closer to the epicenter, the more damage taken.
Level 1 - 2.0 second casting time, 6 pulses of 110 damage.
Level 2 - 2.0 second casting time, 8 pulses of 110 damage.
Level 3 - 2.0 second casting time, 10 pulses of 110 damage.
Mana Cost: 175/250/325
Cooldown: 140/120/100 seconds
Skill Mechanics:
- The skill uses a 2 second channeling before the epicenter starts (Crixalis' sting starts glowing green. He swings his tail/sting two times for a duration of 1 sec. each.). After the pulses have begun, nothing can stop more from coming until epicenter finishes.
- There is an interval of 0.35 secs between each pulse.
- The pulses follow crixalis as he moves i.e. crixalis always remains the center of pulses.
- The AoE of epicenter increases by 50 each wave starting with 300 AoE so they end with 550/675/750 AoE at the three levels. Note that the 8th pulse is coded to have 675 AoE for unknown reason.The following pic will give a better idea: (Click the image to enlarge it)
The damage done by each pulse is 110. The above image makes clear that anything in 300 AoE relative to Crixalis would receive maximum damage.
- The slow is 30% for every pulse but does not stack. This means that you will be slowed by 30% even if get hit by one or more pulses. The duration of the slow is 3 second on heroes and 5 seconds on creeps.
- Once the skill has been channeled, it will continue dealing AoE damange, even after disabling Sand King, hiding Crixalis like with Obsidian Destroyer's Astral Imprisonment, or killing him.
- Epicenter deals Magical damage which is reduced by the target's Spell Resistance and is blocked by Spell Immunity.
- The damage is triggered (It is not based on base-skill Thunderclaps as thought by many) and the AoE search for possible targets increase with each pulse as shown in figure.
Using Epicenter:
[Taken from DA-Wiki]
This skill is powerful and can be devastating in group battles, but the fact that it channels for 2 seconds before starting is what puts off some players. However, in the hands of a clever player Epicenter can be put to devastating use. Shift-queueing or simply stunning the enemy can solve this problem. Have some allies to stun the enemy or use Burrowstrike or use a blink dagger, which many consider a core item for Sand King. Keep in mind that the spell actually starts 2 seconds AFTER you cast. The glowing stinger animation is the 2 second casting, if you blink afterwards the effect of Epicenter will follow Crixalis.
Extra Notes:
- Items n spells that do not stop channeling like lothars, shiva's guard, activating/de-activating armlet, etc. can be used anytime without stopping epicenter/channeling.
- Even if you use shift-queuing blink to cast epicenter, you lose 1 pulse == 110 magical damage.
- Tiny and Crixalis are together used as a combo sometimes. What happens here is, tiny throws sand king amongst enemies after he has channeled epicenter. But there are a few things to be noted.
(1) Channeling stops if Tiny throws crixalis before channeling completes.
(2) You lose around 3 pulses (== 330 magical damage) while travelling in air.
- As opposed to many beliefs, impaling a unit won't save him from the damage/slow of epicenter waves.
- Vengeful's "Nether Swap" will stop epicenter channeling for both allied as well as enemy sand king while Pudge's "Meat Hook" will stop channeling only for enemy sand king.
Credits:
antiweltteilchen
DA-Wiki
Robzor (He's always involved anyhow :D)
Foede
Changelog:
21 May, 2009
- updated aoe of 8th pulse.
Everything you did/didn't want to know about Ghost Ship
For those who don't know (ahm...), this is the "ulti" skill of Captain CoCo aka Kunkka aka Captain Obvious aka Daelin Proudmoore aka The Admiral. :D
Skill Description:
The admiral summons the mythical ghost ship S.S. CoCo to the battlefield. Allies are doused in Captain CoCo's Rum, inebriating them for 10% bonus movespeed and numbness to incoming damage, causing them to feel only half of the pain now and half after the Rum wears off. Enemies, pirates and scurvy knaves are dashed on the rocks for damage and a brief stun when the ship crashes.
Effects: 300/400/500 damage, 10% movespeed bonus, half damage now and half damage after the skill wears off.
Cooldown: 100 secs. at all levels
Mana Cost: 150/200/250.
Duration of Rum: 5/6/7 seconds.
Mechanics:
- Allied heroes through which the ship passes get the "rum buff". It's animation shows bubbles coming out of the hero's body.
- The movespeed bonus lasts for 7-9/8-10/9-11 secs. (Yes, it is variable!)
- The ship crashes 1000 range in front of admiral. Only those enemies who get caught in the crash AoE get damaged for 300/400/500 magical damage which is blocked by magic immunity.
- The stun duration is 1 second.
- The skill delays damage taken in rum duration. I've explained more about this under "How damage reduction works?"
- Provides vision in the area it passes through for 4 secs.
Where does the ship crash? What is the stun AoE?
The ship crashes 1000 range in front of Kunkka. Though the ship is kinda rectangular in shape but the crash area is actually circular with 425 AoE. See the picture below (click to enlarge). Sorry for the bad quality of the picture...
How the damage reduction works?
It's not actually damage "reduction". The rum just postpones half of the damage to be dealt later on us. The damage dealt later is direct HP removal and cannot kill the hero, always leaving at least 1 HP. Also, this damage is unavoidable/cannot be evaded by avatar or spell immunity.
The rum postpones every kind of damage be it magical/physical/pure... EXCEPT DIRECT HP REMOVAL (from skills like Warlock's Fatal Bonds).
The skill is based on pseudo-evasion that heals before damage is dealt. Consequently, damage received at full HP is not reduced at all. This also means that if you're using other pseudo-evasive skills along with this, you'll receive lesser damage in the duration of rum. For example, a Spectre with full leveled dispersion will receive only 30% damage during the rum duration.
Not so important facts:
- The ship spawns 1000 units behind kunkka.
- Ghost Ship and Refresher Orb:
You don't need to think much about it. Just see my example below and you'll understand what happens when we use Ghost Ship - Refresher combo:
Duration of rum = 5 secs. (i.e. Skill at lvl1)
(Forget about spell reduction/armour)
t=0s, 1st ship casted
t=1s, hit by 400 damage nuke, will experience 200 hp loss.
t=2s, 2nd ship casted
t=3s, hit by 600 damage nuke, will experience 0 hp loss.
t=4s, nothing
t=5s, will experience 200 + 300 = 500 hp loss.
t=6s, nothing happens
t=7s, will experience a 300 hp loss.
The above is correct assuming you were never at full HP nor at 1 hp during the complete scenario.
Credits:
Special thanks to antiweltteilchen for helping me research in this topic. (Without him this post wouldn't have been possible)
DA-Wiki
Robzor (He's always involved anyhow :D)
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