Anchor Smash

 

Skill description: Leviathan swings his mighty anchor with a vengeance. Gives a 20% chance to deal bonus damage to nearby enemies. Deals 75/115/155/200 damage in a small radius. Passive skill.

Mechanics: So the description part was what we all know. Now time for some interesting facts:

- Deals magical damage reduced by spell resistance. However, it is not blocked by spell immunity (doesn't care if the enemy is spell immune).

- The additional damage from Anchor Smash is not added into the calculations for Critical Strikes, Lifesteal, Cleave or any other similar attack modifier.

- This skill triggers before the damage point, meaning that this skill may proc whenever the Tidehunter starts his attack animation. This also means that this skill neglects evasion.

- AoE of Anchor Smash: 200 Full Damage Radius, 325 Half Damage Radius. 

Explanation: The Area of Effect for Anchor Smash consists of two full circles of different sizes with leviathan standing in the center of these circles, within these two circles the damage is dealt. Within the smallest of the two circles, which is closest to the attacker, the full Anchor Smash damage (200 at lvl4) while within the remaining area between the big and the small one only half the damage ( 100 at lvl4) is dealt.

- Note that having Battle Fury on Leviathan does not make you Anchor Smash all the time even though the same animation is used, you will Cleave on all attacks and on those attacks which Anchor Smash triggers you will both Cleave and deal extra damage in the area around you.

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.