Game mechanics

How the game works: stats, effects and status conditions.

General mechanics

Primary attributes (Strength, Agility, Intelligence) that affect hero stats and abilities.

Aura effects that provide passive bonuses to nearby allies or enemies.

Channeled abilities that require the hero to remain stationary while casting.

Disjoint mechanics that allow abilities to dodge projectiles and attacks.

Different types of effects including magical, physical, and pure damage.

Experience gain mechanics, leveling, and experience distribution.

Fortification mechanics for protecting structures and backdoor protection.

Gold economy including gold gain, gold loss on death, and gold distribution.

Illusion mechanics including illusion creation, damage, and detection.

Rune mechanics including powerful runes, Merrick's Rune, and rune effects.

Day and night cycle mechanics affecting vision and certain abilities.

Tree mechanics including tree destruction, pathing, and tree-based abilities.

Denying allows players to reduce their opponents gold and experience income.

Stats

Physical armor that reduces incoming physical damage. Higher armor provides diminishing returns.

The maximum distance at which a hero can attack targets. Ranged heroes have longer attack ranges than melee heroes.

The rate at which a hero can perform attacks. Affected by agility and attack speed items.

The speed at which abilities are cast. Can be modified by certain items and abilities.

Cleave / Splash

Cleave allows melee attacks to damage multiple enemies in an area. Splash is similar for ranged attacks.

Damage mechanics including base damage, bonus damage, and damage types (physical, magical, pure).

Deflection mechanics that redirect or reflect incoming damage.

Health points (HP) that determine how much damage a hero can take before dying.

Magic armor that reduces incoming magical damage. Works similarly to physical armor.

Mana points (MP) required to cast abilities. Mana regeneration and maximum mana can be increased.

The speed at which a hero moves across the map. Can be modified by items and abilities.

Vision range determines how far a hero can see. Includes day vision and night vision.

Clearvision allows heroes to see through fog of war and detect invisible units.

Modifiers

Critical Strike

Critical strikes deal multiplied damage on a percentage chance. Multiple sources stack multiplicatively.

Evasion provides a chance to completely avoid physical attacks. Multiple sources stack multiplicatively.

Miss chance causes attacks to miss, often from abilities or environmental effects.

True strike ensures attacks cannot miss, countering evasion and miss chance.

Exclusive Modifier

Exclusive modifiers are special attack effects that cannot stack with each other.

Mana Combustion

An exclusive modifier that burns enemy mana on attack.

An exclusive modifier that has a chance to stun the target on attack.

An exclusive modifier that deals bonus magical damage to nearby enemies on attack.

An exclusive modifier that slows enemies on attack.

An exclusive modifier that triggers special effects on attack.

Lifesteal restores health based on a percentage of physical damage dealt. Multiple sources stack additively.

Status effects

Modifiers that increase or decrease the amount of damage dealt by a hero.

Modifiers that increase or decrease the amount of damage received.

Damage Reduction

Percentage-based reduction to incoming damage from all sources.

Disarm prevents a hero from performing basic attacks but allows ability usage.

Dispel removes certain buffs or debuffs from a target. Can be strong or basic dispel.

Fear causes a unit to run away from the source of fear, unable to control movement.

Force attack compels a unit to attack a specific target against their will.

Immobilize prevents movement but allows attacks and ability usage.

A stronger form of immobilize that also prevents attacks and most abilities.

Invulnerability

Invulnerability makes a unit immune to all damage and most negative effects.

Magic immunity blocks magical damage and most magical abilities, but not physical attacks.

Superior magic immunity is a stronger form that blocks even more abilities.

Morph transforms a unit into another form, changing abilities and stats.

Movement slow reduces a unit's movement speed by a percentage or flat amount.

Perplex causes a unit to move in random directions, losing control of movement.

Physical Immunity

Physical immunity blocks physical damage but not magical damage or abilities.

Shield provides temporary health that absorbs damage before affecting actual health.

Silence prevents a hero from casting abilities but allows basic attacks.

Stealth makes a unit invisible to enemies, hiding them from normal vision.

Revealed removes stealth and makes invisible units visible to enemies.

Stun completely disables a unit, preventing all actions including movement, attacks, and abilities.

Walking is a status effect that forces a unit to move in a specific direction.

Miscellaneous

How multiple items with similar effects interact and stack together.