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Forums \ DotA strategic forum \ DotA Facts'n'Tips'n'Tricks

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snaykey

DotA Facts'n'Tips'n'Tricks (42905 reads, 99 replies, 1 year ago)

Last update: 01.09.2010

Preface
This topic is intended to serve as a collection of various tips and tricks related to DotA. My intent is to add certain "thematic" updates over time and, in the end, this topic would serve as a source of both interesting and valuable information. Thus, I have not included any facts which could be understood as bug abuses and I have aimed for all the tips and tricks to be actually useful and applicable in the game. You probably know some of the stuff mentioned here; nonetheless, I would really appreciate all kinds of suggestions, new facts and critique as this would inevitably make this thread better.

Table of Contents
~ Siege Units, Towers, Quelling Blade (31.08.2010)
~ Ghost Scepter (01.09.2010)

DotA Facts'n'Tips'n'Tricks
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Siege Units, Towers, Quelling Blade
We'll start off with a bit more mechanics orientated topic rather than actual tips and tricks. Both some basic and advanced stuff is covered, from siege units' stats and tower bounty to target priority basics and Quelling Blade interaction with orbs.

Siege Units
Siege units advanced stats info:

* Siege units spawn every seventh wave
* Siege units sometimes behave strangely in presence of an enemy Helm of Dominator dominated creep or Syllabear's bear, deciding to chase them over the whole map probably because of their target priority:
* Siege units use a rather interesting target priority: Tower/Summons&Illusions/Creep/SiegeCreep/Hero.

Towers
* Towers have an attack range of 700 and True Sight range of 800.

I suppose you know how to get tower aggro off yourself (if not, here is an excellent video by Luminous dealing with the subject - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEdOqXVa-N8&feature=player_embedded). Meanwhile, here is the complete tower priority list:

And here is a simplier way of determening a tower's preferred target:
An enemy unit attacking an allied unit - order of priority determined by the type of the target under attack
#1 Enemy attacking allied hero
#2 Enemy attacking tower
#3 Enemy attacking allied units
If multiple units answer to the same condition, priority is determined by
#1 HP of the attacker (the lower it is, the higher the tower's priority)
#2 Range between the tower and the attacker (the lower it is, the higher the tower's priority)

~ 5 random tips about... Healing ~
1. Drop the items which increase your HP/mana -> heal/regen -> pick them up again. This will increase the actual amount you regenned (e.g. you have 400/750 HP and a Vitality Booster. Drop it and your HP becomes 400/500, drink a Salve to make it 500/500 and pick the item up for 750/750. )
2. Urn heal doesn't stack with Tango/Salve heal
3. Casting the positive Urn buff (healing) on a unit that has the negative one negates both effects (0 HP lost).
4. Due to the damage mechanic of Pudge's Rot, both the victim and Pudge can heal with Salve/Clarity/etc. while under the effect of level 1/2/3 Rot. Doesn't work with level 4 though.
5. Repeatedly selecting your hero while healing at the fountain doesn't make him/her heal faster.
~
While still on the topic of towers, here is the complete list of skills and spells which affect towers (it's interesting to note that the maim, provided by Bounty Hunter's Jinada works on towers):

Tower bounty gold facts:
* If an allied hero/creep destroys tower, every hero gets 200/240/280/320 for tower levels 1/2/3/4 respectively. If the tower is denied, this value is halved.
* The player who last hits the tower gets 452-470/502-530/552-570/602-620 for towers levels 1/2/3/4 respectively.

~ 5 random tips about... Silencer ~
1. Curse of the Silent does not affect illusions -> an easy way to find the real Phantom Lancer :)
2. If Silencer himself is silenced, Last Word will not work.
3. List of items which dispel Curse of the Silent upon use:

4. You can no longer dispel Curse of the Silent using any item after 2/4/6/8 seconds have passed since the spell had been casted on you.
5. Even if Silencer is himself silenced, he would still be able to steal Intelligence upon kill.

~

Quelling Blade

* Quelling Blade's bonus damage is based on the ability Demolish. Therefore, what is written below also applies to Lone Druid

's Spirit Bear and a Tiny, who has used War Club.
* Demolish works on images, provided they do not attack with an orb effect (see below).
* It works against all enemy/neutral creeps excluding flying neutrals, Roshan, Rexxar's Hawk, Meat Wagons/Glaive Throwers.
* All orb effects overwrite Demolish, excluding Feedback and only when Quelling Blade is acquired after the Feedback ability.
* All buffplacers work together with Quelling Blade.
* For multi-targetted attacks (e.g. Cleave, Moon Glaive, Split Shot), the bonus damage works on all damaged units only if it works on the main target.

Ghost Scepter
Equally unique and situational, Ghost Scepter has some interesting interactions and possible uses in DotA.

* Ghost Scepter negative magic resistance is diminished by all magic resistance bonuses, for example, Planeswalker's Cloak.
* Here is the list of spells, which are negated by Ghost Scepter (this also applies to units under Pugna's Decripify and Ethereal Blade's Banish):

* Basically, you should remember that Ghost Scepter is great against:
- Juggernaut

and

* As Pugna's second attack is Magic type, it is possible to attack Decripified units if you have Sange/Sange and Yasha/Desolator/Orb of Slow. However, you will not deal extra damage (your attack is resisted by magic resistance, which by default is 75%).

~ 5 random tips about... Force Staff ~
1. Double-clicking Force Staff will push you in the direction you are facing.
2. Using Force Staff while Batrider has caught an enemy with Flaming Lasso will not break it.
3. Using Force Staff on Wisp will push him in a random direction.
4. You can use Force Staff to easily escape while Enigma has you in Black Hole.
5. When you are channeling Sand Storm with Sand King and Force Staff is used onto you, the position of the hero changes, but the visual effect remains the same.
~

Pseudo Random Distribution
A very interesting and not so popular topic, pseudo random distribution proves 1) Blizzard's greatness and 2) there really isn't so much luck involved in DotA :)

What is Pseudo Random Distribution (PSR)?
A lot of passive abilities in DotA (see the list below for all of them) use percentage-based chance, determining whether their effect will occur or not. For example, Faceless Void's level 4 Time Lock gives him 25% chance on bashing the victim upon attack. However, whether or not Time Lock would proc is not determined randomly (the game does not draw a random number 1-100 and check if it is 25 or below). The Warcraft III engine is programmed in a way that lowers the "luck" factor as much as possible:

1. You obtain a %-based abilities of the following:

2. The probability or chance of the passive ability triggering is set to a small initial value. Let's call this number P.
3. With every consecutive attack (or being under attack in case of Hardened Skin based abilities) for which the passive ability does not trigger, P increases (this goes on until either 4. happens or P reaches 100% and forces 4. to happen).
4. When the ability triggers, P goes back to its initial value.

For example,
the probability of Time Lock occurring is first set as a small value (8.5%) and with each attack the modifier does not trigger, this value increases (with additional 8.5% per attack). Eventually, it becomes 100% or more and this attack inevitably employs the ability's effect. In the case of level 4 Time Lock, with 25% chance of Void bashing the target, you can do a maximum of 11 consecutive attacks in which the ability does not proc. The 12th attack would always result in Void bashing the victim. Here is the math explanation:

Putting theory into practice,
let's say you just learnt Level 4 Time Lock. You attack an enemy hero. Your first attack has 8.5% chance of bashing the target. Bash does not trigger. Your second attack now has 17% chance of Bash activating. You miss the enemy. This attack does not count. Third attack - still 17% chance of you bashing the enemy. Finally, Time Lock triggers successfully. Counter gets reset. Fourth attack - 8.5% chance of bashing the target.

The principle above is, of course, also true about any non-triggered ability with 25% chance of activation. Here is the complete table:

A%C - % stated chance of the ability triggering e.g. Time Lock lvl 1 - 10%, Anchor Smash - 20%
mA№ - maximum number of attacks before P (which is the actual % chance of the ability triggering) becomes 100% or more
Pincr - increase in P per consecutive attack on which the ability does not trigger

PSR
A%C	ma№	Pincr
5	263	+0.3%
10	67	+1.5%
15	31	+3.2%
20	17	+5.6%
25	11	+8.5%
30	8	+11.9%
35	6	+14.6%
40	5	+18.1%
45	4	+21.9%
50	3	+25.7%
55	3	+29.5%
60	3	+33.3%
...	...	...

You may notice after doing some calculations that some of the numbers are a bit off; this is an error in WCIII's engine, but it does not really impact the game as there are no abilities with 50% or more chance of triggering.

Also, you may wonder why all the numbers are dividable by 5, when, for example, Juggernaut's Level 4 Blade Dance has 36% chance of triggering. Well, the actual chance is not really 36% :) This will be covered in greater detail in the Criticals topic.

Credits

Changelog

Next planned topic: Damage/Armor types

~ snaYkeY

This post was edited by its author @ 1 year ago

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1 year ago

troyzzz

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1 year ago

Small stars represents one level - This user is on level 3

37927

Thanks for tips, altough i knew most of them, please include more!

I like trains.

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1 year ago

nuj30

thanks with this mate

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1 year ago

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Sory_n

"Demolish works on images, provided they do not attack with an orb effect (see below)."
does this mean that if i buy quelling blade against an hero my atacks against his illusions become more effective?

edit:i understood now. it means it increases illusions dmg

This post was edited by its author @ 1 year ago

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1 year ago

Small stars represents one level - This user is on level 4

SaViBo

Nice man! Good job.

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1 year ago

Lordshinjo

Just a quick correction about Land Mines and Diabolic Edict.
The 48% is right only for Towers level 1 and 2, who have 18 armor.

Level 3 towers will take 40% damage, and level 4 35.7%.
(or you can just say that it's reduced by armor)

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1 year ago

snaykey

#6

Thank you :)

added some Ghost Scepter info btw

This post was edited by its author @ 1 year ago

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1 year ago

CaimAstrea

Nice :D!

Any game can be won with the power of turtle!

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1 year ago

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Dinozavre

* Here is the list of spells, which are negated by Ghost Scepter (this also applies to units under Pugna's Decripify and Ethereal Blade's Banish):

Spoiler is fucked, it opens the one which skills interact with towers :D

Ah fixed now.
Nevermind, just found a link to playdota.com shows a complete list of how ghost scepter interacts with every spell.

I am better than you

This post was edited by its author @ 1 year ago

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1 year ago

#10