- Diffusal’s Purge can be used to destroy Gyrocopter’s Homing Missile.

- Ghost Scepter, if activated after getting hit by Venomancer’s Poison Nova, removes it completely. If the Scepter was activated before getting hit by Poison Nova, the damage gets amplified.

- Enigma’s Black Hole can stop the enemy fountain.

- Ghost Form can avoid Techies’ land mines and suicide damage.

- Nortrom can steal enemy intelligence even when his opponent’s INT falls to zero. (thereby giving him -1, -2… INT)

- Rylai’s aura stops working when she is invisible.

- [Morphling] Right Clicking somewhere while in waveform distorts the waveform while elongating it.

- You can use items while in Omnislash. eg. dagon, orchid malevolance, healing salve, etc.

Bye Bye for now…

Thank you all for sticking with me all this time. Good Bye everyone! Have Fun & Take Care!

Rohan ‘Phoenix’ Gupta
I LOOVVVEEEE DOTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA………….

- Nortrom’s Last Word gets disabled if he himself is silenced. In other words, if Nortrom is silenced, he won’t be able to silence other’s with his Last Word.

- Manually casting orb spells have greater range than auto-casting them.

- You can buy items while teleporting without breaking the channel.

- Assault Cuirass’s +/- armor aura works on buildings!

- You can use lothar’s edge while channeling spells without breaking the channel.

- Your allies can teleport on Undying’s Tombstone.

- Glyph works on Undying’s Tombstone. Fixed in 6.64

- While Glyph is activated every hit deals 1 dmg. to buildings

- Axe gets extra 0.01 mana regen because counter helix is based off brilliance aura.

- This can also be attributed as just a coincidence but the two heroes introduced in 6.66 were based off the Icefrog concept… Ancient Apparition (Ice) + Slark (Frog) == Icefrog!

Stay connected for more! Subscribe to posts or Follow me on Twitter.

Special Thanks to Antiweltteilchen
Thanks to Luminous48 for corrections.

Note than I’ll change the title of this post to v1.1, v1.2 and so on whenever I update it.

- Both the Illusion rune and the Double Damage rune will NOT affect your hero when you’re magic immune (beware BKB and N’aix users!)

- Zeus’ Thundergod’s Wrath does not damage isolated invisible enemies but you’ll gain the vision of them for a few seconds. [Vision of the place where the enemy was when spell was used]

- If a unit bottles a rune, and still has that rune 1:59 minutes after bottling, and becomes Doomed, Astral-Imprisoned or somehow paused, they will not use the rune and will instead drop it at their current position.

- When using Mirana’s leap there is a 0.001 second windwalk in the beginning of the animation, therefore it can be used to dodge any oncomming projectile if the enemy does not have true sight on you.

- Eye of Skadi, Quelling Blade, Stout Shield, and Poor Man’s Shield do a check to see if the carrying hero is ranged or melee at the moment the item is picked up/bought, and the item will be in either ranged or melee form. If a melee hero changes to ranged, or viceversa, the item will remain with it’s melee stats.This is not true for Cranium Basher thou, since the check is done at the moment of proc.

- Fog of war updates every .4 seconds. So if you blink into the fog and use echo slam/Qop scream/heat seeking missle too early, it you can miss due to the fact you haven’t seen the enemy yet.

- You are able to use Wind Walk while teleporting using Boots of Travel, and will show up at your destination invisible.

- Storm Spirit can use spells during Ball Lightning. This includes Static Remnant or you could even use Ball Lightning during Ball Lightning!

- Treant Protector is the only hero that can force towers/buildings to regenerate using living armor. It also gives extra armor to the building for the duration.

Stay connected for more! Subscribe to posts or Follow me on Twitter.

The Warcraft 3 World Editor contains a set of spells which are referred to as Hardcoded Spells, these were produced by Blizzard and are used in the campaign as well as ladder games. These are your typical Storm Bolt/Carrion Swarm/Shockwave/Hex/etc spells.

The problem with these spells is that they are not highly customizable, each and every only contains a few ability specific data fields which allow you to alter things such as AoE, cast range, stun duration, damage and cooldown. Most of the ability, and the mechanics behind it, can not be altered through making these simple changes within the World Editor. This is where the triggers come in. The World Editor also comes with the ability to trigger spells, either through GUI or a programming language called JASS. This is an event based system which performs specified actions specified by the map maker, the action could be anything such as giving a unit experience, removing a unit from the game, creating a new unit, make unit X damage unit Y for Z damage or removing fog of war.

As I said these triggers, or functions, runs when a special event occurs, a great example being if a specific Storm Bolt ability is being cast then you also want to slow the target unit; The Storm Bolt is casted and you now want to apply a slow, which the hardcoded Storm Bolt ability can not do. In order to be able to slow the target you now want to create a dummy unit which has a Slow ability, then when the Storm Bolt is cast you create this dummy unit which is ordered to cast Slow on the target. This makes it seem, to the average user, as if the unit was stunned, damaged and slowed by the spell cast.

What’s important to remember is that not all triggers need dummy units to work as they are intended to, it completely depends on the nature of the spell you want to produce; Starfall makes use of no dummy units, it just adds all units within a 600 range of Priestess of the Moon to a group and decides that Mirana shall damage all of these units for 75/150/225/300 damage. No dummy units used, goal achieved.

So, the few things to keep in mind;

• Hardcoded abilities are always produced by Blizzard. This also means that the spell is less likely to malfunction, but if it does malfunction in any way the chance that you will be able to fix the error on your own is close to nil unless you find a triggered workaround.
• Triggers do not necessarily make use of dummy units, but sometimes it is required to complete the task at hand.
• Triggers are in some cases very limited, they can not achieve everything we would like them to due to limitations within the JASS coding.
• Even though I said that there are two ways to produce triggers (GUI/JASS) the superior one in all cases is JASS, although it is harder to learn unless you’re familiar with programming.

That should cover everything you need to know about the basics as to distinguish what defines a triggered ability from those hardcoded ones made by Blizzard.

Credits

Robzor

Hint: There are 4 differences except the brightness change. Click to enlarge images…

6.64 Loadscreen

6.65 Loadscreen

Differences

1. Enchantress looks more girly

2. Tiny’s arms are thicker

3. Chaos Knight’s horse has red eyes now

4. Change in Omniknight’s facial expression. He looks angry now.

Anyways, Kunkka didn’t add Traxex to the picture which he earlier said he would do. Also, there’s also a bug in the picture relating to actual game. Can you figure that out?

Hint: Relating Chaos Knight

Bug

Chaos knight and images have their weapons in different arms!

Do tell me if you find some other interesting thing.

Click to Enlarge

Couldn’t resist myself from posting this here.

Kunkka…

Hey guys,

just letting everyone know that the next version will have an updated loadscreen. edits are mainly cosmetic, nothing major. so look out for it in the next release..

Also, I finally got to painting single heroes of DOTA, (epic battles are way too tiring  ) which are much more fun to do.

Who better to kickstart it than Traxex the Drow Ranger.

She is one of the most iconic heroes in Dota. also partly due to Icefrog’s unhealthy obsession with her…

(haha, just kidding Ice)

YaY! Also, find out the Icefrog in this picture.

About the Anniversary

Yes, one year ago on the same day I launched dotastrats which now we know as dotasecrets (For those who don’t know, the blog can also be accessed by the address www.dotasecrets.co.nr or simply dotasecrets.co.nr). This is an important occasion for me. bla bla bla… I don’t want to bore you so lets just move onto the lolz part (Though I’m producing this post I’m still away from blogging… )

[Boring Stuff: You can find the old blog here. ]

Just for the lolz!

Here are a few things you could try out just for the lulz… some of these are bugs… a few of which are even useful while playing while some can be used to just ! They are taken from the Fact Competition held @ dota-allstars.com. Enjoy!

Hall of Fame

Winners of the competition…

1. Submitted by Charcoal80

Fun with Fountain

There’s an easy way to camp at enemy’s fountain without the fountain retaliating. Just use CM’s Frostbite that lasts for 10s with 10s cooldown against it.

2. Submitted by antiweltteilchen

Attack allied tower with Alchemist!

So what happens here?

Alchemist attacks a full hp allied tower which normally can’t be attacked.

The reasons why it works are the following:

1.) The AI issues a triggered stop command to units which attack units normally not attackable.
2.) Alchemist got a non-permanent transformation spell with transformation time >0 and the unstoppable option.

The point: the stop command won’t work on alchemist when he is morphing because of the aforementioned unstoppable option.

So the events in the timeline look like that:

1.) Alchemist begins attacking a target (hardcoded event)
2.) Alchemist transforms back
3.) Alchemist begins attacking a target (triggered event)
4.) Stop command is issued without effect
5.) Alchemist reaches damage point

3. Submitted by Onin-

Kill Instantly with Lanaya

Remember Dagon Lanaya? Why not take it a step further? If you Purge a summoned unit just after firing an attack at it, Psi Blades will deal the Purge’s 99999 damage in its AoE, instantly killing the summon and anything standing behind it.

Details about the ‘Dagon Lanaya’ can be found below in ‘Other Entries’ #11.

4. Submitted by Hassaan

The unusable/undroppable bottle:

Get a courier. Fill a rune using the courier. Send the courier to die in their tower/fountain/creeps. Type on main:

**** ! MY BOTTLE !!!

Let the enemy hero pick the bottle. And watch them cry because they just wasted an inventory slot.

5. Submitted by antiweltteilchen

Dodge with Transformation Time

Medusa’s split shot uses a bear form spell as base with a transformation time of 0.1 seconds just like Troll Warlord, because of that you are also able to dodge disables with switching it on/off.

You can find more information on dodging with transformation time in my earlier blog post here.

Other Entries

Filetered out a few…

1. by Onin-

The knockback effect of Batrider’s Flamebreak uses direct positioning. This means that if you get hit by the knockback just before you Blink, Teleport or use a similar ability, Flamebreak will put you right back where you were before.

2. by Foede

Dirge’s Soul Rip can target any building on the game, but with no effect on them, with the exception of his tombstone, which will be healed.

3. by starfighter9

The Sliding Elune’s Arrow

Although POTM’s Arrow usually flies in a straight line, if it hits the edge of the map and runs out of space to move directly ahead, it will slide along the edge of the map in the direction it was shot in. Useful when your enemy uses instant move skills or runs to the side shops/trees at the very edge and attempts to teleport, if you are unsure of exactly where he is then fire an arrow that will slide along the edge of the map. It is of course still subject to distance limitations.

4. by antiweltteilchen

What happens:

1) Tango is used.
2) The event spell_effect triggers, placing the slow aura buff and dealing 0 damage.
3) Because of the 0 damage borrowed time triggers which the triggered windwalk call destroying the order queue.
4) The spell effect actually didn’t finish because of that so the tree won’t be chopped and a charge won’t be taken.
5) You still benefit from the heal since it’s triggered.

5. by Adi_Nemesis

I believe it’s a hardcoded bug, but rejuvenation’s interaction with unit pauses is abnormal. You will get healed more then the specified about when getting healed by a spell based off rejuvenation, because the healing keeps stacking up while the timer for the spell’s heal is still paused. thus the longer your paused, the more you will get healed.

You can take advantage of this when your hero is paused with a spell based off rejuvenation still active on you, an example being trapped in faceless void’s chronosphere.

6. by Dox-

Although Mirana’s range and Starfall ’100% chance to hit’ AoE check are the same (600), performing ‘Attack’ command from far distance on not moving unit wouldn’t reach required AoE for Starfall.

That’s because of diffrent AoE checking between hardcoded and triggered abilities. For PotM’s attack all you need is contact with edge of collision size. Starfall requires center of collision size, which is a bit further.

Protip: after hitting with Arrow come a little bit closer than your attack range.

7. by intricatekill

Tiny can perform an avalanche+toss combo on a single hero, which refers to that you use toss during avalanche which will cause the unit to be hit twice by avalanche, so basically, if you see someone like enigma in river, blink avalanche+toss same time and he’ll die before he knows what happend.

8. by charcoal80

Sand King’s Caustic Finale has the same base skill as Ursa’s Fury Swipes. If both Ursa and Sand King are attacking the same target, SK’s attacks will also increase Fury Swipes’ bonus damage. When the unit is killed the explosion damage from Caustic Finale will be dealt to all targets within 400 AoE so long as the target still has the Fury Swipes buff at the moment of death.

9. by Foede

Triggered movement still happens with hidden units, even if you notice it or not.

A recalled unit (eza’s ghost form) while under the effects of astral imprisonment (OD), will be moved next to ezalor, and then re-appear from his hidden state where eza teleported him.

A Mangix affected with X marks the spot (Kunka), after using his ulti, will be moved, but it will be moved again to the earth panda’s location once his ulti ends.

10. by SpiritOfNoobs

Armlet can be activated and placed on spirit bear without it suffering any degen. It will not gain any strength, but it will gain all the other benefits.

11. by starfighter9

The Dagon Lanaya

A summary of how Psi Blades work would be that after you fire your attack projectile at a non-structure unit, a trigger is made to be called when the unit is damaged or after 2 seconds have passed. This trigger will check for the damage source, and if it is Lanaya, will then deal the damage to units in the AoE. A side consequence of this is that if you deal damage to the target after you fire off your attack projectile and before it hits, the trigger will run and ‘splash’ that damage. Since Lanaya has a not-too-fast projectile speed, it is entirely possible to fire off your attack, then unleash the full fury of your Dagon 5 onto all enemy units in the AoE for 800 pure, unreduced damage (Psi Blades ‘splash’ is pure).

12. by kevs926

Waveform Extension

When you cast waveform make sure you spam a right click move command to the direction your wave is going. This extends the waveform, most noticeably when you have a haste rune or just a high movespeed. The important thing is to spam right click since the waveform trigger moves morph every .04 secs(i think) so the right click move command is cancelled every .04 secs.

13. by spicysashimi

Two separate instances of the ladder based spell permanent invisibility will allow the unit to attack and cast spells without revealing itself. This can be easily reproduced in dota using a combination of Mirana’s ultimate with either Stealth Assassin’s ultimate or Broodmother’s web.

14. by protomanx1

When you are playing the vastly superior Maelstrom-Pugna remember not to be tempted by that Divine Rapier on the ground, if you drop your Maelstrom while the Chain Lightning is bouncing it will stop, preventing your Triple Kill. (Also applicable to Mjollnir)

15. by SoletLuna

Non-combat consumables aren’t dispelled by damage below 20, whether hardcoded or triggered. (Like Rot lvl 1-3 won’t do, but who do I tell? x.x)
Though, hardcoded 0-damage events like Hex or Ensnare will fuck you up.
Though second, DT: Normal and DT: Enhanced will always fuck it up.

16. by Onin-

It’s possible to kill melee units with Backtrack, as it’s based on the Spiked Carapace ability which always deals at least 1 damage to melee attackers.

17. by Swifter555

Radiance is one of the only auras that affects others while you are invisible as it is based on Building Damage Aura (Tornado); This in contrast to abilities such as Rot / Pulse Nova where if you go invisible you will not be able to deal damage to enemies but still drain your HP/MP.

18. by SoletLuna

Elune’s Arrow, if timed right, flying over neutrals on spawning time, can prevent neutrals from spawning.

19. by JeeZ

Heroes like Lycanthrope and Dragon Knight who transform can remain in their transformations even if they cast Mirror Image ( Manta Style ) by arranging commands ( Hold shift -> move position -> transform -> manta style )

PS : Doesn’t work with Avatar/Rage though.

20. by Foede

Free Skadi

Ingredients:

-Lich with at least 1 lvl of Frost armor
-Enemy Centaur with at least 1 lvl of Return

Directions:
-Any unit with frost armor casted on, when attacking the centaur, will slow him, as if the Centaur had attacked the unit with frost armor.

21. by Hassaan

Ok so you running from a 5 person gank and got some dps spells on you so you cannot dagger away. What you do is you move to the edge and shift queue force staff and then euls on YOURSELF. Which will make you invulnerable while sliding. So you managed to outrun them AND escaped the dps which was supposed to kill you.

A good use for both items targetable on yourself.

22. by antiweltteilchen

Exactly and only the first you use a shapeshifting skill, the base mana regeneration of the unit you just morphed into is switched off for the whole transformation time.

Primary affected in DotA is Alchemist because he has a relatively long metamorph time and a high base mana regeneration in chemical rage.

Assuming you don’t have any % mana regen increase items and use chemical rage the first time at level 1 you lose 0.35*3 mana because of that fact.

23. by jojothebandit

Glyph also fortifies Dirges tombstone. Can be very usefull in large skirmishes.

24. by spicysashimi

When SpiritBreaker loses sight of his charged target, by dispelling the faerie fire buff using aphotic shield, diffusal blade, kraken’s shell, bkb, etc., Spirit Breaker will be given an attack move command to the last seen location of the charged target. Attack move allows Spirit Breaker to get distracted and attack creeps, towers, and everything else in his way with the full benefits of charge; max move speed and magic immunity. If Spirit Breaker regains sight of the target while in this state, he will reacquire his original target, and continue the charge where he left off.

25. by Swifter555

When Huskar and Necro’s ulti are both boosted by sceptre, it is possible to instagib a hero.

26. by Starfighter9

Spectral Escape

When cornered near the side of the map, it is possible to throw your dagger and then position yourself such that your unit centre is outside the map edge as defined by triggers. Since triggered spells seek out your unit centre rather than collision edge, and also usually rely on dummy units summoned directly above your head, being outside the map edge can prevent your inclusion in target groups, and also prevent dummies from being summoned to damage/stun you.

27. by antiweltteilchen

some facts involving chemical rage and procentual mana increasing items/skills:

1.) if you don’t drop and pickup a % mana increase item like sobi or void stone during chemical rage, the procentual bonus will only affect the base mana regeneration+mana regeneration from intelligence and not the base mana regeneration of alchemist in chemical rage.

example: you have 2 void stones and use lvl 3 chemical rage. ignoring mana reg from intelligence you get 2*0.01+12 mana/sek. the void stones only affect your base mana regenerationfrom your old form.

2.) it also works the other way around. if you dropped and picked up the 2 voidstones in ulti and you chemical rage ends and you don’t have full mana you will have a mana regeneration of 0.01+2*12 mana/sec.

in the other case you the mana regeneration is reset to the proper amount, meaning 3*0.01 mana/sec.

note that the mana regeneration is also reset when you change your intelligence in the time using this abnormal effect.

28. by battou

double sonic wave

you can actually get hit twice by 1 sonic wave. say you have a blink skill such as magina, you can be right beside QOP, get hit by the sonic wave as it comes out and blink in front and get hit again. this works similarly with x marks the spot.

29. by p3datic

What’s happening and why

Scenario 1:

PL throws a Spirit Lance and an image of Pudge appears.

Why?

When PL is chosen, dummy units with a Wand of Illusion ability are created. When a Spirit Lance is thrown, the dummy unit is told to cast its spell on the last hero that was chosen by PL’s player. In normal game play, this doesn’t matter at all, but in Single Player or -test mode, with -noherolimit on, the last hero you chose from the taverns will have the Wand of Illusion spell cast on it. In this scenario, I selected Pudge after selecting PL.

Scenario 2:

PL throws a Spirit Lance and no illusions are formed.

Why?

The dummy units cannot cast their spells on untargettable units. In this case, I selected Obsidian Destroyer after PL in -noherolimit mode and told it to cast Astral Imprisonment on itself just before PL casts Spirit Lance. The dummy unit tries to cast Wand of Illusion, but since it cannot find the hero, no illusion can be formed. OD is one of many heroes who can accomplish this. Puck with Phase Shift, Panda with his ulti, even Cycloning a unit will render it impossible to target with Wand of Illusion.

30. by spicysashami

Contrary to popular belief, Truestrike from MKB stacks with other criticals on ranged heroes. You will not see the red critical numbers, but you still benefit from them. Though this only occurs when you acquire Truestrike after another source of Critical Strike..

I hope you liked it.

Special Thanks:
Robzor

DISCLAIMER: Rights to reproduce content have been taken before posting this from dota-allstars.com. If you want to publish the content kindly do the same. I do not hold any rights to give permission regarding content in this post.

It seems like the moment I always feared of has finally arrived. I need to stop blogging and playing DotA. I have an important exam to take care of… an exam that’ll decide my future life…

I’m feeling pathetic at the moment but this is for the good, right guys? It’s not that I’ll never blog again but yeah, it’ll be a nice long pause.

I know if I prepare for the exam with my heart, I’ll rock it.

Thanks for sticking with me this while (antiweltteilchen needs to be specially mentioned here ) and good luck with your life!

Bye everyone,
I Love You all and I LOVE DOTA!

Phoenix
ICQ Number: 560734447 … add me, I’m still available

———

I’m giving you a list of people who you might contact to clarify any DotA Mechanics related doubts… you can always trust them.
antiweltteilchen, Robzor (e00E), 3DM@rk (that’s not an email id lolz), SoletLuna, ImmolatusBurn, Clogon (he’s not that active nowadays), Foede, Protomanx1 and DonTomaso.

There are some other important names also which I need to mention… vins (Oh man! Good luck to the guy who will be getting interviewed by him!), CF[X] (Sorry but I’m kinda in love with your fights with vins ), caspian (He didn’t actually do anything for me but he is inspirational) and StacyzMom. Thanks you all!

Again some more names but this time for the ones who improved the DotA as a game… BuffMePlz for the epic AI Maps, Infriosis for the awesome DotA Themes and of course the almighty Icefrog! (Good Luck with the Valve thingy).

And I forgot to mention the MOST important people (okay sorry, but everyone needs to be credited)… my real life friends and my seniors… without which I could’ve never achieved the heights in DotA.

I’m sorry if I hurt somebody with my words during this time. I can’t remember any but… sorry!

Phoenix (again! )
ICQ Number: 560734447 … add me, I’m still available

———-

I’m deleting all the ‘update’ stuff to give more room to actual ‘DotA Secrets’.

Well, Icefrog’s leading a Valve team now, no wonder DotA will be an FPS game soon… LOLZ. Just Kiddin. But I wonder how will Icefrog benefit DotA working with Valve’s team. :S

More to the news 6.64 would just be on game balancing while 6.65 will include some new heroes with some remakes (I wonder who’s turn is it now??? Alchemist? Weaver? no idea….)

Taken from Icefrog’s Blog…

Great News for DotA Fans

I have some really awesome news I’d like to share with you guys. I am now leading a team at Valve! I finally have all the resources needed to do some very exciting stuff that you guys will love. I look forward to revealing more specific details when the time is right.

My goal and top priority in the future is to solve the surrounding issues that affect the DotA experience in order to allow it to reach new heights. Addressing these issues will enable us to further enjoy aspects of DotA such as the gameplay, mechanics, and in-game feel that currently work well and ought to be maintained. As I’ve said many times in the past and especially after today’s developments, I am very excited about DotA’s future!

With regards to the 6.64 patch, the focus will be primarily on more balance improvements. It is moving along very smoothly and I expect to have it ready soon. Once those refinements are done, I’ll be working on some fun new content such as heroes or remakes for the 6.65 version. If there are specific things, big or small, you want me to consider for patches that follow, let me know.

Bookmark & Share this with everyone!

: : : : : : : :

used by Quelling Blade & level 4 Spirit Bear. Read to find out how some heroes ‘extra’ benefit out of Quelling Blade. (Some people also call this bug )

I’ve removed some stuff from his guide which did not relate to DotA and added some stuff that hits mind pretty often.

Table on contents

1. Introduction
2. Skills using demolish
3. Properties
4. Interaction with orbs
5. Interaction with buffplacers
6. Demolish on Images
7. Demolish interaction with multi-target attacks

I. Introduction

With the upcoming quelling blade in 6.60 i decided to write this miniguide for you folks so you get a better understanding how it works and use strategical benefits of it.

II. Skills using demolish

quelling blade melee/ranged
spirit bear level 4

III. Properties

It only works on attacks so any triggered damage involved is not increased.

The bonus damage calcs is dependant on our base damage, damage from stats and raw damage boni. In this matter it totally behaves like a critical.

For quelling blade the moment you pick the item up is determining whether it will be a QB ranged or melee. that means switching from melee to ranged form or the other way around won’t change the quelling blade just like the old basher.

At the moment Terrorblade, Syllabear, Troll Warlord and Dragonknight can benefit from that.

You can’t carry more than 1 Quelling blade.

Kunkka is not allowed to wield a Quelling blade.

Allowed targets of quelling blade: enemies,ground,nonhero,organic that means it’ll work versus:
all enemy creeps except catapults
all non-flying neutrals
all enemy summons except hawk/greater hawk

Yes, this means that Quelling Blade will benefit you against Roshan also!

Allowed targets for demolish from spirit bear: enemy,structure …i’ll skip what that means. should be obvious.

IV. Interaction with orbs

When an Orb effect and a Demolish based ability would affect a unit which is an allowed target for both abilities the Orb effect overrides the Demolish skill fully, so no bonus damage. This is always true except for the Orb effect Feedback. This one stacks with demolish (feedback damage isn’t increased).

examples:
1.) a hero with quelling blade and sny attacks an enemy creep. -> sny works, quelling doesn’t
2.) a hero with quelling blade and diffusal attacks a neutral with mana pool. -> both abilities work
3.) spirit bear lvl 4 attacks an enemy building -> demolish works because the entangle orb of spiritbear doesn’t have buildings as allowed target.

This means DO NOT buy Quelling Blade on Ursa as his third skill (passive) will override the extra damage effect from QB.

V. Interaction with buffplacers

There is none. as long as it is a pure buffplacer and not an orb it will stack with quelling blade.
worth mentioning here is that criticals are increased multiplicatively by demolish, bashs aren’t

example: i hit an enemy creep with melee QB and a crystalis. Final damage=standard damage*1.32*1.75.

VI. Demolish on Images

It works on images as long as the Images don’t have any orb effect except feedback or lifesteal. the bonus damage by quelling is also reduced by the illusion’s damage dealt factor.

VII. Demolish interaction with multi-target attacks

For most multi-target attacks the maintarget of the attack determines if the demolish based skill affects non or all targets.
This is true for Psiblade, any kind of cleave, any kind of splash, bouncing attack, splitshot. Pulverize based skills (only relevant for Tidehunter here) are independant of the demolish based spell.

Bookmark & Share this with everyone!

: : : : : : : :

Yoyoyo! As I promised, my new blog just on EPIC Dota Replays is out. epicdotareplays.blogspot.com is a collection of my favourite replays. I know you will love those replays too.

The template is a simple one, maybe I’ll upgrade it some day. The point is… the replay should be good. You can also check out the blog footer for recommended games of the heroes listed.

You can check out the new blog here. Gogogo! Download that replay and enjoy the epic awesomeness. Do not forget to subscribe to epicdotareplays for updates to epic matches. Btw, I’ll also be posting some competitive news on the blog.

Take Our Poll

Credits:
StacyzMom (PlayDota.com) for the blog header
DarkMedina (PlayDota.com) for helping me out find good replays
antiweltteilchen (PlayDota.com) for his pure Awesomeness
Flodian (DotaStrategy.com) for ‘awesome’ word I use so often nowadays.

Q: How much longer do you realistically look at DotA as something that you want to put your time into and update? (from Murazor)

A: I honestly can’t see myself stopping anytime soon; It is the only game I really play so I get a lot of satisfaction out of working on it. I think there are a lot of areas to further improve and build upon. I hope for the game to reach new heights competitively and have a much bigger audience overall. I tend to go out of my way to make sure I don’t put myself in situations where I can no longer develop with the freedom and quality needed to take it to that level.

Q: How do you decide what to change? Are you trying to make the game faster or more gank oriented? (from sgamer.com)

A: I don’t think of things that way exactly. While that is usually true, it is not accurate to consider it as the root philosophy that drives everything. DotA’s primary strength is in its depth and the moment to moment decisions it places in front of the player to make. There are also many non-obvious pitfalls that could seem like good ideas, but actually hurt the game’s true depth. My primary goal is focused on improving the quality and depth of the game and not other superficial metrics of success. I want players to always feel there is a lot to improve upon and to encourage situations where a player is rewarded when he is able to make better decisions than his opponent, which is something I think even non-competitive players value. That is the core of what a competitive game should be after all, creating more opportunity for good decision making. There are, of course, many other factors that are considered for all changes, but this is usually the first priority.

Q: What do you think of Starcraft 2 Editor? (from tobby)

A: It looks great, I’m sure there will be lots of interesting games developed for it. By allowing more direct control over the camera and cursor, as well as the other features described, it will spawn new genres, like Warcraft 3 did before it.

Q: Have you decided if you are moving DotA to Starcraft 2 yet? (from Vodotz)

A: I’ve been actively exploring several options for some time now.  Starcraft 2 might not necessarily have what DotA needs to become a better game. Moving to any new engine presents various challenges that need to be considered:

- Will we be able to reproduce the subtle, but very important, unit spell, attack and  movement mechanics properly?
- Will the art style fit DotA? Will there be enough unique and identifiable character  models for heroes to use?
- Will it encourage team sponsors or help improve the DotA competitive scene?
- Will it provide features that improve DotA, such as: accessibility, networking  capabilities, visual readability, spectator features, interface design, etc.

These are the general issues I’ve been considering when thinking about what the right thing is for DotA’s future.

Q: Why did you remove the combat regeneration from Heart of Tarrasque? (from Florian)

A: It was a very specific choice to completely remove combat regeneration from it rather than just reduce it. While it was a nerf, that wasn’t the primary goal. The problem with trying to measure the value of regeneration on Heart is that it makes your success in a fight depend at least partially on how long the fight lasts. The core issue is more about what it promotes rather than it allowing you to survive. It encourages the wrong things and doesn’t reward players who make better moment to moment decisions as much as it could. It removes some depth from the game and makes it a little less interesting over all. If the item needs a certain amount of tanking power, it is much more direct to add more hit point bonus to the item instead of doing it via a method that obscures the ability to measure the balance of the item.

This is more about the design philosophy the item should have, rather than its actual numbers or power, since I consider those as solvable problems if you have the right design to start with. In general, I prefer to lean towards creating a situation of long term solvability to issues. Some things might be knowingly imperfect but done in a manner that increases measurability to allow it to settle in a better place in the long run.

Q: How can I help improve the game itself? Are you going to add my suggestion if I send it? (from JoseC)

A: The best way is to give feedback; I always appreciate getting suggestions from players. While it isn’t practical to expect a specific idea to be used (because of the large number of people with different perspectives), it doesn’t mean that they don’t get factored in. For me, it isn’t always about the specific suggestions as much as what the player is thinking about and how they measure value. Most changes are usually a compilation of many different sets of data and requests over time. I tend to avoid listening to only one type of player. By “type of player” I do not mean competitive or casual at all, I mean the segment of player groups that use different mediums to express their views. There is a very large portion of users that would go unaccounted for if that was the case. Data comes from a variety of different sources, such as: emails, forums posts, replays, joining games with players from different cultures, direct dialog, etc. There are a lot of different types of players and they tend to value things very differently, so it is important for the concept of success or failure not be tunnel visioned to only one medium of opinions.

Q: What will happen with the -switch command? (from n!ight)

A: To be honest, I’m not sure yet. It is a tricky issue. On one hand, I want to remove it because in many cases, it causes more problems than it solves, and it creates an uncomfortable situation for players. On the other hand, a lot players find it very useful, and people have just slowly started to get a better understanding of when to use it and not to. I might implement something that freezes the leaver items and gold until the team decides if they want utilize -switch or take the resources, but of course that is only one aspect of the command. While it is an optional game mode now, I do recognize that it will eventually need to be addressed somehow.

Q: Why you are making new heroes with hard and interesting skills when there are many old heroes with trivial stuns and auras? (from prodota.ru)

A: There is a balance that needs to be maintained between adding new content and improving old. Some players (like me) prefer refreshing old heroes, but others grow attached to older heroes and prefer them to not be changed. The important thing to keep in mind when thinking about a remake is trying to make sure that the qualities players enjoyed in that character are maintained for the rehash. That isn’t always possible, but it is something that needs to be considered. Furthermore, sometimes there is more value in simplicity, not everything basic always needs replacing. New skills might be interesting, but needless complexity should also be avoided whenever possible. I try to find a middle ground between remakes and new content so all players can be reasonably satisfied in the end.

Q: Which way to send ideas and bug reports is the most preferred and most likely to reach you? (from kiu)

A: I prefer email the most because I can sort and organize stuff better as well as being able to respond more easily.

Q: Have you considered the suggestion to make Invoker’s orbs not interrupt movement? (from STT40)

A: I know a lot of people have requested this in the past. This feature was actually implemented in 6.63 before I had to remove it due unresolved technical issues. Warcraft 3 does not provide a straighforward way to do this, so I used a few tricks to achieve it, but it made command registrations unreliable so that you would sometimes get incorrect orbs if you clicked too rapidly.

Q: Do you have a schedule for day/week/month, according to which you are working with DotA? (from gibigate)

A: Well it has been different over the years, between studying, programming and college research taking up different amounts of time. I usually try to make a new beta map every day to experiment with, so it’s usually just a chunk of time each day rather than spaced out. It changes from month to month, though.

Q: Do you have any plans to restore custom “-terrain” commands (snow, etc.) in the near future? (from Xochaedo)

A: I could spend more time on it in the future if users want it that much, but I recommend trying out some tools (http://www.playdota.com/forums/dota-tools-ai-maps/) that community members have written. They do more direct modding to Warcraft and can allow more changes than normally possible within a map to create a more coheesive theme.

Q: Will there be a new easter egg map soon? (from Zeyall)

A: What easter eggs?

Thanks to everyone that emailed me their questions. If you didn’t see yours listed here and would still like me to answer it next time, let me know.

Share this with everyone!

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Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

Changelog:

6.63b (v0.212)
==============
-First update to 6.63b
-Fixed an issue that was causing AI bots to learn their abilities out of order
-Fixed another issue that was still causing the game to crash when a player leaves the game early
-Added some additional AI ability functionality (Crystal Nova, Storm Bolt, Mana Burn)

Have Fun…

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Written for v6.63b

SKILL DESCRIPTION:

Purges the weak from Mogul Kahn’s sight. Deals moderate damage, but will kill a target that is low on life.

Level 1 – Deals 150 damage, kills if target is below 300 HP.
Level 2 – Deals 250 damage, kills if target is below 450 HP.
Level 3 – Deals 300 damage, kills if target is below 625 HP.
Mana Cost: 120/160/200
Cooldown: 75/65/55

NOTES:

• Damage type: magic (regular), 100000000 physical (killing blow*)
• The killing blow* is dealt at the target if its HP is below 300/450/625 respectively, depending on the level of Culling Blade.
• The killing blow* goes through magic immunity.
• The killing blow* removes all buffs from the target unit before killing it. ONLY KILLING BLOW!
• Cast Range is 150.
• The non fatal magical damage is always dealt with a .25 sec delay.

• The only two ways of surviving a culling blade are:

- Puck’s Phase Shift – Will work for both auto-cast as well as great manual timing.

- Ghost Form (Ghost Scepter) – It evades the Killing Blow (100000000 physical damage). However, the target still receives amplified (44% extra) magical damage (1.44 times 150/250/300) due to Ghost Form.

FAQs:

The sole purpose of writing this post was because the following questions wander the player’s mind very often:

Q. Shallow Grave vs Culling blade: If a unit’s hp is lower than 300/450/625 but under the shallow grave, will he die of culling blade?

A. Yes

E. Dazzles Shallow Grave is a triggered heal that simply heals you for the same amount of damage you would take before the damage is applied resulting in you staying at 2 hp and not dying. You cannot heal more than your maximum hp and therefore you will die if you take more damage than your max hp (100000000 is practically always greater than max hp ). Note that since shallow grave is triggered, the spell will still be in effect even though the visual on top of target’s head is gone.
Similar explanation goes for other triggered healing mechanisms. Examples are Abbadon’s Borrowed Time, Backtrack, etc.

Q. Fatal Bonds vs Culling Blade: If you land a killing blow against someone that’s fatal bonded, will everything else that’s fatal bonded die as well, taking 15% of 100000000?

A. No

E. Only damage between 10 and 6000 activates Fatal Bonds. If the damage is outside of this interval, Fatal Bonds won’t do anything.

Q. Blademail vs Culling Blade: Will axe get the return wtf! damage?

A. No

E. Blademail, like with Warlock’s fatal bonds, has a 3000 damage limit (2 – 3000 damage caps actually). If the unit is damaged by that much or bigger, the trigger will not do damage.

Q. Pugna’s Decrepify vs Culling Blade: Will Culling Blade kill a decripified unit?

A. Yes

E. Pugna’s Decrepify is a buff and Culling Blade’s killing blow removes buff before damaging.

Special Thanks: antiweltteilchen

Bookmark this Axe Lover’s!

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If not, here’s the list of fun names… [list originally made by antiweltteilchen]

Admiral: Kunkka, CoCo
Tauren Chieftain: Kaz Stonebul,Cairne Bloodhoof
Dragon Knight: Trogdor
Axe: Mogul Kahnt Touch This
Lifestealer: Gollum
Juggernaut: I’m the juggernaut bitch!
Faceless Void: Gorzerk
Lightning Revenant: Gillette
Ursa Warrior: Fuzzy Wuzzy
Bone Fletcher: Clinkz Eastwood
Nerubian Assassin: A’noob Arak
Enchantress: Bambi
Faerie Dragon: Kupu-Kupu
Holy Knight: Jackie Chen, Chechen
Keeper of the Light: Gandalf
Invoker: Kal-El

Note that these are just the ‘fun’ names’ that were included in 6.63. Some of them were already present in the previous version and some of the them will continue to appear in future versions. [Sadly, Icefrog has removed many of these already in 6.63b including “I’m the Juggernaut Bitch!”

Share this list with your friends!

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Download Link

Changelog:

* Fixed an exploit possible with Puck
* Armlet recipe now changed to include Quarterstaff instead of Blades of Attack (bonuses and total price unaffected) [Click here for more details]
* Fixed Wrath of Nature from targeting couriers
* Fixed a bug with Spirit Bear’s entangle and overgrowth
* Fixed Heart icon on the endgame scoreboard
* Undid a couple of the fun names recently added
* Fixed a rare abuse that could cause other users performance to drop

Get updates by feed or subscribe via email and follow DotA Secrets on Twitter to get updates on DotA first of all!

Now this is the replay of a thrilling match between Razer.CGC and CURRAX. Both the teams played very good but the heroes to focus on are ‘Dark Seer‘ and ‘Abbadon‘. Truly amazing gameplay. I’m sure you’ll love it!

Game Details

Game Version: 1.24b
Map Version: 6.62b
Razer.CGC vs CURRAX
Download Link [550 kb approx.]

Sentinel (Currax)

Earthshaker – Mirana – Viper – Rylai – Bristleback

Scourge (Razer.CGC)

Abbadon – Puck – Kunkka – Vengeful – Dark Seer

Watching league replays is one way to improve your skills, so don’t miss out this one! Also, you can attach these replays into your hero guides.

Do comment on the replay and also if I should continue posting these.

PLZ TELL IF I SHOULD CONTINUE TO POST PREMIUM REPLAYS ON THIS BLOG ITSELF. Else I’m planning to make a new blog for download section.

[Written for v6.63. This is now implemented in v6.63b]

OK, so it’s not really a bug, but rather a design problem. When you’re trying to build an armlet and you have boots in your inventory, you automatically get phase boots whether you want them or not (unless you remove the boots).

What I want:

+++ =

What I get:
++ =

A solution would be to make phase boots disassemblable at the circle/crow (they’re not ), or to make them require a recipe. Feel free to suggest/implement other solutions.

I know I can avoid this by dropping the boots, but it’s a pain to have to remember to do that! If I forget, I’m completely screwed because I forgot some mechanical detail, not because I played badly.

Now Icefrog has come up with a solution and is asking to comment on it.

I am considering the following recipe change for Armlet as a solution to the frequent concerns players have been having with regards to the conflicting recipes with Phase Boots.

Old:
====
Helm + Gloves + Blades (500) + Recipe (900)

New:
====
Helm + Gloves + Recipe (500) + Quarterstaff (900)

It seems like the more straightforward solution to the issue without requiring users to carry an extra recipe for phase or run home to disassemble.

What do you guys think?

So, what do you guys think???

Tell the world about this!

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Wallpaper Version 6.63

Here is the new DotA Loadscreen… Click on the picture to download the wallpaper.

My comments about the wallpaper: Enchantress looks manly, Tiny’s not very great but the horse looks stunning and juggy looks confused(even from behind! ) and is tattooed all over his body! The font is better now. Anyways, I will love your comments on the new work of Kunkka. Do tell what you feel about it.

Now, did you notice the ICEFROG on Juggy’s Flag??? Great artwork Kunkka. ROFL! (Brought into light to me by kikimomakuto @ dotastrategy.com)

Stay updated with latest DotA developments, get updates by feed or subscribe via email and follow DotA Secrets on Twitter.

Don’t forget to bookmark this picture!

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