Multi-targeted Physical Attacks Part II

Splash

What is Splash?
Splash is the equivalent for Cleave on ranged heroes, it works differently but follow the same kind of AoE principle as it uses a circle within the damage is dealt, the biggest difference about the AoE is that its determined from where the target is hit by the missile rather than by where the attacker is standing. Currently there is one hero, one summon and one neutral creep with this attack type.

Black Dragon
Dragon Knight - Elder Dragon Form Level 2 and 3
Rhasta’s Mass Serpent Wards


Unlike Cleave this skill cannot exist on an item as it requires the unit to have a specific weapon type, the weapon type which is used in DotA is Missile (Splash), this also means that we will never see a melee hero with hardcoded Splash since it requires the heroes attack type to be of the ranged group. In case it wasn't clear enough, setting the weapon type of a unit to Missile (Splash) will make it ranged, we could however give it the range of 100 (the common value for melee heroes) to have a melee like unit with splash, yet it would still count as a ranged unit and have every property that a regular ranged unit would have.

Illusions can Splash and benefit from it in the same way as a regular unit.

You will deal splash damage when attacking an allied unit.

Area of Effect:
The area of effect for Splash consists of a circle with it's center located at the center of the attacked unit where the missile hits it.

All splash damage in DotA have three levels of damage depending on the distance from the center of the AoE, with a decreasing amount of damage splashed the further from the center the affected target is located, in other words, within the big splash circle exists two smaller ones.

Here are the values for the amount of splash damage the units with the corresponding attack type in DotA deal, with s of course:

Black Dragon

100% damage in a 50 AoE.
50% damage in a 150 AoE.
25% damage in a 250 AoE.


Dragon Knight - Elder Dragon Form (level 2 and 3)

100% damage in a 75 AOE.
75% damage in a 150 AOE.
50% damage in a 250 AOE.


Rhasta's Mass Serpent Wards (Aghanim's does not affect these values)

Level 1 - 100% damage in a 50 AOE, 40% damage in a 75 AOE and 20% damage in a 150 AOE.
Level 2 - 100% damage in a 75 AOE, 40% damage in a 100 AOE and 20% damage in a 200 AOE.
Level 3 - 100% damage in an 85 AOE, 40% damage in a 110 AOE and 20% damage in a 220 AOE.

Damage Information:
The damage type is that of the hero and is mitigated just as a normal attack for every target within the AoE of the splash, this means that all units armor values, armor types and damage blocking skills are applied an will reduce this damage.

The amount of reduction is dependant on each unit within the splash area, this means that the amount of damage dealt to the main target is of no importance for the damage dealt to the side targets, here's an example:

Main target: 0% armor reduction, 0% reduction from armor type, no damage block.
Side target: 50% armor reduction, 50% reduction from armor type, no damage block.

You deal 100 damage to the main target with dealing 100% splash damage to the side target, this results in that you deal full damage to the main target due to the fact that there's no reduction, the side target will however only recieve 25 damage due to the armor reductions (100*0.5*0.5 = 25). Likewise a side target can in fact recieve more damage than the main target if the amount of reduction is higher on the main target compared to the amount of reduction on a side target.

Missing with Splash attacks

An attack with Splash damage never truly misses in the sense of a regular attack, instead the damage is reduced by a gamplay constant named the MissDamageConstant, this constant is set to 0.5 which means that the amount of damage splashed will be reduced by 50% of the original damage.

The formula for calculating the splash value within an area if the attack misses is:

SplashValue*MissDamageConstant = MissSplashValue

This simply means that the damage within each separate Splash AoE will be reduced by 50%, where you earlier splashed 75% damage only 37.5% damage will be splashed.

This is the formula for calculating the final damage to a target when missing an attack with splash:

Damage*SplashAmount*DamageReduction*MissDamageConstant = Final Damage

Do note that this splash damage also applies to the main target.

Another thing which is different is that when an attack with splash damage misses its target the splash area will be calculated from where the missile was supposed to hit and will not be located at the usual place at the target.

Interaction with attack modifiers:
The following list focuses on Splash alone and does not take the interaction between attack modifiers and Frost Attack (the one gained from Elder Dragon Form level 3) into account, for more information about this take a look at the following guide by Malle; The Complete Orb Effect Priority Table.

The following attack modifiers work with Splash:

Critical Strike (Crystalys, Buriza-do Kyanon)

Bash (Cranium Basher, Monkey King Bar) (Only the extra damage is splashed, the stun is not splashed, I repeat, the stun will not be splashed)

Lifesteal (Mask of Death, Helm of the Dominator, Mask of Madness, Satanic) (Note that you can only Lifesteal from the main target and not from the side targets)

Maim (Sange, Sange and Yasha) (Will only affect the main target)

Chain Lightning (Maelstrom, Mjollnir) (Will only affect the main target, it will however still bounce)

Frost Attack (Eye of Skadi (Melee)) (Will only affect the main target)

Frost Attack (Eye of Skadi (Ranged)) (Will affect all targets within the Splash AoE)


Things which work strangely with Splash:

Feedback (Diffusal Blade, Manta Style) (Does simply not work at all)

Corruption (Stygian Desolator) (The Corruption buff is false and does not do anything, note that the false Corruption still can override the actual buff if it is coming from other units)


Even though this list does not take Frost Attack into account you should note that whenever an attack modifier triggers (Bash, Critical Strike, Maim, Chain Lighting) Dragon Knight's built in Frost attack will not trigger.

Valid and Invalid Targets:
Here is a short summary of which unit properties that allows a unit to be affected or not be affected by Splash.

Valid Targets

All ground units
Invisible units
Air units (Revenants are valid targets)
Buildings
Magic immune units
Ancients


Invalid Targets

Decrepified units
Invulnerable units


Psi Blades

What is Psi Blades?
Psi Blades is one of Lanaya's skills, it increases her attack range but it also allows her to damage the units beside and behind the main target for the same amount of damage the main target took.

This skill does partly work on illusions, they do gain the attack range increase but as the game keeps track of the unit which learned the skill they cannot splash any damage, only Lanaya herself is able to splash any damage with Psi Blades and she must be the damage source.

Psi Blades works when attacking allied units and will work just as when attacking an enemy.

Area of Effect:
The AoE from Psi Blades consists of a rectangle starting from the attacked unit and going backwards for as far as the current level of Psi Blades allows, the angle of the box follows that of the angle between Lanaya and the attacked unit. Within this rectangle the damage will be distibuted.

Psi Blades

Constant width - 40 range.

Level 1 - 50 Bonus Range, 80 Spill Range.
Level 2 - 100 Bonus Range, 160 Spill Range.
Level 3 - 150 Bonus Range, 240 Spill Range.
Level 4 - 200 Bonus Range, 320 Spill Range.


Damage Information:
Psi Blades will deal the same amount of damage as dealt to the main targets to the ones within the Area of Effect, the main target is obviously not affected by this damage.

The damage type is Attack Type: Hero, Damage Type: Fire, also known as pure damage. It is not reduced by any armor value but is reduced by armor type (only by fortified armor), it is very similiar to how Cleave works in this aspect (but in no other aspect).

The damage dealt to the side targets is calculated after all the regular reductions on the main target, this means that the final damage dealt to the target is the amount of damage distributed. Even simpler, attacking a unit which takes 100 damage from your attacks will deal 100 damage to all the units within the Psi Blades AoE whilst attacking a unit which takes 200 damage from your attacks will deal 200 damage to all units within the Psi Blades AoE. This also means that if you are attacking an illusion the damage will be increased by the same amount of extra damage the illusion takes, if you are attacking one of Terrorblade's illusions all side targets will take 300% more damage.

There is a hidden cooldown of 0.4 seconds on Psi Blades which means that you cannot splash any damage more often than once every 0.4th second, this in turn leads to that if you have an attackspeed above 325% there is a chance that you will not splash on some of all your attacks.

After starting an attack you can splash any damage dealt within 2 seconds presuming that Lanaya is the source, this does for an example mean that you can splash a Dagon if you time it well. This splash amount is determined for the first source of damage that hits the target, later sources (without starting a new attack and the 0.4 seconds passing) will not result in more Psi Blade splash. Since Psi Blades can splash any damage dealt by Lanaya it interacts badly with Radiance since the damage from Radiance's aura got a chance to be splashed instead of your regular damage.

Interaction with attack modifiers:
There is nothing special about Psi Blades' interaction with attack modifiers since Psi Blades itself is not an attack modifier and is completely triggered, hence they stack fully with each other and no odd situations will occur due to stacking issues between Psi Blades and attack modifiers such as Bashes, Criticals or Orb Effects.

Worth to mention might however be that additional effects such as Corruption, Bash or Feedback only will be applied to the main target and never to the side targets.

Valid and Invalid Targets:
Here is a short summary of which unit properties that allows a unit to be affected or not be affected by Psi Blades.

Valid Targets:

All ground units
Invisible units
Decrepified units
Air units (Revenants are valid targets)


Invalid Targets:

Ancients
Magic immune units
Buildings
Invulnerable units


Remember that even though magic immune targets are not affected by Psi Blades the damage remains unreduced by spell resistance.

Moon Glaive

What is Moon Glaive?
Moon Glaive is one of Luna Moonfang’s skills; it enables bouncing attacks which are redirected to a new target after each hit with a set percentage of damage loss for every new target the attack bounces on.

This is enabled by giving Luna the weapon type Missile (Bounce) which allows her to learn an upgrade (leveling the skill) that enables and increases the amount of bounces, it's this weapon type which causes her attacks to malfunction, the bouncing attack upgrade would however not work without this weapon type.

Illusions will benefit from this skill in the same way as Luna Moonfang herself and their bounce damage is calculated in the same way.

Moon Glaives works on allied units, this means that you will deal full damage on the strike on the hit and the projectile will then proceed to bounce on enemies within range for the remaining amount of bounces.

Range:

Moon Glaive

Constant AoE - 500 AoE.

Level 1 - Luna hits 2 enemies with every attack.
Level 2 - Luna hits 3 enemies with every attack.
Level 3 - Luna hits 4 enemies with every attack.
Level 4 - Luna hits 5 enemies with every attack.


The constant AoE of 500 is checked from each available target, in the above this is shown by the red circle, once Luna's attack hits a target and she has learned Moon Glaive there's a check done of if there's any units within the AoE and if there are the attack will bounce to the closest available target, this check is performed at each new target meaning that a similiar circle can be located at each target which the glaive will bounce from. As long as a units center is within the range of the bounce Moon Glaive and the unit is not hidden within the Fog of War the Moon Glaive bounce will hit the target (presuming that it's a valid target).

Damage Information:
The bounces on each separate target are reduced like any normal attack by calculating with armor type, armor value and damage block. If the main target evades the attack from Luna there will not be any additional bounces, the bounces once the first target have been hit can however not be evaded with hardcoded Evasion.

The formula used to calculate the damage to any target which is hit by a bounce is the following (without applying reductions):

AttackDamage*0.65^(n-1)

AttackDamage is the amount of damage the attack deals.
n is the number of targets hit, important to know is that this value always begins at one when you first attack a target.

The amount of damage the bounces deal percentually will be the following:

100%
65%
42,25%
27,4625%
17,850625%

The damage for each new bounce is calculated before any reductions on the current target, this means that if the first attack will deal 100 damage to the first target the damage for the second target is calculated before any reductions and will be 65 damage regardless if all the damage dealt to the main target is blocked.

The Moon Glaives can bounce back and forth at the same targets although it usually was intended that they only would be able to hit a unit once, this is due to the fact that each new attack by Luna resets the counter for already bouncing glaives.

The more advanced mechanics behind this; Every unit have tracker which notes if the target already have been hit by the Glaives, this tracker can however only keep track of one glaive at a time. Whenever a new glaive is released or a current glaive on a bouncing path changes from the current to the next target (e.g. hits and is released to hit the next target) this tracker is updated, the things is that as it only can keep track of one glaive the issues arises when several are in the air.

As a unit which have had its tracker changed to "already hit by glaive 1" is hit by glaive 2 it will be updated to "already hit by glaive 2" as to prevent bounces to this target from glaive 2. This means that the old tracker information which tells that glaive 1 can't bounce on the target is invalid and glaive 1 can hence bounce at this target again, upon glaive 1 once more hitting the target it will obviously be changed again. This is what gives glaives the ability to bounce back and forth between the same targets which have already been struck by the glaives.

Interaction with attack modifiers:
The following orb effects will cause Luna's attacks to malfunction:

Maim (Sange, Sange and Yasha)

Corruption (Stygian Desolator)

Chain Lightning (Maelstrom, Mjollnir)


The following orb effects will not have their effect added but will not cause Luna's attacks to malfunction:

Frost Attack (Eye of Skadi)

Feedback (Diffusal Blade, Manta Style)


The following attack modifiers works differently:

Lifesteal (Mask of Death, Helm of the Dominator, Mask of Madness, Satanic) (You will only steal life from the first target and nothing from the additional Moon Glaive bounces)

Critical Strike (Crystalys, Buriza-do Kyanon) (on the attack you land a critical hit there will be no additional Moon Glaive bounces)

Bash (Cranium Basher, Monkey King Bar) (on the attack you land a bash there will be no additional Moon Glaive bounces)


Note that if Luna is wielding a Mask of Death and Sange the attacks will not malfunction, this because Lifesteal takes precedence over Maim. This means that Luna can have Lifesteal and other items with orb effects without having her attacks disabled, this is usually not of any interest since the additional orb effect never will trigger but it can be interesting with Satanic+Sange and Yasha as Luna will benefit from everything from Sange and Yasha except Maim (namely, the huge movespeed bonus without having her attacks disabled).

Keep in mind that your attacks will still be disabled against targets which Lifesteal is not enabled against, but a lower priority orb is. Lifesteal being disabled causes the other lower orb effects you have to take priority, which renders your physical attacks worthless (targets which causes makes this occur are allies and illusions).

Valid and Invalid Targets:
Here is a short summary of which unit properties that allows a unit to be affected or not be affected by Moon Glaive.

Valid Targets

All ground units
Magic immune units
Buildings
Air units (Revenants are valid targets)
Ancients


Invalid Targets

Invisible units (You can't hit them unless you have truesight)
Decrepified units
Invulnerable units


Simply put, all targets which usually can be attacked by Luna can be targeted by the Moon Glaive bounces.

Split Shot

What is Split Shot?
Split Shot is one of Medusa's skills, it enables her to attack 4 targets at once at the cost of a reduced attack damage to these targets, it is an activateable skill which means that you can activate and deactivate it as you deem fit in order to maximize your damage output depending on the situation. The name of the base skill is Barrage and it can in fact also be found on another unit, Death Ward level 3 when Witch Doctor is wielding Aghanim's Scepter.

This skill does not work on illusions, it is deactivated if you activate Manta Style and requires you to reactivate it by using the skill twice.

Split Shot works when attacking allied units, you will fire the main arrow at your allied unit while the additional arrows will hit enemies as they usually would.

Range:
The range of Split Shot is that of Medusa, each arrow released therefore have the same max range.

Split Shot

Constant AoE - 600. (same as Medusa's attack range)

Level 1 - 45% damage
Level 2 - 55% damage
Level 3 - 65% damage
Level 4 - 75% damage


The additional arrows released by Split Shot will always focus on the targets which are closest to Medusa. These targets changes dynamically, simply put, if new targets appear closer to Medusa these will be focused by the additional arrows while the old targets are ignored. You need to have vision of your target in order to be able to attack them with Split Shot, it cannot target units hidden within the Fog of War even though the enemies are within Medusa's attack range.

Damage Information:
The damage type follows that of the unit, therefore it counts as regular attack damage and is reduced by armor types, armor values and may be blocked by damage block.

The reduction from Split Shot is calculated from Medusa's total damage, that is the base damage and all the additional "green damage", this reduction takes place regardless of the amount of targets you are attacking, if you are attacking one sole target you will still only deal 45/55/65/75 % damage provided that you have Split Shot activated.

The additional arrows will never miss their targets even if the attack against the main target was missed, neither do they trigger abilities such as Counter Helix or Return. In addition, the additional arrows will never target buildings, they will however be released when Medusa is attacking a building.

Interaction with attack modifiers:
One of the arrows is always the main arrow, this goes regardless if you chose your target or auto-acquired it, it is on this arrow that attack modifiers will be applied.

The fact that you are releasing four arrows will not increase the chance that any attack modifier will trigger, if you are wielding Buriza and are attacking a unit with Split Shot turned on while striking two side targets the chance to land a critical hit with Buriza remains 20% and will only apply on the main attack.

The following attack modifiers will disable Split Shot on the attack they trigger:

Maim (Sange, Sange and Yasha)

Feedback (Diffusal Blade, Manta Style) (if the opponent have a mana pool Feedback will override Split Shot, if the enemy does not have any mana pool Split Shot will have full effect)

Chain Lightning (Maelstrom, Mjollnir)

Critical Strike (Crystalys, Buriza-do Kyanon)

Bash (Cranium Basher, Monkey King Bar)


Having Split Shot activated while one of these trigger/places it's effect will cause Medusa to deal only 45/55/65/75% damage to the main target without releasing the additional Split Shot arrows.

The following orb effects work with Split Shot:

Frost Attack (Eye of Skadi)

Lifesteal (Mask of Death, Helm of the Dominator, Mask of Madness, Satanic)


Note that these effects only are applied to the main target, you will therefore only slow/lifesteal from the target which is focused by the main arrow.

Corruption (Stygian Desolator) will completely disable the multi-arrow trait