Summons by the Numbers

With the jungle creeps fully analyzed, it’s time to take a close look at the various player summons. From Broodmother spiderlings through Warlock golems and to Shadow Shaman wards, the units here are varied and versatile.

For readability, I split the summons into several categories. First are the major pushing creeps:

As all units featured here have points of interest, I will analyze them in order.

The Broodmother spiderlings have very interesting damage type split. The Spiderites are perhaps the best unit to attack towers with – it is easy to get huge numbers of them up, and they deal almost as much damage to towers as their larger counterparts. At the same time, the Spiderlings can make more spiderites and deal 2.5x damage to heroes and lane creeps.

Mother Comes

Enigma Eidolons are incredibly powerful units all around, and just the normal 3-spawn does some of the heaviest damage around. If the Enigma player is able to bring them to split, the 6 Eidolons essentially outclass everything else in the chart for pure damage.

Then there are the Lycan wolves. With low BAT and their crit calculated in, their damage against tougher enemies outclasses everything else. More specifically, they deal the absolute most damage versus Roshan, and are some of the top pushers.

You ever feel bad for the big guy?

Prophet treants are nothing to write home in terms of damage – but I doubt that would surprise anyone. As always, they serve as a fantastic damage sponge and body blocking unit.

Necronomicon Units are the last in this list, and they bring forward great damage of their own. Paired up, the necro 3 is one of the best pushing options. On their own, the Necro warrior does heavy damage to all targets, burns heroes’ mana and does solid building damage; the Necro Archer does absolutely insane damage versus lane creeps, supports with the haste aura and features the active mana burn.

Next up, I prepared a separate list for other major summons that don’t quite fall under the pushing category:

As you can see, this list is full of special rules.

The Beastmaster boars are nothing special in terms of damage to anything but lane creeps, but they do feature one of the best slows in the game – a reliable, long-lasting, bkb-piercing movement AND attack slow. The greater boar is about 2.5x more effective at slowing than Venomancer is with his poison.

I'M HELPING!

Undying zombies are great, simply because of the great numbers they spawn in. If you are able to achieve the Deathlust effect, the zombies will truly turn the fight around – the damage goes up by 50% and the stacking slow can bring heroes down to a crawl.

Veno Wards deal surprisingly good damage, given how cheap and spammable they are. A single lvl4 ward deals about the same as a Greater Boar while applying a similar poison; but it’s easy to have up to 8 wards shooting at once.

Then, we have the Warlock golem. To explain the numbers there are separate calculations for physical damage (black) and magical damage (red) dealt per 10 seconds. The magical damage is applied at 100% to all creeps, and at 75% to heroes. The magical damage is not dealt to buildings so it’s not calculated there.

There is a common stereotype of the late game Warlock dying, and then collecting an Ultra Kill or a Rampage; it’s easy to see why. While the level 1 golem is powerful enough, a level 3 golem deals incredible damage. The golems’ damage is a bit deceptive, as it’s split into three parts – their physical attack is a relatively weak Chaos-damage attack, but each hit has a 60% of proccing the Flaming Fist which deals a large amount of magical damage in a small area (300 full splash, 350 half splash). Furthermore, the Golems burn everything around them by simply existing (250 radius). And seeing as both the passive and active magical damage effects stack, it’s no surprise that adding additional golems increases the power greatly. The 4 golems that the Warlock is able to potentially spawn simply deal more hero damage than anything else in the game; in essence, the 4 golems deal 690 damage per second to any hero unfortunate enough to be in their reach. This is roughly the equivalent of being zapped with a level 3 Lion’s ultimate every second (637 damage after magic resistance).

To Hell... with that

Next up, I will be examining individual, more complex summon cases. 

First up are the Visage summons:

I was surprised by the decent damage the Familiars are able to deal even without their stacks; the 10 damage they deal is deceptive, as they use one of the best damage types in the game and have a stellar BAT of 0.4. This of course changes dramatically if the familiars can have full stacks. The familiars attack 2.5 times a second, and 7 max stacks means they are able to deliver the bulk of their damage over the course of 3 seconds. This also shows why -armor items are so effective on Visage – the physical burst damage benefits from the increase greatly.

"STRIKE FORCE FAMILIAR 1 COMMENCING BOMBARDMENT"

Next up are Invoker Forged Spirits:

I included both single 4/5/6/7 and dual 4/5/6/7 options. As you can see, having the 4 levels in both Quas and Exort is very important to Forged Spirit damage as the increase is massive; just leveling Exort to 4 damage increases damage by 19%; Quas at 4 increases the damage by 138% or a difference or 119%. Overall the forged spirits are great against everything that’s not towers. Their tower damage is decent, but they are outclassed by all other pushing options at a similar level.

Next is Lone Druid’s Spirit Bear:

This case is a bit more complex, as technically speaking all of Syllabear’s skills increase bear’s damage. Notably though, Synergy has a more significant impact on raw damage than bear levels do. In fact, even Rabid (not included) has a greater early game benefit than bear ranks; When active, Rabid increases attack speed by 10% per level and thus bear’s damage by 10% per level . This however decreases in effectiveness as the bear purchases attack speed items. Bear ranks are important for the skills they grant – return at 2, roots at 3 and demolish/magic resist at 4. My experience with Lone Druid is limited, but it is worth knowing that Synergy is between 5x and 2.5x better than bear levels for raw damage output. Arguably, bear level 4 should only ever be picked up when you are able to push towers. Before that, every other skill outdoes it in damage potential.

Bears are hard

Next up are Shadow Shaman Mass Serpent Wards:

A different kind of summon, they are immobile but are able to dish out an incredible amount of damage very quickly. Shadow Shaman himself is able to disable units for 8.5 seconds, which really shows the strength of the ward trap; it’s easy to achieve the shown 10 damage potential. Aghanim’s Sceptre is an incredible upgrade for Shadow Shaman, increasing damage by whopping 93%/75%/75% by rank. Late into the game, if you need pushing power, Aghanim serpent wards (perhaps with a refresher) are your absolute best option.

The Serpent Wards also have a special rule for AOE. The range is limited, but they do have a varied splash. They deal full splash in 50/75/85 radius from impact (average melee range is 128); 40% splash damage is dealt in 75/100/110 radius and 20% splash is dealt in 150/200/220. It’s not much, but with their great damage, clumped up targets are in for a lot of pain.

I STRIKE YOU WITH THE POWER OF A THOUSAND SUNS!

Last up is Witch Doctor’s Death Ward. As it only deals damage to heroes, that is the only number shown:

As you can see, the Ward is able to dish out incredible damage over its duration of 8 seconds. The Aghanim upgrade provides extra 50%/33%/25% damage but also provides 4 target bounce. If you get the chance for a full channel, very few teams can survive 4800 damage over 8 seconds to each hero – or 600 damage per second. Notably, even if you can channel it for a few seconds, the ward remains powerful. You deal 240/360/480 damage per second without a scepter, and 360/480/600 damage per second with a scepter. In essence, you are bombarding the enemy with a Visage’s Soul Assumption every second.

Musical demonstration of 4800 team damage. Draxter also made it a mod here.
Not my video, but the creator is awesome.

And that is all! Thank you for reading this long list, please let me know if I got anything wrong or you would like more information.