Sunday, June 19, 2016

Unit Damage - New and Improved!



It's hard to believe it's been two years since my last post. And yet, so much has changed! Some things that I considered too core to the game have changed, and the numbers and the data in the previous posts are now out of date. Well, we can't have that can we. Let's get things up to date!

Over the next few pages, you will see - jungle creeps, Roshan, lane creeps, and various summons. All of them will have damage stats as it applies to various target types.


Just a normal ancient creep. I swear.


Some notable changes you will see:

  • Damage type reshuffle - Damage was simplified to Basic/Hero/Siege and units had many values changed
  • Aura reshuffles - Some auras were moved around, others added. Unit values were adjusted to compensate, more or less
  • New Abilities - all over the jungle and beyond, Ice Frog has bestowed many new toys to our lovely units!
  • Ancient Creeps - changes to various heroes, such as Lifestealer and Chen, made the Ancient creeps much more relevant. This resulted in multiple balance pass-overs.

As a result, I expanded the range of creeps covered by this overview, and improved the readability of the whole thing. Relevant information should be a lot easier to see now.

Before we dive any deeper, here are a few DOTA 2 unit basics:
  • There are four damage types - basic, hero, piercing, and siege
  • There are three armor types - basic, hero, and structure
  • Most small units do basic damage, which is okay against everything
  • Most ranged units do piercing damage, which is good against small units and nothing else
  • Most large units do hero damage, which is good for killing heroes and creeps
  • Structures take massively reduced damage from everything except catapults
  • Units have several attack statistics - minimum damage, maximum damage, base attack time, attack speed bonus, attack animation wind-up and wind-down. 
    • For our purposes, we ignore the animation as it doesn't affect DPS. 
    • The higher the BAT, the slower each attack can occur. 
    • Attack Speed bonuses benefit everyone equally, roughly acting as damage multipliers
    • Damage bonuses scale with lower BAT values, so the lower the BAT, the more benefit there is from +damage
  • Other than damage type, units also have armor which provides damage resistance on a curve.
  • There is no way to pierce armor with physical damage. However, armor can be reduced by a variety of effects.

Ultimately, most of my information comes from the wonderful DOTA 2 wiki. Here is some additional reading if you are interested:



Still with me? Good. How about some numbers?

What comes after two?


First, the light hitters. Here are the new small creeps:

Overall, the small camps now do the same or more damage. The Ghost remains an outlier, doing a ridiculous amount of damage to other creeps, as well as hitting heroes harder than many other units. Other than that, the units here are mostly useful for their abilities which we will cover later. Vhouls and Ghosts remain the chief killers of lane creeps, so keep an eye out for those when you're pulling.

Next up are the medium camps:

The Centaur Conqueror lost his amazing aura, which means medium camps are now weaker on average. However, the Centaur Courser gained his new, stacking, magic resistance aura, which makes the whole thing all sorts of annoying for junglers that rely on magic damage.

Icefrog why

Other than that, those coming here for reasons other than sweet, sweet jungle gold will most likely look for creeps based on their abilities. The Alpha Wolf remains the most versatile, and arguably valued, creep from the bunch, and in a pinch it can do a reasonable amount of damage to anything - including towers!


Next up are the Large camps:


Things got shuffled up noticeable here. The Centaur camp lost their aura, but gained magic resistance AND another centaur. The Hellbears got the missing attack speed aura, and consequentially got a nerf bat to their stats. The Hellbear is now pretty much worthless.

Potatoes contain many essential nutrients for young junglers


A change that surprised me was the Dark Troll Summoner damage type change - he went from a Pierce powerhouse to a ranged Hero damager. While this massively reduced his damage to other creeps, this makes the Troll a slightly more potent pusher, and a much more potent hero killer.

As before, the puny Skeleton Warriors pack a surprising punch, and can melt towers in literal seconds when in numbers. Two Troll Summoners can have a total of 8 skeletons at a given time, which is 136 damage per second to the poor, defenseless tower. Their numbers, and their expendable status, make them absolutely incredible.


Look at me. I'm the hero now.


Past the Large Camp, I would like to present to you the numbers for Ancient creeps:


It probably comes as no surprise, but the Ancient creeps are indeed quite powerful. Beyond their raw numbers, they have powerful and overlapping auras as well as unique abilities. In general terms, the smaller ancients are just fodder. The Dragon is a great pusher due to its AOE attacks, the Granite Golem is a great frontliner due to excellent health and damage, and the Thunderhide is a fragile aura/buff machine. 

All in all, they are all magic immune, hard to kill, and pack quite the punch. Except the Rumblehide. That thing sucks.


I think it's too stupid to care, though.


Next up is our dear Roshan. I wanted to showcase how much damage our friend does at different points in the game. As you might know, Roshan gains in all stats every 4 minutes. Here he is for the first 48 minutes... I don't think it matters much past that.


As time goes on, Roshan's percentage growth is smaller and smaller, which is one of the reasons why he becomes less and less of a threat. Still, he's always a force to be reckoned with. Unless you're ursa. I guess bears are superior to Roshan.

Much more fashionable than the Alpine outfit


With the many unit changes, the regular lane Catapult has become quite popular. I was never a fan, so I decided to have a look at what the various lane creeps do:


I was actually pleasantly surprised by the damage output of the creeps, given how plentiful they are. The Catapult, thanks to its unique Siege damage, is in fact one of the best units to hit towers with. I'm still not a fan... but the numbers speak for themselves.


The legend of Carty lives on


With all the common creeps out of the way, I decided to dive into the many, many summons in the game. Here is part 1:


Quite the list, no? There's a lot going on there, so let me try to cover it all:

Necro units remain incredible. They do a lot of damage, they burn mana, they provide all sorts of utility... it's an incredible thing. The low BAT makes them benefit greatly from all sorts of auras, too.

Brewlings were recently changed, giving them all Hero damage. This actually made them a lot deadlier to heroes and towers, and I think many players still underestimate them. With more recent armor buffs, they are something to watch out for.

Warlock golems are OP on paper. Seriously. They were changed quite heavily, and now ALWAYS do their bonus, AOE, BKB-piercing damage on hit. As such, I included this in basic & hero damage tables and well.. see for yourself!

Maybe if we get MORE FIRE they'll pick us...

Visage Familiars weren't really affected by much. They are deadly under regular conditions, and are extremely potent with any +damage buffs -- such as the famous Drow Ranger aura combination. Because of their extremely low BAT, they attack very quickly, delivering that bonus damage faster than anything else.

Venomancer wards were affected by recent changes, effectively increasing their overall effectiveness. Not only do they do more damage, they are now even deadlier to most creeps - jungle or otherwise.

When I grow up, I want to be a jungler!


Part 2:


The summons here are commonly used  to push, and they are very good at it. A relative newcomer, the Greater Treants are absolutely incredible! If you manage to get one, treat it well and sic it at a nearby tower. You won't regret it.

A notable unit on the list, the Eidolons are absolutely fantastic at pushing due to their Basic damage type. Yet another thing that makes Enigma a fantastic pick.

Still gotta play it right, though.

And that's it! Thank you for reading, and I hope the graphs and blurbs add that much to your DOTA 2 experience! And well, next time you clear out a camp... give a thought to how complex and wonderful the creeps you kill are.

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