I need Help to understand mechanics better

Hello ppl,

I'm trying to figure out what is what... as i'm very interested in the game.
I got the key on saturday and its the first time i play dota in general
(not played the first one).


Now the stats work a bit different to League of Legends, your
Damage is based on what type of Hero you pick, so if i Pick Strength i
get more damage if i buy items with strength, same for the other 2.
But for the Intelligence Hero's i have a hard time to understand how
the damage increase functions.


In LoL you have Ability Power, which increases your damage done with
"spells" your auto attacks are not touched by it.

In this game i thought if i increase intelligence then i get more damage
with my INT Hero's spells. so i launched a botgame, picked my fav DD
hero Zeus and skilled 1 point in his W Lightning Bolt. So it deals 100
Dmg at level 1. I didnt pick any items. I went middle vs Lina Bot.
she had 25%mres. i hitted her with W doing 74 dmg. Until now everything
seems legit....

I -gold 10000, bought 5 Intelligence +10 Staves and ported back mid,
so 50 Intellingence more should do 50 damage more on my spells?
i tryed W again it does still 74 DMG!!

Why???

And how come Zeus ultimate is restricted to 450 dmg? with Agh's
it should be 600 as it adds 1 level of damage, well in fact i tryed
around with -wtf spamming R over and over again, it still just does
450 every time regardless of enemy being tank or squishy.


I have hard times to understand the logical construction of gameplay mechanics here.

Because getting int items on a int hero only increases autoattack damage (& mana pool/regen), few items actually increase spell damage: Aghanim's Scepter on some heroes, Veil of Discord, Ethereal Blade and also some hero skills: Decrepify, Ice Vortex, soul catcher (amplifies all damage).



That's probably a bug that needs to be reported.

Spells dont scale with any kind of stats. If you buy intelligence items on an intelligence hero, it increases the damage of your auto attacks, but not spell damage.

As for the zues ult. Did you remember to factor in magic resistance again?

EDIT: ninja'd but he did a better job anyways

Ok that explains alot, also the Veil of Discord does not increase dmg of Zeus ultimate for sure.
Just launch a bot and test it, there is no item that increases dmg of his ultimate except Agh's and obviously refresher orb.


in my last game i totally carried my team with Zeus, with ridiculous stats, but after my 2 core Items, Orb and Agh's i didnt know what to actually purchase. so i tested all the magic items and nothing of that increases the damage output.

@con yes thats exactly the point, it does 450 Damage on ALL enemys same for tanks then for squishy's.


EDIT: Ok i watched my replay from my last pub game with Zeus, so it is not something that just happens in Bot games. it is ridiculous. I have the screnshots now and also the replay file if anyone is interested.

Well, even on intelligence heroes, you aren't only in the game for casting spells. Unlike LoL where you would just keep on stacking items that increase your damage, it's far better if you grab some support items to help your team, or even a black king bar to keep you from being burst down. In DotA, what you buy in the shop is totally dependent on the situation. Sometimes it would be a good idea to get a Hood of Defiance, sometimes build that into a pipe, sometimes grab a BKB, sometimes an orchid malevolence or a sheepstick. You shouldn't have the same build every game.

Also for a pointer, Aghanims on Zeus isn't really good. It's far better to be in the fight and have the ability to spam your abilities, and Aghas will only add a bit of damage on a long cool-down spell. I would only get it if you have a mana item (like sheepstick or bloodstone) and a BKB. Then perhaps refresher, as you can destroy fleeing enemies with two ulties easily.

Ok, you people need to understand that all the heroes in the world of dota2/dota have natural magic resistance, they all have 25% magic resistance, so any spell (must be magic damage) cast on a hero will only deal 75% of it's damage which in your case it's correct.

Zeus's ult with Aghanim's Scepter does 600 magic damage, but with 25% magic resistance that gives you:
600 - 600*25/100 = 450 final damage

That's the big difference between magic damage and pure damage, magic gets reduced, while pure damage does not get reduced by anything.

*edit*

Think of Anti-Mage, he has his spell shield which gets rid of 50% magic damage, not so bad you think, but add that to his natural magic resistance & you get a whooping 75% magic resistance, so your spells deal like 25% of the actual damage lol.

*edit*

Just tested Veil of Discord, damage gets increased just as stated (you know you have to cast it on a enemy first right? saying it just in case :-|)

Level 3 Thundergod's Wrath without Veil of Discord does 345 damage and while with the buff is active on the enemy hero, it deals 431.

The magic damage you do is first amplified by 25% and then all of it together reduced by 25% (natural hero magic resistance).

so it would be like:
460 + 460*25/100 = 575 (magic damage ult deals with buff on)
575 - 575*25/100 = 575 - 144 = 431 (final damage)

I disagree with you, i played over 800 ranked games in LoL i do have an actual rating of 1633 so i can consider myself under the top 3% (from what riot is telling us pff...) i also played in ESL and our team mtf was in the finals for EPS on Season1. Being main AP Mid Carry, i can reassure you the teamfights in LoL require a lot of attention 1 misstake as carry decides pretty much the game especially on critical carry's like Cassiopeia who need a lot of positioning.

It depends a lot on what Team Setup you have, if you are going for single target insta-burst, then you take champions who have alot of single target burst dps with no long ultimate cooldowns, so that you can spike targets in teamfights. if you go aoe burst, you pick a champion that goes in, does as much damage as possible to as much enemys as possible and thats it. If you do your job right the enemy team lost 1-2 carry's and lack further firepower to win the teamfight, assuring your team a tower or +gold from "roshan".


I see Zeus as an equivalent to Karthus in LoL; their ultis are nearly identical they have both a farm skill on Q, and both have very powerfull passives. Karthus is one of my 3 main champions i played in LoL, due to counterpick opportunities i rarely play him in competitive matches, but if the enemy has banned or not chosen to pick a counterpick to him, i always pick him and force the whole opposing team into buying defensive items to counter it.

While your statement of going into fights and helping would be valid with karthus, due to the Q being spamable (no cd) and because he has an aoe slow... i dont see your argument being valid for Zeus, as he has a very long range and way too much cooldown time on both Q and W to actually chose to go into the teamfight rather then watching WHEN the best opportunity comes for your double ultimate. If you placed it correclty, you can still go in and "finish" off surviving enemys, with a ridiculous long range on his W and bounces from Q.


The only thing i do not understand is why the damage is stuck at 450

EDIT:

@dresmasher THANK YOU. I got it now, i missinterpreted the 25% mress to the armor icon in the stat window. I was confused how a tank with more armor takes the exact same amount of damage then a drow ranger or spider... so now suddently it makes sense. as for vampiric aura, the tooltip on the item looks like it has 1 permanent effect, and the additional active effect, i didnt know it is the same.

you're underestimating Static Field

*edit*

Ok, I have no idea why Veil of Discord has a aura effect as a flag on dotafire, gonna get rid of that :-|, confusing people for no reason.

Well i dont deny it has a good opening if i understand the skill right, i could hit 5 players for 11% of the current amount of health for each hero, in lategame with an average of 1500-2000 hp it would sum up around around 700ish dmg if we include the tank into it and then - 175 from mres default. but how many times can you cast it until you get focused out? you have to take forcestaff and even SB to invis strike 2x b4 the ults go off then forcestaff out of range and double ult. for a maybe 1k total dmg more? too much gold i think, its safer to go straight up orb and agh's and kick in 4000-4500 Total damage in 1 second while sitting in the base and then Travelshoe in to teamfight and help finish off the remains.

Because spells dont scale, super spell dependant heroes like zues dont scale well to late game. You need to make a huge impact early game, as without scaling spells like in LoL you will fall off end game. Thats why supportish items like force staff and Scythe of Vyse are so important, to keep casters relevant through the end game.