A Dream of Earthshaker

Most of us, those of us who have played the game for any appreciable amount of time, anyways, have what I like to call an " Earthshaker Story." One of those rare, beautiful instances where the stars align just right, where your reflexes allow you to blink in at that perfect moment. You press R, and carnage ensues, your announcer of choice screaming TRIPLE KILL, ULTRA KILL or, perhaps, if the moment is just beautiful enough... RAMPAGE.

And you want us to believe that you have such a story?

Oh, I could spend all day spinning yarns about the Phantom Lancer's I've wrecked with a well placed Echo Slam and an Aghanim's Scepter, but this blog isn't about bragging, you know?

I was under the impression this blog wasn't about anything.

Shush. No today, as I do most every day, I would like to take you on a journey through absurd mathematics, to try and see just how powerful we can get Raigor Stonehoof to be. This will require far more estimation than I typically like to employ in our math corner, but I feel the end result more than justifies the means here.

Perhaps, on some far-flung server, a team was incompetent enough to actually do what I'm about to describe, and what I'm about to calculate is not fantasy, but fact, an actual number logged somewhere in the battle records of this great game we all love. If it is, than to the five people this event happened to, my incredibly rude friend here has but three words:

UNINSTALL. DOTO. NEWBS.

That being said, let's get to work.

The first thing we need to do is look at Echo Slam. For once, the math behind this ability is relatively simply: it does 270 damage on the initial casting, and then every unit within the echo search range of 575 is counted, and for each count the damage of this ability increases by 70. There are three important things to note about this ability apart from its raw numbers: one, there is no upper cap to the damage this ability deals, two, an Aghanim's Scepter will cause each hero caught within the range to count twice, and three, illusions of heroes also count as heroes for the purposes of the Agahnim's ult.

What this means is that heroes that create illusions of themselves are automatically more susceptible, and will count more towards the final total than heroes who create large numbers of additional units. That being said, however, there are heroes out there that can create so many units that it negates the inherent 'advantage' illusion heroes have when adding to this total. With this in mind, let's assemble what I believe to be the most ideal team for this scenario.



The scary part is, you could actually lane this team to reasonable success. Broodmother solo offlane, Nature's Prophet jungle, and Phantom Lancer safe lane carry with a hard support Undying. It puts the Meepo mid, but Sing-Sing has shown that can work incredibly well.

Our fantasy team, if you can call it that, is absurdly farmed at this point, getting kills left and right, pushing towers down with their massive amounts of units, it's been a rough game for Earthshaker and his team. He finally has his Agh's, but... is it enough? The enemy groups up and pushes down mid lane, hoping to finally end before... I dunno, before Void gets out of control or something.

Broodmother uses Spawn Spiderlings on cooldown. Since each use spawns 4 spiderlings, the ability has a 10 second cooldown, and each spiderling lasts 60 seconds, the maximum amount of spiderlings she can have on the field at one point is 20. She has a Refresher Orb though, so let's make it 24.

Each spiderling, in turn, spawns a spiderite when it kills a unit. We'll go ahead and assume that each spiderling has killed one unit, (a generous assumption, seeing as this equates to killing 4 late game creepwaves and some jungle creeps within 60 seconds, but hey, whatever), so Broodmother is bringing 48 units with her down mid-lane.

Total Units: 1 hero + 48 non-hero

Nature's Prophet is also spawning treants on cooldown with Nature's Call. Typically, the duration/cooldown dichotomy would limit the total number of treants Prophet can have at once point to 10, but he has a Refresher Orb as well, so we can make it 15.

Total Units: 2 hero + 63 non-hero

Earthshaker's team, but not Earthshaker, engages the enemy, and Undying pops Tombstone. You know, he has a Refresher Orb too, so let's say he pops TWO tombstones. Now, it's important to note that while the zombies from Tombstone are magic immune and therefore will not take damage from Echo Slam, they are still counted during the echo search. The number of zombies spawned depends on how many units there are on Earthshaker's team and how long the battle rages, and is difficult to really estimate considering the thousands of permutations there are. I read somewhere, however, that the maximum amount of zombies Tombstone can spawn is 64. I'm not sure if this is still true, as I believe the forums I read this in were talking about good old Defense of the Ancients, but it's a fair enough estimate, and is already ludicrously higher than what happens in most game.

Total Units: 3 hero + 127 non-hero

Yeesh. I'm raging just THINKING about the lag in this game.

Oh don't worry, it gets better. Phantom Lancer and Meepo are both relatively easy heroes to tally into this configuration. The maximum amount of illusions Juxtapose can create is 8, and the maximum amount of Meepo clones you can have is 4.

4 doesn't seem like a lot, but keep in mind that Meepo's clones count as heroes. This is why, for the purposes of this calculation, he edges out heroes that would otherwise be able to create more than four units, like Beastmaster with a Refresher Orb. Also, while Naga Siren with a Refresher Orb seems like it would be the more ideal choice as well (3*2=6, after all), testing reveals that refreshing Mirror Image and casting it again destroys the initial images. Unfortunate, but true.

Technically, with the 6.81 patch, Chaos Knight now has the potential to spawn 4 hero units as well, but that's only a 50% chance, plus it wouldn't make the team's laning semi-realistic, so Meepo it is. :D He along with Phantom Lancer, then, add 14 hero units to our total.

Total Units: 17 hero + 127 non-hero

We can do better, though. This team is FARMED remember.

Manta Style is a great item on basically anyone, right? Good stats, plus that handy purge effect? It would only make sense for everyone on this team to have a Manta, you know? Let's do that.

Total Units: 27 hero + 127 non-hero

You know what else is a good item? Necronomicon. In fact, I've heard that if you get a Necro-book on everyone, it's virtually impossible for the other team to win![Citation Needed.] Let's give everyone a Necronomicon too.

Total Units: 27 hero + 137 non-hero

Helm of the Dominator's not bad either... imagine giving ALL the jungle creep auras to every single one of this massive horde of units! Let's give everyone a dominated creep, too.

Total Units: 27 hero + 142 non-hero

That's about it, but there is ONE more thing we can do. Let's say Phantom Lancer gets lucky and grabs an illusion rune, eh? Two more heroes.

Total Units: 29 hero + 142 non-hero

This is gonna hurt.

The battle rages as Earthshaker waits patiently for as many zombies to spawn as possible, for all of PL's images to group up, for every single unit to clump together. And then, at the perfect time, a time a lesser player would miss, he blinks in, yelling "CHAOS DUNK!!"

Total Damage: 29 hero(*140) + 142 non-hero(*70) + 270 = 14270.

Over 14 THOUSAND damage is dealt in a single button press. Everything, regardless of magic resistance, is wiped clean from the face of the earth, save the living dead that now have fresh corpses to prey upon. Earthshaker slams his totem on the ground, beginning to push up the lane to try and win the game.

"It was your own damn fault," he growls as he stomps over the bodies of the fallen.

No one argues.