Magic Immunity

[Black Isle]

Magic Immunity

Content

1	Intro to Magic Immunity
2	Damage Table
3	Ability Interactions
3.1	Universal Abilities
3.1.1	Ultimate Abilities
3.1.2	Auras
3.1.3	Heals
3.2	Physical Abilities
3.3	Triggered Effects
3.3.1	Dummy Unit Abilities
3.3.1	Triggered Damage
3.3.2	Other Functions
4	Attack Modifiers
4.1	ArrowAbilities
4.2_______	Orb Effects & Buff Placers

Magic Immunity is a state that can be achieved through various ways like:

• Black King Bar
• Bladefury
• Nether Strike
• Rage
• Repel

And there are also units with permament Magic Immunity:

• Black Dragon
• Death Ward
• Earth Panda
• Elder Jungle Stalker
• Flying Couriers
• Granite Golem
• Living Dead
• Mud Golem
• Serpent Ward
• Thunder Lizards
• Tombstone
• Psionic Trap
• Remote Mine
• Rock Golem

All the abilities adds a Magic Immunity based abilities to the unit when used and removes them after the timer expires, except Repel, which is purely based on Anti-magic Shell and uses a magical buff.

When a unit becomes Magic Immune, purgeable buffs will be removed from it. Note that this dispel effect only applies once.

Magic Immunity does not grant %100 Magic Resistance, actually it doesn't affect Magic Resistance at all. However, Magic Immunity nullifies some Damage Types.


Damage Table

You should keep in mind that this applies to any damage, sourced by anything.

Attack Type	Damage Type	Affects Magic Immune	Example
Normal	Normal	Yes	Counter Helix, Adaptive Strike
Normal	Magical	No	Laser, Brain Sap
Spells	Physical	Yes	Land Mines, Diabolic Edict
Spells	Magical	No	Laguna Blade, Hellfire Blast
Spells	Universal	Yes	Doom, March of Machines
Magic	Normal	No	Pugna's Second Attack
Normal	Enhanced	Yes	Cleave
Spells	Enhanced	Yes	Poison Sting

First 4 combinations on the table are mostly referred as Physical (Normal), Pure (Precise), Mixed and Magical respectively. Others are not commonly used thus they don't have any short name. You can find the damage type of a specific ability here.


Ability Interactions

Magic Immune units can't be targeted or won't be affected by most of the abilities. I will explain the exceptions on three sections.

Universal Abilities

Ultimate Abilities

Abilities that have their "Stats - Required Level" value set to higher than 1, will be recognized as an ultimate ability by game engine. Required Level value only available on Hero Abilities' settings, however if you convert an ultimate ability to a unit ability, it will conserve it's ultimate property.

Even if you can target your ultimate, damage of the ability may be nullified by Magic Immunity. However other effects like slow, stun will still affect the unit.

Centaur's Hoof Stomp is based on War Stomp just like Reverse Polarity. Even though both doesn't do any damage to Magic Immune units because of the Damage Type, Reverse Polarity is able to stun them where Hoof Stomp isn't.


Auras

Auras, including True Sight, normally work on Magic Immune units. An exception would be Radiance's Burn Damage as it's usually referred as an Aura.

Heals

Heals are also targetable on Magic Immune units, but frankly all direct heals in DotA are triggered so they can't be used on Magic Immune units, except Forest Troll High Priest's Heal and the one Doombringer acquires after using Devour on Forest Troll High Priests. Pre applied heal effects continue normally even if you become Magic Immune like, Inner Vitality, Shadow Word. Consumables can be considered in this category, you can use them freely on your allies or yourself, neglecting Magic Immunity.

One last mention about Soul Rip. As it's been set as a Universal Spell it can be targeted on Magic Immune units. Healing effect is done by HP adjustment and works properly.

Physical Abilities

Physical abilities are a handful of abilities in Warcraft 3 that is not considered as magic. And there are some Channel based abilities that are set as Physical in DotA. These spells can be targeted on Magic Immune units freely. Active Physical Abilities in DotA;

• Ensnare
• Finger of Death ( Dagon )
• Hookshot
• Meat Hook
• Suicide Squad, Attack!

Triggered Effects

These Abilities can be tricky, but nothing that complicated. You need to refer to Damage Table and read parts about Ultimate and Physical abilties sections to understand this part of the article.

Single Target Triggered Abilities either need to be a Physical or an Ultimate ability to be casted on a Magic Immune unit, no different from a normal ability. But AoE triggered spells searches units in a certain area and apply effects on them. Hardcoded spells have built in Magic Immunity check and their effects are parallel with their damage type and other checks. But triggered AoE spells doesn't always have a Magic Immunity check, and their damage type may not be compatiple with their valid targets. An example would be that Statis Trap does not trigger when only Magic Immune units are around it, however Static Remnant will go into effect when a unit is near, whether Magic Immune or not. But many triggered spells check for Magic Immunity, here's the list of them. (New abilities may be missing):

• Battery Assault
• Blinding Light
• Burrowstrike
• Cold Snap
• Curse of the Silent
• Decay
• Defeaning Blast
• Earthbind
• Eclipse
• EMP
• Ghost Scepter
• Ice Vortex
• Impale ( Nerubian Assassin )
• Impale ( Lion )
• Mana Leak
• Pounce
• Ravage
• Shackleshot
• Soul Rip
• Torrent
• Vacuum
• X Marks the Spot

A triggered abilitiy consists of several effects done through functions. I have categorized some effects to explain possiblities against Magic Immunity. It's possible that an ability uses more than one of following effects. You need to keep in mind two things; first, this effects requires the skill to be cast to go into function this is especially important on single target spells, second, the triggered abilties that have a check for Magic Immunity.


Abilities cast by dummy units

Some abilities uses dummy units to cast spells to targets of the ability. These abilities can effect Magic Immune units depending on the type of the spell that dummy unit casts.

Some Examples:

Thundergod's Wrath spawns dummy units top of each hero on the playable map area, and they are ordered to cast a chain lightning spell. This chain lightning spells is not an ultimate spell thus can't be targeted to Magic Immune units. Zeus' ultimate does not affect Magic Immune units.

Overgrowth is applied by multiple casts of a an Entangling Roots based spell, which is an ultimate spell, so it affects Magic Immune units.

Units that enter Pit of Malice area are casted an Ensnare based spell on them. Even if they are Magic Immune, ensnare can be casted on them as it's a physical spell.


Triggered Damage

Some abilities deal damage through triggers, you should refer to Damage Table to learn information about a certain spell, provided that you know it's damage type. Some examples;

Soul Rip: As it's a universal ability it can be targeted to Magic Immune Units. Heal is done by HP adjustment, but damage is magical and will be nullified.

Wild Axes: Damage type is mixed so it will affect Magic Immune units.


Mana/HP Adjustment, Addition of Abilities, Issuing Orders, Changing Unit Location, Buff Removal, Pause etc.

This effects have no interaction with Magic Immunity and they will work properly once they are applied. Abilities that uses this type of functions likely to have a Magic Immunity check to prevent unwanted effects. Some examples would be; Heartstopper's Aura, Windrunner ( Adds an Evasion Ability ), Berserker's Call, Nether Swap, Kraken Shell, Chronosphere respectively. Note that Repel uses a purgeable buff and it can be removed by Buff Removal.


Attack Modifiers


Arrow Abilities

Only Impetus can be cast on Magic Immune units, thanks to it's ultimate property, however as the bonus damage is pure, it's nullified by Magic Immunity. So the caster will waste his mana in most cases.


Orb Effects & Buff Placers

Most of the Orb Effects and Buff Placers work on Magic Immune units. I'll just write down the ones that doesn't work properly on Magic Immune units.

Bash ( Melee )	Can stun but damage is magical and will be nullified.
Bash ( Ranged )	Can't stun but able to damage.
Mjollnir & Maelstorm	Works but Chain Lightning damage won't affect them.
Incapacitating Bite	Doesn't work.
Feedback & Manabreak____	Doesn't work.

[Black Isle]

Log

March 13
Core information.

March 14
Additions...

March 18
Guess it's finished.
Title fixed. ( "Work in Progress" to "Magic Immunity" )

March 19
List triggered abilities that check Magic Immunity is added \o/
Centered the table so it would look better but it didn't ):

March 20
Added a part about Attack Modifiers.
Edited some parts.
Added a list of units that have Magic Immunity.

March 29
Realized that I didn't mentioned auras, so I've created another section, Universal Abilties, and added Heals for completeness. Awesome.

April 01
Note: Table. k.

May 16
Some additions here and there.

[sjorsmallon]

Maybe you could add techies' mines? I always thought they were mixed damage too. It's a good rough draft and I think a guide will help to get rid of mistakes and things that are still unclear.

[SNOW37]

JUst to let you know ensare works on magic immune units because it has that defined in the gameplay constants. I do not believe it being a physical spell is the reason it can target magic immune.

Also good job so far, I was considering writing a guide for this once myself, but gave up after a few hours due to laziness.

I think you need some more info about ult. I think you should add that even if an ult tarrgets a unit it won;t deal any magical damage as some people are unclear on this fact.

Just my 2 cents.

[Black Isle]

It's the other way around, Ensnare can be set to check magic immunity from Constants but it's normally a physical abilty like harvest gold and lumber, load, devour, web etc.

You know it's just a draft atm.

[SNOW37]

I know its a draft I just saying some things that IMO should go into your final version, you know just incase you forgot.

Theres no point in making a draft public unless you want feedback on it which is what I try to provide.

[Robzor]

FYI, Black King Bar also uses an Anti-magic Shell ability.

What you should mention about ultimate abilities is that they retain the ability to target magic immune units.

[SNOW37]

Originally Posted by ACtn

What you should mention about ultimate abilities is that they retain the ability to EFFECT magic immune units.

Some ults do target units, as they are just AoE. The only one I can think though at the moment is Reverse Polarity as the stun is based on a lvl 6 warstomp.

[Robzor]

I don't really get what you want to say here. A unit being denoted as a target is a necessity for being affected in my world, this regardless of the targeting method.

However, my previous statement was mainly done to make Phthalo elaborate on ultimates seeing as the current information describes what defines and ultimate ability setting wise but not what impacts this will bring about.

[SNOW37]

hmmm, geuss its just how I think about AoE spells as compared to single target spells. However the point is moot as we both want PB-15 to add more detail to the guide, so lets keep sitting on the side and nagging him, it seemed to wokr in the past.

[ALEXALEX303]

I was omniknight saw a techies stacking mines at the shop and i sayd to myself(let's save an team-mates life by detonating them with repel on) did it and died.
-.- How is a mine physical damage ?

[DLG|Master]

It is mixed damage and cannot be blocked by anything. But is reducible by MR and armor.

A magical immunity does not imply 100% magic resistance.

Immunity =/= Resistance, applies to Ghost Scepter and BKB.

[ALEXALEX303]

Originally Posted by Thread

Spells Physical Yes Land Mines

Orly ?

[DLG|Master]

Yarly !

Actually, maybe, no. It might mean that the Spell-type is Physical but Damage-type is Mixed.

[Shizzy-]

Laser is pure damage, not magical.

[SoletLuna]

Originally Posted by Fire Lotus

Laser is pure damage, not magical.

Yes, that's what the table says.
Read further or understand attack type/damage type.

[kzm100138]

Hi, Phthalocyanine
I learned from a friend that Eul's cyclone provide magic immunity and invulnerability at the same time.
He showed me a picture on which a unit being cast on a no invulnerability version cyclone, and then when it be attempted to cast a spell on, shown that "this unit is magic immune".

I want to confirm this. And is tornado of invoker the same as cyclone hard coded and perform the same way?

And another question, some skills of forced movement like return of coco, flamebreak of bat, blinding light, Vacuum,Deafening Blast can't move magic immune unit, but they do move unit in cyclone, why??

Thx in advance

[SNOW37]

cyclone does not give magic immunity but it does remove some buffs which might have caused the confusion.
All forms of cyclone in dota use the hardcoded version even tornado.

At your third question: Those spells are coded to ignore magic immune units, however there is condition checking for cyclone so they are still moved.

[kzm100138]

y, cyclone is a bit special
Thx Snow, XD

[SNOW37]

As cyclone doesnt grant spell immunty, just invulnerability Icefrog probably forgot to add a condition checking for it, for some triggered movement spells.