“ | ▶️ Armored to the teeth!
— Clockwerk
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” |
Armor is a stat that reduces (or increases, if negative) physical damage a unit takes from spells and attacks. Every unit is capable of gaining or losing armor, and most units start with a small amount of base armor, some even starting with negative armor. A hero's armor can be passively increased with agility, certain items, talents and some abilities. Armor of any unit can also be temporarily increased or reduced with some abilities.
Each point of agility increases a hero's armor by 0.167 or .
Base armor
Base armor is the part of the main armor that never changes throughout a game. It consists of one fixed value set for each unit individually. The base armor of a unit can be a negative number. Since only heroes have agility, the HUD of all non-hero units shows their base armor.
Heroes
Heroes | Armor |
---|---|
-3 | |
-2 | |
-1 | |
0 | |
1 | |
2 | |
2.5 | |
3 | |
4 | |
5 |
Creeps
Summons
Summons | Armor |
---|---|
Astral Spirit | 0 |
Familiar | 0/2/4 |
Spirit Bear | 0/2/4/6 |
Fire | 0/8/16 |
Storm | 2 |
Mars Soldier | 3 |
Void | 3/4/5 |
Earth | 3/5/7 |
Warlock Golem | 8/12/14 |
Main armor
Main armor is the armor value shown in white numbers near the shield icon in the HUD, consisting of base armor and the armor granted by a hero's agility. The only way to improve a hero's main armor is to increase its agility, which is gained by leveling up, acquiring certain items, or with the help of certain abilities.
The main armor is defined as
With M
being the index of Main Armor, b
being the index of Base Armor, A
being the index of agility and l
being the index of the hero's level.
Hero Armor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Bonus armor
Bonus armor is the armor value shown in green numbers with a plus on the left, right below the white armor number on a unit's statistics. Whenever an item or ability shows a +ArmorValue
, e.g. Blade Mail +6 Armor
, it increases the bonus armor of the affected unit.
Probably the most important difference between main and bonus armor is that illusions only benefit from main armor, although their HUD still shows the bonus armor just like on other heroes, to make them less obvious to the enemy. Some abilities like Marksmanship and Natural Order also only affect main armor.
Modifying armor
A lot of abilites and items have abilities that grant or reduce armor. These changes always affect bonus armor, and never added to the main armor.
Armor increasing abilities
The following abilities increase armor:
- Armor bonus: 1200
Aura, affects nearby allies. Multiple instances fully stack. The buff lingers for 3 seconds. - Armor Bonus: 25
Duration: 1.8/2.2/2.6/3
Affects the caster. - Armor bonus per hero: 1.5/3/4.5/6
Armor bonus per creep: 0.5
Duration: 10
Affects the caster. Bonuses are granted once the spirit rejoins with the caster. Bonuses are based on how many enemies the spirit touched while out. - Armor bonus: 8/10/12
Duration: 40
Affects the caster. - Armor bonus: 4/5/6/8
Duration: 45
Affects the target ally. - Armor bonus per minute: 1
Passive. - River Armor bonus: 10 ( )
Requires Aghanim's Scepter. Affects the caster. Passively provided while standing in the river or in a Slithereen Crush puddle. - Armor bonus: 100/200/300
Passive. - Armor bonus (tier 1 towers): 3/5/5/5
Armor bonus (tier 2/3/4 towers): 1/3/3/3
Aura, affects nearby allies. The buff lingers for 0.5 seconds. - Armor bonus: 4/5/6/7
Affects the caster. Lasts until toggled off. - Armor bonus: 1200
Aura, affects nearby allies. The buff lingers for 3 seconds.
- Armor bonus: 4
Affects the caster. Armor is granted after the delay. Lasts until toggled off. - Armor bonus: 5
Aura, affects nearby allies. The buff lingers for 0.5 seconds. - Armor bonus: 2
Aura, affects nearby allies. The buff lingers for 0.5 seconds. Can be toggled to only affect heroes. - Boosted armor bonus: 12
Aura, affects nearby allied heroes that are below 1.5 health. The buff lingers for 12 seconds. - Armor bonus: 6
Duration: 8
Affects the target ally.This is an old ability. - Armor bonus: 2
Aura, affects nearby allies. The buff lingers for 0.5 seconds. Can be toggled to only affect heroes. - Armor bonus: 70
Duration:
Affects the target ally.
Armor reducing abilities
The following heroes have a talent that causes their attacks to reduce armor of the attacked target. This is also known as Armor Corruption.
The reduction lasts 10 seconds. Multiple sources of Armor Corruption do not stack.
Bonus | Level 10 | Level 15 | Level 20 | Level 25 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Left | Right | Left | Right | Left | Right | Left | Right | |
Armor Corruption |
The following abilities reduce armor:
- Armor reduction: 3/4/5/6
Duration: 15
Aura, affects enemies within the target area. The debuff lingers for 0.5 seconds. - Armor reduction: 4/5/6/7
Duration: 6
Affects the target enemy. - Armor reduction: 25%/30%/35%/40%
Duration: 4/5/6/7
Affects nearby enemies, and all enemies around each Lycan Wolf that is alive. - Armor reduction: 40/80/120/160
Duration: 2.5/3/3.5/4
Has a chance to proc on attack, affecting the attacked enemy. - Armor reduction per strike: 1
Max duration: 30
Strikes the lowest health enemy within range. Does not reduce armor of hit buildings. The armor duration of each strike is based on the storm's remaining duration.
- Armor reduction: 5
Aura, affects nearby enemies. The debuff lingers for 0.5 seconds. - Armor reduction: 2
Duration: 8
Affects the attacked enemy. - Armor reduction: 6
Duration: 7
Affects the attacked enemy. - Armor reduction: 8
Duration: 6
Affects the caster. - Caster armor reduction: 6
Target armor reduction: 6
Duration: 8
Affects the caster and the target enemy.This is an old ability. - Armor reduction: 3
Duration: 4%
Affects the attacked enemy. - Armor reduction: 3
Duration: 4
Affects the attacked enemy. - Caster armor reduction: 7
Target armor reduction: 8
Duration:
Affects the caster and the target enemy. - Armor reduction: 10
Duration: 7
Affects the attacked enemy.
Armor negating abilities
Some abilities negate a unit's armor by reducing or increasing armor based on the unit's armor, effectively removing a percentage of the armor on the target. This Armor negation only affects the armor value of units, their armor type is unaffected and still reduces damage normally.
The following abilities negate armor:
- Main armor negation: 100%
Has a chance to completely ignore the target's main armor value on attack, dealing damage as if they had 0 main armor. - Main armor negation: 40%/60%/80%/100%
Aura, affects nearby enemies. The reduction is based on the enemies' main armor. The debuff lingers for 1 second.
Armor granting talents
The following heroes have a talent that grants them bonus armor.
Bonus | Level 10 | Level 15 | Level 20 | Level 25 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Left | Right | Left | Right | Left | Right | Left | Right | |
Armor |
Besides these, the following heroes have talents which increase the armor of the units they summon
Armor granting items
Damage multiplier
All units, including buildings, have an inherent base armor value and armor type. Any physical damage dealt to a unit is multiplied by the damage multiplier, resulting in either damage reduction or increase depending on the target's armor value.
For any real-valued armor, the damage multiplier is defined as
The damage multiplier limits are 2 and 0, for infinitely negative and positive armor, respectively.
- Examples
Armor (+) Multiplier Armor (-) Multiplier 1 94% -1 106% 2 89% -2 111% 3 85% -3 115% 4 81% -4 119% 5 77% -5 123% 6 74% -6 126% 7 70% -7 130% 8 68% -8 132% 9 65% -9 135% 10 63% -10 138% 11 60% -11 140% 12 58% -12 142% 13 56% -13 144% 14 54% -14 146% 15 53% -15 147% 16 51% -16 149% 17 50% -17 150% 18 48% -18 152% 19 47% -19 153% 20 45% -20 155% 21 44% -21 156% 22 43% -22 157% 23 42% -23 158% 24 41% -24 159% 25 40% -25 160% 26 39% -26 161% 27 38% -27 162% 28 37% -28 163% 29 36% -29 164% 30 36% -30 164% 31 35% -31 165% 32 34% -32 166% 33 34% -33 166% 34 33% -34 167% 35 32% -35 168% 36 32% -36 168% 37 31% -37 169% 38 30% -38 170% 39 30% -39 170% 40 29% -40 171% 41 29% -41 171% 42 28% -42 172% 43 28% -43 172% 44 27% -44 173% 45 27% -45 173%
Effective HP
The total amount of physical damage a unit can take due to the armor it has is known as effective HP (or EHP). 16.66 armor adds 100% to EHP. This means a unit with 1000 health and 16.66 armor can take 2000 physical damage. The formula adds 6% EHP per point of armor regardless of the previous armor value.
However, EHP value is of a diminished benefit as a player gaining 1 armor from 0 armor would increase EHP from 100% to 106%, while a player gaining 1 armor from 50 armor would increase EHP from 400% to 406%. On the other hand, the effectiveness of armor is much lower at negative values (refer to graph). Total EHP trends downwards towards 50%, meaning a unit with 1000 health and infinitely low armor would still be able to take 500 physical damage. At this point, losing or gaining 1 armor has essentially no effect.
Armor | -40 | -30 | -20 | -10 | 0 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Effective HP | 586.21 | 608.7 | 647.06 | 727.27 | 1000 | 1600 | 2200 | 2800 | 3400 |
This definition of EHP assumes all damage taken is physical. EHP against magical damage (such as Lina's or Lion's ultimate) is modified by magic resistance.
Effective HP against physical damage is defined as
- Example 1
- A Level 25 Sven has a total health of 2293.6 and 11.3 points of armor. What is his effective HP against physical damage?
- Sven's effective HP against physical damage in this example is 3848.66.
- Example 2
- The same Level 25 Sven from previous example (has a total health of 2293.6) is affected by a Level 3 Corrosive Haze, and his armor is now Expression error: Missing operand for -.. What is his effective HP against physical damage?
- Failed to parse (syntax error): {\displaystyle \text{DamageMultiplier Example} = 1 - \frac{0.06 \times (<strong class="error">Expression error: Missing operand for -.</strong>)}{1 + 0.06 \times \vert <strong class="error">Expression error: Unexpected < operator.</strong> \vert} = <strong class="error">Expression error: Unexpected < operator.</strong> }
- Failed to parse (syntax error): {\displaystyle \text{EHP} = {2293.6 \over <strong class="error">Expression error: Unexpected < operator.</strong>} = <strong class="error">Expression error: Unexpected < operator.</strong> }
- Sven's effective HP against physical damage in this example is Expression error: Unexpected < operator..
Armor types
There are several different types of armor, which determine how much damage a unit takes against certain attack damage types. Each of the 3 different armor types either reduces, increases or does not affect the damage from each of the damage types, on top of armor values manipulating them.
Attack damage dealt against armor type is defined as
This table shows how much damage each armor type reduces against each attack damage type and which unit uses which armor type (units which take a set amount of damage per attack are excluded).
Armor Type | Used by | Attack Damage Type | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hero | Basic | Pierce | Siege | ||||
Hero | Error 1054: Unknown column 'armor_type' in 'where clause'
Function: CargoSQLQuery::run Query: SELECT CONCAT("",title,"") AS `CONCAT("",title,"")` FROM `cargo__units` WHERE armor_type="Hero" AND game IS NULL GROUP BY `_pageID` ORDER BY CONCAT("",title,"") LIMIT 100 |
100% | 75% | 50% | 100% | ||
Basic | Error 1054: Unknown column 'armor_type' in 'where clause'
Function: CargoSQLQuery::run Query: SELECT CONCAT("",title,"") AS `CONCAT("",title,"")` FROM `cargo__units` WHERE armor_type IS NULL AND game IS NULL GROUP BY `_pageID` ORDER BY CONCAT("",title,"") LIMIT 100 |
100% | 100% | 150% | 100% | ||
Structure | Error 1054: Unknown column 'armor_type' in 'where clause'
Function: CargoSQLQuery::run Query: SELECT CONCAT("",title,"") AS `CONCAT("",title,"")` FROM `cargo__units` WHERE armor_type="Structure" AND game IS NULL GROUP BY `_pageID` ORDER BY CONCAT("",title,"") LIMIT 100 |
50% | 70% | 35% | 250% |
- Example 1
- Sven with 100 damage attacks a siege creep which has 0 armor and deals 50 damage to it. The attack type "hero" deals 50% less damage against the armor type "structure" which is the siege creeps' and all buildings' armor type. If the siege creep gained 5 armor, how much the 100 damage attack would deal?
- The siege creep damage multiplier is 0.76923.
- The armor type multiplier is 0.5 because the attack type "hero" deals 50% less damage against the armor type "structure".
- Therefore in this example, Sven's 100 damage attack to the siege creep with 5 armor would be 38.4615. The same attack would deal 76.923 damage to a unit with any other armor type, since attack type hero deals full damage to them.
Trivia
- In DotA the base magic resistance was bound to the assigned armor. In case of Hero Armor only 75% of the magic damage was applied. Some heroes possessed hidden passive skills to alter their base magic susceptibility albeit Hero Armor to 90% ( Visage) or 65% ( Meepo). Nowadays, in Dota 2 magic resistance works independently from armor.
- In 6.86 Armor types were renamed and some other types were removed.
- The following armor types were renamed: Unarmored ➜ Soft, Light ➜ Weak, Medium ➜ Basic, Heavy ➜ Strong and Fortified ➜ Structure.
- Weak and Basic armor types were removed. Units who previously uses the Weak and Basic armor type now use the Soft and Strong armor type respectively.
Negative armor disparity
Amplified damage from negative armor is calculated differently in WC3 DotA than in Dota 2.[1]
Negative armor in WC3 DotA has a cap of -20 armor (71% damage increase). Further reducing the armor does not change the damage increase.[2] Also, the more aggressive damage amplify formula is used resulting in a max damage increase of 71%.
The amplified damage is defined as
With a
being the index of armor.
Comparison table
Armor | WC3 DotA Damage amplification | Dota 2 Damage amplification | Relative difference |
---|---|---|---|
0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | N/A |
-5 | 26.6% | 23.1% | 3.5% |
-10 | 46.1% | 37.5% | 8.6% |
-20 | 71.0% | 54.5% | 16.5% |
-40 | 71.0% | 70.6% | 0.41% |
-60 | 71.0% | 78.3% | -7.3% |
Recent Changes
References
- ↑ Dota2 Development Forum bug report: [Confirmed] Negative armor has a different effect in DotA2 in comparison to Dota1
- ↑ PlayDotA Mechanics: Damage and Armor - DotA Mechanics