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Permanent Invisibility icon
▶️ You can't fight what you can't see.
Bounty Hunter

Invisibility is a status effect that causes the unit to not be seen by the enemy, even when within their range of vision, allowing the unit to scout, spy on, and ambush enemies by sneaking through their lines. However, enemies can counter this by acquiring True Sight.

Mechanics[]

Invisible hero

Invisible units appear transparent to enemies with True Sight and to allies.

An invisible unit is unselectable for the enemy team, and also attack immune against them. They are also flagged as invisible, which causes many different interactions with several abilities.

Invisibility triggers a disjoint upon getting applied. This is a one-time event that happens once upon turning invisible, and not periodically over the entire duration. Applying another invisibility on top of an existing one triggers a disjoint. However, the disjoint doesn't trigger if the enemy has True Sight over the unit (unless it possesses True Sight Immunity). Losing True Sight doesn't cause a disjoint, even if it was preventing an invisibility.

The ways to lose the invisibility are dependent on the ability or item that granted it. Generally, with very few exceptions, it is lost upon reaching the attack point during an attack, or upon reaching the cast point during the use of an ability or an item. This means that abilities with extended effects, i.e. Eclipse icon Eclipse or Epicenter icon Epicenter, do not cancel the invisibility upon each beam or pulse. Channeling abilities do not cancel it either after the channeling started.

Multiple sources of invisibility can be independently applied, and the unit remains invisible as long as at least one of these sources is active.

Some invisibility sources also make the unit phased.

Appearance[]

Invisible units are not rendered for the enemy team, so that they cannot see them at all. Their minimap icon stops showing up for them as well.

To allies of the unit, and to enemies that have True Sight over the unit, the unit appears transparent, but still visible. They can be selected and attacked normally, and are not treated as invisible by abilities. On the minimap, their marker appears as a ring with a pointer, instead of a full circle with a pointer.

To enemies that have shared vision over the unit, its silhouette becomes visible, while the model itself is still invisible. The unit can be selected, but still cannot be targeted by abilities and attacks.

Invisible units do not cast shadows, neither to enemies nor to allies.

Fade Time[]

Most sources of invisibility have an initial short time period before taking effect, during which the unit is not considered invisible and is therefore still visible, targetable, and not phased. This period is known as the Fade Time, during which the unit can perform any action without breaking the invisibility. The unit's model gradually gains transparency, until reaching full invisibility at the end of the fade time. Sources of invisibility that use a fade time are only applied once. If the invisibility gets broken in any way, the invisibility does not get re-applied.

Fade Delay[]

Some sources of invisibility periodically turn the unit invisible over their entire duration. This means if the invisibility gets broken, they turn invisible again after a time period. This period is known as the Fade Delay. Usually, the fade delay is also applied upon initially gaining the invisibility, in the same way as the fade time. Unlike the fade time, the unit's model stays completely visible until invisibility is reached.

1 Requires Talent talent.
2a Requires Aghanim's Scepter icon Aghanim's Scepter.
2b Requires Aghanim's Shard icon Aghanim's Shard.

Unit Behavior[]

While invisible, a unit never automatically attacks any nearby enemy regardless of auto attack settings, not even when it is revealed by True Sight and being attacked. This also applies to most sources of fade time, which also cancel automatically started attacks. Fade delay however doesn't change the unit's behavior until the invisibility is reached, and even then, automatically started attacks won't get canceled (if however the invisibility is reached during the backswing, the unit will stop attacking).

None of this applies to manual orders, including ground-targeted attack orders (A+Keyboard White Mouse Left Left Click).

Sources of Invisibility[]

1 Requires Talent talent.
2a Requires Aghanim's Scepter icon Aghanim's Scepter.
2b Requires Aghanim's Shard icon Aghanim's Shard.
1 Requires Talent talent.
2a Requires Aghanim's Scepter icon Aghanim's Scepter.
2b Requires Aghanim's Shard icon Aghanim's Shard.

Permanent Invisibility[]

The following units are permanently invisible.

Invisibility
Not disabled by Break.
Unknown icon
Ability
Passive
Affects
Self
This unit is permanently invisible.
Fade Time: 0

  • This unit is invisible once summoned or created. The ability and modifier are not displayed in-game.


True Sight[]

Riki invisible revealed

An invisible Riki minimap icon Riki revealed by the True Sight of a Tower

True Sight is a negative status effect that renders the effects of invisibility null. A unit affected by True Sight is no longer considered invisible to them, until the True Sight status effect is removed. This means they can be selected and targeted normally, and are not treated as invisible units by abilities anymore.

True Sight is not to be confused with exposure. While True Sight directly works against invisibility, exposure only reveals their silhouette and makes them selectable again. They remain untargetable, attack immune, and are still treated as invisible by abilities.

Sources of True Sight[]

Aura-based sources of True Sight
Other sources of True Sight

True Sight Immunity[]

Some abilities provide True Sight immunity, which prevents True Sight from revealing the units.

Invisibility interactions with other spells[]

Targeting invisible units[]

Most spells which affect an area usually affect invisible units as well, with some exceptions. Single target spells cannot target invisible units without the help of True Sight. Although shared vision renders the unit's model visible even during invisibility, it is not enough to allow single target spells to target them.

Spells which choose specific or random targets on cast behave inconsistently with invisibility. This includes all bouncing spells (e.g. Arc Lightning icon Arc Lightning) and multi-target spells like Poison Touch icon Poison Touch and Heat-Seeking Missile icon Heat-Seeking Missile. The following such spells do not target invisible units:

1 Requires Aghanim's Scepter icon Aghanim's Scepter. When upgraded, these spells can target secondary units, but ignore invisible ones.

2 Requires a Talent talent. When upgraded, these spells can target secondary units, but ignore invisible ones.

3 These spells choose a new target if their current target dies. They do not choose invisible targets.

4 Soulbind icon Soulbind does not bind the target to their invisible allies, but keeps the link up if an already bound unit turns invisible.

5 Lightning Storm icon Lightning Storm also includes the single strikes from Aghanim's Scepter icon Aghanim's Scepter upgraded Pulse Nova icon Pulse Nova.

6 Concussive Shot icon Concussive Shot does not seek for invisible units. The area effect does hit nearby invisible units.

7 The secondary Mystic Flare icon Mystic Flare is not created on invisible enemies. The area damage does affect invisible units.

8 Toss icon Toss does not select nearby invisible enemy units to toss. The area damage does hit invisible enemies.

The following spells have mixed interactions:

  • Mjollnir icon
    Always hits the triggering unit, even when invisible. Does not hit other nearby invisible enemies.
  • Shadow Strike icon
    When choosing the area talent, Shadow Strike does target invisible enemies within the area, but the projectiles get instantly disjointed.
  • Thundergod's Wrath icon
    Does target invisible enemies, but the damage and lightning require vision. Therefore, only the vision and true sight is applied around invisible enemies.

Turning invisible after cast[]

For most spells, it does not matter if the target turns invisible after the spell's effect already have begun. Their effects continue normally, regardless of the invisibility. There are exceptions to this.

All sources of invisibility disjoint projectiles. Even a split-second of vision loss caused by invisibility is enough to disjoint projectiles, even when regaining vision of the unit before the projectile reaches it. This disjoint does not happen when having True Sight over the unit.

Besides disjointed projectiles, the following spells behave differently when their targets turn invisible while they are active.

  • Berserker's Call icon
    When the caster turns invisible, taunted enemies can be given one order until the effect expires. After finishing that order, the unit freezes in place until the effect expires.
  • Sleight of Fist icon
    When an already marked unit turns invisible before it gets slashed, it gets completely skipped if it still is invisible on its turn.
  • Phantom's Embrace icon
    When a phantom's target turns invisible, the phantom instantly dies.
  • Mystic Snake icon
    If the snake's current target is invisible on impact, the snake does not affect it, and does not count the jump.
  • Tombstone icon
    When the zombies' target turns invisible, the zombies instantly die.
  • The Swarm icon
    When a beetle's target turns invisible, the beetle instantly dies.

Version History[]

Version
Description

Patch History[]

Patch
Description
  • Fixed invisibility being unable to disjoint attack projectiles.
  • Fixed True Sight being unable to be applied to sleeping and/or invulnerable units.
  • Fixed projectile dodging to happen when the invisibility fade time finishes.
  • Fixed projectile dodging from invisibility to only happen if you successfully go invisible, as in you do not dodge if the enemy team has True Sight over you.
  • Made going invisible inherently do a projectile dodge.
  • Fixed where with Standard auto-attack, you could auto-attack while fading out from invisibility, causing you to break invisibility unintentionally.
  • True Sight-sources are now disabled by Hex-sources and Doom ability icon Doom.
  • Abilities that provides invisibility can now dodge incoming ability projectiles.


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