Mars
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Mars, the First Son of Heaven, is an aggressive melee strength hero who controls the battlefield with numerous knockbacks and impassable terrain. Equipped with a large shield, his Bulwark passively blocks attacks from the front and sides, making him a very durable fighter in most situations. The same shield allows him to smash enemies and knock them back, dealing critical damage that ignores all evasion. The Spear of Mars can be thrown at long range, piercing enemies to push them back, and stunning them upon contact with trees or terrain. Mars' most potent ability creates an Arena Of Blood, a circular zone where no enemy can exit or enter, as well as blocking enemy attacks from the outside. Used correctly, the Arena Of Blood can decisively split and cut off enemies from support during teamfights, making Mars a valuable asset to his team, as well as a highly dangerous opponent.
Contents
Bio[edit]
But as the epochs vanished behind him, the selfish ways of his father--the ways of many amongst his godly kin, they who judged him despicable--eventually began to ring hollow. War for its own sake was no longer enough to satisfy his desires. For the first time in his ageless days, the god of war began to question to what ends he swung his glorious spear.
As the Fates would have it, his solution came easily: he must wage war for a larger purpose, and inspire more than mere savagery and sorrow at the sight of his crest. He must at last lay claim to the mantle of leadership that is his birthright, for the time has come to burn down the pantheon of the old age and build a just new empire atop the ashes of his kin. Only then might he find satisfaction, and make the glory of Mars evident to all.
Abilities[edit]

Notes:
- The spear travels at a speed of 1400, taking 0.64/0.71/0.79/0.86 seconds to reach maximum distance.
- The spear starts traveling exactly on Mars' location, and travels forward up to 900/1000/1100/1200 range.
- Although within the spear's search radius, it does not hit enemies behind Mars upon cast.
- Can hit units up to 1025/1125/1225/1325 range away (travel distance + radius).
- The first (
and the second) hero the spear strikes gets damaged and dragged along with the spear. The hero is stunned during the drag.
- Dragged heroes are made to face towards the direction the spear came from.
- When not hitting a building, tree, or cliff, the enemy is dragged so that they are 900/1000/1100/1200 range away from the original cast location.
- When hitting a building, tree, or cliff, the hero is moved closely to the pinned object and stunned.
- Buildings include every building, enemy and allied ones alike, but excludes the shops.
- Cliffs include all natural cliffs onto elevated areas, as well as Fissure, Ice Shards, Power Cogs, and Arena Of Blood.
- Terrain decorations like the walls at the borders of both bases, the random statues on the map, and the arches at stairs cannot be used to pin enemies.
- A spear may only drag one hero along with it. If that hero dies or gets freed from the spear, it still cannot impale a new hero.
- Provides true sight over the impaled enemy. No true sight is applied while dragging the enemy along with the spear.
- Upon losing the impale stun debuff, trees within a 100 radius around the hero get destroyed.
- Hit non-hero units (including creep-heroes), as well as secondary heroes are damaged and knocked back instead.
- The knockback direction is based on the angle between the hit unit and the spear.
- The knockback does not disable units. They can still turn, attack and use items. Channeling abilities or items are not interrupted by it.
- The knockback destroys every tree the units collide with.
- The spear cannot collide with invulnerable or hidden units, it simply flies through them.
- The spear provides 300 radius flying vision as it travels.
- When not impaling a hero to an object, the vision lingers at the final location for 1 second.
- When impaling a hero to an object, the vision lingers based on the default stun duration.
- Beginning casting Spear of Mars automatically toggles Bulwark off.
- With Aghanim's Shard, the spear leaves behind a fire trail as it travels.
- The fire lasts 10 seconds the moment it is created.
- This means the fire created at the starting location disappears earlier than the fire created at the ending location.
- The fire places a debuff on enemies within the area in 0.5 second intervals, starting 0.5 seconds after the fire was created.
- The debuff deals 17.5 damage in 0.5 second intervals, starting 0.5 seconds after being placed, resulting in 4 damage instances.
- This results in a maximum of 24 damage instances when standing within the area the full duration.
- One instance of the debuff can deal up to 70 damage (before reductions).
- The entire fire trail can deal up to 420 damage to a single unit (before reductions).
- Multiple overlapping fire trails do not stack, instead they refresh the same debuff on enemies.
Notes:
- God's Rebuke's effects are instantly applied within its whole area. There is no travel time.
- The area is shaped like a circular sector, with a radius of 500 and an angle of 140°.
- God's Rebuke affects an area based on Mars's facing angle, not where the spell was targeted.
- This means when Bulwark is toggled on, it always launches towards the locked facing direction, since Mars cannot turn towards the targeted point.
- Causes Mars to perform an instant attack on all hit enemies.
- These attacks have True Strike, and can therefore never miss. They also ignore disarms.
- Can proc any attack modifier on all of the hit targets normally, with cleave being the only exception.
- Since God's Rebuke has an ensured critical strike, crits with a lower value have no effect if they proc (higher crit value takes priority).
- If not killed, hit enemies are knocked back and slowed. The direction is based on the angle between the hit unit and the caster.
- Units are not disabled during the knockback. They can still turn, attack, cast spells and use items. Channeling spells are not interrupted.
- Does not push heroes affected by the impale stun of Spear of Mars.
- The knockback destroys every tree the units collide with.
- God's Rebuke first applies knockback, then the slow, then the instant attack.
- The slow and knockback are applied at the same time, so the slow effectively lasts for 1.7 seconds.
Can be toggled, removing Mars's ability to attack, and locking the direction he is facing. When active, reduces movement speed and re-directs 70% of the attack projectiles aimed at Mars's allies towards Mars instead.



Notes:
- Bulwark does not interrupt Mars's channeling spells upon toggling.
- Reduces damage from attacks only (after other reductions), regardless of damage type.
- This means it does reduce magical and pure attack damage (e.g. Pierce), but does not affect physical spell damage.
- Does not work against attacks that deal bonus spell damage such as Arcane Orb, Chilling Touch, Shadow Realm, or Knockback.
- Although not being attacks, Bulwark does work against The Swarm, Moon Glaives bounces, and Death Ward bounces.
- On the other side, it does not work against Swashbuckle, despite it using regular attacks.
- When taking front damage, Mars' effective health increases by 67%/100%/150%/233%.
- When taking side damage, Mars' effective health increases by 25%/33%/43%/54%.
- Checks the damage source's current position and Mars' facing angle when the attack connects, not when the attack is released.
- Bulwark damage reduction occurs after the Damage Block step.
- Bulwark and Damage Block use the same visuals when showing how much damage was blocked, but do not otherwise interfere with each other.
- Plays a visual effect and a sound whenever damage is blocked. The default hit sound does not play.
- When blocking hero damage from the front, a bigger visual effect and the default sound are played.
- When blocking hero damage from the sides, or creep damage from the front, a smaller visual effect and the small sound are played.
- When blocking creep damage from the sides, no effect and sound are played.
- When toggled on, Mars gets disarmed and slowed, and has his facing direction locked.
- He can still cast spells and items, and move normally, but no longer requires facing to do so.
- Casting Spear of Mars automatically toggles Bulwark off upon cast begin.
- Any attack projectile within 800 range of Mars, and within the front and side angles of Bulwark have a chance to get redirected.
- The ally being attacked does not need to be anywhere near Mars, only the attacking enemy needs to be within range of Mars.
- The redirect happens immediately upon projectile launch. Instead of targeting the intended attack target, it targets Mars instead.
- Goes on a 0.2-second cooldown upon toggling off.
- With Aghanim's Scepter, 5 invulnerable soldiers are spawned in an arc in front of Mars.
- The first soldier is located exactly in front of Mars, and the others are offset by 30° to either side, forming an arc.
- Each soldier attacks enemies within 250 range around them.
- However, they do not attack enemies within 150 range of Mars. This results in a total area shaped like the letter C.
- Each soldier can attack only one enemy at a time. The enemies are chosen randomly, there are no priorities.
- The soldiers always attack together, even if not all of them have a target, so that their interval is always synchronized.
- The attacks first apply the damage, then the slow.
- The attacks are instant attacks performed by Mars himself.
- These attacks do not have True Strike, but ignore disarms.
- Can trigger any attack modifier and on-hit effects normally.
- The soldiers attack in 1-second intervals.
- The attack interval timer only counts down while Bulwark is toggled on.
- For example, if toggled off 0.4 seconds after their last attack, the next time it is toggled on, they still have to wait 0.6 seconds before they can attack again.
Notes:
- The effect delay is not included in the field's duration. The actual duration starts right after the delay.
- Inside the arena, any non-flying enemy coming within 160 range of the wall gets damaged.
- If not killed by the damage, the enemy is knocked back towards the arena center.
- Units are not disabled during the knockback. They can still turn, attack, cast spells and use items. Channeling spells are not interrupted.
- Does not push heroes affected by the impale stun of Spear of Mars.
- The knockback destroys every tree the units collide with.
- A unit may only be damaged and knocked back once every 1 second.
- Stops non-flying enemies by slowing them with a slow aura. The aura has a radius of 750 and is centered on the field.
- The slow gets exponentially stronger towards the walls, which has a 550 radius.
- This effectively causes enemy units touching the walls to come to halt.
- The slow is only present when facing towards the walls. Units at the walls facing away from it are not slowed.
- The aura's effect lingers for 0.5 seconds, resulting in an effective duration of 5.5/6.5/7.5 seconds.
- Since the slow is fluctuating a lot, it is not displayed in the HUD.
- Besides preventing enemies from walking in or out of the area, the following movement spells are unable to pass the walls either:
- Skewer, Sun Ray, God's Rebuke, Force Staff and Hurricane Pike.
- All other sources of horizontal movement can move units through the walls freely.
- However, the knockback from inside the arena still triggers and can cancel movement spells.
- Flying units and units affected by vertical movement can enter and leave the arena at any time.
- This means units thrown in the air by spells may be pushed in or out of the arena freely.
- Any attack projectile coming from an enemy gets blocked upon coming within 100 range of the walls.
- This means ranged enemies outside the arena cannot attack units inside of it and vice versa.
- Melee units can attack freely, if they can reach. Spell projectiles are completely unaffected as well.
- The projectiles count as completely negated, so that no on-attack effects can trigger (e.g. Retaliate).
- Provides 550 range flying vision at the center of the area for 0.5 seconds upon cast.
- After the effect delay, any tree within 550 range of the wall gets destroyed.
- This means it effectively destroys trees within a 825 radius.
- The level 25
talent adds health regeneration to the arena. The regeneration is provided by an aura, which lingers for 0.5 seconds.
- Can regenerate up to 660/780/900 health over its full duration with the aura linger duration.
Talents[edit]
Hero Talents | ||
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Arena Of Blood Grants Team +120 HP Regen | 25 | God's Rebuke +65% Crit |
+0.8s Spear Stun | 20 | Spear of Mars +160 Damage |
+6 Armor | 15 | -4s God's Rebuke Cooldown |
+15 Movement Speed | 10 | +15 Damage |
- This attack damage talent is added as raw attack damage, so it does not benefit illusions, and is not affected by most percentage-based damage increasing or reducing effects.
Recent Changes[edit]
- Increased God's Rebuke mana cost from 65/70/75/80 to 80 on each level.
- Arena Of Blood
- Reduced spear damage from 120/185/250 to 100/175/250.
- Reduced mana cost from 200 on each level to 150/175/200.
- Reworked Aghanim's Scepter upgrade:
- Old: Reduces God's Rebuke's cooldown from 16/14/12/10 to 3.5.
- New: Causes Bulwark to spawn 5 invulnerable soldiers in an arc 200 range in front of Mars that move along with him, and attack enemies in 1 second intervals within 150 in front of them, dealing Mars's attack damage +75, applying on-hit effects, and slowing enemy movement speed by 20% for 1 second. Each soldier may attack only one enemy at a time.
- Added Aghanim's Shard upgrade for Mars:
- Allows Spear of Mars to impale 2 enemy heroes, and causes it to leave behind a trail of fire for 10 seconds, that deals 35 damage per second and slows enemy movement speed by 20% for 2 seconds.
- Talents:
- Level 10 left talent changed: -3s Spear of Mars cooldown ➜ +15 movement speed.
- Level 15 right talent changed: +20 movement speed ➜ -4s God's Rebuke cooldown.
- Level 25 left talent: 80 Arena Of Blood team health regen increased to 120.
- Increased base intelligence and gain from 20 + 1.4 to 21 + 1.6.
- Increased mana regeneration from 0 to 0.5.
- Increased base intelligence from 17 to 20.
- Reduced Arena Of Blood effect delay from 0.6 to 0.3.
- Talents:
- Level 10 left talent: -2s Spear of Mars cooldown increased to -3s.
Recommended items[edit]
Starting items:
- Tango's health regeneraion helps Mars stay in lane.
- Healing Salve also restores health to Mars.
- Enchanted Mango restores mana so Mars can keep nuking his enemies.
Early game:
- Soul Ring allows Mars to keep use Spear of Mars and God's Rebuke.
- Clarity's allow you to sustain your mana pool and farm at a much faster speed than most heroes.
- Boots of Speed help Mars get into position to use his abilities.
- Magic Stick provides burst health and mana restoration to keep Mars fighting.
- Bracer is situationally good which gives Mars some magic resistance early on and some stats.
Mid game:
- Phase Boots gives armor which Mars is lacking and allows him to move around the map faster.
- Magic Wand, upgraded from Magic Stick, provides additional attributes.
- Blink Dagger positions Mars to land stuns with Spear of Mars, and to initiate with Arena Of Blood.
- Vladmir's Offering allows Mars to fight early with his team and some sustain when farming lanes, as he can do it much quicker than most heroes as tanky as him.
- Desolator allows Mars to take towers quickly during the mid game which is where he is strong.
Late game:
- Black King Bar grants spell immunity which may be required if the other team has a lot of stuns and can stop you from being effective and disruptive.
- Heaven's Halberd allows Mars to stop a hero from attacking who may have some form of break or spell immunity (if he can use it before them).
Situational items:
- Pipe of Insight's magic resistance allows Mars to stay alive against magical nukes.
- Vanguard will make Mars a hard target to kill from physical attacks when the enemies are not attacking Mars from the front.
- Crimson Guard is very strong againts multiple physical damage dealers and can help your team push.
Gameplay[edit]
Roles: | Carry Initiator Disabler Durable |
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Complexity: | ★☆☆ |
Playstyle: | Seeking purpose and satisfaction through war, the god Mars now sets his sights on new conquests against his heavenly kin. In one arm he hoists a heavy shield, an impenetrable Bulwark that guards against all assault. Using divine strength, he pierces foes with his legendary Spear, and smashes attackers back with his shield, sending them flying across the battlefield. The undead warriors of the Ash Legion rise at Mars' beckoning to form a circle, ensuring that none may interfere with the glorious combat inside the Arena Of Blood. |
Audio[edit]
History[edit]
Equipment[edit]
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Trivia[edit]
- Despite being Zeus' son, Mars is named after the Roman god of war, instead of the Greek equivalent, Ares, who is the son of the Greek god Zeus.
- However, lines from Mars (▶️ "I don't answer to that name anymore, you old fool.") and Zeus themselves (▶️ "Change your name all you want, you can't fool me.") hint that Mars has changed his name, possibly to avoid association with his father.
- Mars' Immortal Off-hand item, God's Mercy, references elements from the Greek Myth as well, namely Perseus and Medusa. Perseus (who is another one of the Greek god Zeus's sons) uses a polished shield to act as a mirror to approach and behead the sleeping Medusa without looking directly at her eyes, thereby avoiding her infamous stone gaze. Perseus also used Medusa's head as a weapon to turn King Atlas into stone.
- Mars carries a Greek-style Boeotian shield, but its decorative thunderbolts are more common on Roman shields.
- ▶️ Arena Of Blood's sound comes from the Mars movement of Gustav Holst's musical suite, The Planets. Mars also ▶️ hums the music when ordered to move or after killing an enemy in the Arena of Blood.
- Mars' response on pinning an enemy against the walls of Arena of Blood (▶️ "Are you not entertained?!") is a reference to a scene from the film Gladiator.
- Mars' death response (▶️ "What is this madness?!") and Dota Plus chat wheel line (▶️ "THIS IS DOOOOTAAAAA!") are references to the famous "THIS IS SPARTA!" scene from the film 300
- Mars' rare Arena of Blood cast response (▶️ "WITNESS MEEEE!") is a reference to a War Boy's suicide attack using grenade-tipped spears from the film Mad Max: Fury Road.
- Files related to Mars were leaked on January 03, 2018, but were deleted later that day. The leaked abilities were called Spear Wall/Spear and Phalanx/Phalanx Cancel.