Damage types

There are 3 damage types in Dota 2: Physical, Magical and Pure. Physical is reduced by armor, Magical is reduced by magic resistance and Pure by neither. The ethereal status prevents units from taking physical damage. The invulnerability status prevents all damage.

Magical
Magical damage is caused primarily by spells, although not all do magic damage. Magic damage is reduced by magic resistance, and deals 1.4x damage against ethereal units. The majority of abilities in Dota 2 deal magical damage.

All abilities not covered in the following tables deal magical damage.

Physical
Physical damage is caused by all regular attacks from all units, and only by certain abilities. Physical damage is further divided into categories that modify damage based on the target. It is modified by both armor and damage block, is unaffected by magic resistance, and cannot affect ethereal units.

All physical damage is affected by both armor and armor type. Piercing damage, for example, deals 150% damage to unarmored units, such as lane creeps, but only 50% damage to heroes. These resistances are applied in addition to resistance from armor value. A full list of the attack types of creeps and summoned units can be found here. (Table of attack and armor types)

The only exception to this is damage from cleave, which is reduced by armor type and damage block but not by armor value. Practically speaking this means armor is worthless against cleave damage. Splash (from ranged attacks) is reduced as normal.

The abilities and Cold Embrace make their targets completely immune to physical damage, although they can still be targeted by attacks and abilities.

Abilities
Certain spells deal physical damage instead of magical. Physical damage from abilities are treated as Hero damage, and deal full damage to all units except for structures and siege creeps. Damage from abilities can be reduced by armor value and damage block, will not trigger abilities that check for attacks such as, and cannot be evaded. The following abilities deal physical damage:
 * Damage cannot be reduced by damage block.


 * Half of damage dealt is physical.

Pure
Pure damage is a form of magical damage that is unaffected by magic resistance or magic amplification. It interacts normally with abilities that reduce all incoming damage, such as and, also with damage amplification. Because it is magical, it also ignores all armor or forms of damage block, but does normal damage against ethereal units. The following abilities deal pure damage:
 * Mist Coil deals pure damage to the caster, but magical damage to the target.


 * Mystic Snake deals pure damage to units in Stone Form caused by Medusa's Stone Gaze, and magical damage to all others.


 * Whirling Death will deal magical damage if there are no trees chopped down by Timbersaw within a radius of 300.


 * Only when upgraded by

Removed damage types
The following damage types were removed in patch 6.82 to simplify the game mechanics.

Composite
Composite damage (also known as mixed damage) was a physical damage type that was reduced by both armor and magic resistance. It went through magic immunity and did not affect ethereal units.

HP Removal
HP removal was a damage type that functioned by directly manipulating HP rather than deal damage instances. It did not interrupt or trigger any other on-damage effects such as  and wasn't mitigated in any way.

It is now used as an alternative cost for spells like or  and is non-lethal.

Universal
Universal was a magical damage type that went through magic immunity. It was reduced by magic resistance and dealt 1.4x damage to ethereal units.