Invisibility



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
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 always applies a disjoint upon getting applied. This is a one-time event that happens once upon turning invisible, and not periodically over the entire duration. The disjoint is not applied if the enemy has True Sight over the unit.

Generally, the invisibility is lost upon reaching the attack point. For ranged heroes, this is upon projectile launch.

As for casting abilities or items, the invisibility is lost upon reaching the cast point. This means that abilities with extended effects i.e. or  do not cancel the invisibility upon each beam or pulse. Channeling abilities do not cancel it either when going invisible after the channeling started.

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 invisibility, taking the role of the fade time. Unlike the fade time, the unit's model stays completely visible until invisibility is reached.

Invisibility with fade delays are from the same group and use the same modifier, therefore they refresh each others' duration based on when they affect the target and do not extend its duration — the longer duration overrides the shorter one.

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).

Permanent Invisibility
The following units are permanently invisible.

True Sight
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.

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

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. ) and multi-target spells like and. The following such spells do not target invisible units:

1 Requires. When upgraded, these spells can target secondary units, but ignore invisible ones.

2 Requires a 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 does not bind the target to their invisible allies, but keeps the link up if an already bound unit turns invisible.

5 also includes the single strikes from  upgraded.

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

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

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

The following spells have mixed interactions:

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.

Patch History
Invisibilidade Невидимость 隐身