Illusions



Illusions (also commonly called illus) are imperfect, weaker copies of heroes, created by abilities or items. They look like and are mostly treated like a hero, but are impaired, as they usually have incoming and outgoing damage penalties, dealing less damage and taking more damage than heroes. They are incapable of casting abilities or using active item abilities, and also have some passive abilities disabled. They also may not drop or pick up items or runes. Illusions yield a little gold and experience based on the hero's level. They do not soak up any experience and gold. Illusions cannot level up, the gold from last hits they make goes to their owners, and do not interfere with kill streaks or counters.

Illusions can be created from an allied, enemy, or the own hero. The illusions copies its appearance, level,, attack values, defensive values (e.g. base armor and base magic resistance) and abilities on their current level. All items owned by the main hero are copied as well, including all their stats (although some effects of abilities and items are disabled for illusions).

All illusions deal 60% less damage against buildings, making them weaker in pushing. This reduction stacks multiplicatively with the outgoing damage reduction values most illusions have, and also multiplicatively with the damage reduction hero damage does against structure armor type. However, due to the fact that illusions are based on heroes, their damage scales together with the heroes, making them still a significant pushing tool, especially in later phases of a match.

All illusions are invulnerable for one server tick (0.03 seconds) as they spawn, regardless of which ability that spawns or creates them. Illusions also always play the same spawn sound upon spawning, which are only audible to allies, and the same death sound upon dying in any way, including upon expiring.

Visual Appearance


All illusions have an extra texture layer, which makes them distinguishable from the original hero. There are currently 6 different types of textures which can be seen below.

Allied illusions always appear with the texture layer, making them always look different than the original hero.

Enemies illusions use the blue or the yellow textures appear like the original hero, making it difficult to tell them apart from the real hero. Illusions with the second, third, or seventh texture appear like illusions to the enemy, meaning enemies do see their illusion textures. However, despite this, the portrait of illusions always appears like the original hero to the enemy.

Illusions do not show damage numbers.

Besides their skin and portrait, their health bar also differs based on whether the illusion is allied or not. Allied illusions have the same health bar as creeps. This also means their mana bar is not visible. Besides this, illusions also have a circle on the left side of the health bar, which indicates their duration.

Enemy illusions use a hero health bar to not make it obvious that they are illusions. They also display the player's or hero's name above them like regular enemy heroes (if the player has the name display toggled on player name or hero name). The player name is based on the owner of the illusion, not of the hero the illusion is based on. This means if an enemy creates illusions of allies, the illusions carry Shadow Demon's player name. When hero names are chosen, instead of player names, it shows the name of the hero the illusion is based on, and not the owner's hero.

Illusion Creating Abilities
These are all abilities which create illusions of heroes:

Strong Illusions
Strong Illusions behave the same as regular illusions but cannot be instantly killed by abilities as listed here.

Mirror Image
Some illusion creating abilities listed above are created at the caster's location, and are mixed up with the hero's position upon cast. These abilities dispel most debuffs and they have a split time.

The split time provide a short period of invulnerability, if timed correctly it can be used to disjoint projectiles (if the projectiles are disjointable).

Stats
An illusion's stats, level, ability levels and items are all set upon created and do not adapt to the original hero.

The following traits are copied from illusions based on the original hero:
 * , attribute gain and the hero's Primary Attribute.
 * Health, Mana and their regeneration values.
 * Base Armor
 * Attack (Range/Speed)
 * Base Attack Time
 * Attack Animation/Projectile Speed
 * Base Attack Damage
 * Base Magic Resistance, Status Resistance and Spell Damage Amplification
 * Magical Damage Barrier
 * Damage Block
 * Movement Speed
 * Collision Size
 * Turn Rate
 * Evasion
 * Vision
 * Talents, items and passive abilities that provides the bonuses above.

These trait are not copied and thus do not work for illusions, but their values are displayed in the HUD for camouflaging purposes.
 * Attack Damage bonuses or raw damage increase
 * Magic Resistance bonuses
 * Armor bonuses

Magic Resistance Bonuses
Some sources of magic resistance work with illusions and some do not. Magic resistance increasing abilities do not affect illusions, except for and magic resistance increasing  talents. However, in the HUD, magic resistance is always displayed as if they were fully affected.

The following magic resistance sources affect illusions:

The following magic resistance sources does not affect illusions:

Bounty
Illusions have a gold and experience bounty equal to two times of their level. The gold bounty is granted to the player killing the illusion, while the experience is shared within the default experience area. However, the experience is only granted when the illusion is killed by a player. Expiring illusions, or illusions dying to lane creeps, towers, fountains or neutral creeps do not grant any experience.

The following table shows their bounties on each level:

The following illusions grant a fixed and, regardless of their level:
 * (created by Phantom Lancer and from his illusions)
 * (created by Phantom Lancer and from his illusions)

Copying Buffs and Debuffs
Usually when an illusion is created, it usually does not copy the buffs and debuffs the original hero has.

There are some exceptions, however, Illusions copy the toggled statuses of items and of some abilities.

The following buffs are copied by illusions:

Attack Modifiers
Some attack modifiers work with illusions and some do not, while some of them work partially or have their values decreased for balancing purposes.

The following attack modifiers fully work for illusions:

Mana Break
Mana Break abilities or talents are copied by illusions from the original hero, illusions with Mana Break burns less mana than real heroes.

Not Copied
These attack modifiers are not copied upon creation and do not work for illusions:

Active Abilities
Illusions may not use active abilities and items, but they might inherit ongoing abilities from the original hero if the ability was cast before creating the illusion. Only a few abilities have different effect when the cast is an illusion.

Casting Fake Abilities
Within a certain conditions, some abilities causes all illusions owned by the illusion creator within certain range from the target will also fake cast the ability, while the real hero casts the ability.

This is mainly for camouflaging the real hero and their illusions. The illusions still cannot use any active abilities.

These illusions have the following behavior:
 * The illusion play the whole cast animation and cast the fake ability at the same time the real ability is cast.
 * When illusions currently are not having any order and are standing still, they all turn to face the target and cast the ability.
 * When canceling the cast (S), the illusions still play the full cast animation, but do not release the fake ability.
 * When illusions are moving or attacking, they continue to do so and do not turn to face the target. They still play the cast animation, overriding their move or attack animations.
 * They play the whole cast animation and release their fake ability at the same time the real ability is released.
 * These fake abilities do not interact with anything.

Passive Abilities
These passive abilities are fully functional for illusions:

These passive abilities do not work for illusions:

Aura
These auras are bestowed by illusions upon creation:

These auras are not bestowed by illusions upon creation:

Ability Interactions
Most abilities treat illusions like regular heroes. However, some abilities have a different effect or interact in a different way with illusions. A few abilities do not affect illusions at all.

Instant Kill
These abilities instantly destroy illusions when used on them:

Creep Duration
These abilities uses the non-hero or creep duration on them, instead of hero duration:

Ward Units
These ward units require the creep amount of attacks to destroy them, instead of the hero amount when attacked by an illusion.

No Effect
These abilities do not affect, cannot target, or do not work against illusions:

Other Interactions
These abilities have different interactions with illusions. They either do not treat them as heroes, or apply different effects on them.

Recent Changes
Ilusões Иллюзии 幻象