Silence

“

▶️ This will shut you up.

— Silencer

”

Silence is a status effect that prevents those affected from using active hero abilities for the duration of the silence. It can be useful when ganking a hero with a blink or invisibility spell, as silences tend to have longer duration than other disables giving more time to kill the enemy. Silences in teamfights can also be very effective even for a short period of time, as they prevent the enemy from using their spells in combination with one another. Silencing an opponent also stops any channeling spells that they are currently using.

Definition[]

Ability and Item Disables	Disabled Aspect / Definition	Examples
Silence	Fully prevent any active abilities order, except item casts Toggled abilities are stuck in their current `On` / `Off` state for the duration, but its functionality is not disabled.	Global Silence
Break	Fully disable passive abilities, does not disable any item passives and Talents (with some exceptions). On-death passives (e.g. Reincarnation) and direct-synergy passives ( Caustic Finale with Burrowstrike) are generally not disabled.	Nethertoxin
Mute	Fully prevent item cast orders, except ability casts.	Doom

Mechanics[]

See also: Break

Queen of Pain attempting to cast an ability while silenced. A grid layer covers the ability icons while silenced.

When a unit is silenced, the ability icons in its HUD are overlayed by a grid-like effect. Left Click on an active ability or pressing its hotkey displays the word Silenced in red on the screen.

Silence disables every active ability, including toggle abilities and active attack modifiers. If an ability is being channeled, silence cancels it immediately. If an ability is Toggled/On, Silence only prevents the player from toggling it off. If the toggle ability drains mana and the unit runs out of mana while silenced, the ability is Toggled Off normally.

Silence does not stop the effects of already cast abilities. For example, silencing Razor after he has already cast Static Link or Eye of the Storm does not stop the link from draining or the storm from striking.

Silence does not disable any passive ability. Although silence prevents, for example, the caster from using the active part of Vampiric Spirit, it does not stop him from gaining skeleton charges or the lifesteal to proc. Even when a passive ability has a cooldown or mana cost, silence never affects them in any way.

Silence[]

Silence Sources

Abaddon – Curse of Avernus
Bloodseeker – Blood Rite
Bloodthorn – Soul Rend
Orchid Malevolence – Soul Burn
Death Prophet – Silence
Disruptor – Static Storm
Doom – Doom³
Drow Ranger – Gust
Earth Spirit – Geomagnetic Grip
Enigma – Black Hole
Fell Spirit – Vex
Grimstroke – Phantom's Embrace
Legion Commander – Duel⁵
Marci – Unleash¹
Mask of Madness – Berserk
Mind Breaker – Silence Strike
Night Stalker – Crippling Fear
Puck – Waning Rift
Queen of Pain – Blink^2b
Riki – Smoke Screen
Dazzle – Poison Touch Hex^{2b 3 4}
Lion – Hex^{3 4}
Shadow Shaman – Hex^{3 4}
Scythe of Vyse – Hex^{3 4}
Silencer – Last Word
Silencer – Global Silence
Skywrath Mage – Ancient Seal
Techies – Blast Off!
Templar Assassin – Psionic Trap^2b
Templar Assassin – Psionic Projection^2b
Psionic Trap – Trap^2b
Void Spirit – Resonant Pulse^2b

¹ Requires a

Talent.

^2a Requires

Aghanim's Scepter.

^2b Requires

Aghanim's Shard.

³ Mutes the target as well.

⁴ Disarms the target as well.

⁵ Both the

Dueled target and caster are silenced and muted.

Mute[]

As a counterpart to silence, a Mute disables the affected unit's active items in the same fashion as silence disables active abilities. As with silence, it does not affect passives at all. It does not stop already ongoing effects of items, but does cancel channeled items. Does not prevent disassembling in any way.

Mute also prevents the unit from toggling their items On / Off.

Besides the listed abilities below, non-sharable items are always muted when picked up by a different unit than the owner.

Mute Sources