Time of day is a gameplay element in Dota 2 that operates alongside the game's clock. Certain mechanics behave differently depending on the time of day.
As soon as a match starts (after the heroes from both factions have been shown), the clock starts at one of the following values, depending on the game mode:
- -90 in a regular match.
- -75 in a Play vs Bots match.
- -60 in a Turbo match.
- However, New_Player_Mode starts at -90, despite using the Turbo ruleset. Item availability isn't adjusted here, meaning that because of the extra time spent in the preparation phase, items such as Aghanim's Shard will become available in the shop 30 seconds "earlier".
- 0 in the Demo Hero mode.
Movement Speed Bonus[]
Passive
Units
- The
nighttime movement speed bonus is lost upon units' attack point and also upon taking player-based damage, including from Roshan or the Fountain, regardless of factions.
- Grants a flat 30 movement speed to heroes during nighttime, including Time of Day modifying abilities.
- Treat illusions, clones, creep-heroes as heroes.
- Does not disable the movement speed bonus in the following conditions:
- When an attack misses or is disjointed.
- From cleave and splash sources, including Psi Blades.
- Moon Glaives
- Only reacts on damage greater than 0 (after reductions), and on damage with the HP Removal flag.
Day-Night Cycle[]
The Day/Night indicator in the default HUD.
Each day in Dota 2 is 10 minutes long, divided evenly between daytime and nighttime. Each match starts out at nighttime during the preparation phase pre-horn. Once the ▶️▶️ horn sounds (Radiant/Dire) and the game time reaches 0:00, the first dawn starts. The first night begins at 5:00, the second day starts at 10:00, and so on. Shifting from day to night and vice versa is signaled by an audio cue, with nighttime being announced with a wolf's howl ▶️, while daytime is announced with a bird's tweet and a rooster's crow ▶️. Some custom maps may have their own version of these audio cues.
At night, the map is darker and most units experience reduced vision, as detailed below. Additionally, some heroes have their abilities modified according to the time of day, with the most notable example being Night Stalker.
Alt+
Left Click the clock prints the time in allied chat, and also prints whether Bounty Rune and/or Powerup runes are spawning soon.
Game Clock Modifying Abilities[]
The following abilities can change the current time of day, but these abilities do not pause the day-night cycle.
Affected Abilities[]
-
Self Night Vision Bonus: 250/500/750/1000
-
Night Vision Bonus: 1000
-
Set Day Vision Range: 700
Set Night Vision Range: 500 -
Night Vision Bonus: 200
-
Night Vision Bonus: 400
-
Day Slow Duration: 1.25
Night Slow Duration: 2.5/3/3.5/4
Day Stun Duration: 0
Night Stun Duration: 0.1 ( 1) -
Day Aura Duration: 3
Night Aura Duration: 4.5/5/5.5/6 -
Night Movement Speed Bonus: 22%/28%/34%/40%
Night Attack Speed Bonus: 20/40/60/80 ( 120/140/160/180) -
Night Vision Bonus: 500
Neutral Creeps[]
During 
nighttime, all neutral creeps, except for Roshan, are sleeping. This means during the night, their aggro range is reduced to 0, so they do not attack enemies who get too close to them. To draw their aggro, they must be damaged, or be targeted by a single-targeted ability. Besides not automatically drawing aggro, the creeps behave the same as during the 
daytime. When returning to their camp after de-aggroing, they go back to sleep as soon as they reach their original spot.
Sleeping creeps are indicated by floating Zs above the creeps.
Vision[]
All heroes have a daytime and nighttime vision range of 1800 and 800 respectively, except for the following:
| Unit | Day | Night |
|---|---|---|
 |
1800 | 1200 |
 |
1600 | 800 |
 |
1800 | 1000 |
 |
800 | 1800 |
 |
1800 | 1800 |
 |
1800 | 1400 |
Talents[]
The following heroes have a 
talent that grants them bonus vision.
| Bonus | Level 10 | Level 15 | Level 20 | Level 25 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Left | Right | Left | Right | Left | Right | Left | Right | |
| Night Vision |
|
|||||||
There are currently no talents that increase vision during the day.
Version History[]
- All units now gain 15 movement speed during the night. Effect is doubled for heroes, but it can be broken for 5 seconds upon attacking or taking damage from player-controlled sources (similar to Tranquil Boots).
- Matches now start at nighttime during the preparation phase, and turn to day once the timer reaches 0:00.
- Increased daytime/nighttime length from 240 to 300.
- Lua error in Module:Ability_ID at line 61: Could not find Cargo data for "Darkness (5.61-7.20)". no longer stops the day/night cycle anymore.
- Reduced daytime/nighttime length from 360 to 240.
- Reduced daytime/nighttime length from 480 to 360. [?]
- Eclipse now turns day into night for 10 seconds.
- Time of Day is now synchronized across all game modes.
- Fixed a rare bug with Lua error in Module:Ability_ID at line 61: Could not find Cargo data for "Darkness (5.61-7.20)". that caused permanent nighttime.
Patch History[]
- Alt+ Left Click the clock to print the time now also prints whether Bounty Rune and/or Powerup runes are spawning soon.
- Added Alt+ Left Click the clock to print the time, indicating how much time left on day or night.
- Alt now displays the time pre-horn instead of just showing either daytime or nighttime.
- UFixed rune spawn times and day-night-cycle offset in longer matches.
- Alt+ Left Click the clock now prints the current game time.
- Fixed day-night-cycle duration as well as initial state being a bit off.
- Updated and added new day-night-cycle display.
- Added new sounds to indicate daytime and nighttime.
- Updated and cleaned up the visual transition between the day-night-cycle.
- Updated day-night-cycle indicator.
- Added day-night-cycle indicator.
