Orb Effect

From DotA Allstars Wiki

Orb Effects are special effects that are found on certain items and skills such as Sange and Yasha or Incapacitating Bite. To most players with little or no mechanics experience, orb effects are simply just the items/skills which are so-called, but to players with mechanics experience, there is another class of item/skill characteristics, similar to orb effects, that are known as Buff Placers. It should be noted that while orb effects (and buff placers, for that matter) do not stack, some players intentionally get multiple orb effects for the non-orb effects as well as the overriding orb effect (such as Sange and Yasha for the movement speed and Mask of Death for the orb effect).

List of item orb effects

Stygian Desolator (Corruption)
Sange, Sange and Yasha (Maim)
Maelstrom, Mjollnir (Chain Lightning)
Diffusal Blade, Manta Style (Feedback)
Mask of Death, Mask of Madness, Helm of the Dominator, Satanic (Lifesteal)
Eye of Skadi (Frost Attack - Based on Orb of Slow and therefore an orb effect (and buff placer) for melee heroes, but based on Frost Attack and therefore a buff placer for ranged heroes).

List of hero orb effects

Broodmother's Incapacitating Bite
Sand King's Caustic Finale
Ursa Warrior's Fury Swipes
Anti-Mage's Mana Break
Nerubian Weaver's Geminate Attack
Bone Fletcher's Searing Arrows
Drow Ranger's Frost Arrows
Netherdrake's Poison Attack
Obsidian Destroyer's Arcane Orb
Silencer's Glaives of Wisdom
Sacred Warrior's Burning Spears
Enchantress's Impetus

Types of Orb Effects

Orb of Slow-based Orb Effects

Sange and Sange and Yasha have Maim as their orb effect. Maimed units have their movement speed slowed by either 20% (Sange) or 30% (Sange and Yasha) for 4 seconds. Sange and Yasha's Maim also slows Attack Speed by 15% for 4 seconds, in addition to the movement speed slow. The orb effect Maim is actually based on Orb of Slow (ladder item, not found in DotA), which is an orb effect on normal attacks and an orb effect and buff placer on the attacks which proc the slow.

Maelstrom and Mjollnir are also based on Orb of Slow except that the spell cast when said items proc is Chain Lightning.

Geminate Attack is also based on Orb of Slow with a 100% chance to proc but with a cooldown. The spell cast when Geminate Attack procs is based on Searing Arrows.

One thing to note when using Orb of Slow-based orb effects is that one must issue an attack order to have a chance of activating them; Auto-engaging will not proc a chance to release the spells. However, issuing an attack-move order will allow the Hero to have a chance to release the spells. Additionally, Orb of Slow follows a Pseudo Random Distribution.

Corruption

Stygian Desolator is an item that allows the Hero to reduce the armor of the target by 6. The armor is reduced before the attack lands, so the first attack done benefits from the reduced armor. However, secondary attacks such as Empowering Haste and Enrage deal damage before the armor reduction on the first attack, and thus do not benefit from the armor reduction on the first attack.

Feedback and Mana Break

Diffusal Blade and Manta Style have the orb effect Feedback, which burns a small amount of mana per attack and deals 1 damage per mana burnt. The damage done is reduced by armor. The Anti-Mage and Necronomicon Warrior both have a skill called "Mana Break" which is the same as Feedback except that Mana Break deals 0.6 damage per mana burnt while Feedback deals 1 damage per mana burnt. Note that when changing form from one with a melee attack to a ranged attack (such as Dragon Knight changing to Elder Dragon Form) and vice-versa, the feedback item must be dropped and picked up again for the feedback to work.

Lifesteal

Mask of Death, Mask of Madness, Helm of the Dominator and Satanic have the ability "Lifesteal" which, as its name suggests, steals some of the attacked target's life and adds it to the Hero's own with no other effects. The amount of life stolen is based on the damage done to the target after armor reduction. Therefore, Critical Strikes will cause the attacker to steal extra life for that attack, and abilities that reduce armor such as Assault Cuirass's armor reduction aura and Weave will cause the attacker to steal more life. Note that Cleave does not cause the attacker to steal life from cleaved units and lifesteal does not work on illusions, even though the graphics may suggest so. Lifesteal from Satanics active ability is granted via triggers (as opposed to being based in Ladder's Vampiric potion as it was before) to avoid some issues with Luna and Dragon Knight). Note that while Vampiric Aura, Feast (old) and Vladmir's Offering are similar to lifesteal and follow all the rules of the orb effect Lifesteal, they themselves are Auras and not orb effects, and can stack provided they give different debuffs to the target. The new Lifestealer's Feast is completely triggered, and as such it will stack with everything.

Frost Attack and Frost Slows

Eye of Skadi (Ranged) has the ability Frost Attack which is a buff placer that slows the target's Attack Speed by 20% and Movement Speed by 30%. Eye of Skadi (melee) is based in "Melee Cold Damage Bonus" and Frost Arrows is based in Cold Arrows, The last two are both orb effects and buff placers. Frost Attack-based abilities also reduce the target's movement speed and attack speed, and cannot stack with Frost Attack-based abilities. Also, Frost Armor does not stack with any of these.

Incinerate-based orb effects

The spell Incinerate, which Caustic Finale and Fury Swipes is based on, is a skill from the Firelord, a ladder hero. In the case of the Firelord, Incinerate is a toggled orb effect (Which has a non-toggleable counterpart in the World Editor) which deals more damage the more times it is cast on a target (the part which Fury Swipes uses), and makes the target explode when it dies under the effect of Incinerate(the part which Caustic Finale uses).

Toggled arrow orb effects

Toggled arrow orb effects are orb effects that have an Autocast option, and is used every time the Hero attacks (when autocast is activated), but may be used as a single cast in situations such as Orbwalking and Harassing.

Bone Fletcher's Searing Arrows is based on the ladder hero Priestess of the Moon's Searing Arrows, which is an orb effect only, therefore buff placers (such as Ranged Eye of Skadi's frost attack and bashes) may occur while Searing Arrows is on autocast.

Poison Attack, Arcane Orb, Glaives of Wisdom, Burning Spears, and Impetus are all based on Poison Arrows. Arcane Orb, Glaives of Wisdom, Burning Spears, and Impetus all use triggers to deal damage to the target, and the mentioned skills (except Burning Spears and Poison Attack) have a +damage sign above the target when the projectiles hit the target, showing the amount of damage that the skill did, in addition to the hero's ordinary attack damage.

Orb Effect Priorities

It is a known fact that Orb Effects do not stack. Which orb effect takes place at a certain time follows a certain rule. Generally, some certain orb effects taken precedence over others, while sometimes the priority is decided by the slot the item providing an orb effect is in. When hero orb effects are taken into consideration, the case is even more complicated. Refer to Orb Effects Priorities for more information.