Disjoint

Shadow Fiend using a Blink Dagger to dodge Phantom Assassin's Stifling Dagger

Disjointing is the act of dodging projectiles, or rather, to cause a projectile to fully lose track of its target. A disjoint is recognized when a projectile stops tracking a moving unit. Causing a projectile to run out (expire) before hitting the target does not count as disjointing in that sense, but rather avoiding the projectile by "outrunning" it.

Disjointing itself is not granted explicitly by any effects or spells, it is instead granted as a secondary effect to other abilities.

The most common forms of disjointing are blinking and becoming invisible. Although invulnerability and hiding causes projectiles to not affect the target, they do not disjoint, since the projectile still homes and technically hits the target. Not all projectiles can be disjointed, and not all types of repositioning abilities can disjoint.

Disjointing Abilities

These abilities disjoint projectiles once upon cast. The disjointing is not connected to the Forced Movement of some of the listed spells, but rather to the spells themselves. Other spells that use Forced Movement do not disjoint.

Abilities Disjointing Projectiles Upon Cast

• Alchemist – Chemical Rage
• Chaos Knight – Phantasm
• Dark Willow – Shadow Realm
• Enchantress – Sproink
• Runes – Illusion
• Lifestealer – Infest
• Manta Style – Mirror Image
• Morphling – Waveform
• Muerta – Pierce the Veil
• Naga Siren – Mirror Image
• Phoenix – Supernova^{2a 3}
• Puck – Phase Shift
• Pudge – Dismember^2b
• Riki – Tricks of the Trade
• Snapfire – Gobble Up^2a
• Storm Spirit – Ball Lightning

¹ Requires talent.

^2a Requires Aghanim's Scepter.

^2b Requires Aghanim's Shard.

³ Disjoint projectiles for the allied hero with Aghanim's Scepter.

Teleporting

All blink-based abilities disjoint, but not all teleporting abilities do. The distance of the blink or teleport does not matter. The abilities are disjointed upon getting moved by them.

Other teleporting abilities (e.g. Reverse Polarity) not listed here do not disjoint projectiles.

Teleporting Abilities that Disjoints Projectiles

• Anti-Mage – Blink
• Blink Dagger – Blink
• Chen – Holy Persuasion
• Fallen Sky – Fallen Sky
• Flicker – Flicker
• Io – Relocate¹
• Keeper of the Light – Recall³
• Nature's Prophet – Teleportation
• Phantom Lancer – Doppelganger²
• Puck – Ethereal Jaunt
• Queen of Pain – Blink
• Spirit Bear – Return
• Town Portal Scroll – Teleport
• Weaver – Time Lapse

¹ Only disjoints for Io upon teleporting to the targeted point. Does not disjoint for allies or upon teleporting back.

² Disjoints for Phantom Lancer and all gathered illusions.

³ Requires facet.

Invisibility

All abilities that grant invisibility can disjoint projectiles, unless the enemy has True Sight over the unit, in which case the projectile still keeps track of the target until it is no longer affected by True Sight. A unit does not need to be invisible as the projectile reaches it, in order to disjoint with invisibility; momentary invisibility during the projectile's flight suffices, although the projectile resumes tracking the target visually, if it becomes visible again. Being out of vision range (i.e., entering the Fog of War) does not count as invisibility, for purposes of disjointing.

The fade time does not disjoint a projectile, that means shadow amulet and glimmer cape can disjoint but need to be applied in advance for the disjoint.

The following abilities disjoint projectiles if no True Sight is present:

Abilities Disjointing Projectiles with Invisibility

• Bounty Hunter – Shadow Walk
• Clinkz – Skeleton Walk
• Glimmer Cape – Glimmer
• Runes – Invisibility
• Invoker – Ghost Walk
• Kez – Raven's Veil
• Lycan Wolf – Invisibility
• Mirana – Moonlight Shadow
• Ninja Gear – Solitary Disguise³
• Nyx Assassin – Vendetta
• Nyx Assassin – Burrow^2a
• Phantom Assassin – Blur³
• Riki – Cloak and Dagger
• Sand King – Sand Storm⁴
• Shadow Amulet – Fade
• Shadow Blade – Shadow Walk
• Silver Edge – Shadow Walk
• Slark – Depth Shroud³
• Slark – Shadow Dance³
• Smoke of Deceit – Disguise³
• Storm – Wind Walk
• Templar Assassin – Meld
• Visage – Silent as the Grave^2a
• Windranger – Windrun^2a
• Weaver – Shukuchi

¹ Requires talent.

^2a Requires Aghanim's Scepter.

^2b Requires Aghanim's Shard.

³ Cannot be revealed with True Sight. Therefore, it disjoint projectiles even while affected by True Sight.

⁴ Requires facet.

Hiding

See also: Hide

Becoming temporarily hidden does not disjoint projectiles. The disjointing attribute is not bound to turning hidden, but rather bound to the spells themselves. This means hiding spells not necessarily disjoint projectiles, however, with the proper timing, they can prevent projectiles, or spells in general from hitting the caster or target.

Invulnerability

See also: Invulnerability

Becoming invulnerable does not disjoint projectiles, but rather reduces or eliminates the effects upon impact. Attack damage as well as spell damage are ignored. There are a few spells that affect invulnerable units.

Disjointable projectiles

All physical attack projectiles of each unit and hero can be disjointed. This includes all attack modifiers (e.g. Frost Arrows, Liquid Fire), enhanced attacks (e.g. Meld, attacks with True Strike) and the secondary attack projectiles from instant attacks (e.g. Flak Cannon, Geminate Attack).

Disjointing the bounces from Moon Glaives and Death Ward does not stop the projectile from continuing to bounce. They also can immediately jump on the disjointing unit again (when not disjointed with invisibility and still within bounce range), since it is not considered as a hit and thus still a valid target for the bounces. A disjointed bounce still counts towards their bounce count.

The projectiles of the following abilities are disjointable:

• Fae Grenade – Shadow Brand
• Gleipnir – Eternal Chains
• Ethereal Blade – Ether Blast
• Nullifier – Nullify
• Rod of Atos – Cripple
• Ancient Ice Shaman – Icefire Bomb
• Mercy & Grace – Dead Shot

¹ Mist Coil and Ether Blast can also be disjointed by targeted allies.

² Disjointing Shuriken Toss and an Aghanim's Scepter upgraded Spirit Lance causes them to stop bouncing.

³ Although Dragon Tail itself is instant, while in Elder Dragon Form it uses a projectile which can be disjointed.

⁴ Disjointing projectiles which apply an area effect also prevents them from applying their area effect.

⁵ Assassinate provides True Sight over the target as Sniper begins casting, which lasts for 4 seconds, until the projectile lands, or the cast gets canceled. So it usually cannot be disjointed with invisibility, except with Shadow Dance or Smoke of Deceit.

⁶ The secondary projectiles of Splinter Blast can be disjointed. However, the initial projectile cannot.

⁷ Cinder Brew launches invisible projectiles on enemies upon cast, which are disjointable.

⁸ Applies a modifier to the heroes normal attack and can thus be disjointed like a regular attack.

Undisjointable projectiles

The following abilities are not disjointable, which means that attempting to disjoint those abilities does not cause their projectiles to lose track of the target. When their target turns invisible, they are still fully affected.

• Harpoon – Draw Forth

¹ Cannot be disjointed by its targets. Can be disjointed when returning to Grimstroke, resulting in the cooldown not being reset.

² Huskar acts as a projectile. Though he cannot be disjointed, the spell gets immediately canceled when the distance between Huskar and the target gets greater than 1450.

³ Although not disjointable, Mystic Snake does not affect the target when it turns invisible before hit.

⁴ The Tossed unit can be avoided by blinking or moving rapidly, but cannot technically be disjointed. In order to avoid the tossed unit, upon cast of Toss, the minimum required distance to avoid it is 4000, decreasing by 307.69 for each 0.1 seconds of Toss' duration.

⁵ The Snowball can be avoided by moving far enough, since it travels for a maximum of 3 seconds.

Balance changelog

Version

Description

7.00
(2016-12-12)

• The following abilities no longer disjoint projectiles: Borrowed Time, True Form, Pounce, Metamorphosis and Leap.
• The following abilities now disjoint projectiles: File:Test of Faith (Teleport) icon.png Test of Faith (Teleport), Recall and Morph Replicate.
• The following projectiles are now disjointable: Splinter Blast secondary hit and Soul Assumption.