Time of Day

File:Darkness icon.png

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[edit]

Nighttime Move Speed Bonus

Ability
Passive

Affects
Units

All units now gain 15 movement speed during the night. The effect is doubled for heroes, but it can be broken for seconds upon attacking or taking damage from player-controlled sources.

Effect Radius: Global

Night Move Speed Bonus: 15

Hero Speed Multiplier: 2

NOTES

The Nighttime 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 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[edit]

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[edit]

The following abilities can change the current time of day, but these abilities do not pause the day-night cycle.

Game Clock Modifying Abilities According to Priority

Phoenix - Supernova

Duration:
Turns night into day for its duration.
Luna - Eclipse

Duration: 2.4/4.2/6
Turns day into night for 10 seconds. Eclipse has a lower priority than the daytime caused by Supernova.
Night_Stalker - Dark Ascension

Duration: 1
Turns day into night for its duration. Dark Ascension has a lower priority than the daytime caused by Supernova.

Affected Abilities[edit]

Luna - Lunar Blessing

Self Night Vision Bonus: 1
Lycan - Shapeshift

Night Vision Bonus: 1000
Monkey_King - Tree Dance

Day Tree Vision:
Night Tree Vision:
Moon_Shard - Consume

Night Vision Bonus: 200
Moon_Shard - Shade Sight

Night Vision Bonus: 400
Night_Stalker - Void

Day Slow Duration: 1.25
Night Slow Duration:
Day Stun Duration:
Night Stun Duration: ( )
Night_Stalker - Crippling Fear

Day Aura Duration: 3
Night Aura Duration: 3
Night_Stalker - Hunter in the Night

Night Movement Speed Bonus: 22%/28%/34%/40%
Night Attack Speed Bonus: 20/40/60/80 ( 120/140/160/180)
Winter_Wyvern - Arctic Burn

Night Vision Bonus: 500

Neutral Creeps[edit]

Main Article: 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[edit]

Main Article: Vision

All heroes have a daytime and nighttime vision range of and respectively, except for the following:

Unit	Day	Night
	800	1800
	1800	1200
	1800	1200
	1600	800
	1800	1000
	1800	1800
	1800	1400

Talents[edit]

The following heroes have a talent that grants them bonus vision.

Bonus	Level 10		Level 15		Level 20		Level 25
Bonus	Left	Right	Left	Right	Left	Right	Left	Right
Night Vision		+500

There are currently no talents that increase vision during the day.

Server Ticks[edit]

Article about server ticks. The game server ticks at 0.033-seconds. This is how often Dota2 sends data between server and client.

Version History[edit]

Version

Description

7.33
(2023-04-20)

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).

7.28
(2020-12-17)