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While watching a couple of pro matches, I heard the commentators say that Timbersaw's pure damage is especially effective against strength heroes. Can anybody explain why?

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    Pure damage is actually typically more dangerous to agility heroes, who have high armor that is effectively bypassed. Against strength heroes, who as a game progresses typically have higher hit points and lower armor, the damage is relatively less effective.
    – Decency
    Commented Apr 2, 2014 at 19:05
  • Yeah, that was my first thought too.
    – apoorv020
    Commented Apr 2, 2014 at 20:48

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What the commentators were actually referring to was the was one of the secondary effects of Timbersaw's first skill, Whirling Death. The effect is that if an enemy hero is hit, their primary attribute is reduced by 15%.

Since each point of strength is equal to 19 maximum hit points, Whirling Death effectively deals an extra .15 * 19 * the hero's strength points of damage to Strength heroes.

Source: http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Timbersaw

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    It's probably also worth adding that pure damage goes through everything with the exception of magic immunity and damage reduction meaning it's one of the more annoying damage types to deal with.
    – franglais
    Commented Apr 2, 2014 at 18:06
  • How is current HP affected by this 15% reduction? Does that fall by .15* max HP or .15 * current HP?
    – apoorv020
    Commented Apr 2, 2014 at 18:27
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    Once your HP pool lowers, your current HP will still match the current % it was before it has been lowered, thus leaving you with lower current HP than before.
    – TonySniper
    Commented Apr 2, 2014 at 18:51
  • @apoorv020 both is wrong. It will lower your life by 15% of your str. so when your hero has 100 str. it will reduce it by 15 points which is 15*19 hitpoints = 285
    – RayofCommand
    Commented Apr 2, 2014 at 20:37
  • That's still wrong. It's 285 max HP. So if you have 2000 max HP, 100 str and 400 current HP, you will lose 285 max HP and 57 current HP.
    – scenia
    Commented Apr 9, 2014 at 16:14
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Personally the quote is a bit misleading.

"Timbersaw's pure damage is especially effective against strength heroes".

It's a mix of two mechanics:

  • Timbersaw does a lot of burst dmg (3 separate nukes within 0.5 sec), almost all pure - so it's a good hero against any kind of carry or tank - which are are almost all agi or str heroes. Because any magical defense items they commonly (might) make (plus the normal 25% base mdef) are rendered useless.

  • As mentioned in the earlier answer, timbersaw's first skill "Whirling Death" causes a temporary 15% reduction in stats - along with all his burst dmg, that hits str heroes hard who get most of their HP pool from str stats, not items - so on average it's a BONUS nuke of 12-13% of the str hero's total HP pool - which easily crosses > 200-300 dmg.

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