Invisibility

Invisibility is a status effect that hides a unit from normal enemy vision, making it unavailable for ordinary direct targeting unless the enemy has a suitable reveal or True Sight effect.

What is Invisibility in Dota 2?

An invisible unit is not normally visible to the enemy team even when it stands inside ordinary vision. This makes invisibility useful for scouting, approaching fights, escaping, and setting up ambushes. True Sight and other reveal effects can expose invisible units when their rules allow it.

Invisibility does not make a hero invulnerable. Area-of-effect abilities and other effects that do not require direct targeting can still hit an invisible unit. The action that breaks invisibility depends on the source, but attacks and many casts commonly reveal the hero once the relevant attack or cast point is reached.

How Invisibility is used in a match

Players use invisibility to cross dangerous areas, create uncertainty about positioning, and force the enemy to spend resources on detection. A hero that disappears from normal vision can change how opponents position even if no attack follows immediately.

The defending team responds by placing detection around likely fight zones and important objectives. Good detection does more than reveal the hero after an engagement starts; it removes the safety and surprise that invisibility was intended to create.

Do not confuse Invisibility with...

Invisibility is not banish. An invisible hero remains on the battlefield and can move and act, while a banished or hidden unit is temporarily removed from normal interaction. Invisibility is also not Smoke of Deceit, which has its own concealment rules.

Fade Time

Fade Time is the transition period between being fully visible and becoming truly invisible; the unit is not yet treated as invisible during this phase.

During Fade Time, the model gradually becomes transparent, but the unit has not entered the actual invisible state yet. Actions during this transition follow the rules of the invisibility source; the fixed Fade Time itself is distinct from a Fade Delay, which can be reset by actions for some abilities. Once the transition finishes, the unit becomes invisible and the source’s normal break conditions apply.