Mechanics behind Contamination Shard

[Spooky]

Does anyone examined that item? I'm still not sure how exactly does it work. I have few questions:

- does it apply debuff on enemy, so teammates attacking same target take advantage of that?

- what if 2 heroes with Contamination Shard attack same target? Does it stack faster?

- how does it work with Shadowmourne? (probably its just more specific version of question number 2)

- how does it affect critical strikes?

- how does it work with Balrog passive?

[atomheartman]

Does anyone examined that item? I'm still not sure how exactly does it work. I have few questions:

- does it apply debuff on enemy, so teammates attacking same target take advantage of that?

- what if 2 heroes with Contamination Shard attack same target? Does it stack faster?

- how does it work with Shadowmourne? (probably its just more specific version of question number 2)

- how does it affect critical strikes?

- how does it work with Balrog passive?

 

My thoughts

1. Doesn't - it is not the same as raynor's mark or darpa's e

2. I tnink no - it buffs you, not debuffs target

3. Work

4. The question is how crit works - damage calculated before hit or after. I think crit works before hit. Anyway it is hard to figure out - sometimes you land 30crit damage and next attack deals 200crit dmg.

5. Should work.

[EterNity]

1. It applies the debuff to your target.

2. The stack increase each time when the target is attacked by person equipped with Contamination Shard up to 15 times. Only attacks from the players with Contamination Shard will then apply the increased damage. If you have two players, that have Contamination Shard, hitting the same target, it will increase the stacks faster; however, your teammates who do not have Contamination Shard will not be doing increased damage.

3. Your shadow will be benefiting from the item. It will also benefit yourself as well as it will stack to max faster. Shadowmourne creates a "shadow" of yourself which can be treated as a clone of your hero with every Heroic passive and item effects that only deals 25% of your auto attack damage.

4. It does not effect critical strikes as the extra damage is "added true damage."

5. Balrog's Heroic passive is treated the same as auto attack so, yes, each time Balrog attacks, it applies 2 stacks. However, his vampire passive will not be effected as the extra damage is true damage.

[highdrater]

To put it simply, contamination shard works like gravity's edge with an additive damage. If you have 500 base damage and you hit once with contamination shard you actually do 500 physical + (8%*500) true damage on your first attack. The consecutive attacks on the target will be an additional 2% on top of the 8%.

 

Example: hitting a tank 12 times with 500 base damage and contam shard

 

1: 500 physical + 40 true damage (8%)

2: 500 physical + 50 true damage (10%)

3: 500 physical + 60 true damage (12%)

....

12: 500 physical + 150 true damage (30% - the cap)

 

In this late game at scenario the passive deals an additional 1140 true damage total for the 12 attacks.

 

I tested it on shadowmourne and here are the results:

 

The shadow and hero both add stacks of contam shard.

The shadow does deal bonus damage from contam shard passive, but it is not alot..

 

Example: 500 base damage

hero does 40/50/60...150 extra true damage at 500 base damage from contamination shard passive

shadow will only deal 10/12.5/15... 37.5 extra true damage.

 

Conclusion is that shadowmourne and contam do work well together.

 

Critical strikes will not be affected since crits are only a function of weapon damage.

 

Balrogs passive only affects physical damage so no.

[Figgonson]

Are you sure it does addition additional damage like gravity? I always assumed it converted took pre-armor damage and converted it into true damage i.e.

 

a shadow with 500 wpn dmg atks micro with 50% phys resist.

 

There are 6 stacks of contam shard on the micro already

 

20%*(500) = 100 true damage

500 wpn dmg - 100 true damage = 400wpn dmg remaining

400wpn dmg - 50% = 200wpn dmg...

so the attack would deal 300 damage to micro.

 

So it would be like hitting micro twice - once with 20% of you wpn dmg as true damage and again with 80% as normal physical damage. (I dont think I did a very good job explaining this)

 

I could be totally wrong on this, anyone know for sure?

[highdrater]

Yes, I'm sure. I tested it. That's why I shared.

[mynhauzen]

So if I hit a tank 2-3 times at max, should I rather buy pyre?

[Spooky]

Oh, I also thought that it converts part of physical damage into true damage, that's why I asked about criticals - I thought CS can reduce physical part of damage and therefore it will reduce critical strike. But I'm glad it doesn't work this way. So I guess I know everything I need. CS should be nice item on Balrog as majority of his damage is physical and as I understand his attacks applies stacks 2 times faster. And with Shadowmourne+CS Balrog can apply 4 stacks per hit (+ 1 hit from shadow)! Seems its more effective than critical build on him.

 

So I guess every hero which is doing additional physical damage through some kind of abilities, like Darpa W or Grunty Shotgun, will apply additional stack?

 

Anyway its clearly shows how strong item CS is. I very often meet Novas in pub, who starting with Lethal and they getting CS just after. Probably its the highest possible dps Nova may get from that amount of money.

[highdrater]

So if I hit a tank 2-3 times at max, should I rather buy pyre?

 

Pyre vs contam is obviously situational. Pyre is a function of your enemy health and spell resist, and contamination shard is a function of only your own weapon damage. If your enemies are tanky and don't have alot of spell resist, you would generally get more damage from pyre, but as the game progresses and the enemies have more spell resist pyre starts to suck more and more. That's why typically pyre is a great mid game item because of its weapon speed and spell damage and not so good late game item unless coupled with shadowmourne. With contam shard you really arent getting that much extra true damage unless you have high base damage so it really is hard to see its effect until late game. Both items are cheap and definitely two of the core aa items, so you will see them both built in alot of games.

 

So after all that jazz I conclude that pyre is better mid game item (easy weapon speed and enemies generally don't have too much spell resist at this point in game to make it not worth it..and its an almost necessary item if enemy rushes chilling) and shard is better late game item to bust tanks with (generally maxed weapon speed and higher base damage at this point in game so the passive true damage really can come into play)

 

And my "attack for long periods of time" statement is kind of stupid, since youre either dead or attacking - for long periods of time...Additionally there will almost always be a tank on the other team that will take numerous hits to kill so you can get the contam stacks off and have it be worthwhile.

[ginosaji]

I've found the same thing with pyre vs. Shard on AAs. The main issue for hard carries is where they get their weapon speed from. Every AGI goes Timesplitter, so that an scaling get you half way there. To get the rest of the way there it's Pyre, Arcbound, or AGI. I prefer AGI as a means to get weapon speed on an AGI carry for three reasons.

 

1. It helps boost armor and damage on top of weapon speed, producing a more balanced build for your hard carry.

 

2. STR and other semi carries rarely get Timesplitter or arcbound, so they will almost always go pyre for weapon speed. Pyre is good at containing tanks during the mid game, where they would otherwise have free roam. This limits their impact on mid game substantially.

 

3. It makes Contam Shard more effective late game. Going AGI for weapon speed allows you to have higher damage by late game, but starts off a little slower. Higher base damage is good for Contam Shard.

 

My point here is that if you have a another carrier of Pyre and the other team has less than 3 or so heroes you would need a pyre for, hard carries can generally hold out until late game to get Contam, which will be more effective since they will have higher damage.

[Figgonson]

Most of the time when i play LZ i get both a pyre and contam just because he doesnt get much of the agi scaling like an agi carry would. Pyre + natural agi normally + e normally gets em up to max atk speed pretty quickly. Not to mention Pyre helps get e up to max stacks quicker too. But, they dont give much physical damage, so i get contam to make up for it. It works pretty well for me in pubs; I'm not sure how well it would work against a coordinated enemy.

[Moo]

Most of the time when i play LZ i get both a pyre and contam just because he doesnt get much of the agi scaling like an agi carry would. Pyre + natural agi normally + e normally gets em up to max atk speed pretty quickly. Not to mention Pyre helps get e up to max stacks quicker too. But, they dont give much physical damage, so i get contam to make up for it. It works pretty well for me in pubs; I'm not sure how well it would work against a coordinated enemy.

I would think that a different damage item would be better than contam, since contam works better when you have more damage.

[Adamantium]

Most of the time when i play LZ i get both a pyre and contam just because he doesnt get much of the agi scaling like an agi carry would. Pyre + natural agi normally + e normally gets em up to max atk speed pretty quickly. Not to mention Pyre helps get e up to max stacks quicker too. But, they dont give much physical damage, so i get contam to make up for it. It works pretty well for me in pubs; I'm not sure how well it would work against a coordinated enemy.

 

DPS LZ isn't bad, as long as you're not squishy. If you have Pyre and Contam, you will still want an Organic and DST. Fill your other 2 slots with a combination of Electric, Galactic, Darwins, FoE, or Explosive. You are still a melee hero and thus need to be able to take some damage, not to mention the fact that your ult is most useful if you have a solid HP pool.