Stun

“

▶️ You look stunned.

— Sven

”

Stun is a status effect that completely locks down affected units, disabling almost all of its capabilities.

Mechanics

Stun overhead effects.
The yellow effect is used by bash-based abilities.

A stun on a unit is indicated by a special stunned animation (except for buildings and wards) and a whirling effect above their heads. It does not disable any passive abilities and do not affect any of the unit's attributes.

Upon getting stunned, the unit stops its current order and stands still until the effect expires. While stunned, the unit cannot move, attack, cast abilities or use items.

If a unit gets stunned during their attack or cast animations the attack/cast get canceled. This means stuns fully interrupt channeling abilities. However, stuns do not make the unit forget their orders, including ⇧ Shift-queue orders. Once the stun expires, the unit resumes with its previously interrupted order, if it was not given any other order while stunned.

While stunned, the unit can also be given any order normally, which it then executes as soon as the stun expires.

If the order is not given using ⇧ Shift-queue, it overrides the unit's previously canceled order. With shift-queue, the unit executes the newly given order after finishing the previously canceled order. When giving the unit multiple cast orders, they get automatically queued up. However, move and attack commands do not get queued and cancel the cast orders. This means when giving the stunned unit a cast order and then a move order without using shift-queue, it will only execute the move order. Vice versa, when the move order is given first, and then the cast order, only the cast order gets executed. In order to make the unit execute move or attack and cast orders after the stun expires, shift-queue must be used.

Stun is a different mechanic than root, silence, mute or disarm. Some active abilities can be cast while stunned, which are listed here.

Definition

There are three types of stuns in the game, with each using a different modifier to stun the target(s). Stuns from the same group use the same modifier, therefore they refresh each others' duration based on when they affect the target and do not extend its stun duration.

Stun Modifier Type	Definition	Example
Stunned	Do not place their own individual modifiers, but refresh each other.	Magic Missile (Regular Stun) Lightning Bolt (Mini-Stun)
Bash	Do not place their own individual modifiers, but refresh each other.	Infernal Blade
Unique	Uses a custom modifier, meaning each of them place their own modifiers on their targets.	Shackles

Abilities Castable When Stunned

Castable When Stunned

Abaddon – Borrowed Time
Bane – Nightmare End
Buildings – Glyph of Fortification
Dazzle – Nothl Projection^2b
Bane – Nightmare End
Elder Titan – Return Astral Spirit
Elder Titan – Move Astral Spirit
Lone Druid – Savage Roar^2b
Spirit Bear – Savage Roar^2b
Morphling – Attribute Shift^2b
Pangolier – Shield Crash (Second Jump) ³
Roshan – Roar of Retribution
Rubick – Telekinesis Land ^{2b 5}
Scan – Scan
Templar Assassin – Refraction ¹
Troll Warlord – Battle Trance ¹
Ursa – Enrage ^2a
Visage – Stone Form
Familiar – Stone Form

¹ Requires

Talent.

^2a Requires

Aghanim's Scepter.

^2b Requires

Aghanim's Shard.

⁴ Ignores stun only during

Duel.

⁵ Ignores stun only if self-casted

Telekinesis.

Stunned Modifier Sources

Abilities Using Stunned Modifier for Stun

¹ Requires

talent.

^2a Requires

Aghanim's Scepter.

^2b Requires

Aghanim's Shard.

⁴ Only applies stun during nighttime.

⁵ Only applies to the secondary targets.

Bash Modifier Sources

Main Article: Bash

These abilities use all the same bashed modifier. Multiple sources of bash do not stack, they proc independently from each other sources. When obtaining multiple items with the bash ability, only the one that has been continuously the longest in the inventory will proc the bash.

Abilities Using Bash Modifier for Stun