Not to be confused with Time
Time Scale is a mechanic introduced in v4.0. It is granted or lowered by both Abilities and Items.
Time Scale[]
The basic idea of Time Scale is that it essentially speeds up (or slows down in the case of lowering Time Scale) your hero in every way except for movement speed and attack speed. Therefore, having +10% Time Scale would lower your abilitys cooldowns (Items cooldowns are not affected), increase your Energy and Health Regen, and, for certain abilities, increase their damage output via how fast they "tick".
The reason for all of these buffs is simple, your hero is essentially passing through time faster.
Your cooldowns are reduced because 1 second is no longer 1 second with Time Scale, it's less. So, with an ability cooldown being 30 seconds, +10% timescale would lower that cooldown to 27 seconds (10% of 30 is 3, 30-3=27).
Your energy and heal regen are increased because the regen moves on a static system. Each X amount of time, a regen "tick" occurs (differs for different abilities/items), and your energy/health is increased by the amount of regen the item/ability has.
Certain abilities, usually damage over time (DoT) abilities such as Roulette.Jackson's Optic Beam, do damage faster because they also operate on a "tick" system. Each X amount of time, the DoT ability deals X amount of damage. Time Scale makes each X amount of time occur a certain percentage faster than before, so the X amount of damage is dealt more times over the duration of the spell.
In addition, most abilities that are channeled (such as Mandrakes' Epilogue) are sped up with timescale, and take less time to finish/do damage. This can be good and bad for some abilities.
Items that affect Time Scale[]
- Chilling Artifact - +20%
- Hand of Mengsk - +15%
- Yamato Reactor - +15%, [Active] +30% for 8 seconds.
- Metal Gear - +10%
- Runic Gavel - +10%
- Timewalker's Greaves - +10%
- Twin Paradox Isolator - +10%, [Active] +30% for 8 seconds.
Abilities that affect Time Scale[]
- Intoxicating Fumes
- Chronorift Fortification
- Abberated Claymore
- [shadow's ultimate]
Abilities that are affected by Time Scale[]
There are some abilities that are affected by timescale:
Debuff abilites. These are most of the DoT abilities. These abilities effectively create a debuff on the enemy hero that does a certain thing. These abilities are only affected by timescale that affect the hero with the debuff. For example, if Toximancer uses his Venomous Reflux ability, the affected unit gains a debuff that does damage every X amount of time, and slows you.
If the affected unit then increases its own timescale, the debuff is sped up in duration. So, the damage will be dealt faster, but will finish sooner, and the slow time is also decreased.
Channeled abilities are also affected. These are abilities that stop your hero from doing anything but executing the effects of the ability. Jackson's Optic Beam is a good example. Every ingame "tick", the Optic Beam deals X amount of damage. By increasing your timescale, the ticks come faster, thereby dealing damage faster.
Another examples of a channeled ability are Unix's Metabolic Parasite.