How Nullifier Actually Works: Explained in 17 Minutes

Corrections: As of 7.35b the Nullify active now lasts 4s instead of 5s so has a 40% uptime instead of 50%. Units under the Nullify active are now also slowed by 10% for the duration. 3:55 - Nullifier does not prevent an ally from cycloning an enemy as that is considered a debuff, where Nullifier only removes buffs. That's on us for not realising the same spell can be considered a buff or debuff depending on who it is cast on. Thank you to users mikawesseling320 and shortcircuited5069 for the correction. 13:45 - despite saying that Repel is dispellable: it isn't actually dispelled by Nullifier. Spells which pierce Debuff Immunity and also dispel the target such as Doom's Doom, Winter Wyvern's Winter's Curse and Shadow Demon's Demonic Purge will all dispel Repel. Thank you to user A H for this one that slipped us by. Game continues to be hard. Please do check the description for all item and hero ability interactions with Nullifier. Shout out to zzadrianzz who popularised this style of DOTA 2 content. You can find our full playlist of DOTA videos from various creators that explain how items and mechanics of DOTA actually work from Adrian and other creators like ZQuixotix, PainDota and BalloonDota as well as links to their channels by looking in the description as well. Good luck and Happy Gaming!

you dont know how hard i was trying to find information on this item... thank you bro.

Ever had a game with raidboss built bloodseeker (aghs scepter + bloodstone) where he just can't seem to have his hp get lower than full? Chances are, he's probably had a huge stack of hp barrier from his aghs scepter effect and will keep stacking up barrier from his ability overheals up to 50% of his max hp. This makes Bloodseeker so tanky while continuously dealing lots of dmg. With nullifier, you can immediately bring that barrier to zero and keep him from stacking up hp barrier for the duration of nullifier. From there, use every hp regen reducing spells or items you have to keep him from regaining hp from his thirst and bloodstone.

As a 14 years veteran immortal of this game, i would like to thank you for explaining it to everybody so that more people would buy this, hopefully my teamates will buy more of this item because it’s also one of my favorites

At the risk of my current spam hero being nerfed/banned… wanted to share that shadow demon ult is essentially a better/more flexible/upgradable version of nullifier

One thing I don't see often but works in my Legend bracket is buying nullifier early-ish when you need damage. The best example is PA, if I see that the enemy team has good physical damage and no undispellable saves I don't even think about getting Deso but get Nulli instead. That way I solve the following problems: 1. enemy supports can't save themselves, I can genuinely feed on them 25 min into the game and they can't do anything about it as long as BKB is on 2. I get good damage, definitely not as much as a fully upgraded Deso but it's comparable early when not upgraded 3. I get good protection against physical damage, meaning PA is even less likely to die from physical damage 4. I can put the brakes on certain enemy core heroes such as MK, because his Jingu mastery buff is dispelled by Nullifier which makes him super sad in the midgame And the best yet, you force enemy supports into awkward itemization choices. Imagine their pos5 has their first defensive item half-done and they see you with a Nulli. Do they finish the item? Do they get baited into getting Linken which you can pop very easily? Super underrated in my opinion.

I need more of this item breakdown video. Nice one!

I think for windrunner you should mention that at 25 windrunner gets windrun can not be dispelled as an option. as you are viewing this more from the perspective of a late game item the fact that a talent nullifies the effect is not ideal

This is a great video! The hardest part of getting back into the game imo is figuring out item sense again and all the interactions between reworked items, I def want to see more videos like this!

this is very informative i used to think this item became useless after they removed the mute. thanks now i know how to deal with soo many buffs when i play carry.

the best video ever! very freaking good! please do more break downs like this!! you are amazing

Youtube brought me here so I'll leave some hopefully helpful feedback. 0. Firstly the video is good, the production and visuals are high quality and it shows that you have a good understanding of the game. 1. The title & video length. As someone who believes he understands how nullifier works its hard to see why an explanation would take 17 minutes which made me think I must be missing something, this is an ok expectation to create for a viewer but I don't believe the video delivered. I feel one of the reasons for this is because this video involves a lot of specific hero counter ideas that also go far beyond nullifier which is fine but not what I was expecting. 2. Padding, a lot of time is used up to create long formed full sentences for every point which are not really required for the viewer to understand the idea, for example at 4:27 it takes almost 20 seconds to say that it works on crimson guard. I understand the idea that you want to tell the viewer that there are other items but a simple mention would do. 3. Presentation, this connects to the last point in that some things can be showed to the viewer or simply mentioned and when accompanied by a good visualization it can do a good enough job to convey the message without a full description. For example incorporating a tier-list (or similar tool) for heroes and items makes it easy for the viewer to understand which of those are important, which are nice to have and which are not affected. It also it makes it easy for the viewer to check back without needing to guess the timestamp for each item/hero. The image used for the heroes does not accomplish this goal because I don't know why I should care if I'm debuffing a movement ability or a right click buff I just want to know if its a good purchase. 4. Nullifier, this should have been the focus of the video but it feels that the tips and actual unique behaviors (such as bkb) are barely mentioned. After watching the video I can tell you which items and heroes the works well against, but, I have no clue of: a. When to buy nullifier as far as build order. b. Which heroes/positioned are best suited to buy the item. c. How do I use the item in a team fight. 5. Mechanics, I really like the bit at 6:28 showing the projectile and giving the simple suggestion that you can buy a blink and use it at melee, this is a very practical suggestion that might be obvious when said out loud but the average player could have easily missed it. I would have loved to see more stuff like this, for example talking about how Nullifier applies a debuff continuously so should I always use it at the start or wait? Does the hero/items change that choice? 6. Counters, understanding how enemy heroes can counter Nullifier can help me as a player to look out for these counters and recounter them. This point is never really addressed in the video properly. Overall this is a good video but if I'm being honest I would have stopped watching at about 7:00 if I didn't end up watching as a critique so I'm hoping this can help you moving forward.

I've been waiting for a video just like this for the last couple of years. Thank you so much!

There are a bunch of additional dispellable buffs that can be removed by Nullifier, although the impact from doing so varies a lot. These are: Alchemist's Berserk Potion (Shard) Ogre Magi's Fire Shield (Shard) Primal Beast's Uproar (the buff itself, not the stack counter) Slardar's Guardian Sprint Bloodseeker's Blood Mist barrier (Scepter) Clinkz' Strafe Drow Ranger's Gust movement speed bonus Gyrocopter's Rocket Barrage Phantom Lancer's Phantom Rush Sniper's Concussive Grenade self-knockback (Shard) Spectre's Dispersion active (Shard) Keeper of the Light's Recall (Shard) Lina's Laguna Blade supercharge (removes buff that provides 10/15 Fiery Soul stacks upon cast, but 7 regular stacks will still remain) Shadow Demon's Disseminate (when applied as a buff) Warlock's Upheaval attack speed bonus (talent, only when lingering outside of Upheaval's radius) Beastmaster's Primal Roar movement speed bonus Chen's Penitence (removes Chen's bonus attack range buff and attackers' attack speed buff, but attack speed buff will be reapplied when a unit with Penitence is being attacked after Nullifier's duration is over) Lone Druid's Savage Roar buff (Shard) Snapfire's Lil' Shredder Vengeful Spirit's stolen armor and damage buff (talent) Mjollnir's Static Charge

Dude you are amazing, I was looking for this information for so long and You helped me. Thankyou <3

This level of explanation and analysis truly deserves some love <3 look forward to seeing more of these in your videos!

Wow I didn't realize Nullifier could this be powerful in this meta. Truly underutilized!

I never used Nullifier, I've been playing DotA 2 for 3 years, and I'm still learning, but this video was extremely helpful and I'll give the item a go when facing one of the heroes you guys mentioned

Loved your video. Very detailed and exactly what i was looking for. Subscribed :) Keep it up!!

love this kind of content. Hope you can make more Item and Hero detailed guides.