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Meteor Hammer
Stats
Abilities
Meteor Hammer
CHANNELED - After a successful channel, summons a meteor that strikes a 400 AoE, stunning enemies for 0.75 seconds and dealing impact damage. Continues to deal damage over time to enemies units and buildings for 6 seconds. Non-building units are also slowed for 20% for the duration of the burn. Building Impact Damage: 90 Building Over Time Damage: 50 Non-Building Impact Damage: 130 Non-Building Over Time Damage: 50 Channel Duration: 2 seconds. Landing Time: 0.5 seconds.
Components
Strategy
Why Buy Meteor Hammer?
Meteor Hammer solves a problem that most items cannot touch—how do you deal significant damage to a tower without standing in front of it getting hit? Everything else that damages buildings requires proximity: you right-click it, you cast Nether Blast on it, and you walk your illusions into it. Meteor Hammer lets you stand 600 units away, channel for 2 seconds, and then crash 90 impact damage plus 50 DPS for 6 consecutive seconds into a structure from what feels like a safe distance. That is 390 damage to a tower every 24 seconds, with no positioning requirement beyond not being interrupted during the channel. Against a tower that cannot fight back without hero support, this is game-defining tempo.
But the hero damage is equally legitimate and more frequently overlooked. 130 impact damage plus 300 overtime damage against units is 430 total magical damage across a 400 radius AoE, plus a 0.75-second stun, plus a 20% movement slow for 6 seconds. At 2850 gold in the mid-game, that is an enormous burst package delivered on a 24-second cooldown. The channeling requirement is the asterisk — two seconds is not nothing — but on heroes with setup, with invisibility, or with the tankiness to channel in the middle of a fight without being interrupted, the payoff is substantial.
The stat package also quietly carries a lot of value that the active tends to overshadow. Twenty-four intelligence on a hero already dealing spell damage is a meaningful primary attribute and mana pool contribution. Ten percent spell amplification makes every other ability on your hero deal more damage. Thirty-five percent mana regen amplification keeps you on the map longer between fights. At 2850 gold, this is a remarkably complete item for the mid-game window, and many heroes build it purely for the stats even in games where the active only fires twice.
When to Buy Meteor Hammer?
The first or second items on heroes whose game plan involves early lane domination through spell pressure and tower pushing are Invoker, Phoenix, Treant Protector, Bristleback, Timbersaw, Enigma, and Sand King. The timing is 10 to 18 minutes, when towers are the primary objective and enemy heroes lack the burst to punish a 2-second channel in a contested zone. The earlier you complete it, the more towers you can threaten before the enemy buys countermeasures.
The draft signal is a slow or immobile enemy lineup. Meteor Hammer's active is wasted gold if the enemy team has multiple gap closers, silences, or stuns that interrupt the channel on demand. Against a Storm Spirit, a Batrider, or a team that can teleport back to base the moment you start channeling on their tier one, the item's active never connects consistently. Against a defensive or passive lineup that is farming and grouping slowly, you can channel freely on the sidelane tower, grab the kill, and reset over and over.
The other draft signal is invisible or hard-to-interpret heroes. Treant Protector channels Meteor Hammer from inside a tree while enemy heroes have no detection. Riki channels under Smoke or Cloak and Dagger. Sand King channels safely under Sand Storm invisibility. Phoenix can use it during the Icarus Dive. These heroes specifically abuse the fact that the 2-second channel is invisible to enemies if the caster has no visible indicator — and for several of them, that is the entire point.
Tips & common mistakes
- · If the channel is interrupted—by a stun, a silence, a knockback, or your own movement—the ability goes on cooldown AND consumes the mana cost anyway. You get nothing and lose both the 75 mana and 24 seconds of cooldown. This is the single most punishing mechanic on the item. Do not start channeling if there is an enemy with a disable nearby who has not committed their cooldowns yet. The channel starts the moment you commit—be sure before you do.
- · The channel is NOT fully invisible. The visual effect at the target area is visible to allies only. The caster animation and sound are visible and audible to any enemy who has vision of you. This means on most heroes, enemies know you are channeling the moment you start. The 2 seconds they have to interrupt is plenty of time if they have the tools to do it. Hiding in fog, in trees, or under invisibility before casting is what makes the channel reliably land—not hoping the enemy does not notice.
- · Meteor Hammer provides 2.8 seconds of flying vision at the target area from the moment you begin channeling. This means you can cast it into the fog of war at a predicted enemy position and gain vision of that area before the meteor lands, even if your channel gets canceled. Use this actively—channel toward a Roshan pit, toward a ward position, toward a cliff where enemies are standing—and use the vision to confirm or deny whether committing the full channel is worth it.
- · The spell amplification from Meteor Hammer does NOT stack with other Kaya-based items. If you already own a Kaya, a Kaya and Sange, or a Yasha and Kaya, the 10% spell amplification from Meteor Hammer is completely wasted—you are paying for a bonus that is already applied from the other item. The mana regen amplification is similarly non-stacking. Know your item path before buying, and do not duplicate Kaya derivative spells and bonuses.
- · Meteor Hammer goes on cooldown immediately if the channel is interrupted, regardless of whether the meteor lands. This is unlike some abilities that only consume cooldown on successful cast—here, attempting and failing costs you the same as succeeding. This also means Rearm does not refresh it, and the 24-second clock starts from the moment the channel begins or is cut off, not from when it fires.
- · The stun and damage affect buildings, but the 20% movement speed slow does not apply to them. Buildings are stunned for 0.75 seconds, which briefly pauses their attack cycle—useful in a tower siege, but rarely the reason you buy the item. What matters against buildings is the 90 impact plus 300 overtime damage landing cleanly with no hero interference.
- · Multiple Meteor Hammer casts on the same target do not stack the burn debuff — they refresh it. Two heroes channeling Meteor Hammer onto the same tower in the same moment does not double the over-time damage. Coordinate with teammates who also have it—stagger the casts to maximize total uptime, not overlap them simultaneously.
Summary
Meteor Hammer is 2850 gold that lets you threaten towers from a safer distance than anything else in the game; drop respectable AoE spell damage in team fights when you have the setup to land the channel; and stack onto a Kaya-based stat package that makes your entire hero feel more powerful in the 15-to-25 minute window. The channel is the entire point and the entire risk simultaneously—commit to it only when you can reasonably complete it, hide yourself when you can, and never start it with an enemy disabled on its cooldown still intact.
