Blade Mail

A hero's reflective shield, an ingenious and tactical item that not only protects your hero but also turns enemy damage against them in the most daring cost.

Upgraded Item | Armor

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A razor-sharp coat of mail, it is the choice of selfless martyrs in combat.

A hero's reflective shield, an ingenious and tactical item that not only protects your hero but also turns enemy damage against them in the most daring cost.

Base Combat Stats

Combat Stats

+ 7 Armor

+ 18 Damage

Recipe

Abilities

Active: Damage Return

For 5.5 seconds, the damage returned from all sources is increased by 85%.

Mana: 25

Cooldown: 25

Passive: Damage Return

Everytime you are attacked, you return 20 damage plus 20% of the attack damage dealt to you.

Additional Insights

Damage Return is calculated before any kind of reduction.
Damage Return doesn't reflect damage from other forms of Blade Mail.
Returned damage type is the same as it was received.
Offering a defensive option that doubles as an offensive tactic. It's particularly effective when activated at the right moment during engagements, deterring enemies from targeting your hero or punishing them for doing so.

Statistics

The statistics below shows the percentage of hero builds which contain Blade Mail as a core or non-core item for each role. These statistics are based on our hero guides.

Itemization Strategy

Fist Fight! Yes you read that right this item is heavily favored by cores who are highly to be targeted to return more a significant ammount of damage as he fights through the opponents, Best for hereos like Axe and Legion Commander.

Heroes with Blade Mail as Core Item

A core item that combines well with Berserkers Call. It is especially strong against high dps right clickers and uncontrollable high AoE damage, e.g. Eclipse.

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Bloodseeker

A core item if you are playing Offlane to force enemies to fight you after Rupturing them. Also provides tankiness.

A core item that uses your high HP pool and Ghostship rum buff to reflect damage back to enemy heroes.

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Legion Commander

A core item to get you kills with Duel and snowball in the game with the extra damage.

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Spectre

A core item to reflect back more damage dealt to you along with Dispersion. Also improves your farming speed by doing damage to creeps that hit you. Allows you to farm Ancients faster to catch up on farm.

Heroes countered by Blade Mail

Lets you reflect Rupture damage back onto Bloodseeker and potentially kill him by running in its duration.

Lets you reflect Clinkz's high damage back to him and possibly kill him if he does not stop attacking you.

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Dark Willow

Lets you counter Dark Willows Aghanims Scepter by reflecting her high damage and possibly kill her if she does not stop attacking you.

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Death Prophet

Lets you reflect Death Prophets high damage back to her to kite her or possibly burst her down from it.

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Disruptor

Lets you reflect all of Disruptors damage back to him and possibly burst him down from it.

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Hoodwink

Lets you reflect damage back onto Hoodwink and potentially kill her from the massive burst through Sharpshooter.

Lets you reflect damage back onto Huskar and potentially kill him from the massive burst through Life Break and Burning Spear.

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Invoker

Lets you reflect damage back onto Invoker from his spells and right clicks, and possibly kill him particularly from the high Chaos Meteor damage.

Lets you reflect damage back onto Jakiro and possibly kill him particularly from the high damage of Macropyre.

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Leshrac

Lets you reflect damage back onto Leshrac and possibly kill him with his heavy burst damage through spells.

Lets you reflect damage back onto Lich and possibly kill him particularly from the Chain Frost bounce damage.

Lets you reflect Lunas high damage back to her and possibly kill her from the massive burst of Eclipse and right clicks.

Lets you reflect Marcis high damage back to her and possibly kill her if she does not stop hitting you during Unleash.

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Outworld Devourer

Lets you reflect damage back onto Outworld Destroyer and possibly kill him from the high burst of Arcane Orb and Sanity's Eclipse.

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Primal Beast

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Sand King

When Sandking initiates you can quickly react with Blade Mail and reflect a lot of damage back to him

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Skywrath Mage

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Snapfire

To reflect Sven's huge physical damage back to him.

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Techies

Rectangular image of Dota 2 hero Windranger

Trivia

The concept and mechanics of Blade Mail have their origins in the original Defense of the Ancients (DotA) mod for Warcraft III. In DotA, Blade Mail was known as 'Return Damage', featuring similar mechanics where it reflected a portion of the damage taken by the hero back to the attacker for a duration.