Is Teemo Attacking easy or hard?

Teemo Attacking is categorized as an Easy problem on LeetCode. The challenge is recognizing that overlapping poison effects should only add the extra time between attacks. Once that insight is clear, the implementation becomes a straightforward linear scan.

How to solve Teemo Attacking in O(n)?

Iterate through the timeSeries array and compute the difference between consecutive attack times. Add the minimum of the attack gap and the poison duration to the total. After the loop, add one full duration for the final attack. This single pass approach correctly handles overlapping poison effects.

What is the best approach for Teemo Attacking?

The most efficient approach is an O(n) iterative calculation that processes the attack timestamps sequentially. For each pair of attacks, add min(duration, nextAttack - currentAttack) to the total poison time. Finally add the duration for the last attack. This handles overlapping poison intervals without explicitly merging them.

What data structure is used in Teemo Attacking?

The problem primarily uses an array to store attack timestamps. The solution relies on sequential traversal and arithmetic comparisons rather than complex data structures. Some explanations model the logic as interval processing or simulation.

What is the time complexity of Teemo Attacking?

The optimal solution runs in O(n) time where n is the number of attacks in the timeSeries array. Each timestamp is processed exactly once. Space complexity is O(1) because the algorithm only stores a few counters and does not allocate additional data structures.

Teemo Attacking Python or Java solution approach?

Both Python and Java implementations follow the same logic: iterate through the array and accumulate min(duration, timeSeries[i+1] - timeSeries[i]). After finishing the loop, add duration for the final attack. The algorithm stays O(n) time and O(1) space in both languages.

Is Teemo Attacking asked at Google, Amazon, or Meta?

Teemo Attacking appears frequently in interview preparation sets and has been reported in interviews at companies that test fundamental array and interval reasoning. It focuses on clean iteration logic and understanding overlapping intervals, a common pattern in technical interviews.

Description Solution Video 6:40

495. Teemo Attacking

Easy58.2% acceptance5 companies

Our hero Teemo is attacking an enemy Ashe with poison attacks! When Teemo attacks Ashe, Ashe gets poisoned for a exactly duration seconds. More formally, an attack at second t will mean Ashe is poisoned during the inclusive time interval [t, t + duration - 1]. If Teemo attacks again before the poison effect ends, the timer for it is reset, and the poison effect will end duration seconds after the new attack.

You are given a non-decreasing integer array timeSeries, where timeSeries[i] denotes that Teemo attacks Ashe at second timeSeries[i], and an integer duration.

Return the total number of seconds that Ashe is poisoned.

Example 1:

Input: timeSeries = [1,4], duration = 2
Output: 4
Explanation: Teemo's attacks on Ashe go as follows:
- At second 1, Teemo attacks, and Ashe is poisoned for seconds 1 and 2.
- At second 4, Teemo attacks, and Ashe is poisoned for seconds 4 and 5.
Ashe is poisoned for seconds 1, 2, 4, and 5, which is 4 seconds in total.

Example 2:

Input: timeSeries = [1,2], duration = 2
Output: 3
Explanation: Teemo's attacks on Ashe go as follows:
- At second 1, Teemo attacks, and Ashe is poisoned for seconds 1 and 2.
- At second 2 however, Teemo attacks again and resets the poison timer. Ashe is poisoned for seconds 2 and 3.
Ashe is poisoned for seconds 1, 2, and 3, which is 3 seconds in total.

Constraints: