Dota 2 patch 6.84 detailed, changes everything again

Typical: I go to bed early, and Valve decides to reveal what’s in this week’s Dota 2 6.84 patch.

Recommended Videos

As pretty much any Dota 2 player could’ve guessed, patch 6.84 changes things. A lot. Initially, I thought it was mostly a set of fairly minor changes with an impact that’d be hard to predict, and then I got further down the patch notes and started going “What? What?? What????” Yep: using multiple question marks to end a sentence is a sign of mental instability, and that’s what these patch notes have done to me. Then I got to Techies, and followed up with “OH GOD NO.”

There’s a mix of stuff within. You’ve got some quality-of-life improvements which should make a few of Dota 2‘s quirks a little more comprehensible, a raft of changes (some minor, some major) to pretty much every hero, and… lots of new items. Uh oh.

dota 2 bounty hunter 684

Dota 2 6.84: Bounty Hunter now made slightly scarier than before.

Quality of life first: item silencing is now called Mute, and passive disabling is now called Break. If your ability (Doom, for instance) stops a hero from using items, that’s called Mute. If your ability (Doom, for instance) stops a hero’s passives from working, that’s called Break. This hopefully means that no longer do you cast a spell on somebody and then go “Wait, did I disable… I mean, can they still… uh…” which seemed to happen quite a lot when you were trying to deal with Axe and his sodding Counter Helix.

Also, things like Evasion, Damage Block, and Crit no longer have exceptions to this. If they fit the rules of the above, they’re disabled. If they don’t, they’re not.

Happily, Counter Helix/Return/a few other abilities are now triggered when an attack lands, not when it starts. Hooray!

What else? Runes now have a bigger hitbox priority than units, which means fighting over runes at the zero minute mark should be a bit less chaotic. Buyback no longer prevents you from getting gold, but reduces all gold you get by 60%. Mud Golems aren’t spell immune anymore, thus making pretty much everyone who ever wanders into the jungle rejoice. Bonus gold and bonus xp, creep bounties, hero bounties, and more have also been reworked, but sufficiently heavily that I’m not going to even attempt to cover it here. There are lots and lots of general changes, and there is absolutely no way I can cover them all without writing an entire article.

Right. Heroes. Firstly: Alchemist, Centaur Warrunner, Legion Commander, Lifestealer, Morphling, Naga Siren, Nyx Assassin, Tusk, Weaver, and Wraith King all have Aghanim’s Scepter upgrades, and plenty of other heroes have had theirs reworked. Like fucking Techies. Fucking Techies’ Aghs upgrade now affects that taunting little Minefield Sign ability, and does this: “Techies Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade now causes the Minefield Sign to make all Land Mines, Stasis Traps and Remote Mines within 125 area of effect immune to True Sight.”

I’ll grant you, that’s a tiny area of effect, but it also means that seeing a minefield sign and knowing that Techies has Aghs adds yet another mind game to that bloody hero.

Again, I’m not going to cover all of the hero changes because there are loads. I like that Luna’s Aghs ulti now lets her target an area, and “Impetus now pierces Spell Immunity” made me giggle a lot as someone who likes to play a right-clicking Enchantress, but there are way too many little shifts to mention. For the big changes, though, you’ll want to check the newly-enabled Aghanim’s heroes, just to see what new abilities they might have under their command. A fair few of them are heavily situational (I don’t expect to see too many carry Lifestealers carrying Aghs, for instance) but it’s worth making yourself aware of these changes.

dota darude

Absolutely no changes made to Sandstorm, you’ll be pleased to hear.

And then items. Other than things like “Tangos can now eat wards”, and “Vlad’s now gives lifesteal to ranged heroes”, and “Wards can be bought singly, and Observer and Sentry Wards now only take up one inventory slot together”, and “Battle Fury is still a farming item and now that you need a Quelling Blade for it, people will hopefully stop buying it at 60 minutes unless they’re Ember Spirit/Kunkka/a rare number of other heroes who can actually use it for fighting”, and “Boots of Travel can be upgraded to add the ability to port to heroes”… there are eight new items.

Enchanted Mango is a new consumable that offers +1 HP regen, and can be consumed for an instant 150 mana.

Lotus Orb can be made from Perseverance, Platemail, and a recipe, and on use it dispels negative buffs from an ally and surrounds them with an Echo Shell for six seconds, causing all spells targeted on them to be recast back at the caster.

Glimmer Cape, made from a Cloak and Shadow Amulet, lets you target an ally to make them invisible for five seconds. They gain 66% magic resistance while invisible, and while they remain invisible while moving, they lose it if they attack or cast and have to wait out a 0.4 fade time again before being invisible once more. And yes, that magic resistance only applies when they’re actually invisible.

Guardian Greaves (Mekansm, Arcane Boots, recipe) provide an armour and health regen aura that’s massively improved on allies below 20% health, and offer an active ability that removes negative buffs from the caster and restores health and mana to nearby allies.

dota 2 new items 684

Well, shit.

Moon Shard (Hyperstone, Hyperstone, recipe) provides a metric shitload of attack speed and provides 250 bonus night vision, which does work against Night Stalker’s Darkness. The Moon Shard can be consumed for a permanent +60 attack speed buff, but this buff doesn’t stack or work on illusions.

Silver Edge (Shadow Blade, Sange, recipe) lets you turn invisible, and attacking from invis deals 225 damage, applies Break to disable passives, and reduces the target’s damage output (all damage types) by 40% for five seconds. Attacking from invis cannot miss.

Solar Crest (Medallion of Courage, Talisman of Evasion) has an active that removes the armor and evasion from Solar Crest, but can be cast on an ally to give them 10 armor and 30% evasion, or can be cast on an enemy to remove 10 armour and apply a 30% miss chance for seven seconds.

Octarine Core (Mystic Staff, Soul Booster) reduces all cooldowns by 25%, and provides a spell lifesteal passive. All spells that hit an enemy hero heal for 25% of the damage dealt, and if they hit an enemy creep, they heal for 5% of the damage dealt.

dota 2 kitten

It wouldn’t be me writing about Dota 2 if this picture didn’t make an appearance.

Cooldown reductions? Spell lifesteal? I feel like I should be making some sort of comment about League of Legends here, but…

Anyway, go read the patch notes. There’s a lot to take in, but they’re absolutely worth a look if you plan on playing Dota 2 later this week.

The Dota 2 6.84 patch is due to arrive later this week, and is active on the Test Client now.


PC Invasion is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more
related content
Read Article Dragon’s Dogma player discovers a problem with NG+ Pawns being a little overpowered
Dragons Dogma player discovers a problem with NG+ Pawns being a little overpowered
Read Article Dragon’s Dogma 2 player receives both Prey for the Pack quest endings
Prey For The Pack Dragon's Dogma 2
Read Article Baldur’s Gate 3 player found a rare letter from Alfira to the Dark Urge
Baldurs Gate 3 Player Found A Rare Letter From Alfira To The Dark Urge
Related Content
Read Article Dragon’s Dogma player discovers a problem with NG+ Pawns being a little overpowered
Dragons Dogma player discovers a problem with NG+ Pawns being a little overpowered
Read Article Dragon’s Dogma 2 player receives both Prey for the Pack quest endings
Prey For The Pack Dragon's Dogma 2
Read Article Baldur’s Gate 3 player found a rare letter from Alfira to the Dark Urge
Baldurs Gate 3 Player Found A Rare Letter From Alfira To The Dark Urge
Author
Tim McDonald
Tim has been playing PC games for longer than he's willing to admit. He's written for a number of publications, but has been with PC Invasion - in all its various incarnations - for over a decade. When not writing about games, Tim can occasionally be found speedrunning terrible ones, making people angry in Dota 2, or playing something obscure and random. He's also weirdly proud of his status as (probably) the Isle of Man's only professional games journalist.