Another season, another Dota 2 patch – and this one comes with a swathe of bug fixes and hero tweaks. No word yet on whether there’ll be a new hero, but it’s been months since we saw Phoenix and Terrorblade, so… well, maybe.
I’m not going to try to list all of the changes being made to Dota 2, because that would be insane. There’s loads of them. I will, however, list a few of the ones I thought were interesting when I glanced through, and I’ll bold a few of them in a futile attempt to break up the wall of text.
Keeper of the Light will be getting an Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade, giving him permanent Spirit Form. During the day, he’ll also have unobstructed vision and his Illuminate will heal allied heroes for 75% of its damage value. If he can actually get the farm for it, it might not be a bad pickup on him – you’re essentially getting extra healing output, the ability to freely teleport allied heroes to yourself, a lovely vision buff, and the ability to annoy the ever-living shit out of the enemy team by hiding Illuminates all over the place. On the other hand, it may be a waste of cash that could be better spent getting Mek/Pipe/Sheepstick/whatever.
Whenever Vengeful Spirit dies, her killer will be debuffed with a kind of reverse Vengeance Aura; the killer and any of their nearby allies will have their damage reduced until Vengeful Spirit respawns. Ursa’s Fury Swipes and Huskar’s Burning Spears are no longer Unique Attack Modifiers. Leshrac’s Lightning Storm now slows its targets by 75% for 0.5 seconds. Gyro’s Homing Missile now hits invisible units. Ember Spirit has a bunch of fixes. Phoenix’s Fire Spirits are slightly less terrifying than they used to be. Broodmother’s invisibility/pathing has been reworked again; she still has free pathing when she’s visible, but she loses it if she’s taken damage within the last three seconds. Omniknight’s Repel no longer removes positive buffs from allies, so it’s entirely possible to have Repel and Guardian Angel up at the same time, making someone completely invincible.
So yes, loads of hero changes.
In terms of little bits and pieces… welp, the client will now display ping to servers when you’re choosing a region to queue for, which is kinda neat. There’s a screen effect when dead. You can alt-click inventory items to tell your teammates whether they’re ready, on cooldown, or require mana. Quick Buy will show the cooldown timers for items that’re out of stock. Etc, etc.
Look, there’s a tonne of changes in general, too. Oh, and there are a pair of new treasures, but they’re a bit different to usual – you buy them in the shop, and they don’t require a key to open. Just buy one, and get yourself a shiny new hero set, with a chance for a rare Clockwerk set or courier.
Tell you what: just go and have a look at the full changelog, and then spend the next half hour going “Wait, they changed what?” That’s how I plan to spend the rest of my evening.
The Spring Cleaning patch – more boringly known as “patch 6.81” – will hit your Dota 2 client next week.
Don’t forget, if you’re new to the game then check out our lengthy DOTA 2 guide.
Update: No new heroes are added.
