After releasing the new hero Muerta, we are treated to another delicious update and this time, Valve and IceFrog aren’t goofing around. Some have even labelled this update to be DOTA 3, indirectly saying that after the update, it is a completely new game. Not going to lie, we love this because we also love good changes and big ones usually make the game a lot fresh.
As this patch is as gigantic as it gets, we are not going to bore you with every detail of it. Instead, we will be doing you a favour by highlighting the major changes that you might be aware of. You really don’t want to step into a game and be oblivious to these changes!
Well, let’s start!
Map Changes
If you thought the previous DOTA 2 map is huge, well, it just got 40% bigger. Yes, the entire DOTA 2 landscape has grown and with it, there are now more neutral camps and extra areas to move about.
How this affects gameplay comes in many forms. During the laning stage, there are a lot more areas players can juke and escape. So elusive heroes like Hoodwink and Monkey King somewhat benefit from this as their abuse of trees has just become more abusive. Do note that this means ganking has become easier as well. There are a lot more points where enemies can ambush you so either way, you’ll need to be on your toes all the time.
Plus, Roshan will now appear in two different locations—either on the Radiant side or on the Dire side. The location is dependent on the time so you will need to keep track of it and set up your ganks to steal the Aegis accordingly.
New runes are also introduced and one of them is called the Wisdom Rune. This rune spawns in a specific set of time and gives you EXP points like the Tome of Knowledge (this item has been removed). It is a great rune for you to gain level advantage so enemies might look to steal your team’s Wisdom Rune. Likewise, you should also attempt to steal theirs.
The other new rune spawns just like the others on the river, called Sheild Rune. While activated, it gives your hero a brief shield that blocks attacks based on 50% of your health. One good way of using this rune is to be aggressive with it and trade blows with your opponent because you technically have extra life to work with.
New Buildings
Don’t worry, the much-hated Shrines are not back. Still, there is still quite a number of new buildings that you need to get used to. To make it easier, will list them down and tell you briefly what each of them do.
Twin Gates
There are two of these buildings located near the Roshan pit on each side of the map. They connect with each other and after a brief channelling time, heroes can transport themselves there. A great way to interrupt enemies when they are taking Roshan or set up a gank on the safe lane.
Lotus Pool
Located near the safe lane, periodically, these pools will give you a consumable that restores your Health and Mana. A great way to improve sustainability in the lane. This can also be stolen by your enemies though.
Tormentors
Tormentors are like mini Roshans. They do not give Aegis but instead, offer the much-coveted Aghanim’s Shard when they are defeated. We recommend defeating it whenever your team can because having an extra shard for your hero can be a huge power spike.
Watchers
Watchers are like wards but universal. They are out there for the taking—both the Dire and the Radiant. It gives vision and is amazing for spotting ganks that aren’t masked with Smoke of Deceit.
Defender’s Gate
These gates are located near the base of both Radiant and Dire. They can only be passed through by their respective teams so they act like an emergency escape when you are pursued.
Additional Outposts
A new outpost is added for each team—in total there are two for each team. This also means that there are more areas you can teleport into, so saving your team or joining a fight midway is now much easier.
New Attribute
A new attribute has been added called Universal. This means that a lot of heroes have their existing attributes reworked and are placed under this category.
The Universal attribute means that the heroes labelled with it aren’t specialised in one of the three main attributes—Strength, Intelligence and Agility. They gain a balance +0.6 point for each attribute when they level up.
These heroes benefit a lot from stat-based items like Null of Talisman, Wraith Band and Bracer because they get a lot of value from them. So no longer would your team flame you if you were to go with Wraith Band on Windranger as you will get the damage boost and armour boost at the same time.
Major Hero Rework
There are many heroes’ skills and concepts that have been overhauled and reworked. We’re not going to list down all of them but there are 3 that stood out for us:
Ogre Magi
Ogre Magi is now a Strength hero and does not have any Intelligence gain when he levels up. His mana regeneration and Multicast proc chance are now influenced by his Strength stat. So, building items like Bracer and Overwhelming Blink is now the way to go.
Medusa
Medusa has no Strength gain now. Her HP is as low as a creep but her Mana Shield has been reworked to play around this. Now her passive, Medusa’s Mana Shield will absorb 98% of all incoming attacks. Plus the shield gives her extra Mana as well. So, as long as she has enough Mana in the tank, she’s not dying, but once that is depleted, she is as weak as a paper stick.
Meepo
Overall, Meepo’s gameplay is still the same—kinda. One major gameplay change is his Scepter upgrade allows him to transform into a Mega Meepo (combining all Meepos together). This mega form Meepo is extremely tanky and is generally used when one of his Meepos is in trouble. It’s a very reliable fail-safe.
Matchmaking Changes
Worked all these years to get that super-high MMR? Well, it’s gone. Technically at least. The rank system has been redone and now every player will need to recalibrate their MMR.
Right now, a new metric is introduced called Rank Confidence. This stat is used to determine whether a player is still suitable to be in their current rank or not. If the player has not played for a long time, their Rank Confidence will go down.
Back then, players will need to play 10 calibration matches to reveal their MMR/Medal. This has been removed and instead, the game will use the Rank Confidence metric to assess your skill level. So, after the calibration is over, there is a good chance that you will be placed differently from your previous rank.
And there we have it! That is pretty much all we have to say about this mega DOTA 2 update. Of course, to get the full picture, we recommend reading the patch notes of DOTA 2’s official site. And if you need to enhance your DOTA 2 journey, consider getting DOTA Plus using our Steam Wallet Codes here!
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