Map becomes more festive, old heroes receive functionality buffs, Techies in CM.

Valve plays Secret Santa early for Dota 2, dropping 6.83’s changelog onto us. You can read all about the changes here, or read on to know what the more important changes are.

Competitive Dota 2

Will this finally change how the first minute is played out in Dota 2?

First rune spawn is now BOTH bounty runes which are twice as effective giving 100xp /100 gold,. This will make the RNG of the 0:00 gank less of “get DD and first blood” and more of a 2:00 gank which allows teams to ward/deward and play positions.

In addition, a 0:00 bottle is more than possible since the runes give 100 gold now and is guaranteed to spawn as a bounty on both top and bottom. Expect teams to contest this rune for an easy bottle to start the game with!

Bloodseeker, Techies added to Captain’s Mode. Techies effectively enables 3-core lineups which EG and Cloud 9 sometimes run, as techies can stall the game effectively by forcing enemies to buy a gem early or to sink support gold into wards.

Bloodseeker, on the other hand, gives teams a solid mid-game ganking hero which rewards teams that have a slight positional advantage (Thanks to Rupture) to pick off heroes easier. VG has been trying out mid-game lineups, but not really executing it well due to the heroes available to them.

Tusk Walrus Punch is now a cast skill which can be auto cast as well, with a 20/16/12 cooldown. This buff makes Tusk a much more responsive and consistent gank hero.

In the past you had to wait for your attack swing to land the punch, which makes casting the punch between skill rotations risky as you can miss the attack timing.

Blink Dagger now becomes disabled only on damage taken. This means Refraction, taking 0 damage due to Kraken Shell, Spiked Carapace or even when protected by Pipe (from Radiance perhaps) does not cause the Blink Dagger to be disabled. Look for earlier pipes against Radiance heroes for the sure-blink initiation.

Magic Wand holds 2 more charges than normal, meaning supports have even more potential health to escape with.

Medallion of Courage now can be used to give armour temporarily to an ally, potentially allowing low-armoured supports to withstand more attacks from an enemy carry or even bolstering allies in the face of Elder Titan’s Astral Spirit.

The “best” carry of old has since been phased out as Void, Anti-Mage offer a much more versatile kit.

Alchemist Greevil’s Greed has been improved to give 3 extra gold per stack, up from scaling 1-4, allowing the alchemist to now farm much faster in the early to mid game. The stack kill window is now up to 30 seconds, coinciding with creep wave clear rate ( ~36-45 seconds) on lanes in the early game.

Sometimes attacking fastest isn’t fast enough.

Maximum Attack Speed buffed from 500 to 600 (5 per second to now 6 per second). This is basically a Windranger ultimate (Focus Fire) buff and Alchemist buff, as they both maximize their attack rate very quickly.

They can now attack 6 times a second, but the Windranger, it is slightly more than 6 due to ranged Backswing/fire interactions different from melee.

Non-Competitive Dota 2

Chen’s Test of Faith now can be cast on himself to call all his creeps to him. This makes level 3 Test of Faith a must, level 4 for the later-game. With level 3, you can faith yourself and then tp in, and have the creeps come in immediately afterward.

Earthshaker Enchant Totem reduced manacost to 20/30/40/50, which makes a support or a underfarmed Earthshaker easier to play to keep the stun chain cheaper for the Enchant 1 Aftershock 4 build.

Chaos Knight Reality Rift down to 50, making harassment for CK much easier, and a quality of life improvement that allows RR to be spammed as a form of harassment on lane opponents.

Io is just a ball of fun now, a easier to pilot ball of fun.

Io no longer needs to turn, making it a UFO in terms of movement and giving it an instant tether escape. Turn rate in Dota 2 is what sometimes make heroes seem irresponsive, and Io will be the most responsive champion people can use.

Think literally instant Rod of Atos, Urns, Blinks. Io still has a “face” and will be considered to instantly turn towards the thing it is using things on, thus Force Staff still works as normal.

Lifestealer Infest now allows you to control the creep and use its skills, and the control needs to be toggled on to “control” the creep. When the creep is dormant it remains allied to whatever it was (neutral or opponent), but when Lifestealer toggles the skill to control it, it becomes your unit, similar to a dominated creep.

Potentially the Lifestealer can wait inside a Radiant creep and activate the control to close distance if any person comes up to solo farm.

Also imagine infesting a Centaur Conqueror, stomping the enemy and then hopping right out! This is less effective in pro games, since they will communicate and check and map much more in general.

Chen Yiji
The Gaming Ground