Proud of being a Dota 2 veteran with 16K hours in the game? Welcome to the New Frontier update, amateur!
Dubbed the Dota 2 Update 7.33 for formalities, we g0t the biggest Dota 2 update thus far, and a very big map to prove it.
New Map of the New Frontiers Update
Bigger Map, More Buildings
For the first time in the history of Dota 2 Updates, the map is now 40% bigger, likely to accommodate the many new buildings across stationed across the new map.
On top of the basic relocation of Roshan’s pit and the Outposts, there are also new buildings outside the base, such as:
Twin Gates – a Portal 2 reference, where you can move from one gate to the other located at the top and bottom lanes of the map
Lotus Pools – a Lotus buffet, where you can pick and collect Lotuses for health and mana regen. Stay in your lanes longer!
Tormentors – a durable neutral creep spawn with a blademail-type shield. Might just be too overpowered to destroy, but it does drop Aghanim’s Shards for your trouble.
Watchers – Free vision if you conquer it. Killing Roshan also grants every Watcher’s vision into your favor.
Defender Gates – Who needs TP scrolls or courier if you can move between these gates that are connected to your base? That’s right, shopping just became more convenient.
Besides these awesome new structures, expect to find the jungle and neutral creep camps arrangements different. You might take some time to get used to the map changes, but at least there’s more versatile ways to juke around the trees now!
Hero Reworks
Icefrog introduced the latest addition to the trio attributes, Strength, Agility, and Intelligence. Now, there’s Universal attribute, which grants lesser stat bonuses across every attribute. This could result in a hero with a balanced stat or perhaps overpowered without the typical flaws, such as low mana pool, low health, or even low damage of the classic attributes.
Several heroes received a complete overhaul. Ogre Magi, for instance, just became a Strength hero and has 0 intelligence. As if his gameplay wasn’t simple enough, now Ogre players only has to harass with auto-attacks and occasional stuns.
Arc Warden received improvements to his Tempest Double’s ability damage and debuffs. Previously, Arc Warden’s tempest is an identical copy of him, which isn’t very strong without item scaling.
This is the third time Clinkz receives a new skillset. To sum things up, Clinkx now relies on up to four skeletons to deal mass amount of damage. In contrast to Ogre Magi, Medusa instead loses her strength attribute, and instead has higher intelligence gain. Expect to play around her mana pool for both damage and survivability.
Lastly, Alchemist has a new skill, Corrosive Weaponry, which is an attack debuff that stacks negative effects on enemies. His signature Greevil’s Greed passive ability is now an innate ability that applies a default 18 bonus gold and x2 multiplier on the bounty rune gold bonus.
There are many more hero skill reworks, so be sure to check out each one because many are quite outrageous.
Neutral Items Galore
Neutral Items have always been a hit-or-miss in every game, some matches you get a good ol’ trusty shovel. While other times you get the useless Eye of the Vizier. Well, now you get to choose from a selection of five options whenever you pick up a Neutral Item. This will surely open up more strategical decisions, especially for the support players.
There are also several new Neutral Items, but we will leave it to you to find out yourself work in-game.
Matchmaking System
Lastly, the most crucial update from the Dota 2 Update 7.33 is definitely matchmaking. Expect the matchmaking to offer matches, where you have very similar skill level to the other players. With their new metric, Rank Confidence, the matchmaking algorithm calculate the optimal MMR gain/loss after every match.
Players will have to recalibrate their MMR like a typical new matchmaking season, but the number of calibration matches are not fixed. Ultimately, Valve promises that you will experience the same skill level of players in your games, even if the new medal might be far off from what you have pre-update.
Do note that a player’s Rank Confidence will deteriorate over time if the player doesn’t play frequently.
In hindsight, the New Frontiers Update or the 7.33 Update is arguably the most impressive one yet. The new changes feel balanced on paper, but we will have to watch several games or hands-on experience before we can truly tell. Check out the entire patch notes here.
And, the upcoming games at DreamLeague Season 19 this weekend will be the first few pro matches, where we can see the New Frontiers Update in action.
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