If you are an old fan of Dota 2 or a gamer that is thinking about giving this legendary MOBA a try, the latest 7.33 patch surely caught your attention. The New Frontiers, as it is called is giving this massive patch a name that it deserves since there’s almost no segment of the game that was left untouched. From where I’m standing, the mega rework that Dota 2 has seen with this patch will influence almost all aspects of the game.
Like every patch, this one has brought dozens and dozens of tiny updates to heroes, items, creeps, etc. and I won’t go over all of those. The main focus here is to see how the major updates will influence the gameplay.
The roles of different heroes, unique team compositions, pushing strategies, and more are bound to change and give us a new game experience. So, a fair question that one should ask themselves is what is the future of Dota 2 going to look like? It’s a million-dollar question at this point, but glimpses of some changes can be seen even from this early angle. Let’s dive in and discuss what can we expect from this big update that turned the original MOBA game upside down.
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Forget About Old Hero Roles
The first thing that every Dota 2 player needs to understand is that the old hero roles need to be re-evaluated. Of course, many carries will still be able to deal massive damage and many supports will continue to buff up those carries and save them when needed but the way these roles are fulfilled is certainly going to be different. New Watchers, runes, and paths will create a whole new feel for the game and naturally will allow some traditional core heroes to be supports and vice versa.
The new map layout with dozens of new pathways and the fact that the map itself is 40% bigger than the previous one will put players on their toes in the early laning stage. With the old geography, you could harmlessly farm your safe lane knowing that the danger can come from only one or two angles. Now, you will think differently when you see that an enemy hero is missing from the map, especially when a few of them are missing.
The introduction of Universal heroes will influence hero roles as well and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some previously unplayed heroes become the most picked cores due to this. In the coming months, we will surely be discovering all this, and professional Dota 2 matches will show us what the best among us have come up with.
The Jungler Role?
Keeping in mind that 12 new neutral camps have been introduced it wouldn’t be too crazy to expect a revamp of the jungler role. Even though I believe that the whole patch is turned towards more fighting and chasing various goals around the map (Roshan, Tormentor) it wouldn’t be surprising if we saw early game Nature’s Prophet, Chen, or Lone Druid farming jungle for that solo XP.
Stacking Up
The introduction of new neutral camps will bring creep stacking to a whole new level. With heroes that can control units early on such as Beastmaster, Chen, or Enchantress you could potentially create masses of neutral creeps for your carry. Just be careful that the enemy doesn’t find your precious stacks!
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More Fights
From what I can see so far, ganking and fighting will change significantly since there are a lot of new objectives on the map. The introduction of two Roshan pits and the new neutral Tormentor will definitely keep both Dire and Radiant teams on their toes and always scouting what the opposite team is doing.
The Tormentor is a team-oriented goal and if the other team catches you while you’re trying to tame this neutral monument, things can get pretty rough pretty quickly. The same goes for Roshan and Lotus pools that will spawn healing fruit and probably be a contesting point during the early game.
The above-mentioned changes remind me of the Heroes of the Storm setup where maps were oriented toward different goals that made teams fight each other whether they like it or not. It won’t be so easy to just leave the enemy team alone to kill a Tormentor since a free Aghanim’s Shard is a big deal that can for example bring the team that’s behind back on their feet.
The same goes for Roshan who now gives control over all the watchers to the team that kills it. Even though it might seem like a small bonus it’s actually pretty big since the team that gets the kill on the big guy now gets Aegis of the Immortal, Cheese (after Roshan’s first death), Refresher Shard/Aghanim’s Scepter, and the map control through Watchers. Who would leave all of these rewards to the enemy team without challenging them first?
Different Fights?
I am curious to see what the base sieges will look like now. With the addition of 2 new passages from the sides of both Dire’s and Radiant’s bases, a lot more possibilities have been unlocked for the defending team. The attackers who are looking to break the enemy base will now have to be extra cautious in order to avoid getting picked off or losing support to a quick and sudden nuke. An atmosphere like this will create a new game dynamic where fights would be less predictable.
In the previous years, the options of defenders were pretty limited and the attacking team would most often put their strongest/most tankiest units in front while keeping their vital life-saving supports in the back making it difficult for the opposing team to break their formation, so to speak.
Further, the redesigning of Avatar/Spell Immunity to Debuff Immunity is now putting BKB cores in a much more vulnerable position. Gone are the days when PA would jump in with Blink, activate BKB and slash around with nobody stopping her. The removal of total spell immunity for this item and other spells that provided similar effects will remove those OP moments and allow for an array of counterplays even if you get unexpectedly jumped by enemy heroes with BKB.
The reduction of all stun timers that developers have introduced is another brave move that is meant to push the game into a more active direction where nobody can get an easy kill and everyone can participate more.
Practice Your Juking Skills
With the increased map size, dozens of new pathways, and Twin Gates portals the juking skills of individual players will come to light more often. Picking off enemy carries will become extra difficult, especially those with great mobility such as Anti Mage, Slark, or Ember Spirit. This is why it’s important that you explore the map and never give up when you are being ganked.
Why Did All This Happen?
When I summarize all the impressions from this article, I am left with one question – why all these big changes at once? My two cents are that this major overhaul means developers are trying to get ahold of new players and keep the ones already active in the game. This was previously done with the talent system and the simpler and better tutorial, limited hero mode, etc. In order for every live-service game to survive it needs to have a beginner-friendly system.
Even though Dota/Dota2 was the initial MOBA game, the League of Legends has taken over a long time ago with the number of active monthly players. There are many answers to why that’s so, but one of the core reasons is definitely the ease of access and understanding of the game. Many of my friends that have been longtime League of Legends players have confirmed that Dota 2 was too complex to follow for someone who is new.
To be honest, I can’t remember how hard it was to learn Dota since I started playing the game (or should I say the map) way back in Warcraft 3 days, and when Dota 2 appeared all I had to do is get used to the new interface. All changes that followed were spoon-fed to me little by little so it was easy to follow up.
I believe Dota 2 developers understood these problems that prevented them from having many new players and started implementing changes that would bring it closer to every new kid who wants to try the game out. My generation of Dota 2 players simply transitioned from the old Warcraft map and there wasn’t much learning to be done for most of us. But now, that the early generations of Dota players have stopped playing, Valve depends on fresh blood to keep the game going. In the end, I would say that this update is a make-it-or-break-it moment for Dota 2. I surely hope that they will make it since Dota is a game that had a huge part in the early gaming days of me and many of my friends.
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