Dota 2 News

Dota Plus Update - Winter 2020

Winter gloom may shadow the lands, but for those battling over mastery of the lanes and destruction of an Ancient, nothing stops the action. And for the most dedicated, whose mastery is no longer in question, today’s update unveils a new level of greatness — Grandmaster — along with other seasonal updates for Dota Plus.

Dota Plus Grandmaster Tier
Dota Plus members can now level up heroes to a brand-new Grandmaster tier at level 30. In addition to the inherent intimidation factor, players who earn the title of Grandmaster have access to a new chat wheel voice line for that hero. Any hero challenges completed as a Grandmaster will also grant shards as a reward instead of hero XP.

Dota Plus Seasonal Treasure
To accompany the debut of Grandmaster, the Winter 2020 Seasonal Treasure is now available for purchase with shards. Exclusive to Dota Plus members, this treasure features all new sets for Dragon Knight, Puck, Spirit Breaker, Templar Assassin, Earth Spirit, Vengeful Spirit, Luna, Necrophos, Undying, Ember Spirit, and Centaur Warrunner. There’s also a chance to receive the Very Rare Hermid the Crab courier, which comes preloaded with random prismatic and kinetic gems.

Updated Seasonal Quests & Guild Rewards
Today’s update also comes with a new set of Dota Plus quests to haul in some extra shards for the Seasonal Treasure, helping you earn up to 115,200 shards over the course of the season.

Not to be left out, the guild rewards for silver, gold, and platinum tier guilds have been switched out for the season.

Guild Tier

Rewards

Silver

: guildbanner : emoticon
: dazzle_shrug : emoticon
: pump_glad : emoticon

Gold

"Happy Tree" spray
"Earthshaker Dunk" spray
"Chicken" spray

Platinum

"The next level play!" chat wheel
"啊，队友呢？队友呢？队友呢？！队友呢？！？！" chat wheel
"Ай-ай-ай-ай-ай, что сейчас произошло" chat wheel

Dota 2 update for 1 December 2020

Read patchnotes on SteamDB...

Dota 2 team Elephant sets astonishing new gold advantage record

Professional Dota 2 team Elephant has completely obliterated a competitive Dota record. On its run to winning Season 2 of the China Dota 2 Pro Cup, Elephant came up against EHOME in the lower bracket finals and set a pretty unbelievable new record for the biggest gold advantage ever seen in competitive Dota.

By the end of its third and final match with EHOME, Elephant had a gold advantage of 154,000, which completely smashes the previous record of around 93,000 gold that was set by Brazilian team Havan Liberty. This is the highest gold difference at both the end of a competitive Dota 2 match and the highest seen at any stage of a game in the esports' history, according to Dota 2 stats guru Ben Steenhuisen.

What's more incredible, according to Steenhuisen, is that no other records were close to being broken in the process of Elephant's victory. While 80 minutes is longer than average for a competitive Dota match, it was nowhere near some of the crazy two hours plus matches we've seen in the past.

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Dota 2's next Hero launch has been delayed

Earlier this year, Dota 2 developer Valve announced it was aiming to release the multiplayer game's next Hero by "the end of November", however that launch has now been pushed back to the month following. In a new dev post, the studio has explained that it needed a bit more time. As such, the new character will instead be heading to the MOBA game in mid-December, along with the next gameplay update.

"We wanted to give you another quick update about some of the upcoming things we're working on," the studio says in the post. "On the gameplay front, our original plan for the new Hero was November 30, however she needs a bit more time to cosy up for the winter. We will be releasing her, along with the 7.28 gameplay update, in mid-December." Beyond this, there aren't any details to lap up about who this Hero will be, exactly, other than that she'll be a she.

Players are no doubt excited to find out more, given - unlike MOBAs such as League of Legends - new character arrivals in Dota 2 are pretty few-and-far-between. So far in 2020, there have been no new additions to the roster, and just three new Heroes joined the game last year - Mars, Snapfire, and Void Spirit.

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Valve delays new Dota 2 hero, confirms start date for 2021 Dota Pro Circuit

Valve has revealed that the 2021 Dota Pro Circuit will kick off on January 18. This will see 16 teams within two divisions going head to head in each of the six Regional Leagues. The best of the bunch will then qualify for the first Major of the season. More info on the precise scheduling is soon expected to arrive.

While news on the Pro Circuit's return is encouraging, there's still no update on The International 10. The tournament, which currently has the biggest prize pool ever for an esports event, is still to be rescheduled after being postponed due to the pandemic.

In a brief update blog, the developer also reconfirmed that the new season starting on December 1 will feature a seasonal quest reset for players, a new treasure, and more fresh gameplay content to get stuck into.

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