The relationship DOTA 2 and I rekindled over Turbo Mode has continued for the past couple years, seeing us spend some 400+ hours together since we first started talking again. For the most part I’ve managed to keep that light hearted attitude towards it, although I did go on a 2 week sabbatical after the ugly competitive side of me reared its head once again. In a strange turn of events the end of that short break coincided with the release of the New Frontiers update. DOTA 2 effectively became its own sequel, retaining much of the core of what makes it great whilst shaking up everything else around it. The past month has been filled with dozens of games in the new patch, the meta shifting constantly alongside the slew of updates, balance patches and bug fixes. Suffice to say it still provides that same dopamine hit it always did but we’re still very much in the early days of what this means for the game long term.
The changes made are far too numerous for me to list here directly but the most obvious ones are increasing the map size by 40% whilst reworking it significantly, reworking a bunch of heroes to a new “universal” type that changes their stat allocations, fundamentally changing how spells/debuffs work and reworking basically every hero in some way (some at a fundamental level). Much like Turbo Mode before it you could say that this was just taking what was already there and shaking it up a bit but, once again, these changes shifted how the game plays out in numerous key ways. There is so much more to do in a match, so many things that can tip things one way or the other, that your entire sense of the game state is no longer relevant. Everyone is still feeling out what the most optimal way to play this game is and, as far as I can tell, no one has really figured it out.
To be sure there usual post-patch meta shift, but even a month past the update’s release I’m still not sure what the ideal strategies are. I can tell you that the old strategies of things like tri-core, 4 protect 1 and deathball can still work on occasion, but I couldn’t tell you what ideal team compositions look like for each of those. There’s a bunch of heroes that are firmly in the broken category currently, many of which are outright bans for most players, but even those heroes which aren’t first pick bans these days can still prove to be utter nightmares when their kit is deployed effectively.
The newly minted universal heroes are pretty good examples of this. With them now benefiting more from all stats, and not just their primary, these heroes roles have now shifted. Many of what I used to consider tempo setters or initiators are now just, if not more, effective as position 1 carries. Couple this with their usually diverse kit of disables and/or escapes and you’ve now got a class of carry that presents another layer of challenge that you’ll have to deal with. I’m sure some of this will likely be balanced out in the coming months as more play data comes through, but it’s honestly been very surprising to see a lot of these previous pos 4/5 heroes being elevated up to pos 1/2.
Match diversity has also increased dramatically thanks to the now blind pick phase. This has shifted the focus away from counter-picking to your own team comp, comfort and skill level with particular heroes. Further to that we’re seeing a bigger emphasis on itemisation as now you can no longer rely on the right counter-pick to ensure that you’ve dealt with a particular hero adequately. This can also mean you’ll lose the game before it even starts sometimes but that’s at least making people more aware of the importance of picking a good overall team rather than just spamming a particular hero.
The quality of life updates are very, very welcome. The changes to neutral items now being token based are fantastic, ensuring that everyone at least has a chance at getting that neutral that can make a significant difference to their build. The shield and health bar pip displays are great too, giving you a much better at a glance view of particular things that were simply not visible before. The disable rework was nice however, given the elevation of many stun carrying heroes to a higher status thanks to universal stats, it does feel like the changes could be tweaked further. Couple that with the debuff reworks (I.E. you can throw a stun on debuff immune heroes and it’ll apply instantly once the immunity wears off) and you have a recipe for engagements where stuns can seemingly last forever.
One thing that’s definitely shifted though is my enjoyment of long running team fights. In the past a team fight going beyond say 20 seconds meant that something was going wrong (on both sides). Now though I’ve had multiple fights where we’ve been going long enough for the initial victims to die, respawn and come back to the fight on both sides and both of us still not have a clear path to victory. These engagements become their own little mini-games of managing your spells and items, ensuring that you’re getting the most out of everything for as long as you possibly can. To be fair I’ve also had my fair share of stomps where entire teams disappear in the blink of an eye, but they’re (thankfully) becoming rarer these days.
There’s so much more I could dig into here but, honestly, you’re better placed seeing it for yourself. If you’ve ever looked at DOTA 2 sideways and thought you’d like to try it, now really is the time. Everything has been reset, the world is new to everyone and we’re all just trying to figure out where we’re going to from here. Is there still a bunch of fundamental things you’ll need to learn to get something out of the experience? Of course, but the way the game is now is a much safer environment to do that than the DOTA 2 of years gone by. It’s still very much not a game for everyone but for those of us who find enjoyment in it there really is nothing quite like it.
Rating: 9.0/10
DOTA 2: New Frontiers is available on PC right now for free. Total time spent in the game is now at 3.183 hours with 73 games played in the New Frontiers patch.
