Dota 2

Version 6.75 is here! Icefrog has not been idle all this time! :) The best we can all hope for is last week's poor update patch to signal that the 6.75 changes are being ported behind the curtains! We would really appreciate it Valve if you could give us all the 6.75 changes this weeek! :)

Enjoy the changes, and let us know what you think! Has your favorite hero been buffed or nurfed? Do you think the meta will change with the changes in gold and ban/pick mode?

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I would like to raise your attention to a matter I have been thinking for some days now. As you probably know The International invites the "best 16 teams from around the world" to compete in the tournament. What I was thinking is that, yeah sure back in 2011, where there were no DOTA2 teams around, Valve had to pick some teams themselves and it kinda made sense. This year, Valve once again chose to handpick the teams that would join the tournament, and I am wondering, do you think this is the right way to go or not?

The question might sound strange if you have not given it some thought, but bare with me for a moment. The fact is that all of the professional DOTA2 teams are basically large organizations that through an event like TI they get huge exposure, advertisement income and of course profit from the final standing of their team. Therefore the teams that are picked to participate in the tournament, automatically, get a huge advantage over the teams that did not make it. Which boosts these big teams, over the rest even more, resulting in the same teams recurring over and over in the scene. Yes of course, they might have different line ups and that is fair for most professional players and fans since it is, in reality, a permutation of the good players. Though, if you think of this on a team level, a team that did not participate in the first two TIs will not easilly participate to the next ones if the setup remains an invite only event. Since they will not have grown as much as the rest, nor will they have been "heard" as much.

To conclude, I believe that the next TI should have a different method of inviting teams. One way to go, and really a fair one in my opinion, could be through qualifiers where every team, or at least as many as physically possible, will have a chance to compete against the massive powerhouses of the scene. What do you think? Do you agree? Or are you ok with, say for example having EG, aL, NaVi, Scythe, Mouz, EHOME, LGD, etc. etc. over and over with different players?

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At last, after The International we are back on our normal track! Last Thursday, we got Meepo added to the DOTA 2 Client along with some more cool features! Check it out!

So, this week's main features are:

• Added Meepo to the game!
• New broadcaster select dialog.
• Added animated Firstblood, killstreaks and multikills notifications.
• Reduced opposing-team pause resume time down to 5 seconds (from 30 seconds). It remains 30 seconds if a player is disconnected.

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Hello everyone! Things feel like they are a lot quieter nowadays! The International is over, we have all watched the games that we might have missed through either the in-game client or VODs, and we are left with the feeling of "what's next"?

This is what I would like to discuss about with you guys today. As Valve told us, they would not lay back the development team during TI, on the contrary, they will be working hard behind the scenes to bring us a big patch afterwards. So, what do you expect? What would you like to see? Are there some heroes in particular you miss?

Besides the short term patch-level changes, what else would you want for DOTA2? Is there something missing from the game? Some old feature or maybe something new? What do you think? If you want our opinion, we would like to see:

• A better and more detailed Profile page.
• A nice implementation of the Teams page.
• What will the Socialize tag include.
• A more accurate Matchmaking System.
• The game to go out of BETA, at last!

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The International 2012 is finished and even now, days after the finals we are still feeling the excitement! As we predicted before the last day. We witnessed some amazing games, amazing casts and unreal plays by all 3 last teams.

The truth is that for me personally and for most of us they real finals was the NaVi vs LGD math up. Why? Well because it had all you might want for a DOTA2 game, hell it had all you might have wanted even from a Hollywood movie! For starters, it had crazy hype; it was the 18-0 Chinese powerhouse LGD against the most widely known DOTA2 team, winners of the first International and legendary for their team plays: NaVi! Even if you are new to the world of DOTA2 when you hear this hype, you had to watch these games! Moreover, as every movie director would have it, NaVi lose the first game after 36 minutes and end up winning the other two! Suprisingly and against the odds, NaVi go outside the box on the drafting in all three games: they let LGD have Naga Siren - the most feared up to then hereo of the International - in every single game and in the second game they pick Juggernaut as their final pick, surprising even more the Chinese. The tiebreaker last game NaVi go with Faceless Void as a hard carry and Dendi on Rubick. If that still doesn't sound enough for "the best games you have ever seen", add to it the crowd screaming their lungs out to see a team win the unbeatable LGD, Tobi casting the game like it was his last, and of course the individual skill of 10 of probably the best players in the world.

The all-calculating Chinese powerhouse vs the aggressive Ukrainian title defenders. Yao vs Dendi. Sylar vs XBOCT. But most importantly it was the game of the undefeated versus the undisputed. If you haven't seen the games, do it here through the DOTA2 client or here for youtube.

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This is it... After dozens of games and a total of 5 days of world class DOTA, we slowly converge to the grand final. What can we say about this tournament.. It has offered us all some amazing moments, exciting games and breath-taking skill displays.

The 3 Chinese power-houses LGD, iG and DK have all made it to the final four, showing the world that they have trained like no other for this chance. The Chinese, as one of the player's quoted, they play DOTA like chess. They are here to win, they do not get carried away, they do not see this as a game. Will this LGD machine, ever get knocked out?

On the other side, the last team to complete the final four is a team that needs no introduction; NaVi have proven once more that they did not win The International 2011 by chance. They are here, they are strong and they are staring LGD in the eye.

If there is one team that can stop the Machine, that is NaVi. Their playstyle is unique, they play as a team, they fight like tigers and when they know what they have to do, they are immaculate at it! Watch out for this WB Final tonight, we guarantee that you are going to see one of the best DOTA2 matches played.

Best of luck to Na'Vi, our personal favorites here at dota-two.com, and a big thank you for all the games, the thrill and the excitement you have given us up to now.

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Hello from the Dota-Two Cast Team!

I got so many question asking about level one roshan after I posted my Ursa VOD, that I absolutely had to make a video showing you guys how to do this! I’ve also made a short and concise tutorial on how to use dominated creep to stack the jungle to help those who need help with their micro skills. I'd like to make weekly video in regard to dota 2 mechanics. Whether it is armor scaling, how to jungle, orb walking, etc... I'm sure that you guys have a lot of questions answered and these videos should help fill in some of those knowledge gaps!

To be considered, please leave a comment on the video with what you guys would like to see next and the comment with the most thumbs up will be the next How-to video! Enjoy!

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Welcome to the 36 patch update of DOTA2! THis is a special patch, since for the first time we start counting backwards on the missing heroes! A long, yet entertaining, journey is closing to its end: only 18 heroes left to be ported! Our patch brings us three new heroes, several bug fixes and some UI additions.

So, this week's main features are:

• Added Ezalor, Keepr of the Light to the game!
• Added Nyx Assasin to the game!
• Added Visage to the game!
• Added a cooldown to being able to find a match when a player declines or abandons a game.
• Added notification for when a Tournament has a live game currently running.

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So, this week's main features are:

• Added Naga Siren to the game!
• Added new stats dropdown feature when spectating!
• Enabled Naga Siren in Captain's Mode

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Yep, you got it right, for the 34th time we are presenting you the Weekly Patch Notes of DOTA2! Summery as ever, this week's patch brings one new hero, several fixes and visual changes and a mysterious treasure hunt! :)

So, this week's main features are:

• Added Lanaya, the Templar Assasin to the game!
• Announcers, couriers and several rare items on sale.
• Added Storm Spirit announcer.
• Added over 50 new community created items.

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