In the heat of the Dota Pro Circuit and all the drama surrounding it, Valve released the long-awaited update for Ability Draft. Arguably the most underrated game mode.
Have you ever wanted to just sit back, relax, and have a game of Dota 2? Me neither but if your answer was yes, then give Ability Draft a chance. It’s probably the most fun Dota 2 mode and the possibilities with it are practically endless. In case you thought regular hero interactions weren’t broken enough then AD is just for you.
But what’s that, everything about it is broken after the latest patch? Not for long, as today Valve released an update that fixes quite a lot of bugs, interactions, and more. Behold.
Ability Draft Update. https://t.co/FmTfZi7LLL #Dota2 pic.twitter.com/hXEZBwNd4m
— Wykrhm Reddy (@wykrhm) January 8, 2021
Here are the full notes of the update:
- Fixed Greater Bash not working when drafted.
- Fixed Io Spirits In/Out ability replacing other drafted abilities. This should fix any 0 second cool-down exploits with other abilities.
- Fixed Fire Spirits not working with Shard.
- Fixed being unable to cast Reverse Timewalk with Timewalk Shard.
- Fixed Holy Persuasion not converting ancient creeps with Scepter.
- Fixed Grave Keeper's Cloak not working with Shard.
- Fixed Epicenter not getting the Shard upgrade.
- Fixed Fissure Shard upgrade not working.
- Pulse Nova Scepter upgrade now grants Nihilism.
- Mana Void Scepter upgrade now grants Blink Fragment.
- Macropyre Shard upgrade now grants Liquid Ice.
- Fixed Spirit Form not granting Recall and Blinding Light when active.
- Fixed heroes getting Spirit Form if Illuminate was drafted and a Scepter was gained.
- Fixed Ransack not getting the Geostrike upgrade with Shard.
- Summon Familiars Scepter upgrade now grants Silent as the Grave.
- Skeleton archers now have a minimum attack range of 500 even when Burning Army is cast by melee heroes.
- Take Aim and the Shadow Realm active now provide bonus range to melee heroes.
- Spirit Bear now displays on the left side of the screen as an owned unit as well as in the post-game scoreboard. It's inventory will also be included in the net worth calculations of the owner hero.
- Swashbuckle now splinters the attacks if Marksmanship is drafted and Scepter is active.
- Poison Sting now only applies to the primary target when used with multi-target attacks.
- Poison Sting no longer applies to attacks coming from any wards other than Plague Wards (Serpent Wards, Death Ward)
- Fixed Infernal Blade applying damage and burn to buildings if you switch targets before the projectile lands.
- Stifling Dagger now applies Infernal Blade if it is set to auto-cast.
- Fixed Bash of the Deep triggering multiple times when ranged units had high attack speed.
- Fixed Sacred Arrow launching from different positions depending on the hero. Will now always launch from center point of the hero.
- Fixed Acorn Shot missing bounce targets for melee heroes.
- Fixed Echo Stomp doing double the damage if Astral Spirit was also drafted. Note: Echo Stomp will still do both physical and magical damage values regardless of Astral Spirit being drafted.
- Fixed some heroes getting stuck in looping animations (Ember Spirit, Magnus, Pangolier, Void Spirit).
- Fixed giving Scepters to teammates (with Greevil's greed) removing your Shard granted ability.
- Fixed attack abilities with a cost, spending that cost on multi-target attacks that don't proc modifiers (Split Shot, Flak Cannon).
- Fixed Lil' Shredder stacks being consumed too quickly when using Medusa's Split Shot.
- Fixed Bash of the Deep counting up from Marksmanship Splintered attacks.
- Fixed Walrus Punch FX sometimes getting stuck on targets for the duration of the game.
- Fixed Duel ending early if Berserker's Call was on the target.
- Fixed Invoker & Hoodwink not getting access to the talents when they drafted their own spells.
- Fixed talents missing from Wraith King, Omniknight & Beastmaster.
- Fixed being unable to click anything for the first few seconds of the game.
- Fixed Coaches crashing during drafting stage.
- Fixed private lobbies crashing after the draft if there wasn't 10 players.
- Fixed various inaccurate scepter/shard markers on draft screen as well as missing or wrong Aghanim's tooltips.
The Mistwoods Update added a ton of new spells with Aghanims Shards. Some of them give you a new spell and those are great for Ability Draft. Others amplify an already existing skill and if you don’t have it, well too bad.
Now go out there and make some ridiculous builds in AD! What was your best one? Tell us on our Facebook page or Discord server!
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