Dota 2 Mistwoods Update is LIVE! See the Changes

Dota 2 fans have been waiting on patch 7.28 and the promised new hero for months now. Both are now available as the Mistwoods Update went live yesterday. A lot has changed.

The Mistwoods Update is the Dota 2 patch of 2020. The last time we had something as massive was back in November 2019 with the Outlanders Update. Arguably, Mistwoods changes a lot more. It features a new hero, numerous hero changes, ability reworks, the addition of Aghanim Shards, new items (both regular and neutral), and more.

General Changes

Game now starts at night time and turns to day once creeps spawn
Neutral creeps no longer increase their bounty over the course of the game
Neutral stacked gold bonus reduced from 40% to 30%
Roshan armor growth increased from 0.325 to 0.375
Radiant Ancient camp is now easier to stack
Added lore to all items
Rearranged some items in the shop (mostly ordering based on cost changes in recent years, but also in some cases moving from one category to another. Consumables are unchanged.)
When combining, items will attempt to be placed into the slot of their component that has the most similar active effect. For example, Magic Wand will combine onto Magic Stick, Bloodthorn will combine onto Orchid Malevolence, etc.

Hoodhwink dota 2 — The latest addition to the Dota 2 roster - Hoodwink. (Image credit: Valve Corporation)

New Hero: Hoodwink

Hoodwink is a ranged carry hero that has quite the repertoire. The squirrel combines a lot of pre-existing mechanics and only time will tell how good or bad she is. Expect a dedicated article that’ll look more in-depth at the hero.

Aghanim Shards

Without a doubt, the biggest change in patch 7.28 is Aghanim Shards. The latter modify an existing ability or add a brand-new one for the mere cost of 1400 gold. They’re only available after minute 20. Aghanim Shards and Aghanim Scepter are not the same thing so each hero will have two ways to modify their abilities. At the time of release, Hoodwink is the only hero without either but that’ll probably change soon.

Some heroes like Phantom Assassin get a brand-new ability that’s quite useful. In her case it’s Fan of Knives, an ability that was tied to the original model that inspired the hero – the Warden from Warcraft III. FoK does area of effect damage, hitting enemies for 12% of their max health and also applying break.

Others like Tusk see the return of one of their old abilities, namely Sigil of Frost. It allows Tusk to summon a flying Sigil that provides vision and slows enemies that are near it.

There’s also the third option of just modifying an already existing skill. We all hoped that Sven will be severely nerfed by 7.28 but is he? The dispel part of Storm Hammer is now tied to an Aghanim Shard, so the Superman combo is still possible. On the plus side, his cast range on Storm Hammer was reduced with Aghanim’s Scepter and the auto-attack on stun was removed. Furthermore, the percentages of his ultimate were also brought down a bit.

You can check all Aghanim Shard upgrades and hero changes on the official Dota 2 blog.

Item Changes

The new update also changed quite a lot in the items department. New items were added, some neutrals were removed and replaced by brand-new ones.

Purchasable items

Fluffy Hat

Costs 250 gold
Grants 125 Health

Falcon Blade

Requires Fluffy Hat, Sage's Mask, Blades of Attack and 225 gold recipe
Grants +150 Health, +1.6 Mana Regen, +10 Damage

Orb of Corrosion

Requires Blight Stone, Orb of Venom, and a Fluffy Hat
Provides +150 Health, 13%/4% Slow, 3 Magic DPS, and 3 Armor reduction. Lasts 3 seconds

Witch Blade

Requires Blitz Knuckles, Chainmail, Robe of the Magi and a 600 gold recipe.
Grants +35 Attack Speed, +12 Intelligence, +6 Armor and +300 Projectile Speed. Has a 9 second passive cooldown that procs on attacks, applying a curse for 3 seconds that slows by 25% and deals your Int as damage every second.

Gleipnir

Requires Maelstrom, Rod of Atos and a 700 gold recipe.
Provides +30 Damage, +20 Intelligence, +12 Strength and +12 Agility. Passive: 160 damage Chain Lightning proc
Active: Targets a 450 AoE area, releasing a lightning strike onto each enemy unit, ensnaring them for 2 seconds and dealing a chain lightning damage proc for 220 damage. Cast Range: 1100. Manacost: 200

Mage Slayer

Requires Cloak, Blade of Alacrity, Claymore and 600 gold recipe.
Grants +20% Magic Resistance, +20 Agility, +20 Damage and causes your attacks to place a -35% Spell Amp debuff on enemy heroes lasting 4 seconds.

Top 10 Heroes in Dota 2’s Diretide 2020 View gallery

Eternal Shroud

Requires Hood of Defiance, Voodoo Mask and a 1100 gold recipe.
Grants +8.5 HP Regeneration, +20% Hero Spell Lifesteal and +4% Creep Spell Lifesteal.
Can be activated to create a shield that absorbs up to 400 magical damage and converts it to mana. Lasts 12 seconds. Cooldown: 60. Manacost: 50

Helm of the Dominator

Helm of the Dominator can now be upgraded to Level 2 by buying ultimate orb and a 1600 recipe.
Allows converting Ancients. Minimum health increased to 1800. Increases stat/armor/hp regen bonuses from 6/6/6 to 20/8/8

Overwhelming Blink

Requires Blink Dagger, Reaver and a 1750 Gold Recipe.
Grants you +25 Strength, and when you land at a destination, all enemies in a 800 AoE have 50% movement slow and 50 attack slow for 6 seconds and take damage equal to 200 + 100% of your strength.

Swift Blink

Requires Blink Dagger, Eaglesong and a 1750 Gold Recipe
Grants you +25 Agility, and when you land at a destination, you gain 30% phased movement speed, and +40 Damage and +40 Attack Speed for 6 seconds.

Arcane Blink

Requires Blink Dagger, Mystic Staff and a 1750 Gold Recipe
Grants you +25 Intelligence, and when you land at a destination, gain -50% Cast Point and 25% Ability Cooldown Reduction for 6 seconds. Does not affect items.

Wind Breaker

Requires Euls, Mystic Staff and a 1600 gold recipe.
Grants +50 Movement Speed, +6 Mana Regen, +35 Intelligence. Extends the Cyclone functionality to allow casting on allies. When cast on yourself, you can move the tornado anywhere at a speed of 360.

Gleipnir looks a bit too good on paper so we’ll probably see it nerfed. Blink Dagger will no longer be a waste of a slot, as the three upgrades offer a nice choice of stats. Wind Breaker seems like a lot of fun as you can even go through terrain with it.

Item Changes

There are quite a lot of changes here too so let’s stick to the most important ones.

Satanic no longer provides status resistance but the damage bonus is increased from 25 to 45 and Unholy Rage lasts 6 seconds instead of 5.
Javelin and MKB procs are now set to 70 magic damage and the recipe for MKB now costs 675 insteaqd of 550. Overall a change that was necessary.
Dagon now requires a Staff of Wizardry, a Crown and a 1300 gold recipe.

Dota 2 neutral item changes mistwoods update — Some neutrals were removed and others were added in 7.28. (Image credit: Valve Corporation)

Neutral Items

Removed

Mango Tree
Poor Man’s Shield
Iron Talon
Clumsy Net
Vampire Fangs
Repair Kit
Craggy Coat
Greater Faerie Fire
Magic Lamp
Witless Shako
Prince’s Knife
Havoc Hammer
Woodland Striders
Trident

New items

Tier 1

Fairy’s Trinket+100 Health, +5% Spell Amp. Reduces manacosts by 5%

Chipped VestGrants +3.5 HP Regen and passively returns 26 damage to hero attackers and 13 to creeps.

Possessed Mask+7 Primary Attribute, +7% Lifesteal

Tier 2

Quicksilver Amulet+30% Attack Animation and Projectile Speed. +5% MS and +10 Attack Speed. If any of your abilities are on cooldown, you gain an additional +5% MS and +15 Attack Speed.

Bullwhip+3 HP Regen and +3 Mana Regen. Can be cast on allies to grant them +16% Movement Speed for 5 seconds, or on enemies to slow them by 16% for 5 seconds. Cast Range: 850. Cooldown: 12

Tier 3

Elven TunicGrants +26 Attack Speed, +16% Evasion, +8% Movement Speed

Cloak of FlamesGrants +5 Armor, +10% Magic Resistance and a passive immolation aura dealing 45 damage per second in a 400 AoE

Ceremonial RobeGrants +350 Mana. Enemies in 1200 AoE have -10% Status Resistance and -10% Magic Resistance.

Psychic HeadbandGrants +12% Intelligence and +100 Cast Range. Activate to push the target enemy 400 distance away from you. Cast Range: 800. Cooldown: 30.

Tier 4

Penta-Edged SwordProvides +45 Damage, +80 Melee Attack Range and 20% chance to Maim enemies, reducing their movement speed by 20% and attack speed by 60 for 3 seconds.

StormcrafterGrants 4 Mana Regen. Zaps an enemy within 700 range of you every 3 seconds, dealing 200 damage and slowing by 40% for 0.3 seconds. Can be activated to cyclone yourself for 0.75 seconds. Cooldown: 25 Manacost: 50

Trickster CloakGrants +20% Evasion, +20% Magic Resistance. Activate to become invisible for 6 seconds. Cooldown: 25

Tier 5

Giant’s Ring+40 Strength, +60 Movement Speed, +60% Model Size and can walk over any terrain. When standing on top of an enemy (100 AoE), deals 100% of your strength per second.

Book of Shadows+12 All Stats, +400 Night Vision. Target an enemy, ally or self. Causes the target to become untargetable but also silenced, muted and disarmed for 4 seconds. Applies a Basic Dispel. Cast Range: 700 Cooldown: 25

Once again, some items are way better than others and we’re sure that the new additions will be tweaked in a manner of days/weeks. What are your first impressions from the update? Tells us on Twitter or Facebook!