The Dota 2 Battle Pass event gets a breath of fresh air with the latest update. Aghanim’s Labyrinth now has an additional fifth difficulty and three new heroes!
Aghanim’s Labyrinth was released over a month ago in mid-July. The seasonal event is available to everyone, even players who don’t own a Battle Pass. There’s one catch though – it’s kind of difficult, at least initially. Until yesterday, the event had four difficulty levels – Apprentice, Magician, Sorcerer and Grand Magus.
With the latest update Valve added a fifth difficulty – Apex Mage. Needless to say it’s even tougher to beat than Grand Magus as the bosses have even higher damage and health pools. Another modifier is also added to all the encounters, increasing the number of buffs from 3 to 4. Now the chances to encounter an unbeatable room are even higher!
Aghanim's Labyrinth Update- New Playable Heroes: Queen of Pain, Slark and Templar Assassin- New Difficulty Level - Apex Mage#TI10 #Dota2 pic.twitter.com/93phX7QyF4
— Wykrhm Reddy (@wykrhm) August 28, 2020
In addition to the new difficulty, the team also added three new heroes – Slark, Templar Assassin and Queen of Pain. TA and QoP have some nice area of effect damage with their abilities, while Slark is more of a single-target focus. QoP is very much the same in terms of skillset to what we’ve seen in normal games of Dota 2. TA can only absorb so much damage perk Refraction charge, her Meld lasts only 2.5 seconds and traps auto-detonate. Slark, on the other hand, is changed too. His Dark Pact does 320 damage at max level and heals him for 15% of the damage inflicted. We can imagine that most of the time you’ll be getting plus health by using it. His Essence Shift, much like Ursa’s Fury Swipes has a maximum stack. You can only steal 25 agility(it’s 25 stacks and he gets only 1 agility per stack) lasting for 10 seconds. Not that impressive. On the plus side, he also gets damage reduction per stack!
The update also included some more changes:
- Added four new ascension modifiers: Glutton, Clumsy, Glimmer, Meteoric
- Bristleback now sells a variety of minor upgrade shards for the chosen heroes in the game
- The rate of earning Battle Points during the game has been increased
Earning points faster is a nice touch since it took a lot of effort to max out that weekly cap. Bristleback now sells some regular shards that can often be beneficial. Also, they're quite cheap (500 gold).
Here’s what each of the new modifiers does:
- Glutton - All enemies debuff the turn rate and attack speed of their killers.
- Clumsy - Enemy Captains occasionally gain persistent invisibility.
- Glimmer - Enemy Captains root their killers upon death.
- Meteoric - Enemy Captains sometimes become meteors and launch themselves at Heroes.
That last one sure sounds like fun! Once again, in order to beat the higher difficulties you’ll have to go through elite rooms that are even harder than the already challenging regular ones. By beating elite encounters you’ll get much better upgrades for your abilities. Check the full list of possible shard upgrades hereand get a good idea of possible combinations.
We have no doubt that players will spend countless more hours in attempts to beat the new difficulty. Have you beaten Grand Magus yet?
- READ MORE: Dota 2 Patch 7.27d Is Out!
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