Dota 2 weekly update: Nyx Assassin, KOTL and Visage join the crew

Nyx Assassin, Keeper of the Light, and Visage are the latest three heroes to join Dota 2, in what possibly will be the last hero additions until after The International tournament.

According to the Dota 2 development team, they “want to give the competing teams some time to practice with a stable Hero roster, and [with] as few new bugs from us as possible.” Judging from this statement, we guess that probably means we won’t see any more heroes added till after The International.

It will be interesting to see if the new additions to the hero roster will result in new team lineups. Nyx Assassin (known as the Nerubian Assassin in Dota) is an Agility ganker, Keeper of the Light is a dedicated pusher, and Visage is a semi-versatile Intelligence hero. All very effective heroes in their own right.

Full change log below.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Added Nyx Assassin, Keeper of the Light, and Visage and enabled in Captain’s Mode!
• 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.

GAMEPLAY

• Beastmaster:
  • Fixed Wild Axes working with Refresher.
  • Wild Axes no longer provide vision when they aren’t flying.
• Naga Siren:
  • Fixed Dust of Appearance not working against units slept by Song of the Siren.
  • Fixed Ice Blast debuff not getting added to units slept by Song of the Siren.
  • Fixed Weave not affecting units slept by Song of the Siren.
• Phantom Lancer:
  • Fixed Doppelwalk illusions not correctly replicating their inventory item slots.
• Rubick:
  • Fixed Wild Axes being left around when another ability is stolen.
• Sand King:
  • Neutrals can now be damaged by Sandstorm.
• Templar Assassin:
  • Fixed Meld initial attack doing too much damage.
• Slardar:
  • Fixed Bash working while doomed.
• Neutrals damaged by an invisible enemy will now try to run away.

SPECTATING

• Multiple tweaks to director events and framing.
• Fixed particle effects sometimes not drawing while in Player Perspective mode.

UI

• Added notification for when a Tournament has a live game currently running.
• The kill card now shows a randomly selected item that the killer is wearing. Also reduced its size.
• Fixed equipping an item in the backpack not jumping to the correct hero in the loadout
• Added Buyback to the spectating stats dropdown.
• Added a cooldown for being able to find a match when a player declines or abandons a game.
• Fixed Storm Spirit Mega-Kill announcer having the incorrect equip slot.

VISUALS

• Fixed Rubick retaining incorrect skins from stolen abilities when returning to his normal model.
• Meld damage display is now only shown for successful hits.

BOTS

• Significant revision of how bots determine their strategic desires.
• Roshan desire has been significantly reworked. It’s now based on how quickly Roshan can be killed given the available heroes and how quickly enemies can show up.
• Evasion desire is now more granular. Things like Blade Fury now cause a range of evasion desire based on the bot’s current health.
• Fixed case where bots were trying to path to an invalid location when defending their base.
• Made bots more aggressive about attacking when defending a lane.
• Cleaned up inferred human modes for pushing and defending lanes.
• Made bots less concerned about distance when considering an attack on a pinged target.
• Fixed bug that made pinged towers less likely to attract allied bots that were doing other high*priority stuff.
• Tuned retreat desire values when hurt and close to the fountain.
• Made bots somewhat more likely to buy a flying courier.

WORKSHOP

• Added a new Import Wearable option to the Publish New Item section of the in*game workshop UI. It will compile, validate, and preview your model before you submit it. When submitting, it also packs the files into a format that makes it much easier for us to bring it into the game.

UNDOCUMENTED

• Updated Batrider‘s textures.
• Updated Crystal Maiden‘s textures.
• Added spawn animations for the following heroes:
  • Earthshaker
  • Night Stalker
  • Shadow Demon
  • Tidehunter
  • Tinker
• Added teleport start and end animations for the following heroes:
  • Earthshaker
  • Pudge
  • Night Stalker
  • Shadow Demon
  • Tidehunter
  • Tinker
• Added Haste Rune Run animations for the following heroes:
  • Night Stalker
  • Pudge
• Added the following animations to Night Stalker:
  • Injured Run
  • Injured Idle
  • Victory & Defeat
• Updated Phantom Assassin‘s minimap icon to reflect her updated model.
• Updated quite a few item icons
• You can now see if your friends are viewing a Tournament game.
• You can now see how many casters (if any) are broadcasting a game from the audio channel button.

(via Dota 2 wiki and Dota 2 Blog)

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