Valve’s flagship MOBA game has just got a whole bunch of updates to one of its perhaps more niche but good fun game modes. The January 8 Dota 2 patch brings a raft of fixes and tweaks to Ability Draft, which sets you up with a random hero plucked from a roster of eligible characters and four abilities picked from a randomised pool, following a Dota 2 “community bug hunt”.
In the list of Ability Draft fixes are a bunch that tie into Aghanim’s Shard ability upgrades. For example, boosted abilities like Fire Spirits, Grave Keeper’s Cloak, Epicenter, Fissure, and Ransack should now work correctly with Shard, and additionally Valve notes that the patch has fixed “various inaccurate Sceptre/Shard markers on draft screen as well as missing or wrong Aghanim’s tooltips”. Plus, giving your teammates Sceptres using the Greevil’s Greed ability will no longer cause an issue in removing your Shard granted ability.
Elsewhere, the patch has a range of varied updates and other fixes to the game mode. For example, melee heroes now gain bonus range from the Take Aim and Shadow realm active abilities, and Spirit Bear is now shown on the screen’s left-side as an owned unit in addition to in the post-game scoreboard.
There are plenty more Ability Draft fixes and tweaks to check out, so we’ve included the Dota 2 January 8 patch notes in full for you below (via Valve):
This patch updates the Ability Draft game mode:
- Fixed Greater Bash not working when drafted.
- Fixed Io Spirits In/Out ability replacing other drafted abilities. This should fix any zero-second cooldown 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 centre 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 and 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.
After all that, if you’re looking for some tips on the best Dota 2 heroes to play, you know where to click.