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Dota Underlords update: new patch notes (August, 2019)

Dota Underlords has arrived on Steam Early Access, so here’s everything Valve has planned for the months ahead

dota underlords update

Want to know what features will arrive in the next Dota Underlords update? Valve has quickly managed to react to the rise of the autobattler by releasing their very own Dota Underlords, which slims down, tidies up, and puts a shiny ‘official’ stamp on the popular Auto Chess Dota 2 mod.

That rapid turnaround has naturally resulted in quite a few missing features, bugs, and some ill-conceived UI components. The team behind Dota Underlords promises to address these issues as fast as possible and has already issued a loose roadmap of upcoming features for the community to look forward to.

So while a number of Dota Underlords updates have already rolled out, we’re yet to see any major content patches to address missing features like replays and the titular Underlords themselves. To walk you through everything Valve is planning for their autobattler we’ve assembles a quick rundown of what’s next for Dota Underlords. On top of that, we’ll also discuss the game’s Early Access roadmap so you know when the team plan on releasing each new update.

Dota Underlords recent patch

The most recent Dota Underlords patch is a follow-up to the Head to Head patch and includes a few small meta updates, bug fixes, and hero tweaks. Here are the full Dota Underlords patch notes for August 8, 2019:

General

  • We crashed some crashing code into a crash compactor
  • Fixed some issues with animations and unit facing
  • More FX have been optimized
  • Units affected by Medusa’s Stone Gaze now visually freeze and look stony
  • Changed Global Items achievement to require 2, not 4, global items
  • Bot games now start paused when they are resumed
  • Bot personalities tweaked for the current state of the game
  • The Combat Stats Kills panel now treats kills like damage (summons’ kills accrue to the summoner)

UI

  • Fixed an issue where the wrong alliance icons could be shown when a unit is placed on the board and an alliance completes
  • Fixed an issue where the +Free Reroll line could be shown in error on the round rewards popup
  • Fixed some issues with Proto Pass progress display
  • Fixed reoccurring rank-up popups
  • Can now click on heroes on the scoreboard and all heroes of that type will be highlighted
  • In-game alliance tooltip/popup now shows icons for all heroes in that alliance
  • Fixed sometimes not notifying other players when a combat ended and an Aegis was used
  • Highlight your own row on the scoreboard
  • General UI updates and polish

Gameplay

  • Fixed an issue with ability targeting and summons where those abilities which sort units by, e.g., health were not properly excluding summons
  • Fixed unexploded Techies Bombs doing player damage on round over

Alliance changes

  • Elusive: Level 3 Alliance (9 heroes) – changed from “All units gain +75% evasion” to “All heroes gain +75% evasion”
  • Demon Hunter Level 2 Alliance (2 heroes) – changed from “Invalidate your opponent’s Demon Alliance bonus. All Demon units gain +50% Pure Damage
    All Demon Hunters gain +50% Pure Damage.” to “Invalidate your opponent’s Demon Alliance bonus
    All Demon and Demon Hunter units gain +50% Pure Damage.” This means that Terrorblade no longer gets the double bonus
  • Hunter Level 1 (3 heroes): extra attacks chance raised from 20% to 25%
    Level 2 (6 heroes): extra attacks chance raised from 35% to 40%.

Hero Changes

  • Doom
    Doom’s Doom ability now uniformly disables passive bonuses, including alliance passive bonuses
    Ability description changed to reflect this
  • Lycan
    When Lycan transforms and he gains 30% max health, he heals by the full 30% each time, rather than this being based on his current health at the time of transforming
  • Juggernaut
    If Juggernaut is eligible to cast Blade Fury (has enough mana, not on cooldown) and he is about to take magic damage, he immediately casts
    Blade Fury and takes no magic damage

Item Changes

  • Helm of the Undying – Undying units, if they are in the undying state, will never deal damage to the opponent, but will still count when determining which side won a round

Head to head (August 1, 2019)

  • Players are now paired off to fight directly against each other, and both take part in the same shared combat.
  • When an odd number of players are present one of the players fights a clone of an actual player.
  • Leaderboard now pairs off players when they’re in head-to-head combat.

New ranked system

  • Rank is now a number you can see that moves up and down in a predictable way.
  • Rank change is based solely on where you finish in a Ranked match and does not depend on your opponents’ Rank.
  • Any time you reach the next minor Rank, we also grant bonus rank points.
  • Just like before, once you obtain a major Rank, it’s locked in and you cannot drop below it
  • More details and breakdown of rank thresholds here.

New casual multiplayer mode

  • Play multiplayer games without affecting your Rank.
  • You will be matched against opponents of your same skill level.
  • You can queue up solo or with friends.
  • This is where you experiment with new builds, or complete those elusive challenges.
  • Daily Challenges and Achievements can be earned in Casual Multiplayer matches.

Ranked multiplayer mode updates

  • Your Rank (Enforcer I, Upstart III, etc) is used to find opponents.
  • Play Ranked matches solo or in a party, see this blog post for details about party ranked.
  • New players will need to unlock ranked mode by playing 5 casual games. (Don’t worry, accounts with at least one Multiplayer game will be grandfathered in.)
  • Daily Challenges and Achievements can be earned in Ranked Multiplayer matches.

Achievements

  • Complete achievements to earn Proto Pass XP
  • Complete an entire tier of achievements to unlock equippable Banner
  • Sigils (i.e. complete all three 1-star Economy achievements to unlock the piggy sigil)

Added 2-Star and 3-Star look upgrades to the following Heroes

  • Abaddon
  • Arc Warden
  • Anti-Mage
  • Clockwerk
  • Doom
  • Dragon Knight
  • Drow Ranger
  • Gyrocopter
  • Kunkka
  • Lina
  • Luna
  • Medusa
  • Mirana
  • Phantom Assassin
  • Queen of Pain
  • Razor
  • Templar Assassin
  • Timbersaw
  • Tiny
  • Venomancer

Gameplay changes

  • Round damage eliminated for rounds 4-9. Round Damage starts at round 11, at 2 damage, and proceeds as before from then on (3 starting at round 20, 4 at round 30, etc.).
  • Whenever a player loses a round against another player, the loser gains a free reroll the next round. This reroll is not stackable, so use it or lose it.

General changes

  • Fixed solo games / tutorial not ending (staying on an empty board screen) when you are not connected to Steam.
  • Fixed Spirit Bear HP bar offset
  • Fixed Defeat screen sometimes not showing correct units and damage
  • Fixed healing-disabling items not applying in neutral waves
    Clarified some alliance text
  • Fixed an issue where an incorrect message was sent when a Divine
  • Rapier was stolen
  • Fixed an issue with players being shown to have completed their rounds on the leaderboard before that was actually true
  • Fixed Deadeye units not switching away from unselectable targets.
  • Fixed Unstoppable (now Helm of the Undying) triggering too early.
  • Fixed incorrect stun duration after Burrow Strike bump.
  • Further particle effect optimizations across all platforms.
  • Fixed crashes when resuming app on iOS
  • Several optimizations for ARM Mali GPUs
  • Added option (defaults to on) to automagically deploy units from your bench if you have room on the board and combat begins before you had time to do so yourself.

Alliance changes

  • Elusive: Level 3 Alliance (9 heroes) – changed from “Allied Elusive units gain +75% evasion” to “All units gain +75% evasion.”
  • Warlock: Healing Link duration changed from 3 seconds to 2 seconds
  • Brawny: Changed from “All Brawny units have their Maximum HP increased by 200/500” to “All Brawny units gain +30/60 maximum HP for each kill they have.”
  • Savage: Changed from “Allies gain +10/25/45% Attack Damage” to “Allied Savage units apply a stackable 5/10/15 damage/s bleed on attack for 3s. Duration refreshes each attack.”
  • Shaman: Changed from “Enemies affected by Hexes, Silences or Stuns will generate -200% mana” to “Units attacking a Shaman have a 17% chance of being turned into a chicken and hop 4 cells in a random direction.”
  • Primordial: Changed from “Enemies attacking Primordial/Allied units have a 25% chance to have their attack speed slowed by 50% each attack. This effect is applied at the start of the attack and lasts for the duration of the attack.” to “Allied Primordial units spawn a rank 1/2 Eidolon on death. Eidolons are ranged Primordial units that don’t spawn Eidolons.”
    Inventor: Changed from “Allied Inventors get 15/40 HP regen” to “Allied Inventors explode on death dealing 15/30% of their Max Health to all enemies 1 cell away”
  • Demon Hunter: In addition to the existing bonuses both levels now also have “All Demon Hunters gain 30% Pure Damage for each unique allied Demon unit.”
  • Assassin: Level 3 Alliance (9 heroes) – In addition to the existing bonuses level 3 now also has “All Assassins also blind enemies 1 cell away from where they land for 2 seconds (50% miss chance and 50% less mana when attacked)”

Hero Changes

  • Crystal Maiden
    Maximum health changed from (450, 900, 1800) to (550, 1100, 2000)
    Gold Cost changed from 2 to 3
  • Eidolon
    Attack damage minimum changed from (40, 50) to (40, 80)
    Attack damage maximum changed from (60, 70) to (60, 120)
    Armor changed from 20 to (5, 10)
    Maximum Health changed from 300 to (300, 600)
  • Juggernaut
    Juggernaut will only cast Blade Fury when he’s surrounded by at least 2 enemies.
  • Lina
    Gold Cost changed from 3 to 2
  • Ogre Magi
    Bloodlust: self bonus attack speed changed from (35, 55, 75) to (50, 90, 130) and other bonus attack speed changed from (30, 40, 50) to (30, 65, 100)
  • Shadow Fiend
    Attack range changed from 4 to 3
    Requiem of Souls: projectile start width changed from 125 to 128, projectile end width changed from 425 to 256
  • Venomancer:
    Plague Ward: number of Wards spawned changed from (1, 1, 3) to (1, 1, 1)
    Maximum health changed from (200, 200, 240) to (200, 220, 240)
    Attack damage minimum changed from (50, 80, 120) to (50, 100, 150)
    Attack range changed from 6 to 8
    Attack damage maximum changed from (55, 100, 140) to (55, 110, 170)
  • Witch Doctor:
    Paralyzing Cask: cooldown changed from 10 to 15

Item changes

  • Big-Time Contract – changed from “Equipped unit is Blood-bound in addition to its other types.” to “+250 Health. Equipped unit is Blood-bound in addition to its other types.”
  • Brooch of the Martyr – changed from “+50% Mana gained from receiving damage.” to “+50% Mana gained from receiving damage. +50% debuff resistance.”
  • Chainmail – bonus armor changed from +7 to +10
  • Claymore – attack damage changed from +21 to +30
  • Gloves of Haste – attack speed changed from +20 to +25
  • Hood of Defiance – tier changed from 3 to 1
  • Octarine Essence – tier changed from 2 to 3
  • Tranquil Boots – health regen changed from +16 to +25
  • Force Staff – now pushes melee attackers away from the equipped hero when taking damage.

Removed items

  • Cloak
  • Recruiter
  • Vicious Intent
  • Wicked Intent

Dota Underlords upcoming features

Valve has communicated their planned feature releases for the next Dota Underlords updates. No exact release cycle has been established for each update, but Valve has said it will release content at a regular cadence.

  • Underlords: choose one of four Underlords from our ever-expanding roster that fits your play style. With unique gameplay-affecting changes, there’s an Underlord for everyone. Annesix, Enno, Jull, and Hobgen are the four Underlords pictured in key art.
  • Ranked Matchmaking: everyone starts at the bottom, but by playing against other Underlords you’ll climb through the ranks and prove you’re the right person to rule White Spire.
  • Seasonal Rotations: every season we’ll say goodbye to certain heroes, items, and alliances to make room for new additions that will shape the ever-evolving world of Dota Underlords.
  • Tournament-Ready: create your own private lobbies and matches, then invite spectators to watch the Underlords’ crews duke it out.
  • Underlords Battlepass: it just wouldn’t be Dota (or, indeed, a modern game) without a Battlepass. The Battle Pass will introduce progression, cosmetics, custom boards, and a host of other new features to the Dota Underlords experience.
  • Match replay: relive and share your favorite moments of the season with our replay viewer.
  • Daily challenges: these are live as part of the Proto Pass.
  • Levels and rewards: again, these appear to be live in their testing phase as part of Proto Pass.
  • Customizable banners and other flair: these items can be seen in the Proto Pass.

Dota Underlords Early Access roadmap

Valve says they plan on keeping Dota Underlords in Early Access for a few months, during which time all of the features listed above will be released. That suggests that content will be coming in thick and fast for the autobattler, hopefully leading to an exciting meta with plenty of change.

This is a guess, but the Early Access page on Steam refers to this being the Dota Underlords beta season, so seeing as an ordinary Dota 2 season is six months long, the likely Dota Underlords 1.0 release date is sometime in December.