Icefrog is a busy man. What a lot of Dota 2 players don’t realise is that Icefrog continues to support the original Dota, born from inside Warcraft 3. The most noticeable support is in the recent 6.77b patch, that has updated a selection of unreleased heroes.
The unreleased heroes have actually been present since the 6.73 patch, which was over a year ago. But what’s really interesting is that these heroes are still being actively worked on. Here are the unusual suspects, taken from a forum post on Playdota by Siraraz:
- Mortar Team – Skill information shows these guys are AoE kings, using their mortar to deal splash damage to creeps and heroes. Concussive Shot silences and slows enemy units, where Flash Bomb blinds enemies caught in the blast radius. Another skill named “Bomb Bomb” has no description, but I’m guessing it’s a bomb. Their ultimate, Siege Form, decreases their movement speed to 100 but increases their damage and range exponentially. Their attacks also hit in a small AoE, allowing them to hit multiple targets.
- Priest – A diverse support hero, Priest is the perfect anti carry. Holy Shackles works a lot like Searing Chains from Ember Spirit. It shackles the closest enemy units together while dealing DPS. Chill is a simple nuke with an added silence, while Focus increases an allies damage by 100 on their next X attacks but also lowers their movement speed. His ultimate is called Divine Intervention, which dooms an enemy target leaving them unable to attack, while also making them completely invulnerable.
- Wyvern Outrider – More of an support/initiator, Wyvern Outrider can protect allies from spells while slowing down the enemies to a crawl. Sonic Boom rushes Wyvern Outrider forwards until he connects with an enemy, dealing damage and stunning them. Wind Blast is a powerful but small AoE nuke, that has a delay based off the heroes AGI stat. Wind Barrier gives an allie increased magic resistance while also making them move faster. Finally, Prevailing Winds cyclones everything in a huge area, buffing allies with speed and debuffing enemies with decreased movement speed.
- Ghost Revenant – Proving to be quite buggy in the test map, Ghost Revenant is an incredible counter to invisible heroes. Wraith allows him to put himself into an Ethereal state, while also boosting his movement speed. He can also end this effect early if he desires. Blackjack fires three orbs in a parallel line which move pretty fast, dealing damage and stunning anything that contacts them. Miasma is why he is great against invisible units by dealing damage in the AoE while also revealing them. His ultimate, Exhaustion is a global slow, forcing all enemy units on the map down to a snail crawl of 100 movement speed.
- Edge Walker – Having the most potential to be the most annoying hero yet, Edge Walker is a lane nightmare. His first skill, Death Watch, places a buff upon an allied unit causes damage and a stun to anything that kills them. This would be really hard to deal with in the early game, where using this on creeps can abuse the enemies greed for last hits. Reality Shift places a ward which turns nearby enemies Ethereal, while Fatal Attraction is a passive which pulls all enemy units towards Edge Walker whenever he casts a skill. His ultimate, Haunting Echos is another passive which spawns wisps at intervals of x seconds. Having a maximum of three, he can then detonate each one to deal damage and silence his enemies. With a short cooldown, he can use this quite regularly, only limited by the maximum three wisps.
- Sissy (Dragonhawk) – A bit of an odd one really, seemingly relying on enemy positioning for her skills, while her ultimate is just plain bonkers. Conjure Force deals damage and ensnares enemies in an AoE, but only if they are 400-600 units away. Anything closer or further away are not affected. Arcane Seal is very vague, only that it could be the same as the NPC’s ability in WC3. Thrust pushes enemies away from the caster by 350 units, dealing damage to enemies and healing allies. Can be used on herself and will push her in the direction Sissy is facing. Divine Wrath is a very interesting ultimate ability, which seems open to abuse. It’s a channeled ability which makes the target unit invulnerable for the duration. At the end, Sissy gains a sub ability which launches a projectile, dealing the total damage negated while the target was invulnerable. As Siraraz suggests, “For best results, tank the fountain and then get a rampage.”
Check out the forum post itself for more details such as ability icons, model previews and even more stats. Bear in mind though that these are purely prototypes and most likely nowhere near the finished product Icefrog and his team want them to be.