A new patch, a new hero and a new meta is what you can expect from Dota 2's winter update...
Dota 2 will be receiving its next major patch this winter, and it’s generating significant excitement.
In fact, a bona fide legend is coming to the game – his name? Sun Wukong. Also known as Monkey King.
This entirely new legendary character is the first new hero that hasn’t been ported from the original mod, but we’ll get to that later.
Perhaps one of the best aspects of post-TI6, and in the lead up to the Boston Major, is waiting to see what Icefrog has in store for us when it comes to balancing out the meta.
Already we’ve seen a stir in the current meta – the most notable being the overall shift to the early push strategy that the recent patches brought, with patch 6.88f topping it all off.
TI6, as with any major, highlighted a few areas where imbalances had organically manifested in the game, which a few target heroes had capitalised on.
Drow Ranger, deadly early on and a favourite at TI6 – and banned twice as often as picked – was a key player in this imbalance. She’s been hit hard in post-TI6 updates.
Not only was she heavily nerfed by the 6.88e patch with the reduction of her base damage, Icefrog also targeted one of her core early items, Dragon Lance.
Coming at her from all angles, the survivability that Omniknight provided for Drow was also hit. Couple that with the Repel nerf, early game push plays – especially those of Drow – are looking less dangerous.
The nerfed push strategy is also a consequence of other changes, including Morphling’s damage reduction and the long-awaited and welcome change to the Infused Raindrop. As the saying goes, when it rains, it pours.
But reinforcing this notion, illusion damage dealt to buildings has also taken a hit.
This means a significant drop in tower-pushing for heroes such as Shadow Demon, Phantom Lancer and Naga Siren, who utilise illusions at a fairly low risk.
You can see a pattern emerging, right? Just keep all this in mind as we look at what’s coming in the New Journey update, as it’s particularly relevant for the new character.
Oh yes, don’t worry – we haven’t forgotten about the Monkey King. But just who is he?
The legend of Sun Wukong is a traditional Chinese folktale that follows the supernaturally powerful Monkey King as he journeys west to retrieve Buddhist sutras from India.
The Monkey King of folklore has immense powers – including being able to somersault 13,000 miles, over half way across the globe – giving Valve plenty of room to create an ability-rich character.
At the moment, not much is known about our simian friend. However, the trailer gives us some exciting clues to pore over.
Clearly, the Monkey King is an agile martial artist, wielding his famous 8,000kg staff. He also has illusion powers, as we see in the trailer.
This is in keeping with the myth itself, in which each of our protagonist’s hairs have magical properties, and can be used to create doppelgangers.
This awe-inspiring ape can seemingly turn himself into a tree in a bout of botanical tomfoolery, but it’s his ability to create active clones that has piqued our interest.
As we mentioned earlier, the recent illusion nerf could be gearing up to welcome in this new cheeky hero, but the question remains – in what capacity can these illusions be utilised?
From the trailer, we could almost speculate that the illusions are a swarm – like a monkey army, providing nuke abilities similar to Tinker’s March of the Machines.
It’s a tantalising glimpse into how this character could be played, even if it’s largely guesswork.
But perhaps we can also glean clues from outside the world of Dota. Sun Wukong is a video-game staple, and has even appeared in fellow MOBAs: League of Legends and Smite.
In LoL, Wukong is a particularly frustrating tank to be up against.
His decoy abilities enable him to drop in and out of fights, his images can attack non-target enemies, and his ultimate, Cyclone, utilises his staff in a similar way as Juggernaut’s Blade Fury.
The longer monkey spins, the faster monkey goes.
Taking all this into consideration, we can also guess where this new character could be put to best use.
His implied agility and illusory abilities could make him a good candidate to solo the suicide lane – as well as being a fairly decent escape hero – with harassing potential.
Based on our assumptions, it would also make sense that Monkey King would be an effective Ganker. Given his mobility, traversing the map and chasing down enemy heroes would make sense, but let’s see.
On another note, does any of this seem familiar? Anyone with a sense of Dota déjà vu might be remembering the early days of the game.
Way back in the era of the Dota 6.80 beta, details of a Monkey King character were leaked, but he never made it into the final product.
Could these leaked details give us an insight into what Valve’s Wukong might play like?
Yeah, probably not. Phantom Lancer’s near-identical skills to those listed in the beta leak suggest that the Monkey King template was more or less transplanted to Phantom Lancer.
Never mind. We still have some interesting theories.
And although we simply don’t know enough about Wukong yet to say for sure, we’re expecting a lively, active character that could present a significant danger on the map.
All in all, we’re ready to go bananas when the new update rolls out.
