posted by Vekus,
Do you remember when Valve promised us a big update a couple of months ago, as the excuse for withholding Diretide? It is finally amongst us! With the second day of the Foreseer's Contract, Valve brings a new hero, long awaited creep remodels, as well as hats, hats and, even more ... ARCANAS!


Oracle - The Foreseer



On the second day of the Foreseer's Contract, Valve implements the hero they announced in last week's comic. The new hero, a powerful supporter with strong nuking and healing potential, as well as one of the best ultimates in the game, was thoroughly discussed in an earlier article and if you aren't familiar with him, check him out there.

Manifold Paradox





Alongside the new hero, Valve released their promised arcana for :d2_pa: Phantom Assassin as hinted in the comic. The manifold paradox looks absolutely amazing and brings a lot of changes, including new emoticons, a new portrait, custom spell effects and ...DUAL WIELD!



Hats, Shirts and Cosmetics!




Next to the PA arcana, the long awaited Dotacinema Treasure finally got released! In the Arsenal of the Defender's Vision you will be able to find new sets for Centaur Warrunner, Clockwerk, Timbersaw, Venomancer and Necrophos, as well as the rare Antipode courier, should Fortuna smile on you.


Similar to the International Victory Shout, there will be an item available called Charm of the Defender's Vision, with which you are able to predict your team emerging victorious in All-Pick matches. However, the item has a twist to it, since it will change, depending on the outcome of your predictions.



Next to digital hats, Valve adds some reallife cosmetics in form of the Manifold Paradox T-Shirt, which will be the Coup de Grace in your collection and will make everyone blink as you strike them with your good looks.

More Radiant and more Dire...



Apparently Valve wants to fulfill most of their stretch goals with this update, as new models for Radiant and Dire creeps are added. The new creeps equip themselves with what seems to be architectural elements of their respective bases.

If you want to boost your ego further and immortalize your glory, you now have the ability to craft a heroic effigy which you can plant inside your teams base, once the game has started. Alongside this, Valve released Compendium Emoticons, to show of your International Compendium level.


Additional Changes



Valve accompanied the update with a list of various changes and bugfixes. Most notably however is the addition of both :d2_brood: Broodmother and Phoenix to the Captains Mode, promising a lot of new strategies to be shown by teams in the future. The full list of changes can be found below.

Check out the new patchnotes!

[patchnotes]


Gameplay

Enabled Broodmother in Captain's Mode
Enabled Phoenix in Captain's Mode
Fixed Midnight Pulse rounding down
Fixed Illusions not showing the same Black King Bar charges as the primary hero
Fixed recursive damage loop with stolen Fatal Bonds and Sticky Napalm
Fixed Spirit Bear being unable to pick up Bounty Runes
Fixed Pounce not being removed by Blade Fury
Fixed some minor incorrect purgeability behaviors with Invulnerable states on Bane, Ember Spirit, Faceless Void, Morphling and Storm Spirit
Fixed Runes not spawning at the right time in save/load games
Fixed save/load not remembering Black King Bar charges
Fixed some cases where reconnecting to a match would fail until the client was restarted
Town Portal Scroll effect coloring intensified to show more of the casting player's color

Network

Improved detection of Poor Network Conditions. Now it can trigger if multiple players experience degraded connection quality, even if they do not totally drop connection. When poor network connections are detected, the match is immediately safe to leave, match results are not recorded, and prediction items are not consumed
Fixed a bug which caused end-of-match rewards, such as All Hero Challenge progress, to not be granted if players left very quickly after a match ended at the same time that match signout was delayed

Bots

Added Phantom Assassin Bot
Added Oracle Bot
Bots can no longer use buyback if affected by an Aghanim's Scepter-upgraded Reaper's Scythe

Audio

Added new sounds for each rune type
Added a new sound for when Linken's Sphere is cast on an ally
Added a new sound for Helm of the Dominator
Added a new sound for Spirit Breaker's Empowering Haste activation
Added a sound layer to Desolator attacks
Updated the sound for Roshan's Slam
Updated the sound for Windranger's Windrun
Basic attacks that miss or are evaded no longer play sounds

UI

New healthbars added for Ancient buildings, Roshan, and hero creeps (Spirit Bear, Familiars etc)
The item context menu now allows "Move to Stash" while dead
Fixed alt-pinging the enemy's item sometimes getting truncated
Linken Sphere now shows up as a buff icon when cast on allies
Fixed the Reaper's Scythe indicator not appearing in the top bar when buyback is unavailable to a killed hero
Allow tab cycling (without unit selection) between owned units to cycle to illusions
If Unified Unit Orders is unchecked, holding down control while issuing orders will only issue the order to the selected unit group and not the entire selection
Damage taken by illusions is now expressed in ability and item descriptions as the total amount of damage that the illusion will take. Previously, it was shown as an amount of bonus damage to then be added to the base 100%
Several tooltip adjustments and fixes
Added a Terse option to Fight Recap
Spectating in DotaTV will now show player pings and drawings
Added an option for sorting items in your armory by those received most recently

Economy

Fixed crash from Lion Infernal Wings weapon particle
Fixed broken eyelid animation for flying Prismatic Drake courier
Fixed mesh inside wrist guards for Battletrap armor
Fixed custom portrait for Crystal Maiden when equipped with Yulsaria's Glacier
Enabled item set for Lone Druid Wolf Hunter and added Spirit of Calm to the Tools of Haruspex item set
Fixed Eki Bukaw ward hitboxes
Fixed eye attaches for Lil Nova courier
Updated foot particles for Mirana's Sapphire Sabre-Lynx mount
Updated emoticons in the DotaCinema Captains Draft 2.0 bundle

Workshop

Magnus - Increased texture budget for his weapon to 256x256
Elder Titan - Enabled alpha-test

[/patchnotes]


Brace yourselves, as this isn't over yet! Shortly, the third day of the Foreseer's Contract is to come, and with it, it will bring the NEMESIS ASSASSIN EVENT!


This article was written by de Markus Fischer, joinDOTA's Senior Writer. Vekus started to follow Dota rather late, as he joined the community in 2012. From then on he tried to get a job in Esports and found it later at joinDOTA. Reallife is mostly spend at university trying to understand physics and running. Avid wearer of Bandanas.Location: Chemnitz, GermanyFollow him on @VekusDota.

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