UPDATE: Tweaked to reflect what's actually changing with Shadow Fiend. Thanks!

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Though Valve just wrapped up The International 4, the studio continues to tweak DOTA 2. The latest changes come from the Rekindling Soul update, otherwise known as version 6.82. It's significant.

First and foremost, Shadow Fiend has been dealt some changes, mostly aesthetically. Here's a summary of where he's (it's?) at:

There's an entire page that demonstrates the new and improved Shadow Fiend. Coinciding with Shadow Fiend's update is the availability of an arcana item set, which grants a different skin, voice, attack effects, and other ways of making your character stand out 'n look pretty.

Other changes include courier morph (which means your courier will be temporarily visually displayed), the launch of fantasy (a la fantasy football) season two, fight recap (providing a detailed statistical breakdown of matches), a new location for Roshan on the map, tweaked versions of Bloodseeker and Phantom Lancer, and a bunch of other changes that are better seen by reading the bottom of this page.

Because I don't know anything about Dota 2, I asked our expert, Mr. Shoemaker, for quick thoughts:

"This is the most radical stuff they've done to the fundamentals of Dota 2 since it came out. They're the kind of changes normal people would look at and roll their eyes--stuff like a handful of trees being in a different place. But changes like that just keep raising the skill ceiling because they give really good players a ton more options for ways to maneuver and strategize. The nature of these changes is tantamount to changing the length of a football field or the duration of a shot clock in basketball, except there isn't just one change, there's a ton of them."

We need a statement from Pro DOTA 2 player Dan Ryckert.

Lot of interesting changes in here. Phantom Lancer looks like he'll be a lot more fun to play, and a lot of those new Scepter bonuses look real cool, and Riki's invisiblity is now a regular ability? Guess I'm going back to dota. Gotta see how all of this plays out.

Jesus Christ. We're through the looking glass here, people.

New Bloodseeker is amazing. So much more fun to play now.

Two runes? Extra gold and XP from a rune? What in the hell is happening???

Man new PL is fun, and the doubling up on runes completely changes both mid and offlane game.

I haven't seen this big a change since the Dota 1 days. It's crazy.

@patrickklepek Well he hasn't really had much changed mechanically...just minor balance alterations like most heroes! The big change is aesthetic, and I think people voted for it during the international 4 via the compendium!

Patrick, Shadow Fiend has not been changed mechanically. The image you've posted shows Shadow Fiend as he's been for the past three years. That's even the old-model, not the new one.

This update is kind of nuts. I think most of the changes will be good. Not sure about those rune changes yet.

And, yeah. Patrick, Shadow Fiend's model changed but how he plays just saw some minor balance tweaks like most of the heroes did. The heroes that have seen the most change are Phantom Lancer, Bloodseeker and Riki.

They're attempting to make Phantom Lancer play completely different and for different purposes. The Bloodseeker changes are...weird. It might take time playing with him to see how he works out. Dude might end up crazy strong. Riki is still trash.

Yeah this patch is something else.

This article is so funny at so many levels.

Shadow Fiend is the same. In fact his skills has been changed almost the least.

Also, you missed the most BREAKING NEWS:

"But we’re pretty sure we won’t be able to make enough progress on the larger update if we put it down to work on Diretide – so we’ve decided that we’re not going to ship a Diretide event this year"

つ ◕_◕ ༽つ So it begins.

Man, that quote from Brad is pretty exciting by itself.

I wish any ounce of me was actually interested in playing DotA 2 because it seems like there's endless joy there if you're into it.

Largest change is definitely Dark Seer. I have a feeling that is going to have significant ramifications.

oh man i have to sit down, i don't think i can handle all these radical changes.

Presumably after looking at the stats for previous versions, they thought the Plays were either too Big or not Big enough?

I wonder if they will ever release a change that ends up splitting the player base so it ends up like rugby where there are two distinct styles of game played.

Dan Ryckert comments

"Oh they did some stuff with tanya, that's pretty cool."

I came here just to read Brad's statement.

Icefrog basically changed the laws of physics yesterday.

HELLO DID SOMEONE MENTION A NEW PATCH

Did these patch notes come inside a pizza??

Bloodseeker's new ability looks kind of amazing. It draws a giant elaborate eye out of blood on the ground and then explodes.

@pete0r: Arguably that already happened with the move to Dota 2.

Also I feel like the change that everybody is missing is TP price dropping to 100 gold

@chilibean_3 said:

At least he sounds like fun trash now.

Didn't that essentially happen when Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends spawned out of the original DOTA?

@homelessbird: nah Riki was always trash, now he's just (less) invisible and more trash

Daymn. Getting THE Brad Shoemaker to comment on a Giant Bomb story is a hell of a "get" for Patrick.

I only read patch notes if they come in a pizza like EA.

@yurimegumi: How is he less invisible?

From what I understand he can now get permanent invisibility whenever he pleases from level 1. Fade times though I guess.

This update is bonkers. PL feels pretty different to play now, almost like a Spirtbreaker with short charges. Bloodseeker also feels more interesting, you actually have to pick moments when it's worth it to heal. And his AOE nuke gives him more options in teamfights. pretty cool.

The Roshan changes are insane! dropping the aegis timer to 5 minutes will force BIG PLAYS much faster after a Roshan kill

Counter Helix chance to activate increased from 17% to 20%!??!?!!?!?

Oh and we are just to assume that there is no correlation between the delay of the last dlc of dark SOULS (in which we where finally going to 'KINDLE' the first flame) and now valve coming out with a dota patch called REKINDLING SOUL. At the same time valve owns steam where i already got a season-pass for the dlc. And steam just changed it form! Like it crossed the sea and claimed the dark soul for its own.its even blue! like the sea or a really hot flame!

You are telling me there is nothing going on here! REALLY? THIS is why game journalism is dead! Valve is using the DARK SOUL to rekindle the ancients! Like those places don't look like there is a primal bonfire somewhere in there...

GAMES JOURNALISM IS DEAD

Did they add controller support?

Man so many changes, so many!

they even changed damage types!

The Meta will be unrecognizable after this patch.

I don't know how you were able to secure a quote from Mr. Shoemaker, but congrats on the get.

@honkalot: The fade time is terrible

Shut the internet down!

You do not want to play this game with a controller. It might be possible to play on a controller at a basic level, but in order to compete effectively the controller cannot possibly have enough precision to make all the tiny adjustments you need to be a strong player. Things like animation cancelling (useful in many ways including tricking opponents or reacting to immediate changes), queuing abilities, and other things like that would be outright impossible.

I think playing a game like dota might be possible with a controller (Drew said that iPad one was pretty good I think?), but actually playing Dota that way would be a terrible experience.

Totally. Would have to be built from the ground up for consoles. But I honestly wonder if the experience would just become so compromised by making it more suitable for a controller that it would just end up being a rather "meh" game that makes console gamers think "I don't get the mass appeal this has on PC."

Well Magicka is based off Invoker from DotA, and that has controller support. I think GB played it like that on an UPF or something! Not sure how actually good it was though. I imagine it would control somewhat similar to that

seems like they're really trying to incentivise more action with a lot of these changes.

AAAAALLRIGHT if someone other then Brad is gonna start covering DOTA then I bloody well expect coverage of League character updates @patrickklepek what about the new Shurima update and the lore changes hmm? Hmm?? Azir? The Scion update leak? The complete graphical overhaul of the map? What about THAT Patrick?? COLLUSION. #GamerGate

(I don't actually expect any of that to happen)

@yurimegumi: True.

On the plus side as long as there are creeps or heroes nearby you won't be able to hit him ever since he can blink strike around for days now.

I have played Magicka. True it is based on Invoker from DotA. However, Invoker controls pretty differently than most DotA heroes, and even so with Magicka controls you simply cannot do nearly enough things to effectively play dota. The careful accurate positioning is paramount. Being able to start and stop your attacks, halt your current commands, blink in any direction instantly, etc. These things are just not possible with a controller AFAIK. Diablo 3 did a great job of adapting a game made for PC to consoles, but if you had a PC player vs a console player the result would be the same as if you tried to play Counterstrike with a 360 pad. It just doesn't work. The game would need to be totally re-designed to support that. Compared to what would be needed to support a controller, this patch is barely tinkering around the periphery. And since this is the biggest changes to DotA in 5 (!) years, that is saying quite a bit.

All of my main characters got substantial buffs. Especially Warlock. His Ultimate ability was powerful before; now it is broke as fuck.

The changes to the map, the way runes work, and the way damage works are probably the most significant updates.

#newmeta

@rayeth said:

I guess that's true, but if people with controllers played against other controller people it would be balanced and I've never been good at fighting games but I'm sure some of those guys could get real good at twitchy dota things if they practiced!

But does it make the game good?

Patrick, you're a good writer but you shouldn't be writing about things you don't know or care about. Why isn't Brad writing this up?