As the Dota 2 community waits for the Crownfall update and Ring Master, Valve have released new matchmaking features along with Dota 2 patch 7.35d.
The wait for a major Dota 2 patch is always agonizing, and that agony in the wait for Dota 2 patch 7.36 (the Crownfall update) will only be amplified as Valve recently put up a statement that it won’t be until mid-April that it will be released. The statement was part of a longer blog post, which also talked about new matchmaking features.
We know many of you are looking forward to Crownfall, and we're looking forward to getting it into your hands. We're wrapping things up and expect to release in mid-April. We'll see you then.
So sadly, all the Ring Master theory crafting will have to wait for a while.
Matchmaking Updates
Hero Bans
Now, you don’t have to frantically ban heroes at the start of every All Pick game. You can have a set of bans ready and always have one of four selected heroes get banned in every game.
With today's update, we've removed the start-of-match ban phase and replaced it with ban preferences stored with your account. If you load the heroes tab, you can select the four heroes you don't want to see in your games. You're guaranteed when you join a matchmaking game that at least one of them will be banned. You can change your list of banned heroes whenever you want. (If you leave some ban slots empty, it's possible the empty slot will be selected as your "banned hero". In other words, there's no advantage to leaving slots empty.)
This will also take third party programs like Overwolf out of the equation.
Dota Plus Pre-Match Matchmaker Analytics
Dota Plus members will also be able to accept or reject a game based on their skill range and behaviour, depending on what parameter they want to give preference to.
Within the new experimental umbrella of Dota Labs, and initially limited to Dota Plus, we're shipping a first pass of a feature that Dota players have been asking us for forever: When you find a match in Dota, Dota Plus will present some information about how the matchmaker evaluated the match, like an estimate of skill range and player behaviour scores. You'll have a chance to accept that match or requeue to wait for a match that's better for you and your current preferences.
Dota 2 patch 7.35d
With the matchmaking features, there is also a small patch in the form of Dota 2 patch 7.35d.
The majority of it is just small balance changes. There are a few major changes, and first one is to Divine Rapier, which was getting out of control with the +25% damage amplification buff it got in Dota 2 patch 7.35. Now, you will have to choose between a lot of right click damage or spell damage amplification!
Helm of Dominator might see some more use now.
Chen received a massive nerf to two of his skills, which should see his contest rate go down quite a bit.
Dragon Knight was extremely popular in DreamLeague Season 22 as a mid laner and offlaner. Nerfs to Elder Dragon Form will bring him down a notch.
There aren’t really any groundbreaking hero changes in Dota 2 patch 7.35d, but that is expected as the patch comes in the middle of the DreamLeague Season 23 qualifiers and is the last letter patch before a major update.
So we sit tight for another few weeks and wait as Ring Master is being finalized for release. The good news is, with the new ban system in All Pick games, everyone should be able to get their hands on heroes they want to play more often than not.
