Image: Valve Software
The jungles are now flooded with water, Roshan is back at the river, new neutral items, and more!
Dota 2 has just dropped its latest patch 7.38 titled “Wandering Waters” amidst the ongoing competition at Dreamleague Season 25, and along with it, brought a drastic change to the game map and the location of Roshan pits, among other updates.
Read on for the biggest changes in the 7.38 update:
A new and much wetter map
The biggest change to the game is undoubtedly the new map, which now includes a lot more water. The Radiant and Dire sides of the map have always traditionally been divided by a river in the middle on the map, but now, the jungles of the two sides of the map feature new streams of water, with the most prominent streams running parallel to the safe lanes.
The streams also have a visible current, and running with the current gives your hero a speed boost towards your safe lane. Running against it will not slow you down.
New Roshan pit location
Besides the new waterways, several features in the map have also either been relocated or given some adjustment. The biggest relocation in the new map is the updated location of Roshan.
The two Roshan Pits are now back at the river (again), after spending a few patches in the far corners of the map. They are located near the two Power Rune spawn locations on the river, and Roshan will always spawn inside the bottom pit at the start of the game.
Starting from 15:00, Roshan will alternate between the two pits following the day/night cycle (top at night, bottom at day), and he will toss around any other units he stumbles upon as he traverses across the waters of the river.
Other relocated objectives and new Neutral Creeps
The Tormentors, which reward a player with Aghanim’s Shard, will now spawn at one of two different locations on the far corners of the map, where the Roshan pits used to be. The Tormentor will always spawn on the opposite side of Roshan starting at 15:00, and it will now provide an AOE healing aura when it dies.
The Wisdom Rune has been replaced with the Shrine of Wisdom, and along with the Lotus Pool, now requires players to stand inside them in order to activate them. Having an enemy unit around will stop them from activating. With the new waterways, a new class of amphibian Neutral Creeps makes their appearance. They will spawn at the three new Flooded Camps located at the streams in each jungle.
New Neutral Item mechanics
The next biggest change to the game is an update to the mechanics of Neutral Items. In the previous patch, farming Neutral Creep camps in the jungle at specific time periods results in the Neutral Creeps dropping Neutral Tokens, which players can then activate to choose a Neutral Item of their choice.
In 7.38, clearing neutral creeps in a camp now drops a new resource called Madstone. A player will earn two Madstone for clearing a camp, while one other random ally will receive one Madstone. Accumulating these Madstone is the new way to craft Neutral Items, and each Neutral Item is now made up of two components: an Artifact and an Enchantment.
The Artifact gives a Neutral Item its abilities, while the Enchantment will provide passive stats or attribute bonuses. Players get a choice to decide their preferred combination from a list of Artifacts and Enchantments every time they craft a Neutral Item.
Like its previous iterations, there are five tiers of Neutral Items which players can craft at different time periods in the game. Crafting a Tier 1 Neutral Item requires 5 Madstone, while crafting the other 4 tiers of Neutral Item requires 10 Madstone each.
Other Updates
Other than the changes listed above, 7.38 also includes some quality of life updates, as well as some tweaks to the items and heroes in the game. Ringmaster has also been added to Captains mode. Several heroes like Arc Warden, Chaos Knight, Crystal Maiden, Dawnbreaker, Invoker, Jakiro, Kez, Lifestealer, Magnus, Marci, Mirana, Ringmaster, Windranger, and Winter Wyvern have also received major reworks to their Facets.
For the full and extensive list of changes that come with 7.38, check out the official update page here.
