Dota 2: Everything About Wandering Waters and Patch 7.38

Patch 7.37 introduced several gameplay changes, but the most considerable changes were the facets and innate abilities, which completely changed some heroes and transformed the dynamics of the games.

It was also in this wave of Patches that Kez and Ringmaster made their debuts in the game, two new heroes with great potential.

Overall, most carries were nerfed in some way and supports ended up becoming much more relevant, with some even having differentiated builds, such as the case of Witch Doctor and Lion, who gained very impactful updates to their skills, making them more relevant in combat.

Now, a good time has passed since the big changes brought by update 7.37, there was a lot of speculation about when the next big patch would come out, and it finally came, under the name of Wandering Waters, changing the map completely and reworking the entire system of items and neutral creatures in addition to reworking several heroes, nerfing some and buffing others. You can check more details about patch 7.38 here.

A New Map

Wandering Waters is literally what the name suggests, a new map where the river that previously cut through the game's terrain and had little effect on gameplay now runs through a larger area and the running water can be used by the heroes to speed up movement when walking along the river, generating new strategic possibilities.

The new map also changed the terrain, modifying a good portion of the Jungle, with more neutral creep camps and a new location for gold runes, XP and the lotus. Talking about experience runes and the lotus pools, now it’s necessary to enter a circular area in these locations to collect the XP bonus and the lotus. Both the XP rune, which previously could be easily stolen by the enemy team, generating an absurd advantage, and the lotus now require greater care and strategy when collecting their benefits, as enemies present in the area cancel the collection of these benefits, making it difficult to abuse the XP rune, for example.

Tormentor and Roshan have also been modified. Now the map will only have one Tormentor at a time, who will spawn at specific moments in the game and who now leaves behind a healing aura after dying. Roshan has returned to the river and will move from one hiding place to another, crossing the river, going up or down the current and throwing around everything in his path.

New neutral creeps have been introduced, amphibious creatures who will camp along the river and evolve as the match progresses.

New Neutral Item System

Neutral items have always been important in the game, granting attribute upgrades and even very useful skills. Now, the entire neutral item system has been reworked. You can collect Madstones, stones needed to build neutral items, in the jungle by clearing neutral camps. Each neutral camp grants a number of Madstones to you and a random ally.

Once you have the required number of Madstones you can build a neutral item and apply a bonus effect to it in addition to its natural abilities. This completely changes the relevance of these items in the game and makes room once again for the extinct role of Jungler, a hero who farms primarily in the jungle.

The entire new map structure creates a more immersive atmosphere, you really feel like you are in a wild forest and dominating these territories will require greater strategy and care, since even the locations where wards and sentries were normally positioned have changed, and now a larger area must be covered and defended.

Artifacts and enchantments will have five categories, which will be unlocked at specific moments in the game. Keeping an eye on your allies' manufacturing progression and using this new system to your team's advantage will be extremely relevant in matches.

Game Mechanics

Some new mechanics have been added to make gameplay easier, such as an alert timer when Roshan is available, marking items for automatic sale and new visual effects for some items.

An important update is the definition of the Lifesteal effect. Now all lifesteal mechanics (items and skills) have the same rule. Lifesteal is only applied to physical damage dealt by attacks, and is reduced by 40% when attacking non-heroic targets. Spell Lifesteal on the other hand, is applied to physical damage caused by skills and magical damage caused by skills or attacks, being reduced by 80% when the target is not heroic. Pure damage does not provide lifesteal or spell lifesteal.

Attacks that don’t activate modifiers, attacks on structures, damage to illusions, reflected damage, abilities that remove life without causing direct damage, and any damage dealt to self or allies do not grant lifesteal.

Major Item Updates

Bottle is now no longer replenished when the user is under the effect of source regeneration, eliminating the famous abuse of TP/fountain, where the player could regenerate at the fountain, teleport to the lane and quickly use some skill, consuming mana. However, thanks to the fountain regeneration effect, which lasts a few seconds, you could use the Bottle to replenish mana, and it would in turn be replenished due to the effect. With Patch 7.38 this will no longer be possible.

Orb of Frost is a new basic item which deals slow to enemies who were attacked and reduces the target's healing. It’s also part of the recipe for some important items, such as Eye of Skadi and Orb of Corrosion. This item can become essential for long-range heroes like Drow Ranger or Viper.

Orb of Corrosion is another item that has been modified, receiving a 9s cooldown between uses, but applying 10 damage per second for three seconds.

Abyssal Blade and Battlefury had their recipes modified and were reworked in a certain way.

Bloodstone no longer grants an area of ​​effect bonus and now applies Basic Dispel when activated.

Hand of Midas now provides madstones when used on a neutral creep, which can be exploited more deeply by some heroes.

Heaven’s Halberd and Gleipnir have been reworked. Halberd can now be an ideal item for jungle heroes and Gleipnir has received the bonus AoE effect, which was previously provided by Bloodstone and no longer requires Maelstrom to build, in addition to losing the Chain Lightning effect.

Khanda also received major changes, losing its critical strike ability and gaining a break ability, which can be very useful for disabling some heroes.

Major Hero Updates