Are custom talents something that might be possible for the future? Was one of the first things i thought of after reading the update but haven't seen anyone take advantage of it yet.

We're still learning precisely how they work and how to interact with them, but it should be possible.

Thanks for the update. Is there a way to have more items in the strategy phase under "common items"? I have tried many times, but I cannot purchase staple items like QB or OOV or stick during the strategy phase because you can't really access the shop.

Originally posted by Tsumikitty:

Thanks for the update. Is there a way to have more items in the strategy phase under "common items"? I have tried many times, but I cannot purchase staple items like QB or OOV or stick during the strategy phase because you can't really access the shop.

Create a placeholder guide, in which, place the wanted items as a starting stock. Make the guide active, and there you go.

Do I need to create the placeholder guide for every hero or I can just create a general guide for all heroes?

I am a passionate player of this mode and i would like to express my thoughts on the mode.
I fear the direction the patches are going is not optimal. Since a few patches I've not been able to win a single pub even on the easiest difficulties, and i feel I'm not alone with this experience.
Those arw the major issues i faced. They're not a problem alone, but are super frustrating when all of them are present.

>>>Let's start with the difficulty spikes. Some waves present heavy differences in terms of tankyness and those waves almost always overwhelm a lane which doesn't have a support to help it ( 5/3 ).
To face this issue, the wave progression should be just a bit smoother, since even meta hetoes tend to struggle with wave clearing unless they have massive support from a good support.
I would recommend to nerf a bit some creeps that are too strong against certain types of heroes. For example, if the team has 3 physical damage dealers, the 2 wolves with the ability to slow your attack speed costantly usually forces the game to end, since denies both the ability to lifesteal effectively and to clear the wave in enough time to meet the next wave without leftovers. A small nerf to that ability could help the carries survive longer and eventually call a rotation from a magic damage dealer to help.

Bosses are mostly balanced since they are usually killable with rotations and are an important team event that forces the players to actually be a team and differentiate their damage output.

>>>The problem with the roles is connected with the issue of gold and to some degree with the difficulty ramp up. It's a matter of fact that the waves provide just enough gold to complete just a major item. This means you have a really important choice to make: tankiness, damage or utility.

To build tankyness, you lose your ability to farm and fall off in damage the very next wave. Lacking their ability to damage, there goes their ability to clear waves effectively and they get overwhelmed. The heroes who damage with their tankyness (e.g. axe or centaur ) have been nerfed super hard to make them any viable. I think to bring back centaur you should cancel his ability to damage buildings and bring his passive to vanilla values. His passive damage will never be overpowered since is based on an attribute and is slow to improve. His damage also remains physical, so if he stacks only strength as some players used to do they will find centaur super squishy. Without being able to damage buildings with his passive he will never win a game by himself anymore and the towers will remain a challenge. Sometimes i see him do just 30 damage in late waves.

The number and attack of the creeps make life super hard for anyone who builds damage. Both melee and ranged carries get easily overwhelmed, even the meta ones such as phantom assassin. With all that free evasion and crits, she has no gold, time or space to build both damage, attack speed and tankyness. This problem is especially present in early-mid waves such as the wolves or the treants. Decreasing something as simple as armor or hp would really help them clear the waves in time and keep them progressing.

Utility items are usually build on supports, the help they provide is amazing, welcome and make the support class enjoyable. My only suggestion is to expand their range, for example adding a few upgrades to drum of endurance.

Overall, i play this mode way more than the normal dota. It provides a stress free environment to improve and have fun. I would like to thank the developer for his dedication to this mode.
Also, kudos for anticipating the 0.2 cooldown on maelstrom and mjolnir! Spot on!

To add onto the above in regards to expanding item ranges, that's something that could be done on Octarine Core and Heart also. Both very core regen items. Even if they're given the upgraded aghs treatment. 2x ultimate orbs and expensive as ♥♥♥♥ recipe for stats only in late game.

But then again, with the backpack from 7.00 it's hard to say as now gold can go towards a backpack refresher or such.

Another thought I had recently is if it would be possible for a player to be rewarded in some way for randoming. Sure there's the gold bonus, but ultimately it doesn't feel like enough as the hero they get probably isn't horribly good with the provided team in a solo pub game.

I want to say rewarded with talents, but again, the talents seem like they're a pain in the ass right now to do from today's update so it's really hard for me to know the limits. (It looks like you can't create custom talents right now but only reuse existing ones?)

If Valve pulls through and makes talents more customizable, the thought I had was to detect a random and then amplify the talent bonuses ever so slightly say 10%. 80gpm becomes 88. 25 strength becomes 27.5. It's not much but it'd be enough when compared to the previous bonus gold. And I love randoming in this game mode, makes it more interesting all levels and if this can cause a full team random strat i'd be up for it to see what mess we create!

Treant wave just completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ wiped all 3 lanes at once. And it was an easy lobby too.

We dominated every lane as expected up to then, but caustic on creeps and then being trapped in by NP and on top of that to lose literally all armour was insane. Base falls way too quick now too.

Needs more games I suppose to see how we handle it with different line-ups but jesus christ what a buff. Took me by surprise.

Thanks for all your work, Diellan! A few observations from me.

Pre-7.00:

- I don't think I've seen an Arcane Rune spawn as of the 7.00 update. It's effect would be very appreciated for casters.
- The Regeneration Rune uses the new/reduced fountain values for healing.
- The gold-bag dropping Kobold creeps in the Dire Ancients area don't attack you anymore.
- Now that bosses hold items (especially the big Spooky and Lich boss), there needs to be a way for heroes to buy cost-efficient magic resistance or higher duration magic immunity; the combination of Frost Nova + Shiva's Armaments on enemy heroes removes 100% of base magic resistance, and with Pipe and BKB (both horribly stat-innefficient) being the only 2 current options, there's no way to itemize against it except by buying more HP. Ditto for the Skeleton's combination of Radiance + Shiva's, which burns away most of a normal hero's HP over ~30 seconds (3000 damage). Could use an upgrade for BKB/Linken's/Pipe that functions as an AoE Null-Field type of effect, maybe combined with Octarine Core, or put a damage cap on enemy Radiance DoT just like Necrolyte's Heartstopper Aura was capped.
- Dragon Javelin should interact with Vladimyr's Cuirass/Lifesteal modifiers in the same way Cleave does.
- The nerf to Heart was extremely strong, I think it would be better for all types of towers to disable the %regen instead of any damage reducing it to 0.5%, or it needs a buildup into another item.
- There is still not enough mana regen in the game to keep the 3 extremely mana-hungry casters (Skywrath, Tinker, Storm) topped off, even with 6 slots. Winter Wyvern, Timbersaw, Leshrac, and Lion also have mana problems if they consistently use the Dagon active when combined with their normal spells (with Agh's). Would it be possible to make Deathstone scale based on creep-kills, with every 50 kills adding 1 mana/sec regen?
- Single-target Bashes are all fairly weak, especially given the Boss's debuff duration resistance. Specifically, Lone Druid, Spirit Breaker, Slardar, and Treant Protector would all appreciate having their passives apply in an AoE just like Faceless Void, who is in a great spot right now.
- Debuff Resistance on bosses has made a few skills (primarily Frostbite, Fiend's Grip, and Fate's Edict) completely useless, it would be nice to decrease the Root/Debuff duration on most spells and weaken the Bosses' Debuff Resistance (we LoL now)
- Heroes that rely on Summons to push have been destroyed by the tower changes, Necrobook especially struggles against even normal towers now.
- Most Pure damage spells would be stronger if they did Magic Damage, as most of the creeps with % magic resistance are bosses, who have so much HP that the pure damage component doesn't matter, just consistent DPS from auto-attacks with your teammates.

Post-7.00:

- Bounty Runes are completely gone, they don't spawn on 0:00, they don't spawn afterwards, either. I think the 2 neutral camps in the base (the Hard and Medium camps) have the golden "glow" that indicates where runespawns naturally occur, but they're obviously in the camps.
- Neutral Spawns being every 2 minutes without the changes in terrain/bounty/shrines have decreased the total amount of gold available on the map, making it harder.
- The buff to illusions being able to benefit from non-stat +IAS items has made them extremely strong, illusion heroes are now in a good spot again, possibly over-the-top since almost all of them are Agility/Strength heroes that benefit greatly from bonus stats.
- I can't prove it, but I feel like a number of spawn waves/timings are broken, we often have 1 wave spawn initially, and then nothing but normal Dire creeps for ~3 minutes until the next wave begins.

Heroes:

- Clockwerk has a general lack of DPS combined with high cooldowns and no scaling steroid; AoE on Battery Assault/Power Cogs, a cooldown reduction in Hookshot, or more damage (in general), on Rocket Flare would all be beneficial.
- Dragon Knight would appreciate 100% up-time on his Dragon Form, as he's the only hero that stands to benefit from both a Dragon Javelin and War Fury.
- Legion Commander would be more fun to play if her ultimate was reverted to vanilla Duel, either only being able to target bosses/creep heroes, or with a significantly reduced bonus.
- Timbersaw's pure damage is wasted on creeps, bosses have too much health for it to make a difference. Might even be a buff to make all his spells do Magic Damage so he can benefit from Int Treads and Shiva's.
- Earth Spirit could use a cooldown reduction on his Stone Remnant charges.

- Axe's Counter Helix was nerfed forever ago in Wraith Night to keep him balanced, but the game has changed a lot since then; it might be fine to revert it back to vanilla.
- Nai'x's icons being broken is one of the oldest bugs in the game now, I think, but it still works just fine.
- Spirit Breaker needs some kind of AoE to be able to contribute to his team more.
- Undying Zombies could use a movement speed buff as quality of life, or revert his spell to Decay, stealing 20 HP/1 damage/0.01 HP regen per creep affected, doubled with scepter (same thing you did with Slark's Essence Shift on creeps)?

- Sniper's new Aghanim's makes it so he can't affect Creeps at all.

- Razor could use some looking into, possibly making his Static Link drain damage faster (as creeps aren't going to try to break your leash, and applying the drain again resets the bonus damage), and his Unstable Current is boring/rarely helpful because bosses have so much health + resist the pure debuff.
- Venomancer's Poison Sting was nerfed hard enough that it's even weaker than Vanilla, and his Scourge Wards still have the message that they can cast Gale (don't know if that's intended). Unsure if they get 3x strong with Veno's lvl. 25 mastery, but I don't think they do.
- Viper feels weird, the interaction between Poison Attack and Nethertoxin is appreciated, would be nice if each instance of Poison Attack applied its own DoT instead of refreshing the duration.
- Nyx Assasin's Aghanim's makes him invisible, so it becomes a liability during later game because creeps dive past you and kill your buildings. Would be nice if it didn't make him invisible.

- Crystal Maiden's Frostbite doesn't work against bosses anymore, as opposed to before where it could perma-root bosses.
- Zeus would like to have a lower-scaling cooldown on his Lightning Bolt (from 6 - > 3 seconds) instead of more damage with a constant cooldown. Don't know if Nimbus works with the Wraith Night version of Thundergod's Wrath.
- Ogre Magi has a general lack of DPS, combined with consumable Moonshards making his Bloodlust less helpful.
- I've never seen a Disruptor in my games, I think that in general Glimpse and Kinetic Field would do well with an increased duration/faster formation time, as they are primarily used against bosses. Both of his AoE spells are difficult to hit the entire creep wave with.

- Necrolyte needs an overall damage buff, his Pulse was nerfed to 200 AoE every 5 seconds, Heartstopper has a damage cap, and his new Death Shroud only increases healing done.
- Dark Seer's Wall of Replica only damages creeps once per cast. Could it be made to do constant DPS or apply Ion Shell to everything that passes through it?
- Ancient Apparition's Ultimate wasn't fixed from the old patch note saying it only affected Bosses with the regeneration freeze.
- Visage feels like he's in a bad spot.

Thanks for all of the feedback, all of you! As you can tell, I'm still tweaking and balancing and evolving the game - some things work and others don't, and my own testing isn't enough. :)

We're working on making an updated map - the rune spots are pretty broken right now, and Valve doesn't seem to have a way to tell neutral camps to spawn at different timings. We're also going to add some Shrines to the map, to help people out.

I'll go over this list of stuff and see what I want to do and what I don't. I hate it when Valve makes abilities that only work on heroes, because then I have to remake them from scratch with LUA, which is a pain (see: Monkey King). As for Crystal Maiden... I'd rather not make it easy to perma-root/stun bosses. I might pull back the disable resistance some, but it isn't going away (not unless I start giving them Rage or BKBs or something).

Originally posted by ♪♪ Symphonic Metal ♪♪:

1. To build tankyness, you lose your ability to farm and fall off in damage the very next wave. Lacking their ability to damage, there goes their ability to clear waves effectively and they get overwhelmed.

2. The heroes who damage with their tankyness (e.g. axe or centaur ) have been nerfed super hard to make them any viable. I think to bring back centaur you should cancel his ability to damage buildings and bring his passive to vanilla values. His passive damage will never be overpowered since is based on an attribute and is slow to improve. His damage also remains physical, so if he stacks only strength as some players used to do they will find centaur super squishy. Without being able to damage buildings with his passive he will never win a game by himself anymore and the towers will remain a challenge. Sometimes i see him do just 30 damage in late waves.

1. Thats because you're supposed to grow in both tankiness AND damage at the same time(stat items).
During the first waves, creeps are able to tank for you, but soon, they won't, so you have to be prepared for the situation. You NEED nukers and supports, and there is no real reason not to have one, because carries are technically unable, or having too much trouble keeping their lanes solo.
There are some interesting types of heroes like Huskar, who possibly able to keep his lane solo, but still, it takes skill to do so.

My favourite build during the start of the game is: Gloves of Haste+Orb of Venom.
Those items may seem strange to have in regular Dota, but they are VERY effective during the starting phase here, in Horde mode. Orb grants you unreduced 10 damage in aoe, and Glove, while synergizing with the Orb, also allows you to effectively use your attack damage.

2. He may use some amnesty now, after Tarrasque got badly crippled.. But not for much anyway. We don't need any 16th minute solo base razes, as how it was before they got nerfed.

Originally posted by ♪♪ Symphonic Metal ♪♪:

3. Let's start with the difficulty spikes. Some waves present heavy differences in terms of tankyness and those waves almost always overwhelm a lane which doesn't have a support to help it ( 5/3 ).

4. To face this issue, the wave progression should be just a bit smoother, since even meta hetoes tend to struggle with wave clearing unless they have massive support from a good support.
I would recommend to nerf a bit some creeps that are too strong against certain types of heroes. For example, if the team has 3 physical damage dealers, the 2 wolves with the ability to slow your attack speed costantly usually forces the game to end, since denies both the ability to lifesteal effectively and to clear the wave in enough time to meet the next wave without leftovers. A small nerf to that ability could help the carries survive longer and eventually call a rotation from a magic damage dealer to help.

>>>The problem with the roles is connected with the issue of gold and to some degree with the difficulty ramp up. It's a matter of fact that the waves provide just enough gold to complete just a major item. This means you have a really important choice to make: tankiness, damage or utility.

3. There shouldn't be such a situation. Top and Mid lanes are laughably close to each other, so there is no reason for one of the supports not to be roaming between them. Also bot support could easily tp to save the situation. Reasons may hide in different things like: Mid carry was not effective in his role, with his abilities, so was dragging the situation down, thus locking support at his lane. Also, roaming supports get more exp compared to lane carries, ending up 1-2 levels ahead; So, even the game mechanics are cheaty, just for supports to have less problems.
4. If you had enough money and your hero's minimal gold pool is not too big, you're usually doing all the lanes quite easily. Also, take in consider the random nature of waves. Some waves are harsher to one kind of carries, while leaving other carries yawning. Heroes like Juggernaut, for example, would stuck with Q and W skills for quite a long time, until his short Base Attack Time would shine in combo with Rapier+Battle Fury.
Just make sure, you're not letting your creeps and towers get your lasthits. Roaming through Ancient camps may also get you few extra levels and much more gold.

Originally posted by Pory:

1. Now that bosses hold items (especially the big Spooky and Lich boss), there needs to be a way for heroes to buy cost-efficient magic resistance or higher duration magic immunity; the combination of Frost Nova + Shiva's Armaments on enemy heroes removes 100% of base magic resistance, and with Pipe and BKB (both horribly stat-innefficient) being the only 2 current options, there's no way to itemize against it except by buying more HP. Ditto for the Skeleton's combination of Radiance + Shiva's, which burns away most of a normal hero's HP over ~30 seconds (3000 damage). Could use an upgrade for BKB/Linken's/Pipe that functions as an AoE Null-Field type of effect, maybe combined with Octarine Core, or put a damage cap on enemy Radiance DoT just like Necrolyte's Heartstopper Aura was capped.
2. Dragon Javelin should interact with Vladimyr's Cuirass/Lifesteal modifiers in the same way Cleave does.
3. The nerf to Heart was extremely strong, I think it would be better for all types of towers to disable the %regen instead of any damage reducing it to 0.5%, or it needs a buildup into another item.
4. Heroes that rely on Summons to push have been destroyed by the tower changes, Necrobook especially struggles against even normal towers now.

1. BKB/Linken's/Pipe combination sounds quite bizarre, and would drain hellton of money. Maybe as Support's core item.. but then again it should grant more auras and bonuses for Supports to even consider spending money on that, instead of just going full damage.
The gamemode might preroll the waves to see, how many magic units would be spawned, and precaution players about the "percentage of magic" they'll face, so they'll actually plan it from the beginning.
2. Thats probably because Javelins deal Magical damage instead of Physical. Pretty simple to fix, though.
3. You just need more armor, and rely more on kiting. Tarrasque is a PvP specific item. Creeps can't focus, creeps can't cast stuff(mostly), creeps can't gank or harass you while you're farming, so the gold you're spending in Horde mode has different value; So if you want that kind of item - you only might get it in a nerfed variant OR for up to 160%-180% more cost, as a god tier item(Not because it really is, but because some heroes acquire too much from being able to regen while being under attack).
4. Sad but true... The main reason is because of Naga and Lancer. Their illusion spam is inhumanly effective vs towers.. Maybe the splitshot will get reduction for down to 40% damage, but would deal an additional damage to illusions(OD style 500 pure damage per hit).

Terrorblade melee form gets extra range from Dragon Javelince

The stuns are a bit too much, it is still too easy to get permabashed and die. Especially the Roshan waves after skeleton boss. But also the golems, and some other bosses. You can't avoid getting bashed (apparently), even with evasion. Hard is good, impossible is bad.