Enter the Haunted Colosseum

This year, we felt the best way to mark the passage of October was to create a spooky, pumpkin-filled Custom Game. Haunted Colosseum is a new 5-on-5 battle for territorial control, complete with Capture Points, devilish traps, and warrior behemoths. It’s available now, you can learn more about it here, and then launch Dota 2 to try it for yourself.




We’ve revamped the Custom Games overview page with the goal of promoting discovery of great Custom Games, and getting people into lobbies and playing as quickly as possible. To do that, we’ve replaced the “Suggested Games” list with an “Open Lobby” list, and we’ve added a new panel which highlights an automatically-chosen Game of the Day.





This update also includes the second Tribute treasure for Fall Compendium owners: the Tribute of the Sharpened Feather.

There are a lot of additional changes and improvements in this update, such as a new section in your profile for showing off your tournament tickets, a way to see and manage your downloaded replays, support for offline solo play, a new matchmaking region in Tokyo with connectivity to Taiwan and Korea, a couple of balance changes with 6.85b, and more. Check out the complete notes for the full rundown.

Oh hey 6.85b, that was fast.

The Doom nerf probably matters a lot, since it makes him worse for damage. Like he loses 30 damage per second from level 3 Doom, which is huge. On the other hand, his absurd lane is still absurd so, and the disable is still everything it needs to be..... time will tell I guess? I don't expect him to drop off entirely, he just needs a true 1 position with him more than he was seeing.

Brood nerf seems like one of those nerfs that seems only minor on paper, but will probably mean a whole lot.

EDIT;

Video preview of the event btw; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_ZSWBabvE8&feature=youtu.be

Wait, it also has fixes? I thought this is just another custom game and a probable candidate for a guide.

It's got 6.85b, some bug fixes, the new Fall Compendium treasure, and the custom game.

It's a pretty good update all in all.

Well I only care about a custom game and 6.85b, but 6.85b is really nothing big(I personally never suffered from Doom that much in my matches, though I admit he is overpowered, and Brood is picked much less since all that Alch hype).

Probably gonna check the game out right now, though I'm kinda sleepy atm.

6.85b being small is kinda expected; There's either not a lot to fix this patch, or there's something huge people have yet to find out which we will see in like a month from now.

Doom nerf is extremely awkward. Scorched Earth got only extremely minor nerfs, but his Aghanim's Scepter got *massively* hit, and is probably almost trash-tier now unless you absolutely need the break.

I can't help but notice how much Slark got indirectly buffed...literally every single of his counters (BS, Storm, Doom, Lina, Undying...) got nerfed ultra hard and completely removed from the meta for some of them. The fish is absolutely terrifying this patch.

I think you'll still pick-up the Ag's just for the duration reset as well as the break, because it's still a big part of the whole 'I delete two heroes from the fight' part of his kit; That doesn't really happen in extended fights without the Ag's, especially given how many healers are in the meta. But time will tell.

I doubt Slark will rise that much; Sladar is an amazing hero right now, and there's still a tone of strong aggresive lanes that the fish just can't deal with. Plus, a lot of his counters are still viable heroes, even if not prioritised as much any more.

In pubs he probably goes back to stomping, but pubs are pubs and the fishes natural hunting ground.

I don't think Doom was nerfed hard, let alone pushed from the meta.

Same for Lina - she is just watered down all around - less waveclear and farming speed, less pwning 900 HP Crystal Maidens or squishy AGI carries with ult, less ridiculous initiation with Euls - but she is still ******** strong in lane and in teamfights - it's just Blink Dagger should now be bought every game instead of like 70% of matches.

Nah, Doom was not pushed out of the meta in any way, only his aghs got a significant nerf. Maybe Doom + Alchemist was too good?

Personally I'd replace aghs with a skadi or shivas in almost every game now. And this frees up a slot later for a more right-click oriented item like abyssal, and of course you still go refresher. Gotta slow those scrubs ;)