A look at the unreleased Dota 2 characters pt. 1

Back in 2010, when the early Alpha version of Dota 2 was released, it only featured 24 of the original 112 Dota heroes. New heroes were added pretty much every few months, with the hero count quickly reaching 101, before Dota 2’s official release from beta, in 2013.

As of right now Dota 2 has 110 heroes, meaning that just two of the original heroes are yet to be released. In this article we will look at the first of the two heroes. Click here for a look at the second hero!

Description:

Abyssal Underlord, or as we it was called in Dota, “Pit Lord”. The Pit Lord is a strength hero, mostly played as a support, or as a utility hero. Abyssal Underlord possesses 4 powerful AOE (Area Of Effect) spells, that can damage and weaken the opponents, making it a great hero for team fight focused picks!

 Spells:

#1 Firestorm

Calls down waves of fire that damage enemy units in the target area, and continues to burn them for additional damage over time.

Firestorm is a Target Area spell that deals damage in an area selected by the player. This spell can be quite deadly, having 400 yard radius, and dealing 70 damage with every wave (6 waves in one cast, 70 damage each wave when maxed), can deal a total 420 damage in just few seconds. And that is excluding the bonus burn damage after the spell has ended!

This spell is great when paired with AOE lockdown spells like, Enigmas: Black hole, Disruptors: Kinetic Field + Static Storm, Magnus’s: Reverse polarity, and easily any other spell, that would force people to stay in this spell longer!

#2 Pit of Malice

A deadly pit is conjured at the target location; any unit that enters is unable to move for some time and takes damage. Each enemy unit can only be affected once.

Pit of Malice is a Target Area lockdown spell, disabling players in an area, for up to 2.5 seconds, when the spell is maxed. It also damages the enemies with magical damage, but the damage is only 100, at all levels!

It is obviously meant to be used with Firestorm, however, while Firestorm has a radius of 400 units, Pit of Malice has a measly 275 unit range. Yet, for a 2.5 second disable, this radius is quite nice, however this spell has a painful 0.6 second cast time, making it quite hard to land! So pairing it with a slow or Eul scepter, will make landing this disable a lot easier!

#3 Atrophy Aura

Nearby enemy units are weakened, losing a portion of their base damage. If it dies while under this effect, Abyssal Underlord gains temporary bonus damage.

Atrophy is by far one of the most powerful auras in Dota! Reducing enemies base damage by up to 42%, with a giant 900 unit range!

While there are ways to get around this Aura, like focusing on buying items with bonus damage, rather than attributes, since the spell effects only bonus damage. Or pick heroes with loads of spell damage. It will still be a big pain in the ass during the planning phase, for your enemies, that is… The damage reduction will painfully effect last hitting ability of your enemies.

#4 Dark Rift

Opens a dark rift at the targeted friendly unit’s position. After a short delay, Abyssal Underlord and all nearby friendly heroes are teleported to that unit’s location. Dark Rift can be cancelled at anytime during the cast. If it is cancelled in this way or the target unit dies before the spell becomes active, Dark Rift goes into cooldown.

Dark Rift is the “Bread and Butter” of the Abyssal Underlord. This is why so many pro teams can’t wait for this hero to be released!

Dark rift is Abyssal Underlord’s ultimate ability. We all have seen how top pro teams love to set up Boots of Travel ganks, coming in all at once, on few enemy targets, slaughtering them like some lane creeps! This spell is like getting Boots of Travel, at level 6, that you can share with everyone around you, making for some awesome ganks, if you have good communication with the team…

It can also work well as an escape mechanic, if your team get’s ambushed without expecting it.

Keep in mind – don’t expect the cool downs, damage, spell radius, duration, to be exactly the same as in the old Dota. In fact, with previous experience, some of these spells might be completely different! This article just explains what you should expect.

The word around the camp fire is that Valve is already working on animations for the Pit Lord. If it is to be released first, Dota 2 will have 111 of the 112 original heroes. Click here to read about the last of the classic heroes!