Dota 2 Update - And then there were 18

Nyx Assassin, Keeper of the Light and Visage have been released on Dota 2.

Below are some personal news, soundsets and skillset. Past that you will find the patch notes, hero prediction and more information from Valve. Thank you and enjoy this week's latest Dota 2 news.

News

Keep in mind I now take in replay/clip submissions. You can send in your rampages, funny clips, fail clips, pro or a random clip. You can send in your clips at:

http://www.doubleclickgaming.com/p/submit-clip.html
This sends an e-mail to rakasan@doubleclickgaming.com

Here are two examples of clips submitted by you guys!

No Sorceries Avail 

 Doom Bringer Evaporates Morphling

 

Nyx Assassin Soundset

Nyx Assassin Skillset

Impale Q E
	Ability Affects Damage Target Point Enemies Magical
	Rock spikes burst from the earth along a straight path. Enemy units are hurled into the air, then are stunned and take damage when they fall.
Range: 500 Radius: 125 Stun duration: 0.75/1.25/1.75/2.25 Damage: 80/140/200/260
11 95/115/135/155

Mana Burn W R
	Ability Affects Damage Target Unit Enemy Heroes Magical
	Destroys the target hero's mana equal to a multiplier of its Intelligence, and deals damage equal to the mana burned.
Range: 600 Intelligence multiplier: 4
28/20/12/4 90/110/130/150

Spiked Carapace E D
	Ability Affects No Target Enemy Heroes
	When activated, Spiked Carapace reflects the next damage instance dealt to Nyx Assassin from a player controlled source, as well as stunning the hero that caused the damage.
Duration: 4.5 Damage returned: 100% of reduced damage Stun duration: 0.6/1.2/1.8/2.4
10 50

Vendetta R V
	Ability Affects Damage No Target Self Physical
	Allows Nyx Assassin to become invisible and gain a speed bonus. If Nyx Assassin attacks to break the invisibility, massive bonus damage is dealt with the attack.
Fade time: 0 Duration: 20/35/50 Bonus movement speed: 10%/15%/20% Bonus damage: 225/375/525
70/60/50 160/210/260

Recommended Items
Starting
Early-game
Core
Situational

Source: http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Nyx_Assassin 

Keeper of the Light Soundset

Keeper of the Light Skillset

Illuminate Q T
	Ability Affects Damage Channeled Enemies Magical
	Channels a ball of light energy, building power the longer it's channeled. Once released, the ball deals damage and gives vision in a line. The longer it is channeled, the more damage dealt.
Range: 230 Radius: 400 (starting radius), 800 (distance), 400 (final radius) Maximum channel damage: 200/300/400/500
10 150 If targeted on the Linken's holder, Linken's will go into cooldown, but won't block. If targeted on the ground, no interaction.

Mana Leak W E
	Ability Affects Target Unit Enemies
	Weakens an enemy's magical essence, causing them to lose mana as they move. If the enemy loses all of its mana, it will be stunned.
Range: 550/700/850/1000 Duration: 4/5/6/7 Percentage of maximum mana drained per 100 units the target moves: 3.5%/4%/4.5%/5% Stun duration: 1.3/1.6/1.9/2.2
18 75

Chakra Magic E C
	Ability Affects Target Unit Allies
	Restores mana to the target unit.
Range: 900 Mana restored: 75/150/225/300
19/18/17/16 40/55/70/85

Spirit Form R F
	Ability Affects No Target Self
	Ezalor turns his body luminescent temporarily, gaining various abilities. Illuminate is now channeled by a separate spirit, and gains the Blinding Light and Recall abilities.
Duration: 40
80/70/60 100

Recall R
	Ability Affects Target Unit Allied Heroes
	After a short delay, teleports the targeted friendly hero to your location. If the targeted friendly hero takes player based damage during this time, the ability is interrupted.
Range: Global Teleportation delay: 5/4/3
15 100

Blinding Light B
	Ability Affects Target Point Enemies
	A blinding light flashes over the targeted area, knocking back and blinding the units in the area, causing them to miss attacks.
Range: 900 Radius: 675 Miss chance: 80% Duration: 3/4/5
20/16/12 50 Blocks blinding effect, but not knockback.

Illuminate (Spirit Form) Q T
	Ability Affects Damage Channeled Enemies Magical
	Channels a ball of light energy, building power the longer it's channeled. Once released, the ball deals damage and gives vision in a line. The longer it is channeled, the more damage dealt.
Range: 230 Radius: 400 (starting radius), 800 (distance), 400 (final radius) Maximum channel damage: 200/300/400/500
10 150 If targeted on the Linken's holder, Linken's will go into cooldown, but won't block. If targeted on the ground, no interaction.

Recommended Items
Starting
Early-game
Core
Situational

Source: http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Keeper_of_the_Light

Visage Soundset

 Visage Skillset

Grave Chill Q G
	Ability Affects Target Unit Enemies
	Visage drains the movement and attack speed of the targeted unit, gaining it for itself.
Movement speed and attack speed drained: 32% Duration: 3/4/5/6 Range: 600
10 70/80/90/100 Blocked by Linken's, but Visage still gains the buffs.

Soul Assumption W C
	Ability Affects Damage Target Unit Enemies Magical
	Visage damages the targeted unit based on the number of soul charges. Visage gains a soul charge when damage taken by all heroes around him reaches the damage threshold.
Base damage: 20 Soul damage: 60 Assumption radius: 1375 Maximum soul charges: 3/4/5/6 Damage threshold: 110 Duration: 6 Range: 900
4 170/160/150/140 Linken's cooldown is triggered, but the ability is not blocked.

Gravekeeper's Cloak E V
	Ability Affects Passive Self
	Visage generates a layered barrier that protects him from physical and magical attacks. If he receives damage from a player, one layer is removed, and takes time to recover.
Armor per layer: 1/2/4/5 Magic resistance per layer: 3%/6%/12%/16% Maximum layers: 4 Recovery time: 12/10/8/6

Summon Familiars R T
	Ability No Target
	Conjures up two blind Familiars to fight for Visage. Familiars have high attack power, but each attack drains a charge of damage that recharges slowly over time. Familiars possess the Stone Form ability, that allows them to turn into stone, stunning enemies upon landing. While in Stone Form, Familiars are invulnerable, and rapidly regenerate their health and damage. Familiars grant high bounty when killed.
Familiars summoned: 2 (3*) Familiar duration: Until Killed Familiar health: 300/450/600 Familiar armor: 0/1/2 Familiar movement speed: 380/390/400 Familiar attack range: 160 Familiar maximum bonus damage: 56/98/154 Familiar bounty: 100
180/160/140 150 Summons 3 familiars.

Familiars

Stone Form
	Ability Affects Damage No Target Enemies Magical
	After a short delay, the Familiar turns into stone and smashes into the ground, stunning and damaging all targets in the area. The Familiar becomes invulnerable, and will regain its damage charges and health very rapidly. After 8 seconds, the Familiar will automatically leave Stone Form.
Stun Duration: 1/1.25/1.5 Stun Radius: 325 Stun Damage: 60/100/140 Stun Delay: 1 Stone Form Duration: 8 Bonus Regeneration: 50/68.75/87.5
30 Recommended Items Starting Early-game Core Situational

Source: http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Visage

Patch Notes

Dota 2 Update - July 26th, 2012
July 26, 2012 - Valve

HIGHLIGHTS:
- Added Nyx Assassin, Keeper of the Light, and Visage to the Matchmaking Hero Roster and Captain's Mode!
- Added a cooldown to being able to find a match when a player declines or abandons a game.
- Added notification for when a Tournament has a live game currently running.

GAMEPLAY:
- Beastmaster: Fixed Wild Axes working with Refresher.
- Beastmaster: Wild Axes no longer provide vision when they aren't flying.
- Naga Siren: Fixed Dust of Appearance not working against units slept by Song of the Siren.
- Naga Siren: Fixed Ice Blast debuff not getting added to units slept by Song of the Siren.
- Naga Siren: Fixed Weave not affecting units slept by Song of the Siren.
- Phantom Lancer: Fixed Doppelwalk illusions not correctly replicating their inventory item slots.
- Rubick: Fixed Wild Axes being left around when another ability is stolen.
- Sand King: Neutrals can now be damaged by Sandstorm.
- Templar Assassin: Fixed Meld initial attack doing too much damage.
- Slardar: Fixed Bash working while doomed.
- Neutrals damaged by an invisible enemy will now try to run away.

SPECTATING:
- Multiple tweaks to director events and framing.
- Fixed particle effects sometimes not drawing while in Player Perspective mode.

UI:
- Added notification for when a Tournament has a live game currently running.
- The kill card now shows a randomly selected item that the killer is wearing. Also reduced its size.
- Fixed equipping an item in the backpack not jumping to the correct hero in the loadout
- Added Buyback to the spectating stats dropdown.
- Added a cooldown for being able to find a match when a player declines or abandons a game.
- Fixed Storm Spirit Mega-Kill announcer having the incorrect equip slot.

VISUALS:
- Fixed Rubick retaining incorrect skins from stolen abilities when returning to his normal model.
- Meld damage display is now only shown for successful hits.

BOTS:
- Significant revision of how bots determine their high-level desires
- Roshan desire has been significantly reworked. It's now based on how quickly Roshan can be killed given the available heroes and how quickly enemies can show up.
- Evasion desire is now more granular. Things like Blade Fury now cause a range of evasion desire based on the bot's current health.
- Fixed case where bots were trying to path to an invalid location when defending their base.
- Made bots more aggressive about attacking when defending a lane.
- Cleaned up inferred human modes for pushing and defending lanes.
- Made bots less concerned about distance when considering an attack on a pinged target.
- Fixed bug that made pinged towers less likely to attract allied bots that were doing other high-priority stuff.
- Tuned retreat desire values when hurt and close to the fountain.
- Made bots somewhat more likely to buy a flying courier.

WORKSHOP:
- Added a new Import Wearable option to the Publish New Item section of the in-game workshop UI. It will compile, validate, and preview your model before you submit it. When submitting, it also packs the files into a format that makes it much easier for us to bring it into the game. 

Source: http://www.dota2.com/news/updates/

Hero Prediction

Meepo? Techies? Medusa? Walrus? Magnataur?

More Information

http://blog.dota2.com/2012/07/and-then-there-were-18/