The five new items of the Dueling Fates update

There’s a lot to learn with the Dueling Fates update, from gameplay changes to new heroes and plenty of item alterations. Every hero type is being given a lot of new content to work with—and now, they’ll be given new items to play with.

This patch introduces five brand-new items into the shop for players to buy during their battles. The spectrum of abilities, stats and builds for each gives players plenty of new territory to work with.

Whether you need your supports to be more powerful late-game, or you need to deal with a late-game hero with way too many buffs, there may be reason for every player to consider one of these new pick-ups. Each item has a dramatically different implications and implementations, from passive-ability lifesavers to, literally, crashing mayhem upon your foes.

Which items are worth a try? Check out our quick overview on each, plus our analysis as to what situations will allow each to shine.

Aeon Disk

Costs: 3750 Gold

Requires:

• Vitality Booster (1100)
• Energy Booster (900)
• Recipe (1750)

Provides:

• +250 Health
• +250 Mana
• +25% Status Resistance*

*Reduces the duration of effects like silence/stun/disarm/root/fear/etc. For DPS debuffs with slows, it instead just reduces the slow values, leaving the damage amount unaffected

Passive Ability:

Whenever you take damage and are below 80% health, you apply a strong dispel on your hero and you gain a 2.5 second buff that reduces all incoming and outgoing damage to zero.

Cooldown: 100. Only triggers on player-based damage.

What’s the deal: Have you ever been chilling in the jungle and then suddenly just been, like, super dead? Unbelievably dead? For a mere 3750 gold, you can tell death to hold off for about three seconds! Aeon Disk seems like it’d fit on pretty much any hero, in theory, given its utility. However, where it’ll likely really shine is on heroes that are likely to get picked off, such as squishier gank assistants like Io, or gankers themselves like Clinkz.

Kaya

Costs: 1950

Requires:

• Staff of Wizardry (1000)
• Robe of the Magi (450)
• Recipe (500)

Provides:

• +16 Intelligence
• +10% Spell Amp
• +10% Mana cost & Manaloss Reduction*

*Note: Multiple instances don't stack

What’s the deal: Sometimes, spellcasters just need a way to survive the late game, and this is a cheap and easy way to maintain that. This will likely be a guaranteed pickup against mana-burn heroes such as Keeper of the Light and Antimage, but it’s acceptable in any game with the mana cost reduction.

Meteor Hammer

Costs: 2625 Gold

Requires:

• Ogre Axe (1000)
• Staff of Wizardry (1000)
• Ring of Regen (300)
• Sage's Mask (325)

Provides:

• +12 Strength
• +12 Intelligence
• +4 HP Regen
• +1.5 Mana Regen

Active Ability:

Channeling, 3 seconds. Summons a Meteor that strikes a 300 AoE and stuns for 1.75 seconds. Applies a 6 second debuff that deals 60 damage per second to structures (115 to non-structures).

Cast Range: 600, CD: 40, Mana cost: 125.

You have vision over the impact area for the channel duration. Meteor impact destroys trees. Meteor takes 0.5 seconds to land.

What’s the deal: Have you ever actually wanted to have fun in your game of Dota 2, without the effort of learning Invoker or picking Lion because he’s too squishy? Meteor Hammer is a relatively-inexpensive way to spice up your game! It’s probably ideal when your hard-supports don’t have initiation, as it provides a bit of extra tankiness and more mana pool in addition to the stun ability.

Nullifier

Costs: 4700

Requires:

• Sacred Relic (3800)
• Helm of Iron Will (900)

Provides:

• +65 Damage
• +5 Armor
• +5 HP Regen

Active Ability:

Dispels the target and mutes them for 5 seconds. Anytime the muted target is attacked, it will be slowed by 100% for 0.4 seconds. Applies slow on projectile impact.

Cooldown: 14, Mana cost: 100, Cast Range: 600, Projectile Speed: 1200.

What’s the deal: This is a fantastic late-game damage item, likely aimed at the untanky carry who needs to pick a hero off before they get away. It’s like a mini-Doom, but without the damage-per-second aspect—that’s all up to the item user.

Spirit Vesssel

Costs: 2825

Requires:

• Urn of Shadows (875)
• Vitality Booster (1100)
• Wind Lace (250)
• Recipe (600)

Provides:

• +250 Health
• +30 Movement Speed
• +2 All Stats
• +2 Armor
• +1 Mana regeneration

Active Ability:

In addition to urn behavior, casting on an enemy target now reduces enemy HP regen and heals by 70%, and drains 3% of the target's current health per second.

Casting on an allied target now amplifies HP regen and heals by 20%, and increases the target's health by 1% of their current health per second.

What’s the deal: Finally, your Urn of Shadows isn’t useless in the late game anymore. In fact, now it’s legitimately good! Spirit Vessel is officially the “you’re not getting out of here alive” item. Especially combined with global or snipe abilities, a good use of the Vessel can lead to capping off teamfights more effectively, or saving a teammate in a pinch.