Two new Dota 2 heroes are coming — and one is out tonight

Two new heroes have been announced for Dota 2 — and while one will have to wait until this winter, you can play one of them right now.

We’ll start with Grimstroke, who is playable now, as stated by a trailer released during The International. An Intelligence-primary hero who’s the last of his race, he uses his paintbrush and ink to slow and disable enemies — or help them escape a sticky situation.

His abilities, according to the official Valve site, are as follows:

• Stroke of Fate — Grimstroke winds up and paints a path of ink with his brush, damaging and slowing enemies in its wake. The damage increases with each enemy the ink strikes.
• Phantom’s Embrace — Grimstroke commands a phantom to latch onto his enemy, damaging and silencing it. If the phantom survives the latch duration, it rends the victim for heavy damage and refreshes Phantom Embrace’s cooldown.
• Ink Swell — Grimstroke covers himself or an ally in ink, silencing the target while granting bonus speed and immunity to attacks. The ink damages nearby enemies over time before bursting, damaging and stunning in the area based on how much harm it caused along the way.
• Soulbind (Ult) — Grimstroke binds an enemy hero to its nearest allied hero in range, preventing each from moving away from the other. Unit-targeted spells that hit either hero affect both. If the bind is broken before it expires, the initial target will again be bound to its nearest allied hero in range.

The ult specifically seems pretty exciting, as you can literally amplify or absorb anything done to your hero. But the Phantom Embrace is an intense early-game harass and will likely make a quick impact in your pubs. He has two disables and a slow, so it’s likely you’ll be dealing with him as a ganker.

Aside from tonight’s hero, we still have more to look forward to this year. A teaser for Mars was also released, but not much information was given. We see the new hero stand among skeleton-like knights that likely have risen again.

The teaser states Mars will be released in the winter.