Dota 2 drops massive 7.35 update with quality-of-life changes, new items, hero balance updates, and more

Dota 2 players are having an early Christmas this year as Santa IceFrog dropped the massive 7.35 update on Friday (15 December), which includes tons of quality-of-life updates, new shop and neutral items as well as a bunch of reworked and returning items, hero balance updates, seasonal cosmetic items, and more.

The 7.35 update notably dropped just before the main event of ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023, the last big Dota 2 tournament of the year. With the competing teams forced to navigate the new update while trying to win the lion's share of a US$1 million prize pool, there is sure to be some must-watch Dota.

Read on as we break down all the biggest changes in Dota 2's 7.35 update.

Twelve new items plus many more reworked

The most eye-catching changes in this update are in the item department, which include twelve new items split between three new shop items and nine new neutral items

The three new shop items are the Tiara of Selemene, Khanda, and Pharasma. The Tiara of Selemene is a new basic Secret Shop item that costs 1,800 gold and grants the hero wielding it +6 mana regeneration.

Khanda costs 5,000 gold and is made from Crystalys, Phylactery, and a 600 gold recipe. This item is built for heroes who dish out mixed damage, as it grants them Critical Strike and an improved version of Phylactery's Empower Spell passive that scales with the equipping hero's attack damage.

Pharasma costs 5,575 gold and is made from Witch Blade and Mystic Staff. This item is the upgrade to Witch Blade that mid Intelligence and Universal mid heroes have long been waiting for, as it has an improved version of Witch Blade's passive while also making all of the equipping hero's attacks reduce the magic resistance of enemies they attack by 20% for 4 seconds.

Meanwhile, the new neutral items include Safety Bubble and Light Collector at Tier 1; Whisper of the Dread at Tier 2; Doubloon and Nemesis Curse at Tier 3; Ancient Guardian, Aviana's Feather, and Rattlecage at Tier 4; and Unwavering Condition at Tier 5.

Four old items also make a return, including the Secret Shop item Ring of Tarrasque as well as the neutral items Royal Jelly, Craggy Coat, and Magic Lamp, which also now have reworked effects.

Five shop items have also been reworked, namely Arcane Boots, Bloodthorn, Ethereal Blade, Orb of Corrosion, and Revenant's Brooch. A whole bunch of other shop items also had their recipes changed while the Ring of Health and Void Stone were moved from the Secret Shop to the main shop.

But just as IceFrog giveth, IceFrog also taketh away. We must now say farewell to the shop item Quarterstaff and the neutral items Tumbler's Toy, Ring of Aquila, Quickening Charm, Titan Sliver, Penta-edged Sword, Spell Prism, Ex Machina, and Fallen Sky.

More info at a glance thanks to new quality-of-life updates

Processing all of the information about the game while playing has now become just a bit easier thanks to some nifty quality-of-life changes introduced in the 7.35 update.

Some of the improvements include new indicators for XP range, tower attack range, the amount of gold you can get from last-hitting creeps, and the amount of time left until you complete a teleport using the Town Portal Scroll or Boots of Travel. There are also improvements to hero minimap icons, item tooltips, as well as the targeting reticles and icon states for hero and creep abilities.

Players now also have more ways to express themselves (or try to be funny) through the profile showcase feature. You can now make heroes do their animations, freeze them on certain frames, anchor profile elements to them, and more.

The Armory has also been improved to make sorting through all your hats, courier skins, and other cosmetic items much easier than before.

New abilities for Roshan, Tormentor plus map objective tweaks

Roshan now has a new ability, Roar of Retribution, and drops a new item, Roshan's Banner.

Roshan uses Roar of Retribution if he is attacked by the team that last killed him and drops below 80% health, unleashing a roar that is heard globally and alerts the opposing team that Roshan is being taken down. This ability also applies a debuff on nearby units that increase the amount of damage they receive by 25% for 8 seconds.

Roshan's Banner can be used to create a banner anywhere on the map that buffs allied lane creeps for 45 seconds once they walk near it, increasing their health by 75% and damage by 50%. The banner lasts for 5 minutes and can be destroyed after a certain number of attacks by enemy heroes or creeps.

In addition, the items Roshan drops after a certain number of deaths has been tweaked.

Starting from the second death, Roshan drops Cheese when killed on the Radiant side and Roshan's Banner when killed on the Dire side. Starting with the third death, Roshan now drops Refresher Shard on the Radiant side and Aghanim's Blessing on the Dire side.

Tormentors have a new ability called 'The Shing' which lets them deal 30 damage per second in 0.2 second intervals that get distributed evenly among all units within range, making them deadlier than before. Support players beware!

If that wasn't enough to make Tormentors better live up to their names, they are now also stronger against minus-armor strategies as they can no longer have less than 0 armor.

Other map objectives have also received changes. New Watches have been added in the north and south areas of the map, Teleport times to the jungle Outposts are now just 4 seconds, while using the Twin Gates now cost 75 mana.

The Power Runes also received some tweaks. The Double Damage Rune has been renamed to the Amplify Damage Rune and now also provides +15% Spell Amplification while the Invisibility and Haste Runes now have their effects scale with the number of Rune cycles. The Arcane Rune's cooldown reduction has been reduced to 25% while the Regen Rune is no longer disabled when taking damage, with the amount of health and mana restored being reduced instead.

Hero updates

Unlike most major patches, the 7.35 update didn't deliver that many hero changes.

Meta heroes like Bristleback, Chaos Knight, and Spirit Breaker received more nerfs, and rightly so, while less popular heroes like Ember Spirit and Mirana got some very nice buffs.

Some heroes also had their abilities reworked, with Chen's Divine Favor now passively providing a health regen aura while also having an active component that increases a target ally's armor and healing received. Doom's Doom ultimate no longer makes a hero deniable, Gyrocopter's Call Down ultimate now always shoots three missile strikes in a vector-targeted direction with a single missile per strike, while Omniknight's Guardian Angel ultimate is now a single target ability with two charges.

Legion Commander's Aghanim's Shard now also provides +8 damage per Duel won that also applies retroactively. Prepare for more Lion Mana Drain memes too, as the ability now also damages enemies for 100% of the amount of mana it drains from them.

For the full list of changes in Dota 2's 7.35 update, check the patch notes here.

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