Dota Plus: the new Battle Pass - Summary of the main features
The Dota 2 community waited for a long time the Battle Pass overhaul. Finally, Valve delivered with Dota Plus, a subscription-based service.
Let’s have a look at all the features you can access for $3.99 monthly.
Hero progression
Hero leveling
Every hero has a level that increases according to the number of games played.
Levelling up a hero unlocks badges, grants shards and new chat wheel responses.
Hero-specific challenges
There are several challenges for each hero that help to develop your skills and gameplay.
All challenges offer three levels of difficulty that award an increasing amount of experience.
Stat-tracking hero relics
Each hero has now 14 relics that track and display your accomplishments and progresses with that hero.
Reward shards are necessary to unlock the relics.
Hero chat wheel lines
The hero chat wheel lines are back! All heroes have multiple phrases they can say in allied or all chat.
Only some phrases are unlocked after the first game with a hero, while more are obtainable after raising your hero badge.
Rewards
Each week you can earn 1,000 extra shard by winning three games.
Shards can be used to unlock exclusive or legacy hero sets in the Plus store.
Plus Assistant
A personal A.I. at your disposal that provides real-time suggestion during your games.
Item suggestions (data driven)
The current in-game guides only offer standard item builds which may not work in all games. Instead, the Plus Assistant suggests them according to your lane, teammates, and the opponents encountered.
In every game, you will have three item build options plus info on the most popular items on that hero.
You can also choose to buy a different item from the ones proposed, and ask the Assistant to recalculate its recommendations based on the items currently in your inventory.
Ability suggestions (data driven)
Likewise, also the level-up order of your skills is suggested based on the above-mentioned factors, and the A.I. will take into account any variation you may select.
Hero pick and lane setup suggestions
During the draft phase, the Plus Assistant proposes the best heroes you can play against a determinate lineup.
It also shows you the best way for your team to distribute the lanes.
Detailed death summary
After every death, you have access to a second-by-second timeline with info on damage types and sources, stuns, and any effect that led to your demise.
I believe this is a really useful feature to understand your current weaknesses against the enemy team.
Real time and post-game analytics
Multiple statistics and data to track your performance during and after the match, compared with other players on that hero in the same skill bracket.
Weekly Battle Cups and seasonal terrain
The entire Dota 2 community looked forward for the return of the Battle Cups. All plus subscribers can participate to them freely, while non-members must pay a $0.99 ticket in order to join one.
Winning a Battle Cup grants special emoticons, profile rewards, and 20,000 shards.
The seasonal terrain active during each season will be an exclusive for Dota Plus members.
What’s your opinion on Dota Plus? Some players believe that the Plus Assistant gives an unfair advantage due to the real-time suggestions. Read my article for more info and learn if Dota 2 is really becoming pay-to-win.
Header and all images: Valve
