Ability Arena 2.5 brings a Tower God, more gold, and a less broken Aghanim

The Ability Arena hype train refuses to slow down, as release 2.5 hit the Dota 2 client earlier today. With a brand new God, a rebalancing of gold, and the some general tweaks and changes, the new patch has once again injected a breath of fresh air into one of the most popular Arcade games for Dota 2.

The real headliner of the 2.5 patch is the addition of the Tower God, a character based on the very towers you’ve spent most of your Dota life trying to kill. With an active and a passive ability, this God turns one hero into a tower. The active, Building, sets a single hero's attack range to a minimum of 750, and roots them to the ground. The root ends if you’re the only hero left. 

The passive activates a Glyph of Fortification for all remaining heroes once a hero dies. Honestly, a lot of the attack speed and other builds really don’t need to do more than stand still and damage enemy heroes, so turning them into a rooted tower is fine.

The Tower is also voiced by Pyrion Flax, who adds some charm and wit to an otherwise inanimate and silent structure. We're not sure how many Dota Arcade games have bespoke voice acting, but its impressive to see Ability Arena upping the ante with it. A great little touch for the new God.

Besides a nice new God to play with, some of the existing Gods got some tweaks. One of those was Aghanim, who’s ability to upgrade abilities for free has been hit with the nerf hammer. Overall the scaling has been changed from 30/35/40/45/50% to 25/30/35/40/45%. This should mean that there’s less chance of your opponent getting multiple Gabens every single game.

On the buff side, Bloodseeker now has a truly godly 25% lifesteal on their ability. But as a way of mitigating this, the affected unit will physically get larger with each ally hero that dies. Honestly, it still sounds like a crazy buff.

In the spell side, Nethertoxin has been benched. A favorite of many combos, especially with Boomer, this spell effectively puts the other players on a timer. Kill our heroes, or die to Nethertoxin. Benching it has saved many from some frustrating losses.

In its place Duel, the Legion Commander Ultimate, has taken the stage. There’s a lot of potential for fun with this one, with Moment of Courage and Counter Helix builds already popular. 

Overall, there’s dozens of changes, and they can all be read on the official subreddit. And stay tuned to Esports.gg for more Ability Arena content.