Wraith King has a major bug right now that’s making the hero fail to do the one thing that makes him special!

Wraith King is an iconic Dota 2 hero with an equally iconic ultimate ability: After he’s killed, the Wraith King will rise again to smite his enemies once more! Unfortunately, a series of bugs with the hero have turned this once reliable revive into a coin-flip of staying dead or even finding yourself back at the Fountain.

A series of reported bugs on the Dota 2 GitHub bug tracker, clips posted on Reddit, and described on social media have seen the Wraith King fail to do the one thing that makes him unique. 

Updated September 12 with new info about the bugs. Currently still unfixed.

What is the Wraith King bug in Dota 2?

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of reported issues with the Wraith King:

  • Wraith King repawns at Fountain after using Reincarnation
  • Wraith King Reincarnation doesn’t work if 
  • Wraith King’s skeletons follow invisible units even without vision
  • Wraith King Reincarnation just not even working, leaving him dead and going on cooldown
  • Dying and using Reincarnation grants a kill and bounty to enemy players
  • All of the deaths where Wraith King has revived count on the scoreboard, either in-game or on the post-match screen
  • Wraith King Reincarnation only works if Aghanim’s Scepter is purchased

Phew! That’s a fair few bugs, and none of them good. Well actually maybe that skeletons following invisible units thing is pretty handy for WK players. Still, it's not a great situation overall.

What’s wrong with Wraith King revive? WK bug explained

The Wraith King bug is making playing this hero incredibly pointless (Image via Valve)
The Wraith King bug is making playing this hero incredibly pointless (Image via Valve)

For whatever reason it seems like WK’s revive is bugged, but it might have to do with the priority of the reincarnation. As you probably know, Wraith King’s Reincarnation takes priority over Aegis, so if a WK has an Aegis, the revive from his ult will trigger first.

But for some reason, Wraith King’s revives are now counting as actual deaths. This is manifesting in a few ways, but the main ones are Reincarnation going on cooldown, WK being respawned at base/Fountain, and enemy players getting kills/bounties. 

This has led to around two dozen reports on the Dota 2 bug tracker, with around half of those entitled some variation of “Wraith King reincarnation bug.”

Currently, there’s no fix for the bug (apart from apparently in some cases buying Aghanim’s Scepter or Shard), and we’d really suggest not playing WK until this is fixed. As we mentioned in a previous bug article, September 4 is Labor Day, so we don’t forecast a fix for a few days. So time to shelve Ostarion for a while until this core gameplay mechanic is fixed!


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