The New Journey update for Dota 2 will include a new hero, the Monkey King! (Image courtesy of gearnuke.com)
Champions have been crowned and as early as now, teams from around the world are already training hard to get a chance to be the next TNC, the next Digital Chaos, the next Wings Gaming of the Dota 2 scene. 2016 witnessed the dawn of the underdog teams. The reign of dominance by OG was toppled by hotshot southeast asian teams and the defending champs EG were dethroned by a ragtag group of talented individuals. TI6 was arguably the best Dota 2 tournament to date and amidst all the hype behind the matches and the teams, there may have been a detail we may have missed out on during the final day of the tournament. Peep the video below to find out what it is!
The New Journey
Yep, that’s right, Dota 2 is getting another new character! Hot on the heels of the Underlord announcement, Valve decides to keep the surprises coming as we are treated to a new update called “The New Journey” and along with the update comes a new character who we can only refer to now as the Monkey King. We know very little about this for now and with all the details given, we can only speculate but let’s see what we can predict from the video reveal:
- The Monkey King is not an entirely “new” character. We can trace this back to a sort of “quest” back in Dota 1 during the 6.79 patch where you had to collect “peach” items across the map and summon Sun Wukong using the peaches and a Monkey King Bar. Beating him will give you access to a Geniune Monkey King Bar which is the extreme definition of an imbalanced item, granting you stats and bonuses you can only dream of!
- The new character will most probably come with some sort of new game mode or mechanic, similar to that of previous updates like Diretide, Frostivus, and New Bloom.
- Based on the trailer, the Monkey King seems to have a few skills up his arsenal:
- The first skill we see is most likely some sort of thurderclap type skill, when the Monkey King slams the ground with great force, damaging enemies in an area of effect around him.
- The second skill looks like a form of blink strike where the Monkey King appears behind the enemy and the hit results in a knockback.
- The third skill, possibly the ulti, is some sort of illusion based skill where multiple illusions of the Monkey King converge and attack a target, similar to Phantom Lancer.
The Monkey King jumps up in the air and slams down his staff with incredible force!
The Monkey King appears from behind to knock back the opposing hero!
The Monkey King sends illusions of himself to do his bidding.
The Monkey King has been a source of inspiration for other games as well, as the lore and character behind the legend is one that is fascinating and mystical. If you’ve been playing MOBA type games from way back, you’ll notice a similar character from HoN (Heroes of Newerth).
The New Journey update comes into Dota 2 clients in the Fall, which we may look to expect in maybe a couple of months. No official release date has been announced yet but keep your eyes peeled and continue to check us out regularly at Ungeek.ph for all of your geek needs! You may also check out our previous TI6 articles such as the epic match between TNC vs OG and our preview to the finals!