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Dota 2 update 7.31 patch notes unleash the Primal Beast

Dota 2 is getting its most animalistic character yet with the arrival of the fearsome Primal Beast.

Ozzie Mejia

February 23, 2022 4:10 PM

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The beast wars have come to Dota 2 with the game's latest update. Valve's ongoing MOBA is getting downright monstrous with its latest character, a savage animal known only as Primal Beast. This mindless creature is the face of Dota's 7.31 update, which includes some noteworthy balance tweaks

Primal Beast, as the name implies, is a scaly, fearsome creature, raised on a planet filled with violent terrors. The Primal Beast proved too savage for its original home and was banished to another world, where it quickly became the apex predator. Thought to be confined for eternity, Primal Beast was freed by the Continuum Device and now threatens to destroy the entire Dota 2 roster and anything else in its path.

Here are Primal Beast's abilities, according to the Dota 2 website:

• Onslaught: Primal Beast will charge up and dash forward, becoming an unstoppable juggernaut. Anybody caught in its path will be damaged and stunned on impact. The catch is, this move can also affect allies.
• Trample: Primal Beast grows more powerful as it goes, so this ability's damage will increase for every 140 units traveled. The catch here is that Primal Beast will be in a mindless rage, so it will be disarmed throughout this ability's duration.
• Uproar: Primal Beast grows more powerful as it takes damage, so this ability's damage output will increase every time it takes 35 or more damage from enemies. Upon use, Primal Beast will deliver a powerful roar that increases its armor and damage based on Uproar's multiplier.
• Pulverize: Remember that scene from The Avengers where Hulk slams Loki over and over again? Primal Beast does that with any hapless enemy, damaging them and mini-stunning any surrounding enemies caught in range.
• Rock Throw: "Hit him with a rock!" Primal Beast chucks a giant rock that stuns and damages any enemies caught in its range. This attack only works from a set distance.

Here are the general patch notes, taken from the Dota 2 update page:

• Base hero gold bounty increased from 120 + L*8 to 125 + L*8 where L = hero level
• Reworked bounty gold streak formula
• Reworked XP streak formula
• Cooldown reduction now stacks diminishingly
• Moved the bounty runes from the triangle to the primary jungle
• Moved the Dire and Radiant offlane towers 320 units further away from base
• When a hero respawns in the fountain, they are invulnerable as long as there's at least one enemy hero in the base until they issue a command
• Kill gold information now shows a breakdown of gold bounty for the killer plus proximity gold
• The following abilities now consistently reveal invisibility for their duration: Winter's Curse, Aether Remnant, Berserker Rage (Ensnare), Shackles, Life Drain, Dismember, Fortune's End, Sinister Gaze, Searing Chains, Enchant Remnant, Rod of Atos, Gleipnir, Dark Troll Ensnare
• Attack and armor types are now represented through abilities. Most damage remains unchanged with a few exceptions in creep vs creep and creep vs tower situations
• Added new ability: Piercing. Piercing units deal 150% bonus damage to non-hero units and 50% less damage to Standard Units
• Added new ability: Reinforced. Reinforced units deal 150% bonus damage to other Reinforced units and reduce damage received from heroes by 50% and from non-hero units by 30%
• Added new ability: Runty. Runty units deal 25% less damage to heroes
• Piercing, Reinforced, and Runty aren't stealable (e.g: Devour)
• Ranged creeps and their upgrades all have the Piercing ability
• All buildings and siege units now have the Reinforced ability
• Melee creeps and their upgrades all have the Runty ability
• Serpent Wards and Plague Wards now have the Piercing ability
• Eidolons, Treants and Lycan Wolves no longer have the Basic attack type.
• Neutral creeps now all have the standard attack type. Most neutral creeps have had their damage adjusted so that the net damage is similar.
• Most Neutral creeps that used to have a Piercing attack type now have the Piercing ability.
• Neutral Items now show through Fog of War for the team they belong to until they are picked up.
• Neutral creeps now increase their HP by 30, armor by 0.5, base damage by 3, attack speed by 5, gold bounty by 1 and XP bounty by 5 every 7.5 minutes, up to 30 times. (Last upgrade at 225 mins, same intervals as lane creeps)
• Neutral creep base attack time has been increased to 2 and base attack speed has been adjusted to compensate. The main implication is that neutral creeps are more resilient versus attack speed slow
• New Ancient Camp: Ancient Ice Shaman and 2 Ancient Frostbitten Golems
• New Large Camp: 2 Warpine Raiders

Individual character, creep, and item balance changes can also be found on the update page.

Prepare yourselves for the 7.31 Gameplay Patch — arriving on Wednesday with a host of changes, including a rework to the contentious crew of Techies Demolitions! pic.twitter.com/V05J0NVBAx

— DOTA 2 (@DOTA2) February 19, 2022

The biggest hero changes come to the Techies, which have had their abilities totally overhauled. Here are their updated abilties, according to their Hero Page:

• Sticky Bomb: A bomb will be lobbed at enemies, but if it lands close to an enemy unit, the bomb will latch onto it, adding slowdown. The explosion will also affect any surrounding enemies.
• Reactive Tazer: This will not only boost movement speed for any nearby allies, any attacking enemies will be temporarily disarmed.
• Blast Off!: The Techies will launch themselves at foes, dealing area-of-effect damage and silencing impacted enemies.
• Proximity Mines: These explosives will go off as soon as an enemy stands nearby, dealing damage and reducing Magic Resistance. While they cannot be detected by True Sight, they are visible to enemies within the active 500 radius. Those unfortunate foes caught within a 150 radius will receive full damage.

The Dota 2 7.31 update is up and running right now. Be sure to update your Dota 2 client for the latest changes. We'll have our eye on Valve's MOBA and its continued evolution, so keep it on Shacknews for the latest news.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?