In the night leading up to Friday, there was a new update for Dota Underlords, bringing various balance changes and also new features. At the center is a nerf to the Open Fort strategy: with the best strategy in Dota Underlords, one lost to win. We look at the patch notes from July 4th.
What is the Open Fort strategy? In the Open Fort strategy, you take advantage of the fact that you earn additional gold for losing streaks: a reward for a “bad streak.”
So, you forgo placing champions to ensure you lose. Once you’ve saved up a large sum of gold, you start cleaning up the board from behind.
This strategy was supported by the item Silver Linings, which awarded an additional gold for each loss. This way, you could reach 8 gold per loss as early as round six.
This is included in the patch notes of Dota Underlords
How does the patch change the losing streak? The latest patch now ensures that you only receive a maximum of two gold for losing streaks instead of three.
Additionally, the item Silver Linings has been modified, so it only gives gold for a loss if you have also won beforehand.
For each victory, the item gains a charge. Each loss consumes a charge and converts it into gold. If you have no charges, then there is no gold.
Lose streak gold:
- 3-4 losses – 1 gold
- 5-6 losses – 2 gold
- 7+ losses – 3 gold
- 3-4 losses – 1 gold
- 5+ losses – 2 gold
What changes for win streaks? The reward for win streaks is also decreased: it now ends at 8 victories and then starts over. Previously, you received 3 bonus gold for each victory starting from the 7th. Now, for 3-4 victories you get 1 gold, for 5-6 victories gold, for the 7th victory 3, and for the 8th victory even 4 gold. Then it’s over.
Win streaks gold:
- 3-4 wins – 1 gold
- 5-6 wins – 2 gold
- 7+ wins – 3 gold
- 3-4 wins – 1 gold
- 5-6 wins – 2 gold
- 7 wins – 3 gold
- 8 wins – 4 gold
Revisions of Alliances and New Items
What balance changes were made? On one hand, with the new patch, the overall distribution of champions has been adjusted. At level 9, the chance for units costing two gold was reduced by 5% and for units costing three gold was increased by 5%.
There were also minor adjustments at level.
On the other hand, there were changes to the Warlock and Shaman classes:
- Warlocks now establish a connection for 3 seconds with the ally having the lowest health every time they cast a spell. Whenever one of them deals damage, both are healed for 50/100/150 percent of the damage.
- Three Shamans now have the effect that enemies affected by stuns, silence, or hexes generate -200 mana when attacked.
- The orc Disruptor is now also a Warlock, in addition to being an Orc and a Shaman.
What else is new? With the patch, three new items were introduced:
- Force Staff: Pushes enemies six squares in a random direction (10 seconds cooldown)
- Scythe of Vyse: When the champion takes damage, the attacker is transformed into a pig for four seconds (15 seconds cooldown)
- Big-Time Contract: The champion is additionally a Bloodbound in addition to their original origin.
With the new items and the balance changes, this could be the second major patch to shake up the meta.
Lastly, a leaderboard has been introduced for players who have already reached the highest rank in the beta.
Underlords is already losing a significant number of players. Is the hype over?
