New year, new Battle Pass! This is my first impressions of the brand new Battle Pass, where I’ll be giving a quick rundown of some noteworthy features and aspects. Stay tuned for my in-depth Review coming out soon!
Rewards
The reward system this year is scaled differently to that of last year. In general, Dota 2‘s Battle Passes tend to have a higher concentration of more valuable rewards as your BP level increases. This year, this still applies but to a higher degree. On top of this, there is a larger variety of rewards that you can obtain overall. What does that mean to the average consumer? Let me put it this way: if you purchased a Level 1000 Battle Pass, you hit a gold mine of content and cosmetics. But if you purchased the Level 100 bundle, and refuse to level it up by any means, then you receive the short end of the stick especially compared to last year!
The reward scaling has been redone in a way that gives the Battle Pass a more aggressive pricing model. The high spenders are treated with the best possible cosmetics and overall more value to their BP than ever before. In a sense that, if you are not a big spender, then you do not get what you normally do. Spending $250 on the Battle Pass rewards you with literally every single cosmetic except for the physical rewards. If you are capable of spending somewhere within that $250 margin (not counting any levels you unlock through gameplay), then you have achieved an insane amount of value. Now let’s say you only purchase the highest value bundle that Valve currently offers, the Level 100 Bundle for $44.99. You will have access to a couple of taunts, around 5 Immortal 1 treasures, the music pack, a ton of consumables, the new courier and wards, 10 gauntlet tickets, a few voice lines, a new announcer pack, some emotes, and some voice lines (and other things). At first glance, this is an incredible value compared to other BP’s, but in reality you don’t get any of the really good stuff until you go to the Level 200-300 range, which is totally possible through gameplay. Is the Windranger Arcana obtainable by purchasing the level 100 BP? Probably not to the average customer, but if you purchase a few more levels, then absolutely!
Cavern Crawl
The Cavern Crawl is near identical to last year’s Jungle Expedition. This time, you will have the opportunity to unlock sets for Slark, Nyx Assassin, or Spirit Breaker. The game mode gives you the ability to unlock cosmetics without spending a single dime (apart from the price of unlocking the Battle Pass), so they are on even grounds in terms of monetary value. And they are pretty valuable, especially if you manage to unlock the premium third style. The “third style” is a first for this year’s Battle Pass, compared to previous renditions only 2 styles. Unlocking the first 2 is pretty standard practice, play through the expedition, and if you manage to find 3 hidden “Key Fragments” on the map, you will be given the option to unlock the second style. This time, however, you will continue to find more Key Fragments even after unlocking the second style, so as to being able to unlock the third style. In order to counteract how common these Key Fragments could be, there is an alternate map that you can play through to find more.
The Side Shop
A brand new feature of this years Battle Pass, giving players more options to unlock treasures and rewards. The game mode follows the “Unit Building” process of Dota Underlords, Auto Chess, and Team Fight Tactics. You will need to use consumables called “Side Shop Gold”, which can be obtained through leveling, using the Portal consumable, among other ways. You use this gold to reroll the set of pieces you can purchase, as well as purchasing the units themselves. Once you purchase a unit, you have the option of reselling them for Gems. These gems can then be used to purchase a slew of rewards, such as more consumables, or treasures. But here’s the catch(es)! Purchasing a total of 9 of the same unit will combine them (combines 3 at a time), and increase the total gems you will receive. On top of that, there are rarer units that will give you an insane amount of gems if you combine them. Their rarities are defined by their colors, with colorless being the least rare, followed by blue, then green, then purple, then gold. Since I was able to mess around with the feature, I’ll quickly give a quick strategy guide to making the most out of it.
Only purchase the “purple” units. The more common ones are not nearly as valuable, but the gold ones are too rare. Combining 3 purple units will give you the option of reselling them for 30 gems! If you manage to combine all 9 purple units to one 3 star unit, you will get an insane amount of gems (which I don’t know how much, as I’ve not gotten there yet). And contrary to what the previous parenthesis stated, it is extremely possible. If I had started out by only spending my gold on purple units, I would have gotten a ton more value. So make sure you only spend your gold on these purple units, and not to fall into the trap of the super rare gold ones.
Sets
I’m gonna be honest, I’m not a huge fan of the first Immortal Treasure, mainly because I don’t play many of the heroes featured on it. With that being said, the items themselves are pretty excellent, and if you play any of these heroes you will surely find them attractive. I will use an arbitrarily created rating system to try and give an objective idea of the sets (I will be unbiased KEKW). Tinker, 9/10. On a real note, Tinker has not had any good Immortals, and this one is pretty darn cool. Night Stalker, cosmetic: 9/10, spell 6/10. The cosmetic itself is really cool, the blue color gives the hero a misty feeling similar to Abaddon, just not a fan of the way the spell is affected. Warlock, 3/10. Meh. Lifestealer, 8/10. Every year we get a Lifestealer Immortal, and now we can have a full set of Immortals Pog! Kotl, 4/10. Meh, again. Medusa, 8/10, I love the animations. Puck, 7/10. It doesn’t really match any other sets but is pretty cool on its own. Pudge, Ten out of freaking Ten. One of the coolest Immortals ever, but it’s a Pudge item, so yeah!
Now for the other more neat stuff in my opinion. The Wraith King Arcana is pretty darn incredible. For those of you who don’t know, Wraith King was initially known as “Skeleton King” when he was added to Dota 2 but was later renamed and redesigned to Wraith King due to a lawsuit by Blizzard. Fans were pretty upset about this, but we’ve eventually gotten over it. Now, years later, Valve has somehow re-added Skeleton King in the form of an Arcana, and it’s pretty damn glorious. The Arcana contains about 400 new voice lines, on top of the whole model retexture, on top of the redone spells, on top, of the entire sound design of the hero. The stylistic approach is reminiscent of 80’s Metal album covers, and all the added electric guitar shreds and riffs add to that beautifully. Definitely one of the best Arcana’s ever added to the game.
We are set to receive a few more Arcana’s, as well as a couple of new Personas. Firstly, we are set to have a Pudge Persona, taking the form of a toy. The “Toy Butcher’s” official art indicates that his hook will use some string instead of chains, and play into the whole “raggedy old, possibly haunted” doll aesthetic. Anti-Mage will also have a brand new Persona, in the form of Dota 2’s first-ever Gender Bender. AM will receive a brand new model in the form of a woman Anti-Mage, neat huh? Now for the remaining Arcana’s, first up is Queen of Pain. It looks like the designers really doubled down on the “Demon” aspect of the hero. She looks like she’s been pulled straight out of Blizzard’s Diablo 4 TM. The coolest part is that she has a whip now, kinky, Lastly, the most polarizing Arcana, is Windranger. Now some community members have some- strong opinions on you know who, Without naming any names, an individual has expressed his feelings towards the new Arcana.
FUCK
— SirActionSlacks (@SirActionSlacks) May 25, 2020
Features
Guilds! Guilds have been a highly sought out feature for years. Guilds give you and a small community a platform to interact and communicate effectively while giving you some extra things to play towards. Firstly, guilds are a great way to organize parties, games, and everything in between. Being a part of a guild gives you a chat that all your guild-mates have access to. Moreover, your Steam Messaging App will also have a group chat for you and your guild-mates. Your guild also gives you a few things to do in the form of “Contracts”, which are essentially just goals that you achieve in your games. A guild member may only have one Contract active at a time, and accomplishing that contract puts you on a leaderboard of most points contributed, while helping the guild level up. Leveling up your guild gives you a slew of rewards, including emotes and Guild Banner upgrades. Other features of the Battle Pass include the ability to change your Ping icons and a new pull/stack timer on jungle camps.
Closing Thoughts
And that about wraps up the brand new TI10 Battle Pass. So far, this Battle Pass seems to be the most ripe with content out of any previous installment. Lots of the brand new unreleased exclusive sets look incredibly interesting, and if anyone of them is near the caliber of quality and ingenuity of the Skeleton King set, then I cannot wait! Once some of the other features get rolled out, such as the other sets, the Summer Event, and the Compendium (if ever), as well as the brand new “Gauntlet Mode” which I’m yet to try, an in-depth review will get released. Until then, stay tuned!
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