What are Facets in Dota 2, Selecting Best Facet Guide
Facets are a cool feature introduced in patch 7.36 update in Dota 2. If you love defeating enemies with perfect strategies, you would love getting the hang of facets. Besides customizing the playstyle of a hero, they can significantly assist in your Dota 2 MMR boost journey. Since they are a relatively new feature, you might get overwhelmed when perfecting them. But not anymore! This blog post will help you understand how various Facets of Dota 2 work as a hero customization choice. You will also understand how some facets are valuable and mean certain things in the game. So that when you pick a hero, you are fully confident you can beat the enemy team.
What are Dota 2 Facets?
The new update of patch 7.36 introduced two new mechanics in May 2024, namely Innate Abilities and Facets. While Innate abilities remain with the hero for the entire game, facets are match-specific. You can use them to align the playstyle of a hero with a specific match or player preference. Besides being match-specific, facets are also hero-specific. You can check out various facets on the hero page by pressing the Alt key during gameplay or hovering over the hero selection screen's hero icon.
At least Two Facets in Dota 2 for Each Hero
Each hero in the Dota 2 has at least two facets. Some of them, such as Dragon Knight, have more than two. Depending on your strategy and playstyle, you may choose one at the beginning of a match. Once selected, they can not be changed during a round. Moreover, your enemy team does not know about your hero’s facet until the round game begins. Such tweaks in the hero game add interesting twists to the strategy time and dynamics of gameplay.
Do Facets Have a Free Ability Point?
Unlike Innate Abilities, Facets do not have hero levels. This means that facets remain constant throughout the match. So, you can not get any free ability points with them. But Innates change the hero's ability to have five levels. An example of Innate ability is the Dawnbreaker, which reveals the whole map to allies when the sun rises.
The 8 Best Hero Facets in Dota 2
- Viper: Poison Burst
The Viper remains one of the most celebrated heroes of Dota 2. It has at least two facets by default. It can either add AoE damage burst during a poison attack in the form of a poison burst or increase defensive buffs.
- Wraith King: Dealing Additional Curse Damage
Wraith King is another popular hero in Dota 2, mainly utilized as a carry. By default, its two facets are summoning skeletons or giving additional curse damage when attacking.
- Medusa: Engorged Mystic Snake
Medusa is a unique hero who can cast Mystic Snake on enemies. Using an Engorged facet increases attack damage, which empowers her for further attacks as the mana is gained. Moreover, according to the patch 7.36 gameplay update, mana cost reduction does not affect abilities that drain mana over time.
- Techies: Squee's Scope
Like Techies uniquely fight the enemy team, their facets are unique. One such facet is Squee's scope. It increases their attack range when you increase the attack speed. If you can build items that increase their attack speed, you can damage enemies through self-damage.
- Bane: Dream Stalker and Sleepwalk
The good thing about the 7.36 patch update is that Bane's attribute gains make him more deadly. Its two facets are dream stalkers and sleepwalk nightmares. In Sleepwalk, Bane displays a vector-targeted ability. The affected unit starts moving non-stop in the vector direction at 75 speed.
- Venomancer: Plague Carrier
Venomancer Hero has a plague carrier facet that can attack plague wards to allied units, including allied lane creeps.
- Timbersaw: Twister Chakram
The twister chakram facet alters Timbersaw's Chakram in a good way. Instead of the standard Chakram that returns to Timbersaw, the twister Chakram flows in the selected direction in an infinity sign. This slows down enemies' movement by 5% for every 5% missing health.
- Chaos Knight: Phantasmagoria
Phantasmagoria increases the cast range of standard Phantasm, making it more lethal.
Gameplay Updates in the Dota 2 Patch 7.36
Besides the introduction of hero facets in patch 7.36, there have been several important gameplay updates.
Destroyed Glyph: The numbered patch glyph or the glyph of fortification does not refresh when the tier 3 tower is destroyed. Rather, it refreshes when the first melee barracks are destroyed.
Destroyed AoE bonuses affect all the auras and cleave sources dominated creeps.
Heaven's Halberd provides slow resistance instead of status resistance.
You can not bypass backdoor protection heroes by dominated creeps.
Your enemies can always see the Mana bars.
