Dota 2’s Beta continues to grow this week as another character was added this week: Banehallow the Lycanthrope. He’s a heavy strength-based carry who, as you could probably guess, can turn into a huge, scary werewolf. But he’s not the only thing to get excited about this week.
A wide range of other features have been added in this week, including a fully-functional XP graph for spectators, allowing you to quickly see which team is leading in experience points earned, in addition to the previously available gold earning graph. We also get some new practice bot behaviors, which allow them to actually build a real team with a balance of hero roles, instead of just randoming their lineup each game.
But the biggest addition is the new way the game will allow you to track or stats and hero records. It will now give each of your heroes a rating, which will tell you how well you perform with that hero compared to other players of your skill level. You can’t directly compare your skills to other specific players (a feature I personally hope never gets added to the game) but it will give you a general idea of your performance amongst your immediate peers. I think this could be a great tool for people who are learning the game to see where they’re doing well and where they need to improve, and give them real goals for improvement.
Full patchnotes are available here.
So what do you think of this week’s new features? Are you planning on using the new hero stat tracking?