Ringmaster is out - here’s ALL you need to know about the new DotA 2 hero.

Ringmaster is released on 23rd of August 2024, with 6 abilities. He is a ranged hero and was released with including a comic book that tells his backstory. Let’s start by diving into his stats and general mechanics.

Ringmaster is currently sitting at a 57% winrate on position 4 and a 55% winrate on position 5.

Cogliostro Kettle, the Ringmaster is a ranged intelligence hero, with with the base stats shown below:

Base stats

• Strength: 23 +2.4 pr. level

• Agility: 13 +1.4 pr. level

• Intelligence: 25 +3.0 pr. level

His high intelligence gain, is great, but he is probably not meant as a right-clicking hero, as his spells do not scale with his attack damage. He starst with a 315 movement speed and 575 attack range (which is pretty good). His model is huge which is quite fun.

Abilities

The Ringmaster comes with 4 basic abiilities, plus 3 extra smaller abilities and a shard ability. Let’s take a look at them one by one.

Tame the beasts

Tame the beasts is an amazing AOE ability, that allows Ringmaster to farm efficiently, and fear people into his ultimate - more on that later!

Escape Act

Escape act offers protection for teammates, and yourself giving bonus movement speed, intense amounts of magic resistance while being able to move. Unlike heroes like undying, shadow demon, and other’s saves, you can actually freely move while being saved. This comes on a long cooldown of 20 seconds at max level. You’ll probably not want to level this during laning stage, unless it counters something specific an enemy hero can do.

Escape act directly counters things like Pudge ult, Legion Commander ult, Winter Wyvern’s ult and so on. It also just acts as a create save in general, as it makes the allied hero untargetable.

Impalement Arts

Impalement Arts come with a whopping 4 stacks at max level that refresh. They also deal 5% maax health pr second against heroes, and slow for 0.8 seconds. This ability is incredibly strong in the later stages of the game especially against tanky heroes. It is also great as catch and some of Ringmaster’s talents upgrade this ability. Having some sort of setup is important with this spell as it is easily avoided.

Ultimate: Wheel of Wonder

Ringmaster’s ultimate ability Wheel of Wonder is a fun gimmicky ability, that could prove to be difficult to land. It’s essentially a big techies mine, that explodes after 8 seconds. If a hero faces the wheel it will explode earlier and the hero will be taunted. Now, making heroes face a specific direction in difficult in Dota 2, but Ringmaster’s Tame the Beasts ability can help with this as enemies will be feared once landed. Use it to your advantage!

Three smaller abilities: Funhouse Mirror, Strongman Tonic, Whoopee Cushion

These are quite interesting, as Ringmaster’s innate ability allows him to receive souvenirs whenever a hero dies within 925 range of him. The three souvenirs are the ones mentioned above. The three abilities work in a very unique way, where you’ll have a random one available, and only once you have used that will you get the next one in the line which is also random. They stack up infinitely. Below are the three abilities - let’s dive in!

Funhouse Mirror

Funhouse mirror creates an illusion of your own hero. Use it to disjoint abilities, manta dodge stuns, scout the map, and confuse the enemy. It does not dispel like manta does.

Strongman Tonic

Strongman tonic provides a strength bonus for 8 seconds to an allied unit. This is essentially a heal that is incredibly strong, even in the later stages of the game.

Whoopee Cushion

Whoopee Cushion is a nice little escape. This is probably the strongest of the three, which allows him to escape enemies while slowing them.

The three random abilities really provide a fun little mini-game of sorts where you have a hero that can do random things - this is kind of new in Dota I would say, and will provide a fun and entertaining type gameplay, due to the randomness. If players will like it, I am not sure!

Shard ability: Spotlight

Spotlight shows invisible enemies, damages illusions and provides misschance. The spotlight moves randomly around and searches for enemies. I do not think this is currently worth 1400 gold. Finding invisible heroes with dust is easier, but the 30% miss chance might be really strong.

Facets and Aghanim’s Scepter

The Ringmaster does currently NOT have any facets or an Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade. This is much like when Muerta was released.

Talents

The new hero’s Talent tree is quite straightforward with the following talents:

• Level 10: +200 escape act cast range OR +75 tame the beasts radius

• Level 15: Debuff immunity while channeling tame the beasts OR Impalement arts penetrates one target

• Level 20: +75/+300 tame the beasts min/max damage OR +1s impalement arts bleed and slow duration

• Level 25: escape act grants strong dispel and flying OR +100 wheel radius and range

These are naturally like all talents situational, but personally I find it best to go a build like this: left, left, right, left for a support-ish build

If you team needs damage I would go: right, right, left, right

Conclusion

The Ringmaster seems like a fun hero, that can do a lot of things - he is a bit all over the place, but that seems fit with his personality and the theme of a circus. I wish everyone happy pubs in the coming weeks, before TI24. Don’t forget to check out the new compendium that features the following cool new benefits for esports enjoyers like us:

• Physical Aegis Model

• A new circus themed HUD

• TI24 Versus Screen

• Player and Team Stickers

• Permanent Chat Wheels

• TI24 Effigy Block

• Fantasy and Bingo Powerups

• Favourite Team Teleports and a Circus Themed Teleport

• Loading Screens

• Oracle’s Challenge

Until next time!

Rubick