What Are Innate Abilities in Dota 2?

Dota 2’s 7.36 update brought major changes to its competitive landscape. All heroes received a new facelift, and they now have unique Innate abilities that further strengthen their hero or team. So, what are Innate abilities, and how does it work in Dota 2?

How Do Innate Abilities Work in Dota 2?

Innate abilities add another layer of power to all heroes in Dota 2. These Innate abilities grant a hero unique effects or the ability to power up a hero’s ability to level five. Since most heroes already have their unique skills, adding another ability promotes a more thought-provoking team composition, such as using Dawnbreaker and Io. Since Dawnbreaker’s Innate ability reveals the whole map on sunrise, Io can grab a teammate and catch enemies who are alone.

Most of these Innate abilities are passives, and there isn’t really much choice here. You’ll have to learn most, if not all, Innate abilities to get used to the game’s meta.

However, the patch also introduced Facets, in which all heroes are powered up even more because they have another upgrade to their power. You need to learn all these new features so you can better understand synergies with each of the hero’s Innate abilities. Some Innate abilities will let you change your playstyle completely.

Here’s a quick list of some of the most playstyle-changing Innate abilities:

• Axe – Whenever Axe kills an enemy, he gains +1 permanent armor. Kills with Culling Blade gives 2x that amount.
• Dawnbreaker – Whenever the sun rises, Dawnbreaker gradually reveals the entire map to all allies for 4 seconds. Fog of War returns a second after the whole map is revealed.
• Disruptor – Whenever Disruptor takes more than 250 damage from enemies with 400 range, all nearby units are pushed to a 400 distance from Disruptor. Cooldown 4 seconds. Damage counter resets within 7 seconds.
• Huskar – Huskar doesn’t have mana. Mana cost of items and abilities are converted into health costs. Damage can be reduced with Magical Resistance.
• Lich – Lich’s max mana regeneration is set to 0. Whenever a unit, friendly or foe, dies nearby, Lich restores a portion of his maximum mana. Dying heroes restore a bigger portion. Lich can still regenerate mana under the effect of a fountain.
• Nyx Assassin – Nyx Assassin can sense invisible heroes in a 400 radius.

A ton of these Innate abilities change how a player would normally play. For example, Lich’s Innate ability forces the player to become more active in the Laning Stage of the game. Lich gets more mana while laning, giving the player almost unlimited chances to spam skills.

Disruptor players could now disrupt even more by playing more offensively as a support since you can push enemies back when they are trying to engage. It also makes the Disruptor a hard target to go for, giving it more chances to throw its abilities during a clash.

Enemy teams are now forced to play around Axe’s ramping armor stacks by always going for magical damage on the team. If Axe’s armor gets too high, it can be a problem to deal with if everyone on your team deals heavy physical damage.

The changes are endless, and the 7.36 patch really does seem like Dota 3 has arrived. If you are looking into new MOBAs to play, you can look at League of Legends’s 14.2 patch and give that one a shot.