Valve added Dota 2’s newest hero, Ringmaster, in a surprise update on Aug. 22, bringing the game’s hero tally to 125.
Valve finally introduced a new hero called Ringmaster in an update before The International 2024, 17 months after the last hero, Muerta, was added in March 2023. Cogliostro Kettle, a.k.a. Ringmaster, is an Intelligence support hero whose abilities can nuke and disable enemy units. On top of this, he also lets you protect yourself or a teammate using an escape ability that offers resistance to enemy spells.
Here are all of Ringmaster’s abilities in Dota 2.
Dota 2 Ringmaster abilities and Souvenirs, explained
Including the Souvenirs (mini ability), Dota 2’s Ringmaster offers five abilities without any Aghanim’s upgrade:
- Tame the Beasts: A channeled ability where the Ringmaster twirls his whip and then cracks it. Whipped enemies are damaged and flee in fear. You can channel the ability for up to four seconds, which increases its damage and extends the fear’s duration. Pressing the ability key once again will stop the channeling and allow the spell to be cast quickly.
- Escape Act: The Ringmaster packs himself or an allied hero into a mobile box. While in the box, you’re untargetable, muted, silenced, and disarmed, letting you move up to 500 units with bonus movement speed. You also get 100 percent slow and increased magic resistance. In short, the Escape Act is an incredible save for the teammates, especially the hard carries.
- Impalement Arts: Throws a dagger in a straight line, and if the dagger hits an enemy hero, it briefly slows them down as they begin to bleed. The bleed debuff deals a percentage of their maximum health in damage every second. The effects last for four seconds, and it grants one charge for every level up, which means you can cast four daggers one by one at the maximum skill level.
- Wheel of Wonder (Ultimate): Rolls a wheel to a targeted location that hypnotizes the opponents in front of the wheel within the wheel’s AoE. The wheel can’t be attacked or broken, and the first unit mesmerized starts a timer for the wheel to explode, which deals with considerable damage. The units in the wheel’s AoE also take little damage every second before the explosion. You can’t determine which direction the wheel faces at the time of writing; we cast the ultimate many times from a fixed location, and its frontside differs every time there’s a change in the mouse cursor’s position.
With the new hero being a puppet once used by a ringmaster for his circus acts, all of his abilities display the character’s showmanship. Ringmaster’s Innate ability also offers an additional skill, Dark Carnival Souvenir, where you get a random spell with every charge (enemy kill) from the three available Souvenirs:
- Funhouse Mirror: Creates one perfect illusion for Ringmaster that lasts up to 18 seconds. Like most hero illusions, this image deals with low damage, only 28 percent of the original hero, but takes 300 percent of the incoming damage.
- Strongman Tonic: Temporarily increases the allied hero’s Strength by five plus 1.5 per Ringmaster’s level for eight seconds. The effect lasts for four seconds and then deteriorates over the duration, making the affected hero look lots bigger, similar to Ogre’s Bloodlust.
- Whoopie Cushion: Propels your hero forward 400 units and leaves a stink cloud at the previous location, which slows enemy heroes by 30 percent for three seconds. For reference, Force Staff pushes your hero forward 600 units.
Dota 2 Ringmaster Aghanim upgrades
Ringmaster doesn’t have a Facet or Aghanim Scepter upgrade at the time of his launch in Dota 2. But, you can purchase his Aghanim Shard upgrade, which gives you a new ability, Spotlight.
As the name suggests, Ringmaster shines a Spotlight that moves over an area. Enemy heroes in the light have a 30 percent chance to miss their attacks, and illusions lose a percentage of their maximum health every second. Spotlight also reveals any invisible heroes lurking in the AoE.
