Dota 2 Year Beast Game Guide

Dota 2 Year Beast Game Guide by trollogist

Hello all, after seeing all the complaints that the New Bloom is pay2win, I ventured into the mode to test it myself. I have not forked out a single dime on arcana/points, and started with around ~250 points won from standard games with allies having the arcana. I am currently 6-0 in the yearbeast mode, and am enjoying the event immensely, so I figured I’d write up a small guide to help everyone in bettering their chances of winning the year beast. Proof of 6 sets won, sorted by time

This guide assumes you already know the basics of the new bloom game mode, if not you can read about them here

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First, let’s look at the key things about this mode:

• The Year Beast is susceptible to all most forms of spells. It does not have immunity of any kind, and when unupgraded all it has defensively is tankiness and a heal on a long cooldown. This is key to eliminating/controlling the enemy year beast.
• Global chakra (replacement of aegis) heals everyone’s mana to full (or could be a very high static number like 1500, we never got to that late)
• Unless you have 7k+ points (or 8k+ bonus is available), it is almost always better to spend the points on spells than upgrades.

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The draft.

IMO the year beast event boils down to 70% hero draft, 30% hero execution. As the YB spawns at the 5minute mark, your team will be grouping up to push and fight at that time too. This means that the “laning phase” is pretty much limited to 5 minutes, followed by either crazy pushing or crazy teamfights. Bearing that in mind, you should aim for heroes that excel in this environment. I shan’t go into the full 106 heroes, but I will talk about the few strongest heroes I have experienced so far.

1. Undying. Undisputed king of early teamfights, has heals and nukes and a “I WIN” button on a 60s cooldown. Smart players focus the tombstone and get rekt by the rest of the team. Dumb players get rekt by both. If you retreat, either your YB dies or your tower falls. Rinse and repeat.
2. Bristleback. When the other team is trying to focus down your yearbeast, you’re diving into the chaos getting quill stacks on everyone. Proceed to eziest rampage of your life. Especially during the 6-15minute mark when your quills are pure murder. Downside? You’re squishy early on unless you have a healer on your team.
3. Phoenix. Spirits/nova are good in teamfights and sunray does % damage and healing.
4. Winter Wyvern. Holy hell she’s made for anti-teamfight. 340 damage AoE nuke/slow on a 7s CD. Ult that makes you rekt your own YB, or get rekt by it. Also % healing is insane given YB’s health pool. However, good WW’s are few and far between.
5. Lina/Zeus. So… much…. damage. Did I mention global chakra heals your mana to full?
6. Troll Warlord. Whirling axes works on YB, ult melts towers and people.
7. Razor. +224 damage erryday.
8. Viper. Fuck you.

Those are what I consider the tier 1 heroes of this mode. Next up we’ll look at some of the tier 2: [Note: Tier 2 doesn’t mean shitty, tier 2 means “they’re really good but within manageable range”]

Great teamfight heroes

• Kunkka
• Timbersaw
• Lich
• Magnus*
• Witch Doctor
• Tusk
• Dazzle
• Warlock

Mana-dependent heroes

• Nyx
• Storm
• Omniknight*
• Oracle
• Visage

*these heroes rely on snowballing and getting their core items. If you win the first teamfight and get your blink/arcanes, you’ve pretty much won the game. If you’re playing from behind though, you’ll be pretty useless.

Special Mention:

Sniper: Actually isn’t very effective, played 4 games against snipers and dominated them. They need levels to be annoying, and need items to be threatening. At 5minutes most heroes are level 5/6, sniper typically has neither.

Necrophos: Can be very strong but so far everyone seems to play him wrong. People are reaping the year beast which seems a complete waste since the respawn increase doesn’t work (unconfirmed) on the YB. PLEASE PEOPLE, REAPER SCYTHE HEROES. When games end under 20minutes +30s respawn time is frigging HUGE. When all heroes are dead you can kill the year beast at your leisure.

Bloodseeker: Has a good zoning spell an synergy with team nukes – This is unconfirmed but I think bloodrage also increases the damage of the YB’s Thundergod’s Wrath because it considers the activator as the source. Will need confirmation.

The “losers”

Big Ult-reliant heroes. Teamfights are basically breaking out every respawn so one-shot wonders don’t tend to fare very well. Tidehunter, Doom, even QoP to some extent – yes they can win a teamfight, but not the following one. In my experience, sustainable teamfight is king. Explained further below.

Late game farmers. Spectre, Antimage, Medusa are next to useless here where games end under 20minutes

Junglers are generally a bad idea with the exception of enigma. A fast 5:30 mek is a big boon to your team, although he also falls into the one-shot wonder category.

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Execution

With the hero draft done, we now look at execution. Because the games tend to end under 20minutes, you have to play it with a different mindset.

1. 90% of the time, killing heroes is a better choice than the Year Beast. As strong as the YB is, it has many limitations and can be kited easily. Focusing on the YB in a teamfight will usually get you wiped, then having your own YB picked apart. If you want to protect your YB, KILL THEIR TEAM.
2. Just because your YB died doesn’t mean it’s gg. All you need to do is to KILL THEIR TEAM and then kill the YB. Yes, it will be harder since they have access to the OP spells, but chances are they used it to win the previous fight so it would be on cooldown.
3. In addendum to 2, this is the biggest reason why sustained teamfight or short cooldowns is king. It’s about outlasting the opponents so your YB can wreak havoc.
4. Focus on winning the laning stage. This is probably the biggest factor I’ve seen in winning YB games. The first 5 minutes is crucial – if you win your lane hard, it almost guarantees the game as you can easily snowball off it when you group up. Even a 1 level advantage is huge at the 5-10 minute mark, and successive kills will only widen the gap.
5. GROUP UP WITH YOUR YEARBEAST ASAP. It spawns at the 5minute mark, at the 4:45 mark everyone should have TP scrolls and getting ready to group with the YB.
6. Alternatively, if your team has won all lanes and you want to snowball asap, wait until you find their yearbeast, then teleport both you team and your YB to confront them and straight up dominate.
7. You can generally afford to let T1 and T2 towers go but T3’s should be defended at all costs. If you plan to stage a defense, I strongly recommend letting T2 go and defending on highground. Wiping at a T2 defense basically means a lane of rax as the YB is pretty much a Lycan.
8. Remember that when the YB is dead, IT’S STILL A NORMAL DOTA GAME. Farm the map, smoke gank, push, splitpush, you can still do all of those without a yearbeast. This is the biggest mistake I see people making, they become lost and inefficient once the yearbeast dies and just slouch around waiting for the next respawn while the enemy team is busy catching up on levels and farm.
9. Path wise, I find 2 combat – 1 speed – 2 support to be the ideal build if you expect 1-2 upgrades. If completely upgradeless, 3-1-1 might be better.
10. Upgrade wise, I’ve found level 2 support to be the most useful. I have yet to see level 3 upgrades due to tits massive upgrade cost (10,000). As mentioned before it’s a constant deathpush environment where you strive to outlast your opponents, the other 2 level 2 upgrades seems too situational.

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“BUT TROLLOGIST, HOW DO WE WIN AGAINST P2W PEOPLE WITH 10k+POINTS?”

Again, it’s 70% draft 30% execution. Year Beast spells only come online at 5minutes, and year beast upgrades comes even later. Draft heroes good in the early game. WIN THE LANE. Group up, destroy them with superior teamfight and kill the unupgraded YB, then capitalize on that lead as much as possible. Basically, minimizing the impact the other team can make using points. I’ve had games end under 12minutes, keeping the first yearbeast alive all the way. The first teamfight can often be deciding if a team knows how to properly capitalize on the advantage – quickly amassing a 6 tower gold advantage will make your team very hard to beat.

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Tips:

• Auras work on the YB. Vladmir will give it lifesteal, armor aura helps immensely.
• Smoke works on the YB, it will ignore creeps until it hits a tower/hero.
• Consumables also work on the YB, you can salve him up if short on heals.
• You don’t have to rax every time, if you’re not confident of breaking highground, teleport your YB to another lane after taking down T2.
• This game mode is for fun and doesn’t affect your mmr, so don’t be too stressed out. Doesn’t mean cliff jungling NP is a good idea though.
• You can’t spell happiness without penis.

Discussion is welcome, and I’ll edit in good tips!

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[FAQ]

1. “But OP, why didn’t you mention XYZ hero? His abilites are rly strong vs Year Beast!”

I mentioned that I will not list every single hero and will be talking about noteworthy ones. Almost every hero has their ways to shine, just because I don’t mention it doesn’t mean I think its useless. Please don’t misinterpret – in fact you can find many other examples and opinions in the discussions below :)

2. “OP this is a shit guide, I won with ____”

Mileage may vary, nobody here is thoroughly experienced with the gamemode and I don’t claim to be so. I am writing this based on my limited experience, which has been highly favorable, and am sharing the strategies I’ve found effective. Yes, there are other working strategies out there such as splitpushing,YB buffing etc. Again, this is a general guide and does not cater to every specific scenario. Hero familiarity, laning conditions and many other things can influence the performance of every hero. It’s a new game mode and up to everyone to discover OP combos and lineups.

For example, some heroes like Shadow Shaman is certainly strong, but at the same time very level dependent. As far as my experience goes, winning the first big teamfight at 5:30 is crucial to snowballing, and a typical pre 6 support shaman doesn’t offer enough yet. Of course, you can put him mid as a core shaman for levels and farm, and YES that would be effective, but again, just because I don’t mention it doesn’t mean I’m disagreeing.

3. “OP you forgot ____ hero”

I mentioned that I will not list every single hero and will be talking about noteworthy ones.

4. “OP, [insert hero] is obviously overpowered against YB”

I mentioned that I will not list every single hero-

5. “OP, no [insert hero]? [insert ability] wrecks YB”

I mentioned that-

6. “OP, weird that you don’t talk about [insert hero]”

I give up.