Welcome The Winter Wyvern!
The New Bloom Festival is the next large in-game event to be held in Dota 2 after the conclusion of the Foreseer’s Contract event last year, which saw the release of a Phantom Assassin Arcana set as well as the introduction of the Oracle to the world of Dota 2.
For today’s feature, we are going to focus on one of the last heroes to be ported into the Dota 2 client and tackle the following questions: Who is she? How can she affect a match with her spells? Why should we even use her in a match?
Who is the Winter Wyvern?
Auroth the Winter Wyvern is an all-around high-intelligence hero with damage and support skills in her arsenal. The nature of this hero can be compared to an urban warfare vehicle with the latest state-of-the-art equipment!
Her first spell is called Arctic Burn, which is basically a skill that gives the hero a couple of different buffs that include: bonus attack range, phasing abilities and an attack bonus that slows and damages any enemies she attacks. This allows her to be a driving force in any sort of teamfight that she participates in.
This skill is basically an air-burst projectile, similar to the ones used by military around the world, doing no damage to the target but bursts anyone within a 500 radius for a maximum of 340 damage. Sure, the mana cost is 150 mana per shot but with a seven-second cooldown, the benefits obviously outweigh the costs!
The next ability allows the Winter Wyvern to help her allies by healing them for 80 health plus six percent of the target’s maximum hit points, which makes it good for sustaining a lane. Sure, having the correct timing to use this skill is not easy, but with the right calls, the skill definitely carries its own weight.
Finally comes what could be considered as her most iconic skill: Winter’s Curse. Winter’s Curse is a disable that can make supports think twice before going into the fight with their team, zoning them out towards unfavorable positions in a teamfight. It shuts down the hero in question while at the same time makes any enemy hero within 350 range of the target kill that unfortunate teammate who has been the target of Auroth’s ultimate.
With a constant mana cost of 250 and a cooldown of 70 seconds at level 3, this skill scales effectively into late game: Even if it does not kill the target outright, enemies will still be forced to watch their steps, thus making sure that one’s comrades can unleash all their firepower on the opposing team!
How can she impact a match?
With her spells, Auroth can impact the result of a match starting from the very first minute: As mentioned above, Cold Embrace is a boon for carries and wannabe divers in the sense that it either allows them to reset their HP and go for another strike or heal them and allow them to stay in the lane much longer, thus reducing their dependence on consumables or worse, walk all the way back to the base.
Later on, Arctic Burn and Splinter Blast make Auroth the monster that she is: With a 340-damage nuke that can be cast every seven seconds at max level and with a buff that makes her right clicks as painful as they could be, the Winter Wyvern is a force to be reckoned with, especially in long clashes as long as she has the mana pool and the correct positioning to do so.
Finally, if she is already a beast with her first three skills, then there’s still the Winter’s Curse to counter-initiate or to pick-off enemy supports: Even the initial level of Auroth’s ultimate has a 90-second cooldown, which is similar to the cooldown of Zeus’s ultimate ability. Thus, as long as there is a team to back you up on your journey or to follow up on the entry kill/s that the Winter Wyvern has done, then be sure that your team will not just have fun but will also have a very good time slaughtering the other side (no pun intended) in clashes!
Given that she is a support hero with high intelligence gain as well as skills that can go into late game, Mekansm, Shadow Urn and Pipe of Insight are all good items for this hero; mobility items such as Eul’s Scepter, Blink Dagger and/or Force Staff are not bad as well, as they basically cover the only possible downside of the Winter Wyvern.
Overall, she has very good synergy with heroes that can offer area-of-effect crowd control to easily wreck any possible lineup thrown at her. Conversely, Auroth can use partners that have burst damage so that they can win clashes as quick as possible. And as stated above, the Winter Wyvern is very easy to bring down as long as she does not have the necessary mobility items!
Why even use Auroth in the first place?
We have mentioned a lot of generic reasons to use the Winter Wyvern. We said that Auroth has few downsides, easy itemization, high stats gain, and near-excellent laning/teamfight presence — what more can a Dota player ask for?
Not to mention that her skills are really funny and creative. Who does not want to see winter come into the battlefield? Whether it is clutching an ally in the throes of death or seeing enemies destroy their hapless comrade to death, Auroth has the tools to do it all.
If you think that you want to wreak havoc over the battlefield, then this hero is for you!
Featured Image by Ronnel “Exdee” Tinedero
Source: Dota 2 website
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