The Foreseer’s Contract is Coming to Dota 2!

11:42 AM November 19, 2014

Following last weekend’s comic teasing the release of a new hero called Nerif, the Oracle, Valve released more details on its pending patch update, titled The Foreseer’s Contract.

Photo from Ren Vitug’s Facebook page

Currently available on the test client only, Nerif, the Oracle is a powerful support hero, capable of purging enemy buffs, shielding targets from magical attacks (at the expense of making them more susceptible to physical damage) and healing and harming targets with a powerful, double-edged spell that deals high initial damage but heals the target over time shortly after.

But by far, the Oracle is known for his ultimate ability called False Promise. Using this ability, the Oracle can grant an ally invisibility for a duration and delay all damage and healing done to target until the ability ends. Under False Promise, allies can attack and use skills without breaking the invisibility.

Long released on the Defense of the Ancients (DotA) custom map for the WarCraft III engine, Oracle has proven to be a very potent hero, able to support his team using his very powerful yet situational abilities. However, with his base attack animation and agility gain being high in DotA 1, it was not uncommon to find Oracle built as a damage-dealing core hero, able to take out high-profile targets on the enemy team thanks to his ultimate and good itemization.

Speaking of assassination, also coming with the patch is the Manifold Paradox arcana set for Phantom Assassin. As teased on the same comic, Mortred the Phantom Assassin has taken a contract with the Oracle to kill all of his other selves in multiple realities. To do this, Mortred has been imbued with the same cosmic powers that allows the Oracle to see through time and space — and allows for a funky new set of blades.

The set is currently on-sale right now for 20% off, at P1,240.00 until Dec. 7, 2014.

Meanwhile, Valve has released a network update addressing packet loss and general server instability issues that have been plaguing US East and Europe West servers.

According to Valve, Denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) especially targeting their servers during professional matches and Internet Service Provider (ISP) connectivity issues have been the main problems behind games being dropped and players’ inability to reconnect to Steam during games.

While various fixes have been applied to Dota 2, Dota TV and the Steam servers to protect their IP addresses, a more long-term solution is being sought by the company to better protect individual games.

To contend with ISP issues, Valve has implemented a new network monitoring system to determine the geographical locations where players are experiencing ISP instability. ISP instability is a more common occurrence in the Southeast Asia (SEA) region, but does exist in other regions as well.