Dota 2‘s latest patch has surely reshaped how the game is played, and this one hero exemplifies that perfectly. Silencer, one of the most dreaded mid lane mages, can now farm the entire map at once by purchasing Aghanim’s Scepter and simply casting his Ultimate.
As demonstrated in a Feb. 22 Reddit post, Silencer’s Ultimate, a global spell that affects all hostile heroes and units on the map (including neutral creeps), now applies the Arcane Curse, his Q, when used. Arcane Curse deals substantial magic damage over time when leveled up, which it’s bound to be by the time Silencer picks up his Aghs. This allows him to farm the entire map simultaneously, raking in a ton of cash by decimating lane and neutral creeps, bringing him a few thousand gold every couple of minutes. If you buy a Refresher Orb with this extra cash, you’ll be able to farm even more by killing the bigger creeps in the camps, opening up the path to a full build and a victory before the enemy even realizes what’s going on.
Players were surprisingly not angry with Valve for this, though it’s still bound to be fixed because this could turn out to be game-changing in high-Elo matches. Racking up a ton of gold quickly is the name of the game in Dota 2, with recently-buffed heroes like Dragon Knight skyrocketing in popularity precisely because they could speed up their farm and gold acquisition. “If this is a bug, let it become a feature,” one player wrote, while another felt like “Silencer Aghs [is] finally worth buying again.”
Patch 7.38 in Dota 2 changed a whole lot, including the entire map. Heroes got touched up significantly and some even saw their abilities and core items completely reworked. Exploits like the one above (that could very well remain in the game) have been running rampant, with the Hand of Midas exploit coming back, Phantom Lancer’s illusions doing full damage, and other strange tactics inaugurated by Dota 2‘s incredible spaghetti code.
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