The Dota 2 Update 7.38, dubbed ‘Wandering Waters’ is finally live, featuring river-themed map terrain changes and creeps, as its name suggests, and an update to Neutral Items.
This is the biggest single overhaul to Neutral Items since their introduction, so there’s a lot to learn. Here’s what you need to know about Neutral items in Update 7.38 and beyond.
Dota 2 Neutral Items Update (Image credit: Dota 2)
Artifacts and Enchantments as Dota 2 Neutral Items
The Dota 2 Update 7.38 offers a new take on Neutral Items, whereby they are comprised of two parts, an Artifact and an Enchantment.
Artifacts are the active part of the Neutral items, which offers a new ability or skill that comes with specific neutral items. For instance, the Essence Ring can heal upon using it and the Arcane Ring can regenerate mana too. Whereas the Enchantment is the passive stat or attribute bonuses as buffs from the Neutral item, such as life steal, attack bonus, more health, or mana.
Hence, comparing this new two-part Neutral item against the previous version, Dota 2 players can now personalize the active item and buff selectively, ideal for their hero choice.
Dota 2 Artifacts and Enchantments (Image credit: Dota 2)
How to get Neutral Items and Madstones?
Instead of collecting tokens, you can now obtain neutral items in the latest Dota 2 Update 7.38 by collecting Madstones. Madstones are dropped when you kill an entire Neutral creep camp, two pieces for yourself and one for a random ally. Securing ten pieces will allow you to craft your desired neutral item combination.
Additionally, you can monitor your teammate’s chosen Artifact and Enchantment that they are in progress of crafting. This allows you to provide a helping hand in defeating more Neutral Creep camps to accelerate their progress.
Dota 2 Madstones (Image credit: Dota 2)
Besides that, Neutral Items still drop at five instances, specifically at the time of 5, 15, 25, 35 and finally 60 minutes, each with its own tier. While still offering a fresh take on Neutral Items by introducing the Artifact and Enchantment. Previously, players were limited to the luck of getting ideal Neutral Items by random, and later from a choice of five, so this will certainly allow for more skill-based decisions when picking new Neutral items.