What changed in Dota 2 in 2026

The 15th Anniversary of The International will take place in Shanghai from August 20-23.

The Group Stage will occur from August 13-16 in Shanghai.

Regional Qualifiers will take place from June 15-28.

Open Qualifiers will be held from June 9-12.

Eastern and Western Europe qualifiers have been merged into a single European qualifier with four advancement slots.

Seven teams have been directly invited to compete in The International 2026 in Shanghai, China.

Schedule for the Regional Qualifiers has been announced, detailing dates and participating teams.

Fixed Elder Dragon Form frost breath not piercing debuff immunity

Fixed Zeus's Lightning Hands not starting in the toggle on state when acquiring a shard while dead

Option for displaying Hero Facet Names above health bar has been removed

Fixed Morphling Replicate not replicating the innate ability of the target

Fixed Chen's Holy Persuasion lowering the Zealot's HP in some scenarios

Fixed Muerta losing Supernatural stacks when respawning with Aegis

Fixed Arc Warden's Tempest Double receiving copies of foraged items

Fixed Legion Commander's Duel not ending when winning against an illusion or reincarnating hero

Added a tooltip for Spirit Breaker's scepter specifying it increases Nether Strike's knockback as well

Fixed Meepo clones being able to receive sentry and observer wards

Fixed Monkey King not having his untransform ability after using Mischief

Fixed Elder Titan's Move Spirit ability not updating its keybinding when set in the settings

Spectator options and hotkey settings for Facets have been removed

Fixed Primal Beast getting moved if his Pulverize was reflected by Lotus Orb

Fixed Tiny's Tree Volley dealing different amounts of damage if he was holding a tree or not after buying Aghanim's Shard

Fixed Chen's Zealots sometimes dying when using Holy Persuasion

Fixed Anti-Mage's scepter bonuses for Mana Break Max Mana Burned sometimes not being applied

Fixed high amounts of incoming heal amplification not stacking correctly with high amounts of health restoration

Fixed Shiva's Guard not piercing debuff immunity

Fixed Mage Slayer being mitigated by innate physical block on melee heroes

Fixed Omniknight's +75% Hammer of Purity Bonus Base Damage giving +80 AoE bonus to Purification

Fixed Morphling having incorrect hotkeys when replicating

Fixed an issue with Winter Wyvern Winter's Curse kill sometimes counting as a deny if a previously unaffected enemy entered the effect of the winters curse after it initially started

Fixed Conjurer's Catalyst reacting to damage that is reacting to damage from Conjurer's Catalyst

Fixed a spot near the Dire fountain that could be teleported to but not exited from without cutting trees

Fixed Elder Titan Split Earth being cast in the wrong direction if the move spirit command was issued before the Split Earth went off

Fixed a number of miscellaneous client and server crashes

Fixed Chen unsummoning a Zealot causing it to not respawn until Chen died

Fixed several exploits with Meepo having multiple copies of the same item

Fixed Grimstroke's Dark Portrait Illusions not having 95% magic resistance

Fixed Grimstroke's Ink Trail visual stopping early when the debuff is still applied

Fixed some values not incrementing correctly when using Eldwurm's Edda in Ability Draft

Fixed Bloodseeker's Blood Rite dealing more damage than intended

Fixed incorrect notification message when messaging who got gold for an assist

Fixed bad interaction between Granite Golem and Chen's Holy Persuasion causing creeps to have escalating amounts of HP

Fixed Jakiro Liquid Fire not benefitting from AoE increases. Jakiro's Liquid Fire Area of Effect can now be visualized when casting

Fixed Mars being able to create immobile spears

Fixed Lich losing all of his mana when casting Sinister Gaze on a Huskar who has recently been attacked by Silencer's Glaives of Wisdom

Fixed Ogre's Fireblast and Unrefined Fireblast not multicasting correctly if there is an existing multicasting Fireblast already occurring

Fixed Dragon Knight applying Wyrm's Wrath damage twice in Dragon Form

Fixed Meepo being able to crash the server with two armlets, observer/sentry wards, and using many Hands of Midas

Fixed Chen's Holy Persuasion not having a reduced cooldown when cast on a persuaded creep

Fixed Legion Commander being able to move during Duel with specific order combinations

Fixed Chaos Knight being able to get the Nimble enchantment

Fixed Rubick abilities getting removed when stealing Largo Amphibian Rhapsody and Monkey King's Wukong's Command at the same time

Fixed Night Stalker not refreshing basic abilities with Aghanim's Scepter when killing Spirit Bear

Fixed Grimstroke's Ink Trail not always applying

Fixed Drow Ranger's Marksmanship triggering on Specialist's Array or Hydra's Breath attacks

Fixed active item shared cooldown not being shared across Meepos if he has multiple items with the same shared cooldown in his inventory

Fixed Primal Beast Pulverize not ending correctly if he targets a Soulbound hero, if his secondary target is out of world

Fixed Bloodseeker Aghanim's Shard not piercing BKB

Fixed certain on hit effects not working consistently after there were more than 256 projectiles in flight at the same time.

Fixed Techies' Reactive Tazer not working with Largo's Aghanim's Shard.

Added an option in Settings to show your hero's current vision while holding the 'Select Hero' hotkey, amended by Fog of War.

Updated ability pool to match the added/removed abilities for 7.41.

Added an overhead indicator when a consumable item is being used on an ally or given to one within 1200 units.

All heroes now have their innate ability when drafted.

Fixed Rearm not granting Keen Conveyance.

Item recipe components are now consistently ordered from most expensive to least expensive to make Quick Buy more predictable.

Fixed Lone Druid's Spirit Bear not spawning after some time.

Fixed Neutral Crafting hotkeys overriding regular hotkeys if you clicked on the neutral crafting button of a hero you could not control.

Deprecated support for GPUs that do not support DirectX 11/SM5. Upcoming graphics features and performance improvements require DX11/SM5.

Trying to craft a Neutral Item while your inventory is full will now fail instead of automatically consuming the item.

Fixed certain scenarios under which a player's Observer and Sentry wards were replaced with an error model.

The Monster Hunter event ends February 6, 2026, after which players can no longer earn progress or craft items.

Restructured how cosmetic items interact with Dota network traffic: Most cosmetic items now take zero network bandwidth after game start, improving both client and server performance.

Fixed a bug where Slark's Depth Shroud was not applying the intended move speed and health regen to allies.

Fixed a bug where Clinkz's Skeleton Archers were doing more than the intended amount of damage to buildings.

Fixed a performance issue with network encoding which substantially reduces the number of 'server hitch' frames.

Fixed a bug where Spectre's Shadow Step had an interaction with attack range extension items, leading to a longer than intended duration.

Fixed a bug where Muerta's Gunslinger bonus damage talent did not scale when applied to illusions, leading to more damage than intended.

Fixed a bug where cosmetic items were being created every time a hero spawned, gradually reducing performance.

Items equipped in only ability effects slots no longer appear as if equipped on the hero in post-game or MVP screens.

Fixed Largo's Croak of Genius damage proccing other abilities (Batrider's Sticky Napalm, Searing Signet, etc.).

Fixed a bug where Turbo games would sometimes deduct 2 gold on ban phase completion.

Fixed Illusion Rune not disjointing projectiles upon activating.

Fixed Morphling perpetually spawning Monkey King's Wukong's Command soldiers when replicating Monkey King with Aghanim's Scepter.

New Universal Material packs for purchase added, providing an alternative way to get materials for crafting.

Fixed Brewmaster's level 25 talent not applying to brewlings.

Fixed Helm of the Dominator and Helm of the Overlord granting experience to Lone Druid's Spirit Bear instead of Lone Druid.

Fixed Doom not getting Ancient Prowler Shaman's Petrify ability when devouring the neutral.

Blood Grenade bonus health not being updated when stack count changes has been fixed.

Fixed Morphling not losing the bonus damage from unused stones when replicating back from Earth Spirit.

Fixed Smoke of Deceit being castable from the stash.

Fixed Quick Buy sometimes not removing queued items when recipes are combined.

Fixed Arc Warden's Tempest Double being able to pick talents.

Fixed Spectre Arcana's idle and idle rare animations.

Fixed Largo's Encore sometimes not refreshing an existing buff on yourself or the target.

Fixed Anti-Mage with Shard and Magebane's Mirror Facet instantly killing Spectre when using Counterspell on a Spectral Dagger path.

Fixed Bounty Hunter unable to target Spirit Bear with Friendly Shadow.

Fixed Helm of the Overlord not granting bounty and experience for dominating creeps.

Fixed Medusa being able to get infinite health when purchasing a heart while Lifestealer has infested Medusa.

Fixed physical lifesteal working when attacking a unit with an all-damage barrier.

Fixed Clinkz's Infernal Shred ignoring more armor than intended.