New Dota 2 hero, Mars has been released

While everyone was busy making ‘Valve Time’ memes, Valve made good on their promise and released Mars on time.

The new ranked season is coming next week, and alongside it a balance focused 7.21 patch. We are aiming to release Mars sometime between the end of February and early March.

— DOTA 2 (@DOTA2) January 25, 2019

In this article, I will cover all the details on Mars, the God of War. Let’s start off with the lore.

Mars, first son of heaven, spent a long existence waging endless war, and saw countless more crusades waged beneath the banner of his old name. Wars of conquest and of vengeance. Just and unjust… Always cruel. So much like his father, Mars indulged his basest impulses–with inclinations much more monstrous than those of Zeus–and he inflicted suffering untold.

But as the epochs vanished behind him, the selfish ways of his father–the ways of many amongst his godly kin, they who judged him despicable–eventually began to ring hollow. War for its own sake was no longer enough to satisfy his desires. For the first time in his ageless days, the god of war began to question to what ends he swung his glorious spear.

As the Fates would have it, his solution came easily: he must wage war for a larger purpose, and inspire more than mere savagery and sorrow at the sight of his crest. He must at last lay claim to the mantle of leadership that is his birthright, for the time has come to burn down the pantheon of the old age and build a just new empire atop the ashes of his kin. Only then might he find satisfaction, and make the glory of Mars evident to all.

According to the lore, Mars was the first son of heaven, and he waged endless wars without any real purpose. After several epochs, when his appetite for war was finally satisfied, he decided that he would no longer indulge in wars without a greater purpose. His new plan is to “burn down the pantheon of the old age and build a just new empire atop the ashes of his kin.” I wonder how he is going to accomplish that by defending the Ancients. If I were to guess, he is just pretending that he does not want to engage in battles anymore, and he took the first chance he got to join the battle of Dota.

Judging by his voice lines, he seems like an ecstatic and jolly God of War, who likes to make jokes and loves to fight more than anything else. He likes to mock his enemies about their fighting skills, and is ready to give battle suggestions to his allies. He also seems to have a Spider fetish, as he fancies Broodmother. Here are some of his best voice lines:

Interacting with Alchemist

Interacting with Axe

Interacting with Broodmother 1

Interacting with Broodmother 2

Interacting with Centaur

Interacting with Invoker

Interacting with Necrophos

Interacting with Faceless Void.

Master tier Chat Wheel response

Now let’s have a look at what kind of a hero Mars is in-game. Just like how what his lore suggests, Mars is an aggressive Melee Strength hero who likes to man-fight and get in the faces of his enemies. He has an arsenal of spells which allow him to tank a lot of damage, disable his enemies consistently, and dish out heavy physical damage. Before we get into his spells, lets look at his stats.

Mars starts out with a base HP of 660 and base mana of 279. He has 3.2 base armor, 2.3 base HP regen, 0.85 base mana regen and 310 base movespeed. He has an above average attack range for melee heroes at 250. In comparison, Anti-Mage’s attack range is 150 and Monkey King’s attack range is 300. His attribute stats are as follows:

Strength: 23 + 3.6

Agility: 20 + 1.9

Intelligence: 17 + 1.4

Abilities

Spear of Mars

Mars throws his legendary Spear with deadly precision, damaging each enemy unit it strikes. The first enemy hero it hits is skewered on the spear, pushing it back. If a skewered hero hits a tree, building, or cliff, they will be impaled to it and stunned.

Range: 900/1000/1100/1200

Spear Speed: 1400

Spear Width: 125

Spear Vision: 500

Stun Duration: 1.6/2.0/2.4/2.8

Knockback Duration: 0.25

Knockback Distance: 75

Damage: 100/175/250/325

Cooldown: 14 seconds

Mana cost: 100

God’s Rebuke

Mars smashes enemies in front of him with his shield, knocking them back and damaging them with a critical hit based on his attack. Bonus damage is added when hitting heroes. Has True Strike.

Cast Range: 500

Critical Damage: 160%/200%/240%/280%

Radius: 500

Angle: 140°

Knockback Duration: 0.3

Knockback Distance: 150

Bonus Damage vs Heroes: 25

Cooldown: 16/14/12/10

Manacost: 55/60/65/70

Bulwark

Mars wields his massive shield to block a portion of each physical attack when hit from the front or sides.

Front Angle: 140°

Side Angle: 240°

Front Damage Reduction: 25%/40%/55%/70%

Side Damage Reduction: 12%/20%/27%/35%

Arena of Blood

After a short formation time, Mars summons an arena lined with the undead warriors of the Ash Legion, who block enemy attacks and movement. Enemy heroes near the inside edge of the arena will be attacked by spears, dealing damage and knocking them back.

Duration: 5/6/7

Radius: 550

Width: 100

Spear Damage: 150 / 200 / 250

Formation Time: 0.6

Distance from Wall for Spear: 160

Spear Attack Interval: 1.0

Warrior Count: 14

Cooldown: 90/75/60

Mana cost: 200

Talents:

Builds

I have noticed that players are going for 2 item builds currently. One is the Blink Dagger into Radiance Rush build. After this, you can get various stat items and teamfight items like Pipe, Crimson Guard and Heart, making you extremely bulky for opponents to kill. Here’s a video of Bulldog starting out with this sort of build, and then transitioning into memes.

The other build is the physical damage build which fully utilizes God’s Rebuke. You start out with Power Treads and Vladimir’s, and transition into carry items like S&Y, BKB, Assault Cuirass etc. Here’s a video of Miracle playing this build.

Since the hero is still very new, there isn’t any single, superior build that is universally approved. I will be spamming a lot of Mars in my pubs for a long time now, and I will come up with a complete guide on how to play Mars as soon as possible.

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