Medusa gets slightly reworked in Dota 2. It is partly inspired by a Heroes of Newerth hero that Icefrog may have had a hand in creating
2024-08-01 00:50:00Dota 2 developers released a small Medusa rework with patch 7.37. One of her abilities is inspired by a similar hero from Heroes of Newerth, a different MOBA game that Icefrog was involved with early on. It is possibly that he even participated in the creation of this hero, as she was one of the oldest heroes in game.
The ability is called Gorgon's Grasp, and it is very similar to a Forsaken Archer's ability. "Medusa fires a volley of arrows into the sky that land in 3 groups in a line, with each grouping larger than the previous", says the description in the patch notes. The enemies will be rooted and take damage. That ability replaces Mana Shield, which can't be leveled anymore, and now increases the amount of damage it can take per point of mana with each hero level.
Forsaken Archer was one of the oldest heroes in HoN, and she had a similar split shot mechanic. But the most important thing in this context was another one of her abilities. It was called Crippling Volley, and it also rooted enemies in place after a delay, with the hero shooting arrows in the sky.
The Forsaken Archer fires a Volley of barbed arrows high into the sky, dispersing them over an area and pinning any enemy caught in their path to the ground.
Medusa received a new facet, called Venomous Volley, replacing Mana Pact. It makes her to shoot a poisonous arrow every five attacks, slowing down and damaging enemies. Mystic Snake also no longer slows down enemies.
Heroes of Newerth was released in 2010 and tried to capture the DotA Allstars fanbase with new features and a more convenient client. According to multiple rumors, confirmed by an ex-developer, Icefrog was involved in the game during its early days. But eventually Valve managed to sign him up to work for them instead to release Dota 2, which took a lot of the fans from HoN. The game officially closed its servers in 2022, but there is a community of enthusiasts, hosting it and even working on its balance.
