Dota 2 introduces new neutral creeps in Patch 7.31

In Patch 7.31 we meet some new, ferocious, neutral creeps and old buddies with reformed abilities!

With the addition of the Primal Beast, most neutral creeps are now upgraded with passive and active abilities which they use much more often than before. The jungle creeps have gotten enough, and they're now fighting back, which makes it harder to farm jungle. However, the creeps are now of significant value with the addition of more auras and stuns. Alongside the upgraded creeps, we also have new faces in the gang.

Let's meet our eager jungle buddies!

The new patch introduces us to three new neutral creeps. There is also a couple of new damage types in Patch 7.31, but the jungle creeps in this list will mostly have the Piercing Ability.

Piercing Ability: Deals 150% bonus damage to non-hero units and 50% less damage to Standard Units.

This ranged ancient creep has a pretty high HP but low armor. Its ability, Icefire Bomb, throws a bomb to an enemy unit or a building, dealing 50 damage per second for 8 seconds. To buildings, it only deals 25% damage.

This melee ancient creep doesn't deal as high damage, but it's decently tanky. Its ability, Time Warp Aura, grants a cooldown reduction aura.

This new creep might look adorable but it's pretty tough to crack. It is a large camp creep so it's decently tanky and speedy. Its ability, Seed Shot, throws a seed which slows the affected unit down for 1 second and deals 100 damage. It can also bounce to nearby enemies up to 3 times.

The familiar faces in the jungle have now undergone some intensive makeover! Let's go through all their new abilities and changes.

The Kobold Foreman has minor tweaks. The Kobold Soldier has a new passive ability, Steal Weapon, which disarms the target for 3 seconds after the third hit. Kobold now has a passive aura that grants allies in a 1200 radius with 20 gpm.

Hill Troll Berserker's passive ability, Break, applies a Break debuff to whoever gets hit for 3 seconds. The Break passive has a cooldown of 10 seconds. Hill Troll Priest no longer has a Mana aura but it now has a passive ability, Heal Amplification Aura which grants 15% heal amplification in a 1200 radius.

Dark Troll Summoner now no longer needs nearby corpses to raise the dead. It also raises 3 dead skeletons now instead of 2. The Ensnare ability has been removed.

Its Skeleton Warriors has a passive ability, Rally. The skeleton's allies within 1200 radius gain 3 bonus attack damage.

Hill Troll now has the Ensnare ability. It will sometimes cast Ensnare to targets attacking it.

*Piercing Ability

The Vhoul Assassin's ability, Envenomed Weapon now no longer deals the 2 damage per second, however, it reduces health regen by 75%.

*Piercing Ability

The Ghost creep received some stats tweaks. The Fell Spirit has a new ability, Vex, which silences a unit for 3 seconds.

*Piercing Ability

The Harpy Scout has a new ability, Take Off, which is a toggle ability that allows the unit to gain flying movement at the cost of 50% movement speed.

The Harpy Stormcrafter will cast a Chain Lightning on low-health units.

*Piercing Ability

The Mud Golem and the Shard Golem received some minor tweaks with both the Golems' Hurl Rocks ability now dealing double damage to creeps.

The Ogre Frostmage has a new ability, Ogre Smash, which charges a massive attack that stuns enemies and deals damage.

The Satyr Banisher can now cast Purge in its camp after attacking a hero for 5 seconds. Satyr Mindstealer now has the Mana Aura ability that provides 2.5 mana regen in a 1200 radius.

The Alpha Wolf sees minor tweaks. The Giant Wolf has a new ability, Intimidate which he can cast to lower enemies' attack damage in a radius. It casts Intimidate when it reaches low HP in his camp.

Centaur Courser and Centaur Conquerer received great buffs. There are no added abilities.

Hellbear Smasher now has a new passive ability, Death Throe: Power. When the creep dies, it provides all allied within 700 range to gain 50% base attack damage for 5 seconds. Hellbear now has a new ability, Death Throe: Rush. When this creep dies, all allies within 700 range gain +100 attack speed for 5s.

Wildwing now has the Tornado ability. When Wildwing Ripper dies in the camp, there's a 33% chance for him to cast Tornado onto the attacker.

Wildwing Ripper no longer has Tornado. It has a new active ability, Hurricane, which is a vector targeted spell. First, target a unit and a direction. The unit will be pulled 400 units into the direction for over 0.5 seconds.

The Ancient Black Dragon received minor tweaks. Ancient Black Drake now has a new passive ability which is a Magic Amplification Aura. The aura (1200 radius) increases spell damage received by enemies to 5%.

The Ancient Granite Golem received some minor changes. The Ancient Rock Golem has a new passive ability called Weakness Aura. It reduces the armor of enemy units within 1200 units by 2.

The Ancient Thunderhide and Ancient Rumblehide received some stats changes but no new abilities.

These are ONLY the neutral creep changes in the latest patch which brought a brand new hero, new items, a Techies rework and so much more. Full patch notes can be found here.

You can find out more interesting highlights of the Dota 2 patch on Esports.gg!