With the 7.29 Gameplay Update release, we now have details about Dota 2’s latest hero Dawnbreaker. Revealed alongside the patch, with her own launch website, Valora, the Dawnbreaker looks to strike fear into foes with her colossal hammer.
A celestial warrior of the sun, Valora, the Dawnbreaker, crash-lands into Dota 2 as the game's newest hammer-wielding hero (Image via Valve)
A durable melee carry, the Dawnbreaker’s playstyle is simple: Hit things with your massive war hammer. But to help her with this noble goal, Dawnbreaker’s kit is designed to make her fearsome to face head-on. However, her R ability is incredibly potent, bringing her to the fight from anywhere on the map.
Dawnbreaker’s Abilities
Q – Starbreaker
Valora’s Q is Starbreaker, a basic melee attack for dealing damage to multiple enemies. The Dawnbreaker spins her hammer around three times, damaging anyone close to her. After the final spin, she brings her hammer down, stunning anyone unlucky enough to be close to her. On an average cooldown, with significant area of effect damage, this ability has tonnes of utility.
W – Celestial Hammer
Not content to only swing her hammer, Valora also throws her weapon with this secondary ability. Hurling it forwards, the Hammer damages anyone in a line before returning to the Dawnbreaker after two seconds. Upon its return, the hammer leaves a damaging trail of fire. This is also a movement ability, as reactivating the ability before the two seconds are up drags the Dawnbreaker towards her weapon.
E – Luminosity
The Dawn Breaker’s E is an attack power-up. Upon activating it, Valora will strike with a critical hit that heals herself and her allies for a percentage of the damage dealt. The healing reduces in amount if creeps or neutral monsters take this strike.
R – Solar Guardian
For her final ability, the Dawnbreaker creates a pulsing, medium-sized area of effect around any allied hero. Valora then flies into the sky and lands at that location. The pulses damage enemies while healing allies at the same time. A dramatic entrance for the celestial hammer-wielding warrior!
Listed as a carry and bruiser, the Dawnbreaker looks like a natural fit in the offlane. Here her utility can mitigate the fact she might not get all the farm she wants. As a hero with pure support abilities and healing, it’s also natural some might try and play her in that role. But with this amount of tankiness and damage, it would be a huge shame not to see Valora on the front lines in your games.
Some Dota 2 fans may be slightly aggrieved that after all the hype of the Dota: Dragon’s Blood Netflix series, the new hero wasn’t from that show at all. Especially given the run-away popularity of Marci, Mirana’s faithful companion in the show. Instead, we dive deeper into the lore of Dota 2’s infinite cosmos, plucking from it a celestial hero
But overall, with a large amount of base defensive stats combined with area of effect damage abilities, means the Dawnbreaker is likely to be a popular hero, and a late-game monster. Quite literally a different animal to the flighty evasive playstyle of Hoodwinked, the previously released hero. Being able to join team fights, crush faces, stunning and burning anyone unlucky enough to get in her way is an exciting prospect. A bruiser carry for playmakers.
More details about Valora, the Dawnbreaker, are available on Dota 2’s official website.
