- Frostivus arrives...and is cancelled by the Greeviling!
- Added Polycount Contest Winner Items (11 new hero sets)
- 6.77 gameplay parity update



BUGS

- Alchemist: Fixed Unstable Concoction charge time counting when it was released rather than impacted
- Alchemist: Fixed Unstable Concoction being dodgeable
- Bane: Fixed base damage being too low
- Centaur: Fixed Centaur's Return instantly killing Zombies
- Luna: Fixed Lunar Blessing affecting some non-hero units like Familiars and Spirit Bear
- Spectre: Fixed Desolate not dealing damage to enemy heroes if they are near neutrals
- Timbersaw: Timberchain sometimes missing trees at max range
- Timbersaw: Fixed different elevations causing an invisible Chakram
- Timbersaw: Adjusted hitbox
- Timbersaw: Fixed Return Chakram proccing Magic Stick
- Warlock: Fixed Golem's Flaming Fists not dealing damage to the primary attack target



GENERAL

- Added a toggle option for Chat Message sound
- Fixed day night images being incorrectly rotated
- Updated Timbersaw's recommended items
- Fixed lifetime timer alignment
- Adjusted Chat Message sound level


PARITY UPDATE

Ancient Apparition
- Chilling Touch manacost rescaled from 140 to 110/120/130/140

Batrider
- Batrider can no longer attack while using Flaming Lasso

Bounty Hunter
- Track no longer reduces armor

Centaur Warrunner
- Movement speed decreased from 305 to 300
- Double Edge no longer interrupts channeling
- Stampede now applies a 100% slow instead of a stun (as always, units cannot be slowed below 100 movement speed)

Clockwerk
- Agility growth increased from 1.2 to 2.3

Dazzle
- Shallow Grave cast range rescaled from 400/600/800/1000 to 550/700/850/1000

Doom Bringer
- Scorched Earth now also affects other units you control
- Doom now has too much armor! (+1)

Drow Ranger
- Trueshot Aura now only affects non-hero units within 900 range of Drow

Earthshaker
- Aftershock stun duration rescaled from 0.3/0.7/1.2/1.5 to 0.6/0.9/1.2/1.5
- Aftershock damage increased from 25/45/75/115 to 50/75/100/125
- Enchant Totem cooldown decreased from 6 to 5

Enchantress
- Untouchable AS reduction increased from 20/40/60/80 to 20/50/80/110

Jakiro
- Ice Path damage from 100 to 25/50/75/100

Lycanthrope
- Base Int increased from 15 to 17
- Spirit Wolves armor increased by 1

Magnus
- Skewer no longer affects magic immune units
- Skewer cast range rescaled from 1200 to 600/800/1000/1200
- Reverse Polarity duration decreased from 2.5/3.25/4 to 2.25/3/3.75

Mirana
- Moonlight Shadow duration increased from 11 to 15 seconds

Morphling
- Cast animation time decreased from 0.4 to 0.25

Necrolyte
- Reaper's Scythe stun/delay increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds

Omniknight
- Purification cast range rescaled from 400/500/600/700 to 700

Puck
- Illusory Orb cooldown decreased from 13 to 12

Pugna
- Decrepify cooldown decreased from 13/11/9/7 to 12/10/8/6

Shadow Demon
- Shadow Poison cooldown decreased from 3 to 2.75

Slark
- Base agility increased by 6

Spectre
- Haunt no longer ends when you use reality (the targeted illusion is still replaced by you though)

Sven
- Great Cleave damage decreased from 25/40/55/70 to 20/35/50/65
- Warcry duration decreased from 8 to 7 seconds

Templar Assassin
- Refraction manacost increased from 75 to 100

Treant Protector
- Damage increased by 10
- Leech Seed cooldown decreased from 18/16/14/12 to 16/14/12/10
- Overgrowth cooldown decreased from 80 to 70
- Living Armor damage instances increased from 6 to 7
- Living Armor can be cast through the minimap (only considers heroes and towers/rax in this mode)

Undying
- Decay damage reduced from 40/80/120/160 to 20/60/100/140

Vengeful Spirit
- Wave of Terror damage increased from 18.75/37.5/56.25/75 to 30/50/70/90

Viper
- Base strength increased by 3

Warlock
- Shadow Word cooldown decreased from 20 to 16

Weaver
- Shukuchi damage increased from 90/100/110/120 to 90/110/130/150

Zeus
- Strength growth increased from 1.8 to 2.3

Daedalus
- Crit multiplier decreased from 2.7 to 2.4
- Recipe cost decreased from 1200 to 1000

Crystalys
- Damage decreased from 35 to 30

Eye of Skadi
- HP bonus increased from 200 to 250
- MP bonus increase from 150 to 250

Shiva's Guard
- Freezing Aura's attack speed reduction increased from 25 to 30

Neutral Harpy Storm
- Chain Lightning manacost reduced from 90 to 50

Added Timbersaw!

GAMEPLAY
- Ancient Apparition: Fixed status effect ignoring magic immune units (HP Freeze and Shatter).
- Outworld Destroyer: Fixed some items not proccing Essence Aura properly.
- Silencer: Fixed Last Word not being triggered by Invoke.
- Slark: Fixed Pounce leashing illusions.
- Undying: Fixed Decay providing too much healing to Undying.
- Fixed Shadow Blade interaction with Critical Strike.
- Fixed Cycloning yourself causing you to take damage from Orchid.

MATCHMAKING
- Players who dodge a game will get a small matchmaking timeout
- High ranked players will should enjoy faster queue times during less active times

The Dota 2 Polycount Contest began on October 8th and officially ended this past Monday December 3rd. Over that two month period the <a href="http://www.polycount.com/">Polycount</a> modeling community submitted more than 1,000 entries to the <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/browse/?appid=570">Dota 2 Workshop</a>. We aren’t exaggerating when we say that the sheer magnitude of high quality submissions has blown us away and that judging entries has been difficult because so many sets could have been winners.

<a href="http://blog.dota2.com/2012/12/polycount-contest/">Head over to the official Dota 2 blog to read up on the winners!</a>

The Dota 2 Polycount Contest began on October 8th and officially ended this past Monday December 3rd. Over that two month period the Polycount modeling community submitted more than 1,000 entries to the Dota 2 Workshop. We aren’t exaggerating when we say that the sheer magnitude of high quality submissions has blown us away and that judging entries has been difficult because so many sets could have been winners.

Head over to the official Dota 2 blog to read up on the winners!

GAMEPLAY
- Fixed some bugs with Pounce movement restriction
- Fixed being able to cast and attack while using Skewerr
- Fixed Empower buff remaining after casting Black King Bar
- Fixed Neutral creep chase time being too long
- Added Pseudo Random chances for the following items: Daedalus, Crystalys, Abyssal Blade, Basher, Heaven's Halbred, Maelstrom, Mjollnir, Static Charge, Monkey King Bar, Poor Man's Shield, Sange, Sange and Yasha, Stout Shield, Vanguard
- Fixed various ancient AI exploits

SOUND
- Some voice gain fixes to improve quality
- Updates on sound effects for Visage, Viper, Warlock, Tiny and Earthshaker

MISC
- Fixed an issue where players would not be able to reconnect to a server and would get "You must be in a lobby to connect."
- Undying's Tombstone now caps at 64 maximum zombies.

- Added Slark!
- Added a chatwheel for quick, localized communication with teammates!
- You can now reset your keys to a number of predefined keyboard templates!

ITEMS
- Tournament Drops are now enabled for all leagues

GAMEPLAY
- Zombies no longer spawn other zombies from a stolen Tombstone

UI
- Added a form for soliciting new chatwheel options.
- Added hotkeys for each of the chatwheel messages.
- Added world heatmap for seeing where players are located.
- Abilities and items bound to alt-combinations now display as such.
- Added option to smoothdrag when spectating or viewing replays
- Added option to invert middle-mouse camera grip

VISUALS
- Fixed Nightstalker losing his wings at night.

As all you pro Dota 2 players out there know, the most important skill to develop is map awareness. Now there's no easier way to look cool while winning games thanks to your new found skill than by checking out these freshly made <a href="http://dota2.com/store/#cat=1" target="_blank">Wards</a>.

Also to be found in today's update is the option to start games in Reverse Captain's Mode when creating a practice lobby. In this mode Captain's pick the heroes they want the other team to play, resulting in either hilarious or painful games. And what better way to show off this new mode than by checking out the <a href="http://dota2.com/store/itemdetails/96472158" target="_blank">atoD 2 tournamen</a>t? Watch Pro teams like Na'Vi, mTw and Zero play heroes that don't usually get a chance to shine.

Oh, perhaps you're looking for <a href="http://www.dota2.com/news/updates/">this</a>?

As all you pro Dota 2 players out there know, the most important skill to develop is map awareness. Now there's no easier way to look cool while winning games thanks to your new found skill than by checking out these freshly made Wards.

Also to be found in today's update is the option to start games in Reverse Captain's Mode when creating a practice lobby. In this mode Captain's pick the heroes they want the other team to play, resulting in either hilarious or painful games. And what better way to show off this new mode than by checking out the atoD 2 tournament? Watch Pro teams like Na'Vi, mTw and Zero play heroes that don't usually get a chance to shine.

Oh, perhaps you're looking for this?

GAMEPLAY
- Added Reverse Captains Mode.
- Dark Seer: Fixed Wall of Replica illusion creation timing (affects instantly dying illusions mainly).
- Dragon Knight: Fixed Elder Dragon Form not splashing on siege units.
- Enchantress: Fixed being unable to be healed by Nature's Attendants if you are sleeping.
- Enchantress: Fixed Impetus not being castable on Magic Immune enemies (still does no damage if immune on impact).
- Gyrocopter: Homing Missile now starts 150 units in front him.
- Huskar: Fixed Life Break not properly dispelling buffs on you when cast.
- Lich: Fixed Chainfrost not working with Refresher.
- Phantom Lancer: Fixed not reproducing his abilities (including stat bonuses) correctly on his Dopplewalked illusion.
- Phantom Lancer: Fixed Dopplewalked illusions never Juxtaposing.
- Shadow Shaman: Fixed Mass Serpent Wards having no cast point.
- Silencer: Fixed Illusions stealing intelligence.
- Spiritbreaker: Fixed case where he could interrupt his Charge by previously having given an attack order to his target.
- Templar Assassin: Fixed Psionic Trap's nearby detonate ability not always working if the trap is too far.
- Undying: Zombies now correctly disable Blink Dagger.
- Venomancer: Fixed Poison Sting duration not increasing per level.
- Visage: Fixed Familiars agroing neutrals when flying over them.
- Wisp: Fixed his Spirits dying if he gets cycloned or purged.
- Wisp: Fixed Tether targeting magic immune allies.
- Witch Doctor: Fixed Paralyzing Casks not bouncing between Magic Immune enemies (doesn't stun them, but doesn't cause the bouncing to end prematurely).
- Witch Doctor: Fixed Death Ward not bouncing on magic immune enemies.
- Fixed heroes being able to get stuck on each other in rare cases.
- Fixed neutrals seeing and killing other sentry wards (as well as other non-attacking ward-type units).
- Fixed Arcane Boots and Mekansm being unable to affected allied invulnerable units.
- Fixed Orb of Venom doing lethal damage.
- Fixed Neutral Gnoll's poison attack doing lethal damage.
- Fixed Vladmir's Offering applying the aura when they owning unit is dead.

UI
- Movement speed on the HUD is now written as a total rather than two seperate numbers.
- Fixed Disabled Tranquil Boots movement speed.
- Updated Tranquil boots disabled icon.
- If you miss the queue for Diretide and accept a requeue, you will be put back in the Diretide queue.
- Adding chat bubble visualization of your current mic volume.
- Voice Threshold and Mute Cobroadcasters settings should now persist when the game is restarted.

AUDIO
- Added voice auto-gain. All voices are now brought up to a normal level. Turning off microphone boost in Windows settings is recommended.
- Reduced the delay on voice transmission.

Candy! Greevils! Treats! 50 foot tall tricksters! We are not responsible for any loss of sleep caused by nightmares now that the Diretide is here!

<a href="http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/posts/diretide_full.jpg"><img src="http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/posts/diretide_small.jpg"/></a>

Not only will you be able to play a brand new game mode inside Dota 2 but you'll also find that the regular Dota 2 map suddenly got spookier! Check <a href="http://www.dota2.com/diretide/">here</a> for details.

This is our first seasonal event and as always we would love to hear what you <a href="http://www.valvesoftware.com/email.php?recipient=Dota+2+Team" target="_blank">think</a>.

<a href="http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/posts/diretide_full.jpg" target="_blank">Happy Haunting</a>!