- Fixed a bug that caused Razor's Static Link to only be applied to the secondary target when cast on two heroes affected by Grimstroke's Soul Bind.

We think Dota is best played as a group with friends. To encourage this style of play we're introducing a few experimental changes with the patch today to improve overall match quality for these kinds of games:
- Full parties are now permitted to match against any valid opposing team, and are no longer required to match against a full party in ranked.
- Adjusted matchmaking tuning to make finding a game as a full party faster.
- Full parties may now all chat "gg" to surrender a match after 30 minutes of game time with the same 10 second countdown and cancel UI as in pro games. This is scored as a loss.

- Activated the Jungle Colosseum weekend spotlight mode.

- During Windranger's Focus Fire, the focus fired unit is prioritized for target selection in all cases, even when illusions are created.
- During Windranger's Focus Fire, after stopping / holding, it is possible to target a different target than the focus fired unit if directly clicked on.
- Fixed a networking issue when relaying popular matches to many spectators.

- Changed Focus Fire auto-target logic so that when illusions are spawned, the auto-target of focus fire is disabled. Attacking the focus fire target once again will restart the auto-target and fire while moving logic.
- Fixed the interaction of Arc Warden's Clone and Helm of the Dominator, to require the Arc Warden original to own a Helm for the active to work.
- Crimson Gates of Nothl item for Dazzle can now be equipped correctly for effects.
- The Darkclaw Emissary item for Dazzle has had an animation fix applied.

We're happy to announce that submissions are now open for this year's Dota 2 Short Film Contest. Filmmakers have until 3:00pm PDT on September 4, 2022 to submit their short film creations of 90 seconds or less to the Dota 2 Steam Workshop to be eligible for consideration.

Dota fans around the world are invited to visit the Workshop to discuss and vote on their favorites to help us select the best entries to be showcased as part of The International 2022 broadcast. Upon review of the Workshop ratings and discussions, Valve will nominate the top entries to be featured in the Dota client for a final voting process by the community to determine the winners.

Each finalist that reaches the top ten will be guaranteed to win $500, and the top three selections will score prizes of $25,000, $10,000, and $5,000 in recognition of their contributions to the Dota community.

Check out the Dota 2 Short Film Contest site for more information and guidelines on the submission process. And be sure to stop by the Workshop page regularly to help review the submissions you would like to see showcased at The International 2022, live from Singapore in October.

Today's update introduces a treasure drop that features thirteen all-new item sets — the Chest of Endless Days.

Each treasure opened will grant a set for Luna, Templar Assassin, Weaver, Nature's Prophet, Viper, Drow Ranger, Wraith King, Pangolier, Winter Wyvern, or Lycan. You'll also have a chance to unwrap a Rare Witch Doctor set, Very Rare Hoodwink set, or Ultra Rare Kid Invoker set, which includes the base Kid Invoker persona if not already owned.

These treasures are not available directly for purchase. Instead, they will drop randomly to players as they compete in Matchmaking. A key is required to open this chest — purchase one to unlock the treasure for $2.49, or sell the treasure on the market.

Summer is just around the corner and now that the Battle Report Update is live, we're setting our sights on future releases. To that end, the Dota team would like to invite all workshop contributors to whip up some new sets for any of your favorite heroes. We're already officially accepting new submissions, and we're very excited to see your full creativity on display.

Joining this round of submissions, we're happy to announce that Marci and Primal Beast will also soon be added to the workshop for you to throw into the mix.

We request that all submissions be on the Dota 2 Workshop by the end of the day on October 23rd, 2022 PDT. Please make sure to mark your work with the "Summer 2022" tag when tendering items to the Workshop to ensure they aren't overlooked. As always, please avoid concepts involving human skulls, blood, and gore. We'd like to remind all Dota fans to regularly visit the Workshop and vote through the Queue to ensure your voices are heard in the selection process.

Preparations are well underway for The International 2022, which will take place live in Singapore in October.

For the Playoffs (October 20-23) and Finals (October 29-30), We are now accepting proposals for companies who are interested in the Live Event Broadcast Production of The International 2022's Russian, Chinese, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (Latin America) language broadcasts. The RFP (Request For Proposal) documentation can be found here, and the form for proposals can be found here. Please reach out to theinternationalrfp@valvesoftware.com with any additional questions regarding this process.

Requests for Broadcast Licenses are also available now for respondents of all languages not included in The International 2022's Primary Broadcast Languages (English, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish). Please use this form to submit a Broadcast License Request.

We thank everyone for their interest in working with us on The International 2022.

Today's update brings a host of new and improved features in addition to the seasonal Dota Plus refresh. Dive deep into your match performance with the Battle Report, enjoy a variety of different game modes with Weekend Spotlight, and customize your hero loadout even further with Unlocked Immortal Spell Effects. Then check out 8 all-new sets found in the Summer Seasonal Treasure. Or skip that stuff for now and start right away with the 7.31d Gameplay Update to learn about changes to your favorite heroes.

Head over to the full update website for all the details. Battle Reports are customized for each Dota Plus member, but the rest of the fun — like earning Shards and unlocking Relics and other rewards — is now available to everyone.


Vulkan Performance Improvements

This update also includes a significant performance improvement aimed at removing hitching when playing with the Vulkan renderer. Dota now supports the VK_EXT_graphics_pipeline_library extension which eliminates draw time hitching due to shader compilation. This feature is currently supported only in the NVIDIA Vulkan Beta driver available https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-driver, with future support expected in mainline drivers by NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel.

If you'd like to learn the finer details, you can read more at https://www.khronos.org/blog/reducing-draw-time-hitching-with-vk-ext-graphics-pipeline-library.


Upcoming Plans

Every year, fans gather from around the globe to watch the best players in the world compete for the Aegis of Champions at The International. As fans ourselves, we know that after the confetti finishes falling and the fireworks fade away, we want nothing more than to go and play more Dota — after all, why can't we play Magnus like Collapse, or every carry hero like Yatoro?

To capture this excitement from current and returning players, we're structuring the Battle Pass a little differently this year: we want to make the time right after The International concludes the best time to play Dota. To do this, we're going to adjust the timing of the Battle Pass release to be later in the year than in previous years — that way the Battle Pass will run both throughout the event, and for a significant amount of time afterwards.