Mechanics not in Dota
Perhaps it is appropriate to start today’s discussion with a potentially controversial statement: it is ok for games to copy mechanics and techniques from other games. We live in the age where most of the games released can be considered a derivative of past titles and some people are not happy about it, but when it is done correctly, it is actually quite healthy for the gaming scene as a whole.
Doom (2016) wouldn’t be as good as it is, had it not incorporated more than a decade of experience in creating FPS games. It is a “return to its roots” kind of story, but the one that shaved away unnecessary problems, stemming from limitations at the time, and added mechanics which were successfully used in previous games of the genre, giving them a unique Doom-twist. It also innovated in some areas, creating its own, unique gameplay features, making for one of the best nostalgia-driven products of the last years.
The critically acclaimed Divinity: Original Sin II, which currently boasts 94 on Metacritic didn’t shy away from borrowing ideas from other games either. In fact, it even used Dota as an inspiration for some of its skills, even going as far as having skills with the same name and similar effects to Bloodseeker’s 
Rupture and Vengeful Spirit’s 
Nether Swap
Why does it matter for Dota?
Dota itself was initially a modification to the Warcraft 3, hence it goes without saying that many of its mechanics are direct copies of what the engine at the time could offer. Over the years it polished the existing mechanics, created new ones and with the release of Monkey King we have finally reached the stage, where hero design is no longer influenced by the limitations of the Warcraft 3 engine. Yet, at least as of now, the game has been pretty tame about introducing new mechanics.
Part of the reason is how hard it is to think of something truly new, especially in the context of Dota. Almost every single ability from other games is in Dota in one form or another. With a massive roster of truly unique heroes it was to be expected. Yet, after heavy scrutiny, it was possible to find some mechanics that are still not in the game and could potentially serve as a starting points for future hero designs.
Vector Targeting
That is a big one. Vector targeting essentially allows you to “drag” your ability or spell to give it direction or angle you need.
Vector targeting has been in ARPGs and MOBAs for a while now, yet Dota seems reluctant to add it to the set of the potential features. In many cases it is a balance concern — no matter how good you are at the game, ability to choose the direction of the 
Ice Wall will always be superior, to having to “aim” it carefully. In this case it is far from being a quality of life or skill ceiling discussion, but a very valid balance concern.
Yet there are definitely skills which wouldn’t necessarily become absolutely overpowered, like Dark Seer’s 
Wall of Replica, but would become a lot easier to use. Furthermore, we are finally at a stage where every single hero released is going to be a new hero and vector targeting might be a way to balance new abilities. It can give an otherwise weak spell a lot of extra utility, allowing the game to be balanced not from the perspective of easily quantifiable numbers and values, but from the perspective of the potential utility.
Corpse Manipulation
Corpse manipulation was in game before and it is understandable why it was removed. Prior to 6.75 Underlord (in Dota 1) used to have an ability called Expulsion, which would blow up the corpses in the target AoE and either Damage and Microstun enemy heroes in the area, or Damage enemy and Heal allies, depending on the patch.
The reason why it was removed is pretty much self-explanatory. The ability rarely worked well outside of lane, was easily avoidable and couldn’t be too strong, since at its best, with a massive corpse pile, it would become pretty overpowered. As such, it turned into a pretty useless spell, something Dota does not tolerate, and was soon replaced with 
Atrophy Aura.
What if, however, the hero had an ability to spawn corpses himself? The were two hero designs that had corpse manipulation mechanics in Heroes of Newerth and they both worked relatively well. The quality of the game itself aside, it serves as a proof-of-concept in a highly competitive PvP environment and there is a chance we might see the return of this rather flavorful technique to our favorite game.
Cast time changes
For balance reasons, there are heroes who might feel “clunky” and are much harder to use because of their cast points. Heroes like Jakiro, Leshrac, Lina etc. have very long animations before their abilities take effect, making them harder to land and generally requiring a set-up of sorts, to have maximum effect. At the same time, these abilities are incredibly strong — Jakiro’s 
Ice Path is a massive AoE disable that might affect targets after the initial cast and has a respectable duration. The speed with which it is cast, therefore, makes a lot of sense, since we all know how overpowered this ability can be on someone like Rubick, with an instant cast point.
Interestingly, the attack animation duration changes with the increase in attack speed, to accommodate for more attacks per second. What if there was a way to increase the speed of casting spells as well? It would make nuke-heavy combo heroes be able to burst much faster, without breaking the balance too much, while also allowing certain heroes to become more independent and have higher utility. This mechanic might not be a necessity for Dota, but it is certainly one of the ways the game can develop in.
Closing Thoughts
It is excruciatingly hard to think of things that might fit Dota that aren’t in Dota already. Obviously, there can be an argument made about game X having an ability Y, that isn’t in Dota, but most of the time Dota is going to have something very similar in one form or another.
That said, there are probably many more things that are missing from today’s discussion. Even on a general, game-mechanic levels Dota might be lacking something. After all there was no Spell Lifesteal, before the Octarine Core, or Fear-type ability before the Lone Druid’s 
Summon Spirit Bear got his Savage Roar. And talents, which weren’t in the game until recently turned out to be a great addition, which not only allowed for further hero customization, but also opened up new, exciting way to play the old heroes.
In an attempt to attract wider audience, there is a chance Dota will start incorporating more of these mechanics, giving them their unique Dota-twists. So what do you think might come to Dota next?
"A" unique.
Sorry.
Im all for new mech in game. Going to the picture of this the new hero most likely will have the break mech which is yes already in dota but quite rare
They've worked on simplifying Dota over the years, removing nuances like "HP removal", grouping together roots to act similarly, etc. And the game still features a plethora of mechanics that can daunt most newcomers. Why try to force another layer of complexity?
We'll see what the 2 new hero's bring first. I think it would be cool if there was more than just Roshan to kill on the map that dropped something useful but idk.
I would advise people to learn the existing mechanics first, althought its a nice article. Corpse manipulation is also present although, with neutral troll warlord raising dead.
how max open mmr ?
@ktr
That's technically correct, but only at the most technical of levels. A corpse must be present within 600 range, but they are still summons that do not use the corpse as a basis for the power of the skeletons, i.e. they are always 250 hp for 40s.
@ETdAWESOME
HP removal is still in the game in quite a lot of situations. Most notable instances of HP removal are AA ult (only the shatter counts) and Axe ult (magic dmg when it doesn't kill, pure HP removal when it does instant kill)
I would like to see an evolution based hero that each level could choose to power up certain attributes, speed, strength, attack, magic power and basically be played in very unique playstyles depending on the choices made.
"It is excruciatingly hard to think of things that might fit Dota that aren’t in Dota already". LMAO.
- mechanics to switch between mana/hp cost for abilities and items
- mechanics to merge or have interaction between spells that have static effects (i.e. morphling Waveform + jakiro Ice Path would make the former more damaging)
- mechanics to move while burrowed for certain bug-like heroes
- target specific abilities or items for buffs or debuffs (i.e. an item debuffs a specific item in the targeted's heroes inventory; the specification of the debuffed item is determined when the item is first created; lvl 2 recipe allows to re-specify)
- ability (i.e. ultimate) to divide targetted heroes in two/several copies of himself/herself, separating their attributes and/skills
- ability to temporarily take control of target hero minus items or cooldowns or any adequate form of debuff.
increase level cap from 25 to 30 would be good OSfrog
clickbait image
maybe increase level cap
maybe more skill/reflex depend heroes like invoker?
Also DOTA need more things for heal cancel(like iceblast) or slow down that + we don't have any kind of fear type except LD's savage roar
the fact it's a unique instead of an unique is fucking stupid. because unique is pronounce Yunique so...
@No Handshake
Responding in order of appearance:
-Morph is probably as close to that concept as we need in Dota. Anything more would be OP.
-That sounds like Veil, so you want a skill that provides minus magic resist.
-That's invulnerable but visible, so Slark kind of.
-That's a weaker mute, and far more unnecessarily complicated.
-Meepo, Brewmaster, just on another hero other than self.
-That's an extension of dominating a creep.
It's not that some of these ideas aren't interesting or useful. I think saying a hero can be 'burrowed' as they can be 'silenced' or 'feared' is fine, but to say that there isn't already a burrow mechanic and a movement mechanic in the game is a bit misleading, and certainly cannot be put in the same category of 'original to the game' as cooldown reduction or spell reflection.
"The reason why [Corpse Manipulation] was removed is pretty much self-explanatory."
You should say "obvious", not "self-explanatory". Self-explanatory implies that there is something in the name of the skill itself that indicates why it was removed, which is not the case. (A good example of a self-explanatory skill would be "Amplify Damage", though that name is now defunct since it was apparently too self-explanatory.) Anyway, even then its not obvious why it was removed. You say because it was only useful in lane. A lot of spells are much more useful in lane. Lich's Sacrifice, arguably one of the most powerful spells in the game, is only useful in lane since you can't sacrifice jungle creeps.
You forgot the difficult to balance gold manipulation mechanic which Gambit had but was removed.
And some mechanics not introduced but had been suggested before.
1. Non circular AOE spell.
2. Gaining buffs depending on the order the spells are casted.
I still would rather see an item that is fitting for a support that causes break. I also hate that there are still items in the game that are only part of one recipe: oov into skadi and ghost scepter into eb. I don't think it'd be too ridiculous to ask that the ghost scepter gets made into some new item thats more useful for a support than an eb that also breaks passives.
Would love to see more Day/Night interactions via items/heros/talents
Increase ability cast time? Warframe actually has that via its mod system. Of course, Warframe is a third-person shooter, not a MOBA, but standing there casting an ability that can take a second or three, leaving yourself open to enemy fire for that long of a time is still, of course, unwanted. I always wondered if Dota would ever consider adding something like that in the form of an item. The mod in Warframe is called 'Natural Talent', so wonder what item could be added here for that?
Siltbreaker's artifacts had some interesting New mechanics (like adding your mana pool to your hp pool). We May have something similar in the future.
Corpse manipulation: I remember the time where Echo Slam will take those dead creeps into account. Ez rampage
@4EvrInSolitud3
QoP ultimate is a non-circular aoe spell; so nothing new
Ok so I dumped on someones' ideas earlier because they were repackaged mechanics already in the game (although there were a few innovative ideas nonetheless). I figured I should at least try to provide a new mechanic idea or two, and I'll do my own dumping on them.
-Orb attack that does mana steal. Lion steals mana through a spell, so it's kind of in the game already, but this is an attack modifier, so it could be great for an item on mana poor carries. It would basically be a different flavor of diffusal, instead of doing damage with mana removal, it would be straight mana steal.
-XP steal. This has the potential to be massively OP and unendingly frustrating to play against, so the numbers would have to be very modest. it could be an orb, but I suspect it would be much better to manage as an on-death proc, similar to Silencers' INT steal.
-Income reduction. It's already a mechanic, but I just wanted to say how I thought the game could expand it to an aura or something like that. New hero idea!
-Terrain manipulation. I'm not talking creating impassible terrain like ES has. I'm talking the ability to raise or lower a section of terrain to the next possible level. Very much a support mechanic, you could make a sinkhole that traps an enemy in one spot, removing their ability to see outside since they are now on the low ground. Or, you could raise a section around you, making you not visible, but also giving you high ground vision, which could allow you to see into the trees below you. You could raise the terrain and help a melee hero kill that ward on the ward spot. The utility of the mechanic isn't too far off from how you use sprout, but it could be a whole lot more interesting than that.
Whelp, that's two truly unique mechanics, and two iterations of current mechanics. It really is hard to think up unique ideas.
@4EvrInSolitud3
1. Previous comment says QoP, they're right.
2. That sounds like invoker.
Dota NEEDS vector targeting. Ice wall is so awkward how it is now.
A few more gaming mechanics can be introduced. Maybe something from command and conquer. Like have your controlled unit have a planned patrol route. Make a specified route for it to go around without the need to control to move them. Or force attack where your hero autoattacks a specified area so you can hit invisible enemies. Have them swing their sword without the need for a target.
what about heroes elements?
like reduced fire damage to lina and ember, and ice type damage is reduced on crystal maiden.
could be interesting and add more depth to the draft.
vector targeting becomes easier to balance with delay via cast point or delivery of its impact. imo it allows a lot of creativity from higher skilled players. Think of invoker sun strike plays but pathed.
The cast points are tough imo but doable. Perhaps a fairly expensive extension to aether, to help certain heroes transition to the mid game. This may be too smooth a transition though not sure.
I wouldn't mind seeing an item that increases attack speed by a percentage, in other words, a reduction in BAT, for spell caster heroes that may be mids or certain supports that have the potential to carry later on.
Can you please add credit to the front art?
what about an eevee sort of mechanic, from pokemon, ulti is to choose an evolution branch all with diffierent abilities. 1 hero, 3 possibilities.
dp exorcism as an item, boom.
im still waiting for cosmetics for creeps.
I know this may seem silly but I think a game like skyrim is worth looking at for mechanics to incorporate like the wabbajack's unpredictable effect mechanic
m8be roshan need to respawn sudenly after killed, and push random lane?
Add new skill to Drow or Clinkz that allows them to move and attack in same time
That was one thought that I did have, a new mounted hero that's two different units so the mounted unit can attack while the mount moves. A possible balance to this would be to give that hero a miss chance while they're moving and attacking at the same time.
This post should had been made before players start leaving dota.
But first of all, the only thing dota should improve, as the very top priority, is the matchmaking algorithm.
It is causing players to leave, which also causes the matchmaking become more inaccurate everytime a player leaves dota.
It is to me, the main cause of dota actual situation, because players don't care if every single hero was picked during TI7, we don't give a "dime" about balance if we end up playing with retards as the result of a deficient matchmaking.
But, regarding to the topic of this post, here are some ideas to make the game much more fun to play:
- Heroes synergies, to promote certain combination of picks, which also brings balance to pick rate.
- Skills synergies, to promote team work and skills sync improve, like rewarding a perfectly chained set of different heroes skills. Rewards for combo wombos.
- Atribute synergies, to promote new ways to make a draft and give it a kind of "identity".
- Iems/skills/talents to improve/decrease others RNG's. I would love to see this, like a hero pick to make bara the ultimate bashlord, or a very expensive item to turn the table if you have Chaos, Ogre, PA and Bara in your team, for instance.
- Attributes depending on the enemy team's sum of attributes (like punishing their draft) or depending on the nearest enemy within a certain range or depending on the nearest ally, thus contributing also to synergies.
- Match duration related skills/attributes, making a role changing hero along the match, thus making it so much risky and fun to play.
- Gold steal (without killing or assistance), go find that ever-farming magina, steal his gold and make his team report him for never leaving the jungle xD.
- Tower ignoration: for some duration, you can cast a skill that disables T1 tower and lets your team push T2 beofre T1, thus adding a completly new way to map control, same for T3 and sanctuaries. The perfect set up for T1 would be: dive T1 with some tanky hero, kill the creep wave and then cast the tower ignoration to keep pushing deeper
- Random rosh, certain skill/ult/talent/item/event, etc. allows you to take Rosh out to a completly random place (within limited areas in the map) so you must kill him while he returns to his lair and the fight for Rosh becomes something like overwatch's assault/escort.
- After watching the dueling fates update trailer, I had the impression of a new hero whos skills are some kind of bouncing over his enemies, which would be a kind of new fun mechanic to play with.
- A skill to locate the courier, might sound OP but if you use your brain it is not much a difference. Anyway it's great skill for a roamer hero, easy to use for new players and great way to screw your enemies early game.
- An item like "Dardo", which is Frodo's blue glowing sword that activates whenever a gobling is close. It makes you kind of un-gankable.
- Climbing prohibition, a skill or aoe to make your enemies can't move to high ground, making them to depend on skills or items to move to higher places.
- Owning enemys wards, if you find any enemy planted ward, you can make it your own till its duration ends.
- Swaping skills on enemy heores, an aoe skill to randomly swap two heroes skills for some time. You can, for instance, make a near to death hero takes to the grave his teammate's only hope to survive. It would be like playing skill draft for a limited time.
- A skill to swap keyboard keys, mouse buttons or direction of click commands. More anoying than techies. Useless against some pros. Exquisit against invoker or meepo.
- Swap your enemies life between each other.
- Swap your enemies attributes between each other.
- Hero isolation, you cast an AOE over an enemy under which no team mate can stand. The hero can do anything he want's but no other ally can be closer than a specific range. It gets bigger for ranged heores.
- The last will of the support, sacrifice your self to resurrect an ally (with all or some % of life).
- A democratic tower sacrifice to improve another structure defense, life and attack.
- Buy structures with money, exp or items.
- Change the lines path, making them go through the jungle or to be closer to each other.
Theese might not all be technically new mechanics. Even though it is fun even to think of what else can be incorporated to the game. Some of this ideas could be taken as dota mods themselves, like match duration attributes or synergies, or map changing related to specific events during the match.
Vector targeting is for casual games like LoL. I hope it will not come.
Totally agree with Ash. Vector targeting either makes things too easy or is inconsequential, but in every situation reduces the necessity of positioning.
The game is good because it is hard. Not because of arbitrary stuff either. It's streamlined, everything is made as easy as possible to do, but you have to do it right. Vector targeting means you don't have to do it as right.
2k monkeys cant even understand the existing mechanics in dota, and still demanding more mechanics, smh. Dota is complicated enough already.
Someone said that large windup times are a nice factor in another game... Well, we have channeled abilities already that leave you out there standing... We have a hero that uses mana pool as hp in Medusa. There are a ton of mechanics in the game already... But more might be on the way. We might see more talents available to the heroes in the upcoming patch and if they are adding new mechanics the new talents might have these and we might see some item reworks and new items to introduce new stuff into the game.
We should see the new patch in the next 2 weeks... I can't wait. They are already patching parts of it in, with these random 200MB patches that give out no changes or release notes.
A necromancer-like hero (not shitty necrophos) would be awesome! Maybe he could control his fallen comrades for 15 secs in a teamfight or something. Dunno :P
What is really necessary is to improve matchmaking. I think everyone should set a role before matchmaking, and also choose which composition he wanted his team to be.
I mean, I'll play as support, and I wanna a team with 1 carry, 1 off, 1 mid , 1 supp and me. That way we would have a much solid team, rather than be randomized with a bunch of idiots that wanna play as the same role.
I really like the necromancer idea... like natures prophet, but for creeps.
Ability 1 - convert creeps in target area to undead servants,Leveling up the ability increases total hp converted.
Ability 2 - spawn servants from the depths of the battleground. Bringing silence to the area.
Ability 3 - give buffs to servants
Ability 4 - truesight of all slain creeps, teleport into corpse of recently slain creep (global)
Second idea... spirit magician
Ability 1 - Raise spirits... aoe spirits heal allies... increases potency with each death in area
Ability 2 - permanently take control of spirits/clones (think Manta) in aoe area
Ability 3 - spirit aura... global team buff based on controlled # of spirits
Ultimate - create spirit/clone of all allied heroes under your control
I really like the idea of a fairy character that can manipulate the trees... and move through them with no hinderance.
The idea with the Spirit mage is Good. Summon spirits and totems depending on surface or buffs/debuffs he self or other have. The element define the skills like water for heal, earth for armor, fire for damage and so on. The ultimate merging them or binding them, make there buffs global.
I suggest dis one m8
-Temporal immortality: if u ded u turned into zombie. Ur damage is increased and must get a kill or u completely ded and wait for respawn
-Sprint like in COD: if u toogle dis on u can run faster but drains ur mana like rupture mana
-smoke that works like CSGO: Dis smokr actually block vision but passable and when go inside ur vision is severely reduced
-Subcomcious mode: u cant control ur hero if used that skill but u recieve massive buff. Much like Koishi in Defence of the Shrines