Ranking all Neutral Items Introduced in Dota 2 patch 7.35

Dota 2 patch 7.35 is finally here and it brings a huge amount of changes. Map updates, a revamp to Roshan, a plethora of hero buffs and nerfs, and of course, new neutral items to play with.

The new toys bring an array of innovative abilities to the game, keeping choices interesting whenever a neutral token is dropped. But not all items are created equally.

We're gonna list down and rank the new neutral items in Dota 2 patch 7.35 to let you know which ones to pick, and which ones to skip.

Ranking all Neutral Items in Dota 2 patch 7.35

Safety Bubble

• Provides +5 Health Regen
• Passive: Bubbled Up. Grants a 100 HP barrier. The barrier fully restores after not receiving any damage for 5 seconds

Essentially this is an extra 100 health and five health regeneration. The regeneration is quite a hefty amount, and the barrier is very useful for heroes who can go in and out of fights, giving it time to recover.

While nice, it's not as good as Trusy Shovel, Royal Jelly, or most tier-one options, so you're better off going for those in most cases.

Rank: B

Royal Jelly

• Provides +50 Health and +50 Mana
• Active: Consume. Consumes all charges of Jelly and grants a target allied unit a buff that provides +2 Health Regen and +1 Mana Regen per charge for 10s. If the target takes damage from Roshan or an enemy hero, the effect is lost. Max Charges: 10. Charge Restore Time: 8s. Cooldown: 12s

50 health and mana are solid stats, it also provides 20 health regen and 10 mana regen for 10 seconds with full charges, which is great regen for a hero.

This can be strong on heroes who can use it during fights and avoid damage, such as Necrophos and Abaddon. Or just in general.

Rank: A-

Light Collector

• Provides +10% Movement Speed
• Passive: Unclouded. Provides wearer with +6 Health Regen during the day and +3 Mana Regen during the night. If the wearer is not within 200 radius of a tree, these bonuses are doubled
• Active: Lightbreak. Produces a flash of light that destroys trees in a 325 radius around the wearer. Cooldown: 30s.

10% movement speed is very good, 6 health and 3 mana regen is bonkers and it doubles away from trees.

The problem is it's based on the time of day, which means players may only get 5 minutes of health and mana regen from this item before swapping it in for a tier 3 option.

Destroying trees is useful vs NP and Timbersaw but situational.

Rank: B+

Whisper of the Dread

• Provides +150 Mana
• Passive: Tunnel Vision. Grants +10% spell damage but decreases the wearer's daytime vision by 15%

Raw mana is one of the worst stats, so this item is mainly for its bonus spell damage.

10% is very nice, the reduced day vision is annoying but spell casters tend to stay behind and rely on wards/cores to engage enemies directly, so it's honestly not such a big deal.

Rank: B-

Doubloon

• Provides +5 Health Regen and +2.5 Mana Regen
• Toggle: Flip. Converts 20% of your Max Health to Max Mana, or convert 20% of your Max Mana to Max Health. Cooldown: 5s

Great regen, but at 27 minutes in the game, regen isn't as important as it is early on, so the stats are just ok overall.

Flip looks very risky, getting your mana turned to health can be huge for heroes such as Outworld Devourer to survive risky engagements. But losing 20% of your max health is a big gamble. I am not sure this item will be picked up much.

Rank: C

Nemesis Curse

• Provides +35 Damage
• Passive: Glass Cannon. The wearer takes 8% more damage from all sources
• Passive: Glassify. Wearer's attacks apply a debuff on enemy targets that increases all damage taken by them by 12%. Debuff duration: 5s. Only one enemy can have this debuff at the same time

35 damage is very nice, and it deals an additional 12% damage to enemies, which also buffs allies. That is a massive damage increase. I can see this being picked up on heroes with crits like Phantom Assassin and Chaos Knight and instantly one-shotting enemy heroes.

The downside of taking 8% more damage is pretty big, especially on heroes who can turn the tide of a fight with a sliver of health (Troll Warlord, Weaver, Faceless Void). Nemesis Curse might only be worth holding when initiating fights, and too risky to equip while split pushing and farming the map.

Rank: B+

Craggy Coat

• Armor bonus decreased from 12 to 6
• Active: Toughen Up. Increases armor by an additional 12 at the cost of -30 movement speed. Duration: 8s. Cooldown: 12s

6 Armor is quite nice, although it's less than Defiant Shell and only slightly more than Cloak of Flames, neither of which has an active ability or a downside.

Toughen Up provides an additional 12 armor, so that's a total of 18 armor, which is pretty insane. Losing 30 movement speed is annoying but it's not the end of the world. Players can use Toughen Up when enemies jump on them, at which point movement speed won't matter, but extra armor might keep them alive.

My only issue with this item is that you have to actively use it, which means it's kinda bad if stun-locked.

Rank: B-

Ancient Guardian

• Provides +50 Damage
• Passive: Ancient Power. Grants additional +50 damage if the wearer is within 2000 range from an Ancient

Ancient Guardian at best can deal 100 damage, which is fine but it competes with two better options, one of which comes much earlier.

Mind Breaker provides 30 attack speed and 45 magic damage while silencing enemies. Cursed Nemesis deals 35 damage and debuffs enemies with +12% damage taken, both options are significantly more appealing.

The problem with Ancient Guardian is that you won't always be within 2000 range of Ancients, and therefore will usually get the +50 damage, which is nice but just not worth taking most of the time.

Rank: C-

Aviana's Feather

• Provides +25% Evasion and +30 Movement Speed
• Passive: Free Bird. When below 30% health, the wearer gains flying movement (not flying vision)

The passive stats from this item are pretty amazing. Movement speed is always useful and 30 is a nice amount, but an additional 25% evasion is incredible.

It is slightly situational though, as enemies can buy a Monkey King bar to counter that but spending that much gold just to deal with a Neutral Item is still great.

Free Bird is an interesting ability, flying movement is great but it requires the user to be below 30% health, which is pretty dangerous. It's still an amazing escape mechanism though and one of the strongest Neutral items out there.

Rank: S

Rattlecage

• Provides +12 Armor
• Passive: Reverberate. After taking 180 damage from any source, the wearer fires a projectile at up to 2 random nearby enemies, within a 600 radius, prioritizing heroes, that deal 125 physical damage and slow the targets' movement and attack speed by 100% for 0.2s

12 Armor goes a long way toward negating physical damage, and it doesn't come with the cost of reducing movement speed, hooray!

The passive ability is quite nice as well, for every 180 damage received, the hero will dish out 250 damage in return, this can be quite insane when combined with tanky heroes such as Bristleback and Centaur.

Overall this looks like an amazing neutral item to pick up when facing heavy physical damage dealers in Dota 2 patch 7.35.

Rank: S-

Unwavering Condition

• Provides +95% Magic Resistance
• Passive: Unwavering. Wearer's Max Health is set to 1500 and can't be altered by other effects or attributes

Hmm, so you become magically immune but in return, you have only 1500 max health. Seems like a bad trade.

It's rare to face an enemy lineup that only deals magic damage. It's not just rare, it never happens.

Since this is a tier 5 item, it drops at 60 minutes, which means everyone should be level 25 at least and walking around with a minimum of 2,500 health. You lose 1000 health just for more magic resistance?

Nah, this item kinda sucks honestly.

Rank: D

Magic Lamp

• Provides 400 health
• Rejuvenate: When the wearer's health falls below 20% they will receive a hard dispel and be healed for 1000 health.

At 60 minutes, 400 health will rarely make the difference in whether a hero lives or dies. It's helpful but there are better stats to go for.

Rejuvenate is a solid ability, healing the user and removing debuffs and stuns. The thing is, it just doesn't feel like it's enough and it comes with a hefty minute-long cooldown.

Compare this to Mirror Shield which combines Linken's Sphere and Lotus Orb on a 12-second cooldown, or Giant's Ring's insane 35 bonus strength.

Magic Lamp is ok, but there are just way better options at neutral items in Dota 2 patch 7.35.

Rank: C+

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