Warlock Briefly Out of the Hero Pool Due to Bug

According to escorenews and Reddit, Warlock was temporarily removed from the hero pool across all game modes due to a bug with his Black Grimoire facet that has been exploited for some time.

This incident is reminiscent of a previous bug involving the Gris-Gris item from Witch Doctor’s innate ability. In both cases, the exploit allowed players to gain a massive early-game advantage. Fortunately, a minor patch has already been released to address the issue.

____________________________________________________________________

Warlock after using 50 Black Grimoires "by accident". – Credit: wallpaperflare

Warlock and the "Minor Bug"

Just a few days ago, Warlock was removed from the hero pool due to this bug. According to escorenews, the exploit had several variations. One of them involved marking the Black Grimoire for sale, moving it back to the inventory, and then delivering it to the stash.

This process allowed the item to gain infinite uses when used from the stash. As one Reddit user put it:

"There is a bug, and if you use it, you get free XP. A lot of XP. Level 28 at minute 10 kind of 'a lot of XP."

The video above shows Warlock hitting max level in the first eleven minutes, completely destroying the balance of the match. The glitch was originally reported by the Dota Today channel on Telegram.

Quick Fix for a Huge Inconvenience

Initially, Valve removed Warlock from all game modes. But the dev team put in some Easter overtime and rolled out a hotfix. Since the most well-known version of the exploit relied on placing the item up for sale, that option has now been disabled for Black Grimoire.

Black Grimoire grants Warlock bonus experience and gains charges each time he’s involved in a kill. Each charge provides 250 XP, so with infinite copies, players were essentially farming infinite experience.

Just in case you haven’t seen it — here’s the in-game description of the item. – Credit: Reddit (r/Dota2)

With the fix in place, there's no need for concern going forward. However, this incident may skew Warlock's statistics during the PGL Wallachia Season 4 and could influence Valve's decision on whether to rework or remove this facet in future patches.

If you want to stay up-to-date on tournaments, guides, player news, and all things Dota 2, head over to the Strafe website!

Featured Image Source: wallpaperflare