How to beat Nest of Thorns in Dota 2

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Dota 2 Nest of Thorns Overview

How to beat Nest of Thorns in Dota 2

The Crownfall event in Dota 2 has fundamentally changed the popular MOBA title. Spread across four different acts, players can experience a deep, coherent story of the heroes. In addition, players can also earn tokens by playing various heroes in their regular games and use them to unlock treasures, rewards and other items for their favorite characters.

Act 4 of the Crownfall event in Dota 2 gave us an entirely new overworld to explore, along with a new hero, Kez. Once you complete the overworld and reach the end, you will be able to unlock the Nest of Thorns mini-game. It’s a roguelike game mode where you can play with three heroes to level up and collect upgrades to take on the evil Queen Imperia. It’s certainly not an easy game mode to beat, but this guide will show you all the tricks to succeed.

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Dota 2 Nest of Thorns Overview

The Nest of Thorns encounter takes place at the final node of the Crownfall Act 4 overworld. So to unlock it you have to complete all hero quests and mini games including the spoon man Dota 2.

In this encounter you will have to choose between the three heroes Dragonus, Shen and Kez and survive in a roguelike arena for 12 minutes. Hordes of enemies will keep appearing and rushing at you from all directions. If you manage to survive for 12 minutes, you will meet the final boss, Queen Imperia, in her throne room. To win the game you must defeat the boss.

Each of the three heroes has a different play style and starts with their own spells. As you kill enemies, you gain experience shards that allow you to level up and unlock new spells or improve existing ones. Additionally, you will regularly encounter Roshan enemies who will drop an item to add to your inventory.

In this game mode you can have a total of 6 items and 5 spells.

In addition to the enemy waves, the map also spawns three mini-bosses that you can kill to unlock an Aghanim Scepter upgrade for your spells. They appear after a certain period of time. Although you don’t need to defeat these mini-bosses to face Queen Imperia, we recommend you kill them as the Aghanim’s Scepter upgrades make your spells much stronger.

Dota 2 Nest of Thorns Hero Upgrade and Difficulty

There are seven difficulty levels called Echelons. Completing each one unlocks the next one and adds modifiers to the game, such as: B. increased enemy health or movement speed. You can also add upgrades to all of your heroes, such as: B. increased HP, cooldown reduction, etc.

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The key to winning Nest of Thorns is understanding the three heroes and figuring out the best spells and items for each of them. Since this is a roguelike game mode, luck will certainly play a role. With that in mind, here’s a quick overview of how to play each hero in Nest of Thorns.

Dragonus

For the early echelons, Dragonus was the best hero to play. He starts with the Arcane Lightning ability, and his passive ability allows him to fire additional projectiles with each cast. This means that stacking magic damage skills and items that reduce cooldown and deal more magic damage works well for the hero.

Dragonus has the lowest health of the three heroes.

Here are the best spells you can learn for Dragonus:

Magic Missile: Magic Damage Shoots a bouncing projectile at the nearest enemy, dealing damage and stunning them with an area of effect around them.
Mortimer’s kisses: Magic damage fires damaging blobs around you.
Spirits: Summons spirits that rotate around you, dealing magic damage to enemy heroes for a set duration.
Laguna Blade: Target the strongest enemy within range with a bolt of lightning.
Frostbite: Freezes target enemies in place, causing them to take additional damage from projectiles.
Rot: Deals constant damage in a small AOE around you.
Chain freeze: Fires a projectile that bounces between enemies, dealing magic damage.

When it comes to your item options, focus on those that deal additional magic damage or reduce the cooldown of your spells. Items like Kaya, Phylactery, and Octarine Core are excellent choices. Reaver is also a good choice as the extra health helps Dragonus survive better. Apex is a must for the extra spell slot.

Shen

Shen starts with the Magic Missile spell, and while you might be tempted to build her up by focusing on magic damage, her passive ability makes her better suited to a physical damage build. Thanks to her passive ability, any enemy she hits with her Magic Damage ability will receive a debuff that increases her physical damage to the target.

Since Magic Missile is an AOE ability, you can use it to weaken the enemy and deal massive damage with your physical damage spells. Of course, certain magical damage spells can still be learned with the hero.

Here are the spells you should learn when playing Nest of Thorns as Shen:

Counterhelix: Deals physical damage to enemies in an AOE around you while also knocking them back.
Rush: Gives you phased movement and makes you invulnerable for a set duration while dealing damage to enemies you run over.
Rail: Pursues the enemy, dealing a small amount of physical damage. The pursued target takes increased damage from other attacks and also has a chance to drop gold upon death.
Daring: Slashes enemies horizontally with multiple quick attacks. Also has a small setback.
Rot: Deals constant magic damage in a small AOE around you.
Destruction: Deals massive physical damage to a large number of enemies. It has a long cooldown.
Snotty the bat: Summons a bat companion that collects items and experience while dealing area damage and slowing enemies.

We recommend increasing physical damage when playing as Shen. Although she can also play as a hybrid that combines both magical and physical damage, it’s best to choose one so you can optimize your item build. For best results, use items such as Sange, Daedalus (Crystalis and Demon Edge), Bloodstone and Octarine Core.

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Kez:

Kez has a relatively higher skill cap compared to Dragonus and Shen in Nest of Thorns. Since the hero’s initial spell echo strike does not automatically target enemies, you must manually engage the enemy unit to kill them. However, damage can skyrocket late in the game if you manage to stack physical damage items.

Kez’s passive ability grants him additional movement speed and also adds a critical hit modifier to enemies he marks. So you should choose skills that scale well on critical hits.

Here are the spells we recommend for Kez.

Knife throw: Throws a knife projectile straight ahead.
Proximity mines: Places a mine behind you that explodes after a certain amount of time, dealing AOE physics damage.
Snotty the bat: Summons a bat companion that collects items and experience while dealing area damage and slowing enemies.
Counterhelix: Deals physical damage to enemies in an AOE around you while also knocking them back.
Rush: Gives you phased movement and makes you invulnerable for a set duration while dealing damage to enemies you run over.
Rail: Pursues the enemy, dealing a small amount of physical damage. The pursued target takes increased damage from other attacks and also has a chance to drop gold upon death.
Daring: Slashes enemies horizontally with multiple quick attacks. It also has a little recoil.

As far as Kez’s item build goes, we recommend Daedalus as a must-have. So try to collect Crystalis and Demon Edge and level them up to maximum level as quickly as possible. Octarine Core is also a good choice for cooldown reduction. Heart of Tarrasque and Blade Mail are also good choices for this hero.

Kez’s passive critical damage stacks independently of Daedalus

Nest of Thorns is certainly a fun addition Dota 2. With the above tips and hero builds, you should be able to reach and defeat Echelon 7 to unlock all the rewards from this mini-game.