New Dota 2 hero Ringmaster doesn’t have an Agh’s Scepter upgrade—yet players keep buying the item

Ringmaster, Dota 2‘s newest hero that players have waited a year for, arrived this week with much fanfare but the support has a few missing elements including no Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade—but that hasn’t stopped players who are buying the item thinking it does something.

Ringmaster launched on Aug. 23 out of nowhere as Valve prepares the Dota 2 community for TI season, and while we wouldn’t go so far as to say the mischievous maestro is incomplete, it’s missing a few things that make heroes in Dota tick these days like Facets and, importantly, an Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade. However, in Valve’s default item build for Ringmaster, Agh’s Scepter is listed as a must-buy late-game item.

It’s led unknowing Dota players to immediately farm and purchase the Scepter, and while I’m sure the attributes, health, and mana boost are helpful, it’s proving to be a 4,200-gold mistake. According to stats site Dotabuff, almost 5,000 games saw a Ringmaster buy the Agh’s Scepter. As time has gone on, this represents a very small percentage of the total but goes to show that players put a little too much stock into Valve’s default builds and not into which items suit the hero on a game-by-game basis.

It was originally feared the Scepter was purchased by over half of Ringmaster players as one player spotted on Dota Plus, but when compared to other stat sites, it’s clear Valve’s “premium” stat service needs a round of tweaking for accuracy. “I would blindly follow [Dota Plus] when I was getting back into the game a year ago and now I have to actively go against my muscle memory to avoid skilling some dumb shit I don’t need,” one player said.

A Scepter upgrade, as well as Hero Facets, will assuredly be added for Ringmaster in the coming patches but until such time, please don’t grief your Dota allies and spend a small fortune on an otherwise useless item.