Valve fixes super broken Midas glitch in Dota 2—but players found another workaround

After Midas became the most popular item in Dota 2 overnight, Valve quickly swooped in to fix the exploit related to it. But it didn’t take long for players to figure out another exploit with the same result, which is using the Hand of Midas with no cooldown whatsoever.

Yesterday, Valve suddenly issued a 140 MB patch with no notes or announcement, which seems to have aimed to fix some bugs in the game, among them the Hand of Midas cooldown exploit. While it previously required Dota 2 players to use Midas, then drop it on the ground, purchase another from quick buy, and then sell it to refresh the dropped item’s cooldown, there’s now a different way to achieve the same result. If two players purchase the Hand of Midas, use it, and then swap it between each other, one of them will get two full charges of the item reset instantly, allowing the exploit to continue flourishing.

As shared by Dota Cinema and discussed by many Dota 2 players on the game’s subreddit, the Hand of Midas exploit is still alive and well, though it does take some extra steps to pull off. I’ve gone into a custom match and spawned a bot with Midas equipped and can confirm that this approach to the exploit does indeed work. But it’s inconsistent and sometimes takes swapping Midas between heroes several times until the cooldown is finally refreshed.

Since the exploit was discovered, Ogre Magi‘s pick rate jumped from 15 to 23 percent, according to stats site DotaBuff, because the hero can use his Multicast ability on the item to farm hundreds of gold in a single click. Based on how frequently the exploit has appeared in my matches, I advise players to avoid ranked matchmaking at least for another few days until Valve finally irons out the Hand of Midas and its charge functionality, which seems to be the cause of this game-breaking bug that so many players are taking advantage of.