Dota 2 Three Spirits Update Unveiled

Valve have unveiled the contents of a huge Dota 2 update, scheduled for release later today. Here's what you can expect:

• Three new spirit heroes to play as: Storm Spirit, Earth Spirit and Ember Spirit. Each of these heroes have their own four abilities and play very differently.
• In-game coaching: You can now invite your friend to either teach or be taught how to get better at Dota 2. You will be able to warm up with one-on-one training sessions and then get your team together for a session against a professional player.

• Coaching tools: As a coach, you're get a variety of tools to use. You can enter the 'eyes of your students' to see what they're seeing, draw on the ground and mini-map to help guide them, and ping elements on their HUD to explain them. You get access to a private communication channel which will allow you to explain Dota at a pace that works for your students. You can work with multiple students at once, or multiple coaches, or multiple coaches and students.
• Crafting: You can now get more out of your unwanted items that you've gathered. Using a polymorph recipe, you can transform several items of the same rarity into a whole new item (or try out an augment recipe to combine duplicates). Recipes are collected as you play, much like items.

• Socketing: You can add gems to your favorite items by adding sockets to them. There are three types of gems. Kinetic will add unique animations, Ethereal or Prismatic will show off new colours and effects. There are also Autograph runes which allow teams to sign your tournament equipment and Inscribed gem's to show off your best heroes stats.
• Showcase View: You can now view heroes from a new perspective by viewing them in Showcase View. You can use this new view in replay mode as well, allowing you to create even better screenshots or just pick up details you didn't know existed.
• Player Items: Created in collaboration with professional players, you can now purchase Player Items from the Dota Store. These allow you to support your favorite player and will keep track of tournament games featuring your chosen player.

• Treasure: There are three new treasure chests: Ember Essence, Earth Essence and Ghastly Treasure of Diretide (only available between November 14 - 28, 2013).

On top of this, the Diretide event will be part of the update released later today which runs from November 14th to the 28th. The full patch notes for this update can be found here.