Icefrog on Facebook a fake! There will be no Sun Wukong hero in Dota

It’s a belief held by many Dota fans worldwide that the Monkey King Sun Wukong would be Dota’s next hero, ever since the character’s appearance as a hidden boss in 6.79’s Alternate Reality Game (ARG). Add Valve’s recent confirmation of new Dota 2 heroes and it’s understandable that many players jumped on the apparent announcement of that hero for WC3 Dota on Icefrog’s facebook page.

There’s just one problem—Icefrog doesn’t have a Facebook page.

(See: Valve will add new heroes to Dota 2 because “Dota 3 doesn’t really make sense”)

Gaming magazine China Electronic Athletics reported via its Weibo account that it got in touch with Icefrog after reading the supposed news that not only would Wukong be added in the next WC3 Dota patch, 6.82, but that this patch would also be the final version of the original Dota. It claims Icefrog responded with a flat denial, mentioning that he does not use Facebook, but his official Weibo account has thus far remained silent on the issue.

According to the infographic posted by the impostor, this Monkey King would be an Agility hero, based largely around illusions. Unlike Phantom Lancer, another illusion-heavy Dota hero, the fake Wukong wouldn’t create illusions passively, but solely through the use of his active abilities. His second ability in particular, “Flicker”, appears to function as a powerful escape tool, dashing forwards and leaving illusions in his wake to make chasing after Wukong more difficult. His ultimate starts with a brief immobilise, before granting three illusions surrounding the target. These illusions would work well with the passive “Nimble Nimbus”—which grants a chance on attack to appear behind your opponent—making Wukong a potentially terrifying auto-attacking carry.

Wukong is traditionally a trickster figure in Chinese folklore, and his in-game abilities in the ARG boss fight and the alleged abilities ‘leaked’ by the fake Icefrog on Facebook both deal with illusions (as do the abilities his League of Legends incarnation wields), so perhaps it’s only fitting that this latest bit of trickery by a phony Icefrog managed to fool some people, at least for a while.

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