Unexpected for many, Dota 2 Patch 7.24b dropped a week before the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor. While we mostly see balance changes, it will definitely have an impact on the current meta.
Item Changes
Bracers magic resistance drops from 5% to 4% and that doesn’t seem like much. Surely this is aimed at Huskar and his tendency to stack the item, often resulting in a good chunk of magic resistance. A question arises, though, what about Vambrace? The neutral item is based on Bracers and while the magic resistance on it remains 10% in-game, the Gamepedia website states 8%. Curious.
Desolator
- Armor reduction reduced from 7 to 6
- Damage increased from 50 to 60
Diffusal Blade
- Mana burnt per attack reduced from 50 to 40
Maelstrom
- Chain lightning bounce distance reduced from 900 to 650
Mjollnir
- Chain lightning bounce distance reduced from 900 to 650
All of the popular items for carry players get a slight nerf, except maybe Desolator as the damage increase is more significant than losing 1 armor reduction. Maelstrom was the poor man’s Battlefury on many heroes, namely Faceless Void or Lifestealer, and this won’t change for the foreseeable future. Diffusal Blade’s top carrier is Phantom Lancer and that change won’t have a significant impact. Another hero who’ll probably suffer by some of the changes is Pangolier, as his Swashbuckle will now burn only 160 instead of 200 when paired with Diffusal.
Heroes
Slardar
- Bash of the Deep damage reduced from 60/115/170/225 to 50/100/150/200
- Guardian Sprint now has a 25 manacost
- Corrosive Haze reduced from 10/15/20 to 8/13/18
In the heroes department, we finally get an answer for the elephant in the room that was Slardar. While the hero is still a good pick, his physical damage output gets rescaled and he’ll certainly be more vulnerable to mana burn. Corrosive Haze will continue to enable physical damage cores.
Snapfire
- Firesnap Cookie stun duration reduced from 1.6/1.9/2.2/2.5 to 1.6/1.8/2/2.2
- Mortimer Kisses damage reduced from 200/300/400 to 160/240/320
The popular boomer gets more nerfs, bringing her power levels even lower. Mortimer Kisses now deals 20% less damage at all levels.
Void Spirit
- Movement speed reduced from 305 to 300
Well, it’s something, at least. Expect to see just as many Void Spirit players as before.
Timbersaw
- Reactive Armor bonus armor per stack reduced from 1/1.1/1.2/1.3 to 0.9/1/1.1/1.2
It really feels like the hero was nerfed solely due to being popular in WePlay!’s event. Still, with 24(32) max stacks, this translates to approximately 2-3 armor difference, unlikely to have serious consequences.
Huskar
- Strength gain reduced from 3.4 to 3.2
Insignificant change, Heaven’s Halberd is still the same, so Huskar’s popularity will remain the same.
Lifestealer
- Base attack speed reduced from 140 to 130
- Base damage reduced by 3
Let’s face it, Lifestealer was hitting way too fast at level 1. Despite being picked a lot in the recent Tug of War: Mad Moon, his win rate was below 50%. When it comes to pubs, Lifestealer is currently the 12th most popular hero according to Dotabuff.
Nyx Assassin
- Impale duration reduced from 1.6/2/2.4/2.8 to 1.4/1.8/2.2/2.6
A 0.2 duration change on his stun means some heroes will have to adapt their timings when trying to combo with Nyx. Meteor Hammer chain stun should still be possible with the talent that gives +0.3 stun, but now opponents get a 0.1-second interval to react. Giving this opportunity to your foes can be avoided by casting Impale from max range and starting the channel before the target lands.
Tiny
- Grow armor reduced from 10/18/26 to 10/16/22
- Toss cast range reduced from 1000/1100/1200/1300 to 850/1000/1150/1300
Armor seems like the hot topic of this patch and every update is either reducing it or increasing it on certain heroes. Tiny saw play in recent events, usually as a support that had way too much armor to be killed easily. The Level 1 roaming aspect of the hero is slowly coming to an end as Toss now has 850 range when compared to 1300, a few patches back. On the plus side, “Tiny airlines” griefers will have a much harder time messing with their team.
Puck
- Waning Rift cast range reduced from 350 to 275
Another nerf for Puck in the series. With almost a 100 range down, some players might now fail to go through a wall and find themselves in an interesting situation.
Io
- Overcharge regen from 0.55/0.7/0.85/1% to 0.5/0.6/0.7/0.8%
The glowing ball of pure energy weakens.
Bat Rider
- Flamebreak burn duration reduced from 4/5/6/7 to 2/4/6/8
This probably seems like an overall buff for the late game and it is. The only downside will be for support Bat Riders as they’d often put a single value point in the ability.
Enchantress
- Impetus manacost increased from 40/45/50/55 to 65
Ench is still one of the more annoying heroes to lane against. With more than a 50% mana cost increase on her Impetus, people will be taking less pure damage spears.
The StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3 is just around the corner as it’s set to start next exactly a week from now. We’ll probably see some new picks in the offlane and different item picks for a few carries. Did you expect a balance patch this soon?
