The latest major patch of Dota 2, released a couple of days ago and introduced a whole lot of changes. Just a day after it Valve released patch 7.25a, which is just a minor update regarding only a couple of heroes.
As one can expect from a minor patch, not too much changed because of it. The whole changelog consists of only 5 heroes who were a bit over buffed by the initial release and now simply get toned down.
Bounty Hunter
Talents
- Level 15 Talent reduced from +75 Shuriken Toss Damage to +65
- Level 20 Talent reduced from +90 Jinada Gold Steal to +65
Bounty’s Aghanim Scepter was reworked in 7.25, making it apply the bonus physical damage and gold steal of Jinada to Shuriken Toss. This made for some sick combos and extra money, as Shuriken Toss will jump between targets affected by his ultimate Track. The talent changes will address his power spike during the mid-game, but looking at the numbers they seem to be negligible.
Meepo
Divided we stand
- Divided We Stand clone XP gain reduced from 40% to 30%
Talents
- Level 10 Talent reduced from +10 Strength to +8
Meepo wasn’t one of the heroes to receive changes in the big patch but gets nerf anyway. The hero has the highest win rate for the month according to Dotabuff and that means there’s definitely something wrong with that. Or is there? Usually, Meepo is played by people who feel confident with the hero and have mechanical skills to use him properly. Due to him being able to jungle and get a significant experience and gold lead, Meepo quickly becomes a threat if not dealt with in the early stages. That’s exactly where 7.25a hits him, right in the experience gain.
Night Stalker
- Strength gain reduced from 3.2 to 3
Void
- Void damage reduced from 90/160/255/335 to 80/160/240/320
Talents
- Level 25 Talent reduced from +110 Hunter In The Night Attack Speed to +100
Night Stalker got some decent buffs in 7.25 and while 7.25a doesn’t outright murder him he will soon become unplayable again if this trend of nerfs continues.
Ursa
- Movement speed reduced by 5
Fury Swipes
- Fury Swipes damage reduced from 10/20/30/40 to 9/18/27/36
Overpower
- Overpower cooldown rescaled from 16/13/10/7 to 15/13/11/9
Ursa’s Fury Swipes and Enrage got reworked as they no longer work together (Enrage doesn’t increase the multiplier for Fury Swipes). To make up for that, the bear’s damage per stack of Fury Swipes was increased by a lot. Quickly realizing that was a mistake, Valve started crunch the numbers.
Visage
Gravekeeper's Cloak
- Gravekeeper's Cloak max damage reduction is now fixed at 80%
Patch 7.25 changed one of Visage’s level 25 talents from granting -2s Gravekeeper's Cloak to +6 Gravekeeper's Cloak Stacks. Apparently that caused some issues where the hero will have insane amounts of damage reduction so now it’s capped at 80%.Patch 7.25a is a small one, but it will no doubt affect the game’s meta to some degree. Looking at the heroes above, it feels we’ll see more changes coming soon, most likely for Ursa and Night Stalker as they’re still very good.
