ESFI World

Finally, its here!  Well, almost - the patch is still a couple of days off, but when it does arrive this Thursday it will bring DotA version 6.73, released in late December, to Dota 2. This is one of the largest patches in the history of the game and the first major patch of Dota 2’s young life. DotA version 6.73 is of course balanced for the entire hero pool, and has four new heroes and plenty of yet-to-be-ported hero changes which will not be immediately seen in Dota 2. However, the bulk of its impact will still be felt by pros and pubbers alike. How will these changes shift the evolving Dota 2 metagame? What heroes, items, and strategies will rise? Which will fall? This special edition of Baytawatch will aim to find these answers.

We’ve broken this analysis down into three parts: heroes, items, and systemic changes. Each will touch on the most impactful changes first, followed by choice analysis of the other changes in the patch. Our analysis is entirely focused on the competitive implications. So when you wonder why heroes who received changes like Ursa don’t get any mention, it’s because of their lack of impact towards competitive play, and the fact that even some marginal buffs won’t change that.

Dragon Knight - Simply stunning, even from afar

 Dragon Knight
- While in Dragon form Dragon Tail's cast range increased from 150 to 400

The Chinese have been all over Dragon Knight in DotA for the last month, and we saw that love carry over to the European Dota 2 scene when EG returned from their time abroad. DK is poised to become THE top pick in Dota 2 after the change to his Dragon Tail. Considering his popularity has already been rising as a mid-game pusher through his Corrosive Dragon Form, and late-game carry through his AoE-built-in-Skadi form, this means great things for our dragon friend. A simple but strong change like this could easily push him into being a regular of the first phase picks and bans.

Morphling - Riding the wave to the top tier

 Morphling
- Base agility increased by 5
- Adaptive strike cooldown decreased from 20 to 10
  Linken's Sphere
- Added +10 damage to account for component bonuses
- No longer triggered by Medallion of Courage
- No longer triggered by Urn of Shadows

Welcome Back Morphling! We already saw Morph begin to pop up more often in recent tournaments, but he is really going to see a comeback now. His early game last hitting got a big boost from the five starting Agility increase, and his late game got crazier with a spamable Adaptive Strike. Those alone might have been enough to make him a stable pick again, but the changes to Linken’s and the addition of the new ring item are direct buffs to his playstyle. Morph could easily make a huge [and largely welcome] jump from relative obscurity to a top five carry.

Nature’s Prophet - Indirectly propheting again

 Nature's Prophet
- Wrath of Nature cooldown rescaled from 90/60/60 to 90/75/60
 Necronomicon
- Archer's Mana burn cast range increased from 250 to 600
- Archer's attack damage increased from 31/61/91 to 40/80/120
- Warrior's attack damage increased from 21/41/61 to 25/50/75
 Desolator
- Desolator recipe cost decreased from 1200 to 900
 Orchid Malevolence
- Recipe Reworked: now requires 2 Oblivion Staffs and a 775 gold recipe.

This is the one hero who gets talked about because of what wasn’t in the patch. Besides an ultimate CD scaling change (which just made sense) he was left unchanged. If anything, he received relative buffs from newly cheapened items like Orchid and Desolator as well as a vastly improved Necronomicon. Now the Prophet will have his power items even sooner. He’s still at the top of the pack, and although some of his tricks are being figured and dealt with by teams, the hero still exists as a major asset to most lineups. The cheapened Boots of Travel deserve mention however, as it is now just a bit easier to deal with a late-game Prophet making your life a backdoor nightmare.

Anti-Mage - I blinked, was AM nerfed?

 Anti-Mage
- Reverted the 6.72 Base Attack Time improvement, BAT from 1.35 to 1.45
- Armor reduced by 1

Let’s be real. The Dota 2 beta community has been marching on IceFrog in the forums with torches and pitchforks for months with chants of “AM OP” as their rallying cry. Most wanted his head on a changelog platter. It didn’t really happen. Well, not at first glance anyways. His BAT reversion is obviously a significant nerf to his DPS, but not the kind to kill his power. He still has insane manta synergy, and a stupidly good blink. The armor seems important in pubs more than in competitive play. It makes him weaker in lane, but the current 2v1 lane setup doesn’t expose him to any real early danger. Based on these changes alone his relative power in the scene should not be heavily changed.

If you read through the whole changelog though there are some significant improved counters now available in item form. Orchid is almost 1K gold cheaper and the new Sange based item could make select strength carries counter him better as well. All-in-all there are simply more every game item options to use against him. If teams start to favor these items we could see AM fall from favor, especially with DK and Morph chomping at the bit to take his place.

Tinker - Buff, Rearm, Buff, Rearm, Laser

 Tinker
- Laser's miss duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds
 Boots of Travel 
- Recipe cost decreased from 2200 to 2000
- Movement speed increased from 95 to 100

As Reaverxai put it while we were preparing this article, “The elusive last creep wave is gone!” It does always seem that teams have a sense for when Tinker is nearing his Boots of Travels and always seem to gank him just before that final creep wave - delaying his core up to a couple minutes. Now his core is that much more attainable. Tinker has been a rare, flavor pick for a few teams in Dota 2, but now he gets going almost as fast as Prophet. This cost change could really make some teams decide to dust off their Tinker and take him for a drive. Tinker has always been one of the most exciting heroes to see played at the competitive level. Let’s hope this sparks his resurgence for the infinitely casting, and infinitely exciting scientist.

Rikimaru - Sneaking into viability

 Riki
- Backstab damage bonus increased from 0.25/0.5/0.75/1.0 to 0.5/0.75/1.0/1.25 of agility
 

Be afraid. Be very afraid. If the last picking captain doesn’t have a carry yet you might just have to run Slardar or Bounty Hunter. Rikimaru with his immense backstab buff (which effectively adds 10-20% to his late game damage) could become the de facto last pick carry. If the other team lacks a countering hero then Riki is top tier. He will never be a first phase pick/ban because of how counterable he is, but he can take on Anti-Mage, Storm, Morphling, and a slew of other big-time heroes with only a Diffusal Blade at his disposal. He’s jumping from a once-a-tournament pick to being solidly in the mid-tier of carries as I type this, you just can’t see it yet (or after level 6).

Dark Seer - Surging back into a drafter’s consideration

 Dark Seer
- Ion Shell duration increased from 15 to 20
- Ion Shell AoE from increased 225 to 250
- Ion Shell cooldown increased from 7 to 10
- Ion Shell damage increased from 30/45/60/75 to 30/50/70/90
- Wall of Replica illusions are now semi-transparent to enemy players

Dark Seer is widely considered to be the most underplayed hero with every game viability on the competitive level. This guy is the melee version of Windrunner; he’s a Swiss Army Knife of versatility - and utility items are at an all time high. Now, with cross the board Ion Shell buffs (the CD change is just to keep the cast rate the same), he can jungle considerably faster at a lower mana cost, and he can go up against Broodmother even better. Dark Seer could see one of the biggest play jumps of all. Keep an eye on Moscow Five to start the trend as he has always been a historical favorite of the mighty Russians.

Sand King - The dust settles on his role

 Sand King
- Epicenter's slow is no longer blocked by magic immunity
- Caustic Finale buff duration increased from 2 to 8 seconds

The epicenter buff is nice. However, what really makes him stand out is his caustic finale change. It doesn’t so much increase his overall strength, but it solidifies his role as a 1v1 melee counter. He will see increased action for sure, as more then just the “second Earthshaker”. His buffs may also cause Broodmother’s (the hero he is most often picked to counter) first ban status to shift a bit as team’s picking brood will really have to use a precious ban on SK first, a big consideration.

Necrolyte - Only a masochist could hate the Sadist buff

 Necrolyte
- Death Pulse AoE increased from 375/425/450/475 to 475
- Heartstopper damage increased from 0.4/0.6/0.8/1.0% to 0.5/0.7/0.9/1.1%
- Sadist level 4 now restores 600 mana if you kill a hero

This patch had a number of AoE consistency changes go into effect. These give a nice boost to all of the affected hereos in their lane phase. Necro of course was one of these. He has been another once-a-tournament kind of hero for a while now. People want to try him because everyone sees his potential, but it never seems to work out. Usually the team just can’t get enough farm on him to boost his HP and mana pool enough to go fighting. Now the 600 mana boost he gets from a hero kill with level four sadist solves half the battle. If he gets in a fight and gets a kill with his ultimate (hardly a tall task) then he will have have mana for plenty of death pulses without any big INT items. Also, the new Rod item could prove a value play for a hero who needs some HP but doesn’t really want a full vanguard. We predict his popularity will remain a somewhat niche play, but when he shows up winning will be a real possibility.

Carries who need initiation - Waiting, waiting on the world to change

The biggest issue we found with agility heroes like Shadow Fiend is their buffs don’t address their biggest issue, mobility. You simply can’t have a carry anymore who has to throw 2K-3K gold towards an active item just to survive and get to the fight. They’re simply too vulnerable in the early game, and farming a Blink Dagger or Shadow Blade puts you behind in the carry farming war.  If you look at the popular picks today, they almost all have a built in escape through blinking, invisibility, or sheer speed.  Smoke of Deciet (among other things) has changed the game.  It's a more dangerous world out there for old school damage dealers. Until serious changes are made to their design this class of hero is unlikely to be seen for a long time.

Melee buffs - No love from the metagame

Heroes like Alchemist, Kunkka, and Axe all saw considerable buffs in one way or another, but don’t expect them to rise into the picking pool anytime soon. Their buffs were serious but they just don’t have a spot in the current metagame. Kunkka doesn’t have a home in the 2v1 lanes. Alchemist still has to get in close, but, even with more gold per minute, he strays too late game to fit the current pace of the game which seems to be unfavorable to Radiance carriers. Axe saw a host of buffs yet again, but is a jungling tanky initiator who needs farm viable? Doubtful, except in the fringiest of fringe picks. If we see another major shift in the metagame one of these powerful heroes could find their niche, but until then they stay in the doghouse.

Rod of Atos - Skewering the beefy INT-carry back in the fire

 Rod of Atos

2x Staff of Wizardry (2000), Vitality Booster (1100)
Total Cost: 3100

+25 Intelligence
+250 HP

Cripple (active, target unit)
Slows the target's movement speed by 50% for 4.

Cast Range: 800, Cooldown: 20, Manacost: 50

With any new item it’s tough to see its effect perfectly without application, but we see the new Rod item as a magnificent option on intelligence heroes who need a bit of tanking but would rather not get a full vanguard. Our top three picks for this item are based on their shared need for larger INT pools, as well as an overwhelming focus on health and tank-ability in their playstyles. Necrolyte’s synergy was already mentioned before, but Death Prophet shares a similar need for HP and INT. For Bat it could give some mana support and active item synergy that a Vanguard can’t offer. We forsee most building this by picking up the Vitality Booster early and then finishing up the Rod after another item core.

Ring of Aquila - Push and carry this item to your core

 Ring of Aquila

Wraith Band (485), Ring of Basilius (500)
Total Cost: 985

+9 Damage
+3 All Stats
+3 Agility
+1 Armor
+2 Armor Aura
+0.65 Mana Regeneration Aura

Can be Disassembled

Okay, so on paper all this item does is save you an item slot, but, hey, item slots are huge. Ring of Basilius is already one of the best items in the game and now Agility heroes will have incentive to get it and a Wraith Band because you’re not clogging your inventory with two relatively minor items. This is going to be a great item on tons of heroes: Morphling, Weaver, Anti-Mage (if he builds Vanguard instead of Battlefury), Rikimaru, Drow, and Sniper all come to mind quickly. Because the ring is able to be disassembled it has particular synergy with AM and Riki because they can get rid of the Wraith eventually and use the rest in a Vlad’s. This item will be in every game with an AGI carry. If it’s not, someone is probably doing it wrong.

Linken’s Sphere - Blocking cheap criticism

 Linken's Sphere
- Added +10 damage to account for component bonuses
- No longer triggered by Medallion of Courage or Urn of Shadows

Forget the damage boost; it’s nice but unimportant. What matters are the buffs against Medallion and Urn. Now those active abilities no longer trigger the spell block cool down. This is huge. The existence of those items effectively made Linken’s one of the worst items in a competitive match. It was time consuming to farm, and it got countered by a couple of items that cost a thousand gold apiece. Now, we still wouldn’t be quick to call it a great item by any means. BKB is still better in a team fight-centric metagame, and it delays other items too much, but now Linken’s is at least viable. It makes Morph a real terror again and it gives popular picks like Storm and and Weaver more item (and picking) versatility as well.

Orchid of Malevolence - Buffed from Oblivion

 Orchid Malevolence
Recipe Reworked: now requires 2 Oblivion Staffs and a 775 gold recipe.
Total Cost: 5025 > 4150

+20 ⇑ +25 Intelligence
+30 ⇔ +30 Attack Speed
+45 ⇓ +30 Damage
+225% ⇓ +150% mana regen
Soul Burn

Of all the buffs, this one may have had the best logic. The silence stick has always been in the shadow of it’s big brother the sheep stick. For a similar cost, why would you ever save up the inferior disable? Previously buffs had tried to address Soul Burn by improving the cool down and damage amplification, but that was just putting lipstick on a pig. This change brings down the price considerably and moves it into a lower tier of items where it can shine for what it really is - a delicious slice of bacon. At 4150 gold this item is more in competition with Eul’s than Scythe of Vise. Expect Orchid to see a sizable rise in popularity from a niche play on Broodmother and Prophet to a semi-common support counter item against AM and other blink (or quasi-blink) dependant heroes as well as a more popular play on mid-gamers aggressors like Storm.

Tranquil Boots - Meditating on these for a while

 Tranquil Boots
Boots of Speed (500), Ring of Protection (175), Ring of Regeneration (350)
Total Cost: 1025

+80 Movement
+3 HP Regen
+3 Armor
Rejuvenate (active)

If you take more than 3 instances of damage (greater than 20) in the past 10 seconds, the item temporarily breaks and becomes basic boots (until the last 10 seconds don't have 3 instances).
Rejuvinate: Restores 150 HP over 10 seconds, non-combat only. Can only be casted on self.

Cooldown: 40, Manacost: 25

More boots. I like more boots. What scares me about these boots is how they reinforce the metagame rather than open it up. It’s not that they only work on CM and VS. It’s just that they work best on CM and VS which means their status as the best supports only gets stronger. If IceFrog really wants to open up the meta then he needed some item or hero change that elevates the Jakiros and Linas of the world more in a relative sense. CM and VS never had a great boot option and now this cheap “roamer’s best friend” will enhance their already top tier status considerably.

Heaven’s Halberd - Destined for Purgatory most games

 Heaven's Halberd
Sange (2150), Talisman of Evasion (1800)
Total Cost: 3950

+20 Strength
+25 Damage
+25 Evasion
Lesser Maim (passive, same as Sange)
Disarm (active)

Disarm: Removes the target's ability to attack for 4 seconds to ranged targets and 3 seconds to melee targets.

Cooldown: 30, Manacost: 100, Cast Range: 600

It’s alright. A theme of this patch seems to be giving more options to limited or dead-end items. Wraith Bands and Basilius Ring saw this, and with the new Halberd item Sange and Talisman of Evasion get new looks. On paper it seems like a great item for strength carries to consider right after they finish their core. It gives evasion to a STR carry without making them buy a Butterfly, and the disarm active makes lesser maim seem, well, a bit less lesser. This should be a big buff to the late game of the narrow group of strength carries available in Dota 2. It won’t be enough to propel N’aix and Huskar into the pool as anything more than pocket strategy heroes, but it should help solidify the likes of DK and Night Stalker at the top of this new version - even if they’re not building it every game.

Necronomicon - Bruce Campbell would never have made it to a sequel against this book

 Necronomicon
- Archer's Mana burn cast range increased from 250 to 600
- Archer's attack damage increased from 31/61/91 to 40/80/120
- Warrior's attack damage increased from 21/41/61 to 25/50/75

An already powerful item gets even stronger. Now the Mana burn is reasonable to use and the DPS boost really does make this a 6th hero if you get it in the mid game. Necro Book won’t show up on too many more heroes because the added micro simply isn’t for everyone, but when it does it may become game-breaking.

Smoke of Deceit - Smoking still kills

 Smoke of Deceit
- Dispel AoE for nearby heroes increased from 950 to 1025

This item is the single best addition to any game of this genre in the past 18 months.  It revitalized ganking and early game aggression in a metagame which had become all too dependant on farm. That said, it wrecked the viability of carries without a good escape mechanism (especially Shadow Fiend). The increased dispel range gives them a bit of a fighting chance now while not affecting the core concepts of the item. Smoke is still amazing, but it’s just a bit more fair across the hero pool.

Abysmal Abyssal Blade - Should have stayed in the abyss

 Abyssal Blade
Sacred Relic (3800, +60 dmg), Cranium Basher (2950, +40 dmg, +6 str, Bash)
Total Cost: 6750

+100 Damage
+10 Strength
Bash (passive, same as cranium)
Overwhelm (active)

Overwhelm: Disables a target unit for 2 seconds. Can be cast on magic immune units.

Cooldown: 60, Manacost: 150, Cast Range: 140

Are you kidding me IceFrog? We felt it was important to note all the new items introduced this patch, but the Abyssal Blade almost doesn’t deserve it. It would be shocking if this item showed up in even one out of a thousand competitive games. It’s insanely expensive, builds off of one of the worst value items in the game, and the active is a stun that makes you get so close to the enemy you might need to wear a condom. The only currently popular competitive hero who ever gets a basher is AM and there aren’t even five pros who do that. The odds one of them decides to add another 3800 gold after is unbelievably low. After AM I would like to boldly predict you’ll see this on more pub Techies in DotA than competitive heroes in Dota 2 this patch.

Veil of Discord - All is going according to plan

 Veil of Discord
- Recipe now requires only one Robe of the Magi

Everyone wants to get this item, but every time someone considers it, the price tag gets in the way. Technically speaking, the removal of one Robe of the Magi fixes that - the item is 450 gold cheaper. The reason why that’s not going to change item-builds though is because IceFrog cut the price in the wrong place. The recipe is too damn high! Saving 1200 gold is a brutal for many heroes you want to get Veil on. This exciting item will remain in obscurity until the recipe issue is addressed.

Courier changes - Okay, new plan: We, wait three minutes, go get Joe’s Radiance, THEN we push.

  Couriers
- Couriers now give 150 to each enemy player, instead of 300 to the killer.
- Couriers no longer drop items when they die
- Couriers respawn 3 minutes after death, the items they have are inaccessible during that time
- Flying courier no longer has invulnerability shield
- Basic courier is magic immune (like flying courier, most spells did not work on couriers already)

This is a substantial change in a few ways. In one sense, it protects teams from getting their backs broken by losing a courier, especially with an item on it (unless you have ZSMJ of course). It also makes supporting easier because you never have to reinvest. What are slyly the biggest changes though are the gold and shield changes. The gold buff and removal of the shield makes courier hunting a serious game factor now. It might be worth it to ward the secret shop. It might be advisable to suicide dive a tower to get a kill. Anything might go; couriers are mini-towers now! The changes seem to be steps in the right direction, but they are going to affect courier usage on all levels of the game. Courier sniping should make for thrilling moments now on a more regular basis.

Buyback Cooldown - A lot can happen in a minute

- Buyback cooldown increased from 4 minutes to 5

Another minute added onto the cooldown. It may not be the perfect fix, but its another nail in the coffin of the eighty minute games where no one would fight unless carries had a buyback [or two] farmed. Ideally I think a scaling cooldown dependent on level or game length is better, but everything helps. This is a good change, and it should only help to speed up the game by making stalling that much riskier.

Rune changes - Well, there goes my Phantom Lancer double illusion bottle strat...

- Runes will no longer spawn the same rune type 2 times in a row

This is a nice change overall. It keeps The Retry from turning a game against Na’Vi into a total pub-stomp because of back-to-back Double Damage runes for PGG. It actually makes runes better overall though. Now when bottling a haste rune at 5:57 the 6:00 rune won’t be able to turn up haste again. Overall though, this has a fairly small effect on pro games relative to public matches because it’s so rare to see a rune sit unclaimed for two minutes in a competitive match, but nevertheless it’s a good change and something to consider.

Gold intervals - Papa Ice upped our allowance

- Gold over time from 0.875 intervals to 0.8

Another core change which seems targeted at speeding up the game - if ever so subtly and slightly. Dropping the gold interval by .075 seconds is a little less than a 10% passive gold boost across the board. IceFrog and Valve appear to be conscious of the criticisms that Dota 2 is too long of a game to be a mainstream e-sport. Little changes like this will help to speed up the game a bit for mass appeal while not visibly affecting the core gameplay experience. A truly well measured decision.

Captain’s Mode Pool - Shred_Kid is on suicide watch

- Added Treant Protector, Terrorblade and Tuskarr to Captain's Mode

This is the one change which will not be in Dota 2 right away that we felt was important to talk about. Despite the pub-stomping status of the three new addition, (Tuskarr, Terror Blade, and Treant) it is not clear how any of them will fit into the competitive DotA scene. What seems certain is that each of them is strong in their own way. If even one of them becomes a key to the competitive scene then the entire pick and ban landscape could shift. We thought this was important to note because this, more so than any other change, will cause the DotA and Dota 2 metagames to diverge quickly over the next six to eight months. This could mean a serious-but-interesting clash of competitive styles when Dota 2 is complete unless the Chinese crossover over soon.

Things are getting faster. Don’t let that Abysmal Blade fool you. IceFrog has his hand on the competitive throttle, and he’s pushing it like Keanu Reeves in Speed.  Faster. The changes all point towards the continued dominance of the early and mid game strategies. More and more early and mid game items continue to be added through creation and price reduction alike. Even the late game items added this patch encourage the creation of mid tier items which can translate into the late game if necessary. Along the same lines, the biggest and best buffs to heroes this changelog were to mid-game powerhouses who are sure to shake up the picks and bans more than any other group. If that wasn’t enough, increases in passive gold and the buyback cooldown will reinforce the mid-game even more with items coming faster and the late game looking riskier. The gank-push hybrid strategies which dominate competitive play at the moment will receive a face-lift as the newly buffed wave of mid-game heroes and items flood the scene in the coming days, but that’s all it is - a face-lift. IceFrog and Valve like the way the metagame shifted in 2011. This patch reaffirms the shift to the mid-game and begins the process of acclimating the entirety of Dota 2 to it.

Sources: PlayDota, Dota 2 Blog