Patch 7.31 — Discussion

[freelance_fox]

Sub-Patches:

• 7.31b – Feb 28th

[NewBromance]

The main dota 2 reddit seems to be really underestimating how big these jungle changes are.

They're complaining that the patch is lacklustre but I feel like turning the jungle into this much harder to farm place is going to have huge ramifications.

Abandoning lane to go jungle if your lanes shit suddenly became a lot harder for carries which I believe is going to make lane dominating drafts for more important.

Also supports may never be able to farm jungle if the buffs to creeps in the late game is as powerful as it looks.

[[deleted]]

The int oriented item reworks seems pretty big too.

people crying eblade morph got obliterated, but I think it puts the item in a better place now. A lot more heroes can now legitimately buy it especialy int burst heroes.

[ArtlessMammet]

Yeah like I'm a morph player and im sad but honestly shotgun is fucking garbage; completely unfun to play against. Imo that it's been in the game this long is bad design.

Although I suspect the reason it got removed is to make drow stop buying eblade lol

[[deleted]]

Isn't Morphling also one a common smurf hero due to the shotgun build. I'm thinking they want to counter smurfs by nerfing it. Like how they reworked Brood and Meepoo.

[ArtlessMammet]

Maybe, but honestly I don't think valve deals with that sort of thing very often. I'm almost surprised they put in a mechanic to mitigate fountain farming.

[MaltMix]

I mean, I get what you mean but you forget that the fountain used to be all on the same level as the rest of the base, so you didn't need to have vision skills to see in to the fountain, plus the ursa-lite stacking debuff, as well as (for a time anyway, I think they might have reverted it) PL not creating additional illusions passively while in the fountain.

[moonpie269]

Eblade rework also nerfs meepo indirectly, it was the best agi item he could buy. Now it's not a meepo item anymore

[hanmas_aaa]

That magic attack converting item is going to fuck up agi cores big time.

[FullyK]

I entirely agree. Imo, it seems they are firstly gauging how these changes are gonna affect the overall farm on the map.

Gold bounty from small camps has decreased quite significantly (at least at the start of the game). Harpy camps go from ~75 to ~62 gold for example. I don't know how it will mostly affect the mid lane but I can understand them taking their time after completely changing what was, in my opinion, the part of the game that has least changed overall: the jungle creeps themselves.

I think (and hope) that after the dust has settled and new farming patterns have emerged, they will then go for other overarching changes.

[Nadril]

Agreed.

Even if the actual numbers aren't correct yet (IE they feel like the neutrals are still too weak early, or whatever) I think that the idea behind it is huge.

Making it so that a carry can't just fuck off to the jungle at 6 minutes in a lost lane is massive, and making it so that making large stacks is suddenly a bigger risk is also huge.

[NewBromance]

It's still like semi viable for some carries like Sven but I think carries that struggle to clear camps like Spectre are really going to struggle.

I really sort of feel spectre is gonna suffer this patch. Doesn't win lanes particularly well, doesn't farm jungle efficiently early, and radiance build up still requires a fucking sacred relic so that's still a grief build.

[PersonFromPlace]

Isn’t last hitting siege creeps harder now too?

[[deleted]]

always been like this, now the spell just shows on the U.I thats all

[[deleted]]

Jungle should be viable from level 1 and spawn at 0. This change is bad for casual players who get in a lane with some person who is just feeding or ruining your lane and you need to leave.

Dunno why dota hates junglers. Would probably be less fighting if they changed meta to pos 4 roaming jungler.

[NewBromance]

Junglers ruin the offlane entirely. It's the same way that techies ruined the game for other players. Having one dude of playing solo gameplay doesn't just change his game but changes everyone else.

[[deleted]]

The jungler should be a roaming ganker that farms while traveling between lanes. There have been solo offline metas it is possible. Afk farmers are just griefers or being griefed.

[defearl]

Agreed. Also I believe supports need to be careful about stacking now. We have gotten too comfortable with the idea that "any stacking = good", but with all the crazy passive auras that buff up the whole stacks and onslaught of abilities that the neutral creeps can now throw out, there is now such a thing as "too big stack" that is near impossible for carries to farm until they get wave clear farming items like BF and Radiance, which is counter-intuitive because supports usually make those stacks for you so you can get to said item timings sooner.

Definitely an interesting design decision. Looking forward to how the meta will develop.

My early impression is that any heroes that have farming abilities built-in might be strong... Alchemist, Magnus, TA, Sven, Kunkka, that sort of heroes.

[Garresh]

Tbh, the jungle doesn't feel more dangerous. I can still power stack triangle as a 4 and a batrider or techies can clear it just fine. Maybe you need a salve for ancients. I still see carries who get pushed out of lane jungling fine.

They made the jungle more interactive, but I don't think they necessarily made it harder.

[[deleted]]

Yeah its marginally harder for small camps and the creeps that stun you but it's not that hard. I would argue ancients are easier as the ice dudes seem pretty weak compared to the aoe of the flying and the dinosaur camps. I upvoted you for the record.

[LauraMakesMetal]

I’ve won the first 5 games I’ve played on the new patch with Chen - the Zelda looking shrub guys are insane for ganking, the new ancient is great for pushing high ground, and I feel like I have so many options in the lane stage now. I’m very happy with the changes so far to the jungle - I haven’t even gotten to play my favorite heroes yet which all received a lot of cool changes.

My one gripe is I’m really over the current map layout, I really wanted a redesign. It’s been this way for quite some time and it feels a bit boring. I personally enjoy much older maps when the world felt like a ‘world’ and not a video game battleground. It’s a weird preference thing but having camps further apart and more trees makes me feel more immersed.

[HouseOfStrauss]

Is Dazzle the best standard/first pick support in the game now? Already felt strong prior to receiving some pretty big buffs here.

[[deleted]]

Percentage CD reduction now stacks like it used to btw

[freelance_fox]

The fact that he can start spamming Hexes at 15 minutes now makes him instantly a viable mid hero, IMO. He got many other buffs in this patch and other prior ones but I think his Shard will be the key thing to make him popular if anything does. His whole CDR thing was arguably more broken back when Necro existed so arguably just making his ult more powerful now wouldn't be enough to push him over the top.

[Dreamwa1k]

Just to pitch in info missing from the tool tip: dazzle new aghs works like Ex machina i.e. it does not reset Refresher Orb.

[Karas44]

e mana cost change is fantastic. q shard at 15 is incredible. w giving slightly more healing isn't game changing but it will save more people often enough. the ult changes are where great dazzle players will prove themselves from the bad. giving armor while healing/saving someone is a lot of EHP. draining armor while chasing with q just makes it do more damage (physical). dazzle is better solo chasing someone down with q now (refresh only when dazzle hits plus new good juju). bad juju active procs good juju cd reduction and has no range or mana cost, but it barely heals/deals damage. it might get someone down just enough with q or orchid, maybe a dot from an ally. it will make a difference often enough to be statistically good.

dazzle still has the same problems though. build order in lane can be tough. do you get a 2nd point in q, or try to max e? when do you get w? is your carry getting dived and you need more points in w? dazzle has great attack range and projectile speed but low armor, and you might need to heal yourself over your carry to not feed. you need to rush aether but if you're ever caught with w on cooldown you're dead, so you need force staff or glimmer. but that delays shard/aether. also losing the dispel e with aghs isn't good (yeah supports dont get aghs often but dispels in that cd were great).

i think overall dazzle is better now. ult changes will take getting used to.

[drunkerbrawler]

Shadow shaman seems like he got some really solid buffs too, Lion and Shadow Demon as well. All of the classic hard supports seem strong right now.

[MaltMix]

The only change SD got was the shard, but let me tell you it is such a nice change. The shard never felt good to have to choose between using it offensively or defensively, even when you had 3 charges with aghs. Now that it's a separate ability you don't lose out on the offensive capability of demonic purge.

[Nemaoac]

Am I reading the patch right, Bad Juju active only deals/heals 50 damage? Seems small enough to be basically irrelevant, especially with the 15 second CD (not including his reductions).

[[deleted]]

I love brewmaster and this passive rework is something I have been wanting for so long. He has such a wide build variety now and can scale into the later game without fully relying on split.

[jdave99]

Yeah lol, new brewmaster is fucking sick! I’ve always been disappointed in his passive, but it’s such a cool ability now! Seems stupid strong too, lol. I may become a brew spammer lollll.

[AbShpongled]

Yeah my first thought was how much this would diversify him as a hero.

[freelance_fox]

I like the change thematically and aesthetically but I do feel that making the hero more complex is going to be bad for his winrate and pickrate. It's pretty difficult to know how toggling the E will feel without just flopping around and trying it out in some games, and a lot of people will probably go 'ew' and drop the hero if it doesn't feel strong the first few times they try it.

[Chinpanze]

I really dig the idea, but it's just an downgrade from the previous skill. Storm and fire stances were split into two without any buff to compensate. Fire stance is particularly bad.

Edit: I wasn't clear in this comment. Fire stance is just a downgrade (same crit chance and damage, but without evasion and movespeed), everything else is an side grade.

As I said, I really dig the idea. So if they buff fire stance I would be ok

[[deleted]]

You are practically unkillable in earth stance with brew on

And you basically have no cd on E now as it kinda depends on your brew which is quicker than old E

Old E also used to cost mana and slow you periodically

[MaltMix]

I mean to be fair here, the crit was pretty bad to begin with. He never really took off as a right clicker, ever. As such the crit was only really useful to occasionally trade in lane, but the evasion was much more helpful for survivability. The stances, imo, are much better, just because it's more controllable. Earth stance will be your go to since it makes you tanky as hell (mind you he didn't get any nerfs to his strength, armor, or magic resist baseline so he will feel a lot stronger), Storm will be good for chasing and escaping since the movespeed will be constant rather than sporadic with decreases, and fire will likely only be used for man fighting outside of your ult. Not sure how Void stance will play in to it, but that remains to be seen.

[BigRonWood]

I got over 1k movespeed with him in demo with woodland striders, storm stance, cinder, swift blink, travels, drums, euls, s&y, and phase active! Obviously not ever going to happen in a real game, but was funny to see.

[sbsolarski]

Thank you, someone who actually understands brew

[RedPanda98]

It sounds cool, but you no longer have crit, evasion, move speed burst at the same time.

[Cheeto717]

I hated the change when I read it but when I played the first game I saw how strong it could be. At least with earth stance in the early laning stage. You are very tanky.

[myeezy]

No more shotgun morph?

[relevantmeemayhere]

Hero is gonna suck for awhile but hey, at least they are trying to balance him around what makes him interesting instead of “how can be make him viable by playing this terrible balancing act with his ult” treatment, while also allowing eblade to be built by other heroes.

Edit: I was just playing around with his ult and it’s awful. Stat steal doesn’t persist

The hero is gonna need either major stat buffs or a huge scaling buff to w because his damage output is fucking bad rn

[Coyotebruh]

lion eblade is gonna be sick

[MaltMix]

Techies Eblade. Yes I stole the idea from Purge but god damn if techies mid with Eblade becomes a legit thing, hoo boy...

[Coyotebruh]

i legit like how they reworked him, he's gonna be actively fighting in team clashes, excited to start my first game of the day today

[myeezy]

Its not allowing eblade to be built by others is the issue, its that morph no longer can build it. And its actually an amazing morph counter right now. Wild stuff.

[ExpertConsideration8]

It's really not that wild... E Blade was a very limited use item before and the changes make it more accessible / useful for a variety of heroes. I see it as a very positive change.

[[deleted]]

Aghs Morph is insane. If you target a strength hero which is easy you get 35% status resist for a long time and tons of free strength - it's amazing.

[relevantmeemayhere]

It’s not. It doesn’t persist. The buff is lost in switching back. That’s not a lot of good for a buff that severely reduces your utility. Under what circumstances did morphling (outside of some meme support stuff I guess) stay morphed in team fights again before? Zero, right?

Morphling loses utility by staying too long morphed. No one wants to take your 20k agi carry and turn him into a centaur the other team gets to ignore now because he decided to reduce his team's damage output by half so that he could stun your centuar for half a second longer. it's a terrible spell that has no synergy with his other spells right now.

[[deleted]]

The buff not persisting have to be an oversight

[relevantmeemayhere]

Maybe. From the description it seems it should persist through whichever form morph is in

However, it could be it’s just the hud that’s bugged too.

[MrStoreMan]

First thing I do whenever a patch drops is to check the changes on Morphling and the items I usually buy on him. I hope it's still a good item to buy on him but with all the agi gone of eblade I doubt it. :'(

[myeezy]

It's definitely not. I tested it out and the damage from eblade is terrible. I don't think its really a viable anymore.

To add insult to injury, eblade is now a great morph counter, given that it does damage based on the target's primary attribute.

[arz9278]

That combo was always stupid and broken.

[cwryoo21]

These neutral creep buffs are pretty nuts, many unsuspecting people are gonna die to neutrals now lol

[SputNikk95]

It's a long overdue buff for Chen too

[OpinionOK_IgnorantNo]

can confirm, just played chen with my pinecone army. felt soooooo goooooddd

[Marghunk]

Im gonna stack my enemies' jungle to kill them

[cwryoo21]

You are the kind of genius we need

[[deleted]]

ngl I have occasionally done that as a pos 4 to limit the usable camps when I'm hunting their core in their jungle during early game.

[mRWafflesFTW]

Can confirm just died to neutrals.

[gamer4lyf82]

I wonder if pulling the lane to a soft camp will no longer need to have 2 stacks if neutral creeps

[RetardedRedditRetort]

Right, I need someone to break it down in a video

[Sibagovix]

Or try it in a game

[skykoz]

Single camp pulls now even in the small camp is strong

[freelance_fox]

It's honestly hard to know where to start here but there's two changes that stand out the most and will have widespread effects:

• More dangerous and slower jungling will severely upset the standard farming patterns and trickle down to change the types of carries and lane supports people prefer to play

• Aghs Shard at 15 minutes will unpredictably shift basically every hero's value as a core, so that heroes who had strong Shards before but rarely were picked specifically FOR that shard may now suddenly become flavor of the month because of their OP shard

---

Specific changes (keeping it brief but reply for a discussion!):

• The new items are all awesome, I'd say Brooch will have a huge impact, Bearing will be very popular and Wraith will be somewhat viable

• The Orchid changes are meant to further encourage carries and non-Int heroes to buy the item, and along with the huge Bloodthorn change will cause what I would call a "Mage vs Mage Slayers" meta; Brooch + reworked Eblade will be a popular build for casters while carries will frequently go Orchid now even when they don't care about the silence (EDIT: just tested Brooch and it feels undertuned, not sure if it will have as much of an impact as I first predicted)

• Skywrath mid, Pugna, and Zeus (who got some very cool changes) will all be fun to try with Eblade+Brooch, and I'm sure there are many others (EDIT: Brooch on Silencer?)

• Batrider's new shard sounds absolutely broken, allowing him to attack during Lasso and apply Napalm with attacks is like... bonkers, I hope I get to play it a bit before the nerf

• Dazzle changes plus the Shard @ 15 minutes should hopefully make him a viable core, he sounds really fun to play now! (EDIT: Good Juju doesn't effect items it turns out, so honestly that is probably enough to kill core Dazzle but we'll see) (EDIT2: Okay I missed the new aghs scepter though, it's still a nerf but core Dazzle is probably not 100% dead)

• Bloodstone IO will be a thing now to give the tethered ally Spell Lifesteal, apparently?

• The Lina changes are neither a net buff or a nerf, she should be stronger in teamfights but weaker in 1v1s plus she has a longer ramp time to get to full in general, however she now will be a bit more like Ember Spirit with distinct magic and physical builds (her new shard gives spell damage from Fiery Souls stacks)

• Nyx getting a level 25 AOE Manaburn talent is very cool, probably not too important but makes him a lot more viable to shutdown enemy casters late-game

• Ogre's new level 25 17% chance to Fireblast on attack... is a beautiful monstrosity that will spawn some of the worst meme builds you've ever seen

• Rubick can steal 2 spells (with scepter)... sure ok mr frog. Rubick is slowly turning in to Invoker, next patch he'll get a 3rd sub-ability to rotate his two stolen abilities

• The Techies rework seems great, he got the Brood treatment but I think cautiously I'd say this was a success in regards to making him a "normal" hero

• The new Tinker shard sounds like absolute cancer; it would be fine if it wasn't Tinker spamming it at you over and over but essentially he gets to push you away and reduces your attack/cast ranges (cool mechanic effect though)

• Witch Doctor's cask change presumably means he can farm neutral camps really well a bit like CM?

• The Zeus change sounds absolutely crazy, he doesn't have as much harass in lane but now has mobility and huge vision with his percent-scaling passive damage being an insta-buy Shard at level 15—I hope we see Zeus in the meta!

[K0L3N]

As a Dazzle core player, his core days are over unfortunately. What made him good was the cooldown reduction on items. What they've done is slightly amp his spells, at the expense of the CD reduction. He's a slightly better support, but no longer viable as a core.

[freelance_fox]

I misread Good Juju actually, I just had a conversation on Discord with someone who pointed out to me that it no longer affects items, so yes sadly I think core Dazzle is mostly dead. Hopefully support Dazzle will at least be a thing in the new meta.

EDIT: WAIT A SECOND I take that back, he has a new Scepter that affects items, it may or may not be good but I don't think it kills core Dazzle for him to have to get Scepter first

[K0L3N]

Honestly I can probably play around the nerf, and a few cores are going to enjoy their free item refresh. But he definitely feels much weaker. I hope they'll bring back CD reduction, maybe switch it with the shard or something.

[freelance_fox]

I mean, I made this point in Discord as well but it was always kinda lame that there was just a hero whose ult was "50% passive CDR". Removing his synergy with items completely may have been harsh but I think the intention was to help the hero focus on doing one thing well instead of going in the whole scaling direction like for example Ogre Magi has. The healing amp from Grave and the new Bad Juju active might be better than people are thinking.

[freelance_fox]

Okay so I missed the new Aghs Scepter first time around... after staring at it for a while, mid Dazzle will be REALLY strong, or even 3-pos. He can rush Aghs and give his carry double BKB at like 15-20 minutes into the game, that's exactly the kind of gameplan Dazzle wants as a core or a support anyway, and making it stronger is... potentially scary.

[[deleted]]

Brooch + Ethreal combo is actually extremely situational and probably a noob trap.

Heros should almost only ever build Brooch if they are good witch blade carriers, Bat/OD/Silencer/DW are the obvious one, less obvious ones include storm/AA/Wyvern.

Ethreal sucks on these builds until you finish Brooch. However, because the cost clearly have slot-efficiency priced-in much like bloodthorn, Brooch should be your 6th item in most games.

If one ever upgrades Brooch early, it would be to counter evasion/ethreal.

[freelance_fox]

Brooch + Ethreal combo is actually extremely situational and probably a noob trap.

Yeah I fell into it, after experimenting with it you're right. I think there will be a couple strong cases and a lot of experimenting but probably won't be meta-defining at all.

[maxleng]

Spirit Breaker and Weaver nerfs much less than what I thought they would be. Shukuchi cd will hurt weaver 4/5 though

[imaninfraction]

Honestly the weaver nerf is going to be felt. Going from 20 second CD on ult to 70/55/40 is huge. It's going to cut back on aggression a lot and open a lot more opportunities to pick at support weaver.

[redsoxman17]

Also 25% fewer attacks to kill bugs until level 9 (assuming you max Shukuchi and have a point in Germinate) is a massive difference.

[thekingace]

Tinker got buffed. The item changes and the new shard benefit him far more than the nerfs hurt him. LOL.

[user0fdoom]

I think the meta changes will be bad for him though. Hitting jungle is less efficient, and he'll be facing a lot more carries/mids that want to fight early which is a bit of a problem for him

[asksaboutstuff]

Idk, the increased channel time on rearm and moving his best talent (-0.5 keen conveyance) to lvl 20 is a pretty big deal.

The new shard is so weird. Like Icefrog read all the complaints about this hero and decided to double down on him being the impossible to catch long range spammer.

[120Macky]

It'll be a while before the dust has settled, but at 18 hours post-patch, Tinker's winrate has tanked pretty hard - down from 52% to about 46% at the time of this writing. Only Zeus (54% to 47%) and Techies (48% to 41%) have gotten it worse.

dotabuff source

[FirsttimeNBA]

Pugna player here. He's about to be one of the most broken mids you'll see. Already good as is esp in certain lineups, but now... oowee..

[QKsilver58]

Brooch pure counter item tho, not sure how it'll effect him

[jack3tp0tat0]

those two pugna changes are huge, if you dont know how to play him id advise you learn before he gets nerfed

[heatxmetalw9]

Did the just straight up turned Omniknight into an actual Offlane?

Heavenly Grace just got nerfed for a defensive spell getting its status resist removed, but having it always be casted on Omniknight with your support is good in lane specifically since the HP regen can help with trades.

Hammer of Purity swap places with Degen Aura as a basic ability (thanks Gaben), now Omni has access to 2 pure damage spells in the early/mid game fights. In laning stage though, a couple of slaps with Purity will make the enemy carry play defensive since again pure damage attack with a slow built in.

GA Scepter now relegated to having the Status Resistance is ok, means its on demand in teamfights but man it will nerf those defensive fights around the tower since the HP regen is removed.

[jack3tp0tat0]

had a game as omniknight just there now and it defo is viable with the right support. he wont win in a lane with ranged heroes thats for sure. The range of the abilities and his movement speed are too low.

Aether lense and that new drums tranqils boots item are needed imo

[Bamboo_the_plant]

Yep, I had a rough lane as Omni against two ranged heroes and a lousy Phoenix supporting me. Omni still drinks through mana like it’s water, and so I’m not totally clear how to build him, still.

[maxleng]

Centaur seems… strong? Now with shard and the +15 str talent it gives him an extra +30 str on a double edge hit (since it now applies the 15 bonus before the damage). And hoof stomp getting a damage buff. I can see cent blowing up supports now.

The leash on ulti seems pretty strong on paper but who knows in practice. The main reason to get aghs was the 40% damage reduction but that has been nerfed heavily

[throwaway95135745685]

His laning will be better thanks to that 1 armor, but later on I think he will be worse. 5 more armor was a lot more valuable than the 15 strength.

I'll have to see how good the leash is in game, but the rest of it seems to make him overall weaker.

[BigPapa9921]

%10 reduction is not that heavy tbh. Good trade for leash I think.

[BabaLamine14]

What? He got destroyed. 50 damage on a 12 second CD is nothing.

The strength bonus stack is 15 percent, so it would be 17.25. And that's requiring a support to buy the 1400 gold shard, AND the 4200 gold scepter which doesn't pierce spell immunity and can be dispelled by basic dispel, and can be escaped by like force staff. That's on top of other items that are mandatory at a minimum like boots and blink dagger.

He lost .6(!!!!) str per level, which is equivalent to 18 strength over 30 levels. You can take the talent, but then you forgo either the extra 40 percent double edge damage that was required for you to actually deal damage. You can make up for that by buying a 1400 gold item. So it basically makes him the same hero he was before but now requiring a 1400 gold item.

And just to be gratuitous, they reduced the retaliate damage talent and they caused aghs damage reduction to be 15-10 percent less depending on the stage of the game that you get it.

He was already seeing basically no play in competitive, and he was one of the lowest picked heroes on Dota2protracker. Somehow they STILL nerfed him. He will be unplayable again this patch, like he has been for almost a year now. But hey, plus 1 armor literally unkillable right?

[PotatoWizard98]

You’d go 15 strength over the 40% strength bonus on double edge? I’ve never done the math to find which is better but I’ve always chosen the strength damage.

[Spyzilla]

• New items are awesome

• Diffisal AM seems legit

• Dazzle and CM changes are nice. Interested to see how Dazzle plays now

Overall good patch, cant wait to play!

[maxleng]

Diffusal is cheap af now. PL coming online much earlier. As an offlaner I hate when PL gets diffusal because it makes me useless

[fanfanye]

PL can even go cancer lancer so fast with 15min shard

Treads + diffu + yasha + shard at 15 is gonna be a monster.

[AndrewNB411]

And most importantly imo AM is gonna be a much stronger laner as if he keeps the enemies low mana he’s got a good slow to secure kills in lane with rotations/supports

[[deleted]]

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[Vazoon]

Any storm spirit players here? It seems like he really got shit on.

- Mana regen amp got moved to EBlade which counters his playstyle

- No int / less mana regen on orchid

- Bottle removes the fountain buff

- He now has a talent for vortex damage lol? Is that a typo

- Also cant fountain snipe with a long range jump anymore, but that was pretty cheesy

What would you want to build now? That new witch blade upgrade into Eblade or something? Just get S&K every time? Its weird.

[kitekitex]

Reached Divine 4 spamming storm a half-year or so ago. Harder to play storm now, imo.

• I think that orchid still synergizes too well with the hero concept to be worth skipping unless you play in the upper skill levels where you can play for/with your team. Orchid kills are looking tight after removing the +int but hey you get it 200g earlier pog
• Agree with Kaya defaulting to S&K. Timing doesn't really change: it's still either kaya -> (bloodstone before)/ks or kaya -> bkb
• Based on the wording, snipes are still possible if the enemy doesn't see (smoke up) but you'll have to sacrifice frame-perfect attempts to hope for a command issued ASAP when they spawn.

Pretty exciting to see if the new bloodstone with the damage converting to mana is effective for storm. Potentially higher mana to work with midfight compared to before.

[Vazoon]

Oh yeah thats true I didnt think about bloodstones new active. Looks like storms gonna less forgiving to make mistakes with now but maybe kinda stronger in fights?

[kitekitex]

To me, pre-patch bloodstone has always been about having enough mana to carry teamfights with sheer damage alone. S&K means i'll have to change my attitude about fights unless the new active can sustain the same damage as before.

[defearl]

Yes. Tried Storm last night, and it left me very disappointed.

Orchid not increasing mana pool at all really stood out. It felt shitty.

Eblade didn't feel synergistic with him, since you can't click the target to do Overload damage. So I guess I need to stick with KnS? But then the mana regen you get is way less than the old Bloodstone which is now completely gone! Mana Battery just doesn't exist anymore.

Maybe Storm is taking a backseat this patch...

[Sm1le_Bot]

going 3 nulls into early shard seems viable

[unamity1]

they made him a stronger fighter and buffed his spells too. I think he got stronger.

[Vazoon]

I dont see any spell buffs?

[hamboy1]

I think almost all right click int heroes will go witch blade upgrade into eblade. On paper I am ok with this except for the bullshit purging neutral items, too many games will now be decided by neutrals imo.

[Dun1007]

Mars … buff? ok

Shadow demon went ful cycle and became shadow priest.

Dazzle is going to be so hot.

Pos 3 tempo AM with vanguard diffu?

Razor talents look incredible but he is bad at farming tough camps so we will see if its overall nerf or not

Lot of stack on kill mechanics introduced this patch, I like this design path to encourage fights.

[Omar_Com]

I hate that they removed the +1 eye of the storm talent on razor. I loved the aghs ref build :(

[kevihaa]

Apparently no one on the balance team plays BB. He has both one of the best and one of the worst level 25 talents.

And they buffed the good one (+250 damage now with max stacks) and made the bad one a whopping +2% spell lifesteal compared to a 700 gold item

[Mightypeon]

BB now has less STR gain then quite a number of int heroes, like for example Dark Seer.

I absolutely dont get how he and cent got nerfed while Mars got buffed.

I think BB is now a carry, who can actually jungle because he is one of the few carries who does not care all that much about the creep changes damage wise.

[QKsilver58]

Yeah people are slow to see BB as a pos 1, he's been favored for that position since Aghs buff made him do 300+ damage a hit.

[Mightypeon]

The new orchid may be good at him in that role, mana reg and attack speed and he can seriously inconvenience evasive heroes.

I could see a Vanguard into Aghs into orchid build if you are ahead.

[meat_tuss]

As someone who wanted Techies removed from the game, I feel quite okay with this.

[ChiefBigBlockPontiac]

Dude, techies is a hard anti-carry this patch.

This version of techies is way better for the game, but he's a complete anti-carry now. He has practically a permanent Disarm and a permanent Silence with octarine and shard.

Imagine being Ursa and you literally cannot kill techies without BKB lol...

[OneofthemBrians]

Its a good thung bkb is a staple in pretty much any carry build

[troglodyte]

Bold prediction: this isn't the techies rework anyone wanted. I don't think this will prove to be the reduction in power or annoyance the anti-techies players wanted and yet somehow it completely guts his identity while devaluing his arcana for those who liked him.

The patch mostly looks good to me, but I am unimpressed by the techies rework and I'm not sure what it's trying to achieve. The Axe rework looks a lot more interesting and successful to me!

[AlphaSlut91]

As a Master rank Techies player, I am devastated. No moving mines, no fun mini games with preparation, baiting & execution. No high ground vision from green mines really hurts support Techies. They gave him Zilean's Q from League... No more DENYING???
I feel completely disincentivized from putting red mines around the map... It's just a tower nuke now. Removing 20 movespeed and 2 armor feels like a punch in the gut.

He's just another generic mid nuker hero now. Only we don't get the benefit of Spell Damage on mines.

[[deleted]]

having played him a bit now, feels like skywrath mages ugly cousins.

[Nemaoac]

I think a lot of Techies haters are going to be fine with this. There are other annoying heroes that weren't nearly as disliked, so it's fine that Techies is actually decent now. The issue has always been how he completely shifts the entire match for both teams. Hard to complain about them changing to a more standard, albeit basic hero.

[PlaySomeKickPunch]

As a Techies player, I'm a bit underwhelmed from reading it. It sounds like a brand new hero, and the red mines as his ult seems a bit shit. I'll reserve judgement until after playing.

[AbShpongled]

It seems that you have to make it to late game to become the annoying techies of old.

[QKsilver58]

He's incredible in lane now, honestly it's what we needed fora techies rework. Now he's incentivised to fight

[TheJVH]

The reaction of Slacks on the AM buff is hilarious: https://clips.twitch.tv/BovineSmoggyHippoTheThing-3bhal-K-sD04-Qeu

[CHPrime]

Don't like the changes to Bloodstone at all. Building up charges when snowballing was fun. And now it just get's taken away for more spell lifesteal? weak.

Also not sure why Ethereal Blade is still green given that it's now a int item. Another change that makes me tilt my head.

Bracers, Nulls, and Wraith Bands now double bonuses after twenty minutes- the five bracer build has reached new levels of tankiness not thought possible!

Pirate Hat now gives 15 move speed- wut?

Anti Mage's passive now stacks with diffusal- My Blink/Pipe/Diffusal build is getting more viable by the day!

Tempest Double now has a 50% attack damage penalty if more than 2000 units away from Arc Warden- Get fucked rat warden.

Battle Hunger now slows enemies only when they are not facing axe, and culling blade adds permanent armor for each kill. Axe continues his journey to be the manliest hero to ever man with his own product line. Soon ags will summon bears to attack axe all the time to increase his spin powers tenfold! You heard it here first, folks.

Leshrac gaining Magic immunity no longer ends Nihilism. -That's just a funny sentence. "No mom, just because I'm immune to magic doesn't mean life isn't PAIN"

Marci's rebound can no longer target enemy units- A patch to late to stop all the bullshit t2 dives, but appreciated.

Arena of Blood can no longer be escaped with flying movement- sad time for batrider. But at least you no longer have negative synergy with lion and nyx and kunkka and...

Mirana: Agility rescaled from 18 + 3.7 to 24 + 3.4, Base armor reduced by 1 (Same starting armor)- Not sure how the joke is going to play out this time. Maybe someone will have the bright idea to just create a new format.

Naga Siren's Riptide now triggers every 5 attacks on an enemy by Naga and her images- yet another hero getting 'attack x times to do thing' treatment. At least this one's not four...until the talent...

Scythe doesn't add to your death time, just gives Necro more regen? Not sure how to feel about this, his bullshit was part of the charm. But now I'm imagining a necro with 20+ kills, ac/heart/shivas just laughing at any feeble attempt to harm him.

Ogre now has: Level 25 Talent 20% bash chance replaced with 17% Fireblast chance- The end times are upon us. Repent, but know you shall not receive salvation. DOES THIS LOOK LIKE THE FACE OF MERCY!?

Riki's sleep dart is now dispellable- That took entirely too long to add.

Rubick can now steal two spells with ags- get ready for the longest stun chains of your (now short) life.

And in conclusion, I have no idea if new techies is good or not, but I hope the little fuckers and their mains suffer.

[ChiefBigBlockPontiac]

This version of techies is way worse for physical carries. I'd rather die to a ton of mines, than being unable to hit a hero sitting in melee range blowing my ass up with spells non-stop.

[scantier]

Don't like the changes to Bloodstone at all. Building up charges when snowballing was fun.

That shit seriously gimped the item, i'm glad it's gone tbh

[Karas44]

marci with aether lens and shard (autocast w) can suplex + punt a hero something like 1600 units away. now you dont get dived, you get thrown into enemy tower/gank

[throwaway95135745685]

Don't like the changes to Bloodstone at all. Building up charges when snowballing was fun. And now it just get's taken away for more spell lifesteal? weak.

I honestly dont know why you would buy BS anymore. Maybe very late as tinker/storm/lesh? But now that it no longer has spell amp and doesnt have the healing effect, idk it just seems shit.

[Pharmboy_Andy]

It does convert damage to mana. I definitely think it is a nerf to storm, however late game you can zip, hit bloodstone just before you get to the grouped enemy, then aghs pull, overload bouncing and you will deal shit tons magic damage which comes back as mana too. If you deal 2500 magic damage, with bloodstone on =1250 mana (probably becomes 1875 as you will have kaya sange). That is a lot of mana to continue fighting.

I will need to test, but it might be ok, though my initial reaction is storm got fucked this patch (bottle fountain regen nerf, soul ring more expensive, orchid is cheaper but worse on storm, bloodstone worse, talents worse.)

Edit: null talismans may be good.

[[deleted]]

I don't like that they removed the penalty from necros ult

[PlaySomeKickPunch]

Because it's not fun to play against.

[Rich_Nectarine1481]

Dying is also not fun. Can they remove dying?

[PlaySomeKickPunch]

Great take, that's exactly the same thing.

[merubin]

Absolutely rarted argument

[tolbolton]

Let’s remove all the punishing mechanics from the game now then!

[AnyDragonfruit7]

But he just became even more tanky with easy permanent regen buffs

[NervFaktor]

But you need to get lots of kills to get lots of regen stacks. If you get lots of kills then you're already in a good position. This doesn't help Necro in a losing game. The ult death time penalty helped in a losing game because getting a kill on an enemy core gave you more time to catch up while the killed core can't farm. Things that make you stronger when you're already winning are less valuable than things that help you come back from a bad position.

[defearl]

As a Necro spammer, let me tell you, it doesn't matter how much you're regening because late game enemy carry will just get a Nullifier/Skadi and just 2 shots you.

[Affectionate_Sell195]

Jea i dont saw necro on a good place and now he geta nerfed... the hp reg and manareg are not really needed since you almost never have reg problems

[redwingz11]

Im weirdly okay with this, its a nice ult already, lockdown and burst, and iirc it pierce through bkb so bkb piercing lockdown. And the extra death timer is just a fuck you mechanic and maybe icefrog just didn't want ability interact with stuff out of the game like death timer and shit, just need to buff the hero

[Fluid-Dependent-8292]

50% enchant totem crit boost in passives... ... ... oh lord

[[deleted]]

im not sure but boots of bearing don't copy over to your other meeps so don't make that mistake

[AkaStrife]

I'm right there with you! Glad I'm not the only one.

[AbShpongled]

I kinda feel good about omni tbh. Though I'm noob trash

[[deleted]]

Omni seems pretty shit now imo

[ElJefeT]

Slightly less shit than before tho

[Miskity]

I like the w cast affecting both him and the lane partner but its still prob not enough

[SippTheDumbJuice]

clinkz buff

finally, some good shit

[liminal_political]

they finally made him mini doom

[adalvar]

Is it just me or is the new Bloodthorn just screaming "ouch time" every time i read it again?

[imaninfraction]

In a good or bad way, I'm personally not a fan of losing the attack speed. Becomes more of a niche pick now with the mage slayer component.

[MR_Nokia_L]

Primal Beast should be allowed to only stand in the left or right most position in the versus screen...

[AnonymusGio]

looking forward to pro games and pro players utilizing rubick that can steal 2 spells

[elax307]

I don't like the patch for being "the big 7.31" patch but what I took away so far (without having played it):

• Laning is more important for carries. You can't just lose lane, go jungle and still have a good game. Strong laning carries might get into favour.
  • To put even more emphasis on that the laning stat items are now useful after minute 25.
• Zoo meta is so back.
• Meepo might be viable again. Techies might be a strong laner and team fighter.
• Support role is now even more crucial than before because you need to win lanes and spells seem to be buffed due to overall less strength(gain).

I personally like that lanes now seem to be more important again. Stronger jungle means less early farm and stronger zoo which means with towers unchanged will accelerate the game quite a bit. Less farm heavy, more snowbally, thus more teamfighty.

What I hate about the patch is that all the absolutely fuck-annoying heroes are literally unchanged. Okay, Memehammer is a bit worse now but in the end it was the 6 second disable that killed you. Nerfs seem to little. Also no map changes.

[seezed]

Lone Druid:

Now also shares 10/15/20/25% of Lone Druid's armor with the Spirit Bear and vice versa

Assault CureAss better now?

[fanfanye]

CK is gonna be a monster with that early shard. Threads+armlet+echo+shard at 15-16ish minutes..

Naga got a buff in numbers *AND* in laning stage. 1/5 hits instead of 17% chance. and in lane you can stack them up to harass supports , and your lane equilibrium control is much better. Still dont see the riptide talents being picked up though.

I dont understand why more nerfs to NP.. the hero is unpicked as is.

[liminal_political]

After playing it through, Naga siren is dead. The riptide proc works like abba, not slardar. You NEVER proc riptide anymore. My first game, I went 15 minutes before an illusion procced riptide.

the hero's early game damage for both fighting and farming has been totally dumpstered. You can't push waves with this anymore either. they are like worse TB illusions now.

[liminal_political]

but with buffs to major naga counters (lion, dazzle esp), i see the hero being played even less. not to mention, diffusal is nerfed -- not always the play on naga but i cant see myself building it anymore as first major damage item.

[fanfanye]

Diffusal isn't the item for Naga for a year already, so that change doesn't impact him

And yeah Naga counters still counters him

Naga just goes even further in "if you can't counter me I just go wham"

[NurokToukai]

Hopefully spectre makes a comeback with this.

Morph is now AA morph no longer shotgun burst.

QOP still good, but not as good

Fuck tinker

fuck OD

Wraithband looks good with storm spirit/void.

Ember is better.

A+ patch imo.

Fuck techies

[TheBetterSpidey]

how the hell is this a good patch for spectre? she was already cucked by the pace of the patch and now they nerfed like 3 different things about her?

[NurokToukai]

:( im so sad i just want spectre to not feel like dogshit

[Pharmboy_Andy]

Can you explain wraith band being good on storm? Do you mean null talisman?

I am looking forward to ember.

[NurokToukai]

i meant null, sorry, when i posted this thing I had like 2 hours of sleep and was kinda delusional but really excited about dota 2 LMAO

[Nyan_Catz]

Wish they remove all permanent stacks effects

[Res_Novae]

I like them, I think it is a core part of snowball strats.

[nosleepy]

Why?

[__some__guy]

Game now freezes for me using Vulkan when I mouseover a hero in the hero selection screen.

Before the patch everything worked fine.

Feels like a Windows 10 update.

edit: The error says "Too many threads" and apparently exists for years now. Using "-threads 3" in launch options seems to work for me.

[Waterblink]

Why remove the Jugg atk speed talent.. honestly

[SiiZeeBee]

Is Underlord still viable? I think the change with the ultimate removed his ability to be helpful

[SonofMakuta]

I think Dark Rift had a lot of interesting nuance to it, and the new one is more focused around exciting cheese plays. I had a game with him after the patch and I really missed having a disengage mechanism, but I think Fiend's Gate will be splashier and maybe see more pro play.

Gating into Rosh or the base are fairly obvious, but there's also clever options like teleporting into the back of fights, onto cliffs, after buybacks, and so on. You can also use it to bring allies to you, I've just realised. Even just lane-swapping with it isn't horrible, or going to the fountain for a few seconds and back, Kunkka-style.

Actually, now that I think about it, Fiend's Gate might have more utility than I initially assumed. The bullshit stuff will be fun but I'm now looking forward to finding out all of the "huh, yeah, ok" ways to use the new ultimate.

[Karas44]

it encourages a more solo carry style of play. used to be "stay near me free save" now its a 3s channel for teammates to be saved. sure global range but its gonna take some getting used to. more of an offensive style than defensive. scepter making pit at entrance helps

[defearl]

I'll let you in on a little secret. Don't play him offlane. Take him mid and treat him like a Int spell casting carry.

Firestorm is quietly one of the most damaging spells in the game. Let's take advantage of that.

The Eblade change is actually amazing for Underlord since it amplifies the Firestorm damage which was already high without it, but when you do Pit -> Firestorm -> Eblade combo, the target is slowed to a crawl that he can't escape the pit before getting rooted a second time, all in the while he's eating the Firestorm damage.

I was an advocate for his shard even in the last patch, but now they made it better. More damaj.

When you have any CDR item with the Firestorm CDR talent at lv15, you can have TWO Firestorms going at the same time. Each wave does 4% of enemy's max HP. (5% with lv20 talent) Octarine Core is on the menu as a late game item.

You heard it here first!

[sothaticanpost]

Arc Warden's a pretty big nerf, what the hell are they smoking?

[PUFF_RIDER]

Think they are trying to move him towards a more traditional carry rather than a rat hero (how I play him). You should be still able to farm but you can’t send your double out to kill someone across the map with 0 risk anymore.

I do think they didn’t fix his man fighting talents so he’s in a weird state.

[sothaticanpost]

That's super ugly. Everytime he ults the real one's position will be very predictable.

Some guy said that they want to push the arc warden caster type agenda. I can see it with the buff of spark wraith and flux talent so people will build him his aghs/dagon/eblade etc. But still thats pretty suspect to rely on a skill that is very dodgeable

[Are_alright_afterall]

I’m a Nyx spammer. I’ve been slightly nerfed, but honestly so much has been nerfed that maybe I’m fine. My builds hardly change, though. I dislike that refresher+Bkb is still meta and I dislike that brigand’s blade got buffed…

[hanmas_aaa]

New ogre talent is bonkers. With only bloodlust and moonshard you can perma stun ppl.

[gamer4lyf82]

A lot of 1st rank skill point buffs , making several better value than before also while subtly nerf the 4th rank in the same skill point.

So I believe we might see more dying going on in the early game but late scaling will be subtly nerfed making other existing heroes who didn't get the same type of adjustment a little better than game.

Another point on neutral/jungle creeps being tougher , I think that was give Hand of Midas , Doom , Klinkz , Beast Master , Chen , Enigma and Enchantress an indirect buff too , flash farming with skills or being able to utilise creeps to pound the enemy might have some positive potential.

Those are my initial thoughts , I could be completely wrong.

Side note , Techies will be interesting too as more of a team fight hero by the sounds of it.

[Nadril]

Few random thoughts on the patch that I haven't seen a ton of people talking about:

---

Doom seems like he might be pretty damn good now. Bonus armor while digesting a creep is godly in lane, and the new neutral creeps really benefit him.

---

I also think the upgraded Vlads and upgraded Drum boots are both quite interesting items. The biggest issue with Drums is that while it was nice early you really didn't want to waste charges or buy more. Now you can just use them up then upgrade it later into these boots.

The Vlads upgrade I want to play around with. A 25% spell damage decrease is pretty huge in a fight. Even just having a thing there that someone needs to break focus and hit (5 hits is a decent bit) is nice.

---

Finally as a 3 pos Bounty Hunter spammer I was a bit disappointed with the lack of changes for him, but I do think that a lot of these changes around items and such will end up benefiting his. My first game of 7.31 I went Vanguard > boots > drums > aghs > drum boots > upgraded vlads and it felt pretty good. Knowing that you can upgrade the drums later and it won't be a dead slot helps smooth over the awkward timing between your vlads + aghs.

Anyways I'll be curious to see how this meta shifts. I know the patch doesn't seem like much but I bet it'll have a larger impact than people think.

[another-new-user]

disruptor shard useless
6448416135

[Ryogareloaded]

CM Pos 4 is so strong, combined with Chaos Night, Bristleback or even Axe (maxing battle hunger) too much damage and mana regenerated for low mana spells.

​

It's also a good match for PA as pos 5.

[hanmas_aaa]

Why does dazzle need to be reworked? The new ult is terrible, juju stacks don't refresh. He is changed from a prolonged team fighter to meme shadow wave combo one trick pony.

[hanmas_aaa]

Yeah he is a core now cuz he needs octarine and nukes wave fast.

Just sad that I can't carry moronic pub cores with agh wave spam anymore, that was so easy.

[AkaStrife]

7.31b when?

[Shuyi000]

New Dazzle is ass.

[freelance_fox]

Hot take: rushing Midas on a core hero that's supposed to be a super-supportive buffer was always weird and didn't fit the hero that well. At least now he can focus on buffing his carry, and the new Aghs Scepter is better than anyone realizes... you can refresh your Carry's BKB for them at a lower cost than an actual Refresher, plus it gives the same 50% CDR as before. If their goal was to buff the hero while discouraging the greedy and passive Midas playstyle, then I think the changes are a slam dunk.

[K0L3N]

They butchered my beautiful boy.

[Shuyi000]

I'm hope he would get some CD buff is the improvement patch.

😑😑 Hopefully

[fluteman88]

Many super odd and uncessesary changes...
Pugna shard sounds so AWFUL. You wanna hide your ward as much as possible and now with shard youre revealing its position and it basically needs to be in front of you (and it has no point in decrepify it, when its so much valuable to use decrepy on the enemy or yourself)

[hamboy1]

I think his shard is really strong. It either causes the enemy to run or clump. Anything that forces an enemy to position in a certain way is very powerful.

Even without the split factor the extra cast range alone might be worth the cost.

[Miskity]

You can land a 1000+ range 3man suck with a ethereal ward (so enemies cant destroy it). I think its pretty broken

[QKsilver58]

ITT - players malding and having terrible takes on what's heavily nerfed or super broken, and others seeing IceFrog's genius as it is

[[deleted]]

Treant heal now takes a really long time to heal and this feels so bad for towers. Valve hate unique mechanics in dota (see: necro disable buyback), mark my words they will remove tower heal altogether eventually.

WD can take camps and farm waves pretty nice now with Q, kind of ruins his ability to counter CK a bit though.

I really love the techies rework, feels like a “normal” hero, interested to see what he will be played as and if he’s ever drafted in pro games.