Icefrog has once again blown all our minds - at least mine. Dota has been reworked once again and the so called meta game will be undergoing a huge change. This article is aimed at changes that presumably influence the meta game in any way.
Table of Contents
2. Items
3. Gameplay
4. Conclusion
Heroes:
Ancient Apparition - Doom
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- Ice Blast base AoE increased from 225 to 275
- Added Aghanim's Scepter
Ice Blast duration increased from 8/9/10 to 17
A rarely picked hero, Ancient Apparition only had a small niche in the meta game. People liked to combine him with easy setup stuns/disbales or repositioning spells on dual or tri-lanes, such as Naga Siren's Ensnare, Chaos Knight's Chaos Bolt and Reality Rift or Rubick's Telekenisis. A different usage of this hero is to counter a push lineup with a Chen to render his heal useless.
While Cold Feet has been untouched in this patch, Icefrog adds an immense buff to "AA". The duration of his ultimate has almost been doubled and the base AoE has been increased. While the AoE increase is minor - yet still good - the duration is a huge deal. Nowadays, Chen has become really popular in the scene, as well as Juggernaut. Both provide an in-built heal, for both sieges as well as teamfights. In addition, Chen is usually a hero that acquires the Mekansm. Being able to keep the enemy team from healing up over a duration of 17 seconds is an incredible asset. It messes with the enemies' teamfight coordination and can be an impeccable initiation spell. Now bear in mind that this only applies for the Agahanim's Scepter upgrade and supports farming Aghanim's is going to take a while.
Could AA actually be played in the mid? Chilling touch already received a buff prior to this patch, dealing a lot more damage early on. The bottle crowing nerf (explained later) could see some unusual mid heroes.
The answer is probably no though. AA could be an interesting and occasional pick-up, but that's about it. The hero is rather squishy and still needs items like Ghost Scepter or Force Staff to not instantly die in engagements and would almost never farm up an Agh's as a support.
The next change could be described as a sort of a respect ban - a respect nerf. Clockwerk has been one of the stars of the past patch, seeing as his Cogs have been a mess to fight against. Positioning became more important than ever and one simple button could separate the whole team - for worse or for better. The spell might have been a double edged sword, but the side facing the enemies has always been sharper. Pushing away magic immune targets could easily turn the fight and not rarely has Clockwerk been an instant counter pick to Lifestealer.
Now his Cogs have been nerfed, they don't push away magic immune targets anymore. The hero itself is still really strong - in both laning as well as teamfights. Seeing as BKBs now have a 6th downscale, this nerf doesn't seem as big. I would however think twice about picking him as a direct counter to Lifestealer, despite his ultimate still going through Magic Immunity.
- Aghanim's Scepter upgrade duration reworked
Aghanim's Doom duration doesn't count down while the target is within 550 range of Doombringer
Someone on reddit made a thread about "Change one thing that could mess everything up in the upcoming patch" and someone suggested "- Doom base armor increased by 1". A rather funny joke but balance wise it held some truth to it. Doom himself isn't a bad hero, his lack of armor however make him rather easily ganked and killed. Icefrog doesn't seem to be interested in that, instead he gives his ultimate a complete new aspect. It removes certain passive abilities from heroes. This is indeed a nice feature and should've been part of the spell from the beginning. It silences you and disables your inventory - might as well disable passives, especially Backtrack.
The second buff is a huge one and could boost up Doom's popularity in both pubgames as well as competitive games. Scorched Earth already grants him additional movement speed, Shadow Blade is also an often seen item on Doom: Running down enemies and watch as they die has never been easier with this upgrade. It still requires Doom to actually purchase the Aghanim's, but the stats gain is actually useful and being able to shutdown certain heroes, as well as forcing them to be out of a certain AoE, makes Doom a really good teamfight oriented hero. Couple it up with a few heroes that mess with positioning, such as Disruptor, Dark Seer or Rubick and the enemies will truly be doomed.
Invoker - Lone Druid
- Ghost Walk slow increased from 20/23/26/30/33/36/40 to 20/25/30/35/40/45/50
- Ghost Walk cooldown decreased from 60 to 35
- Tornado damage rescaled from 70+(Wex+Quas)*20 to 70+(2*Wex+Quas)*15
- While empty, Bottle causes couriers to move 30% slower
I want to mention these two changes together as I see them correlate directly. I see a big comeback for the almighty Invoker. Ghost Walk, probably his only escape mechanism in the early game, has its cooldown drastically decreased. Now, the hero is still susceptible to ganks, but at least you can give them a hard time with the increased MS slow. On top of that, the rescale for Tornado makes it a a good spell - max damage increased from 350 to 385 - without having to skill both Quas and Wex over Exort.
Now what could make Invoker really viable again is the fact that bottle crowing is going to become less efficient. The flying courier will actually be slower once the bottle is empty, delaying the time for the bottle to be delivered. A lot of pro players have been asking for this kind of nerf, some even wanted the bottle crowing to be completely removed.
So far, Invoker has been easily harassed out of the lane, he wasn't able to trade blows efficiently. Technically this bottle change should take away a bit of pressure, but this is still just a theoretical assumption. Invoker still lacks the prooper base damage, but going for some sort of Exort/Wex build with Exort maxed first could maybe see him come back.
The bottle crowing in general is a really interesting aspect. A lot of pro players have voiced their displeasure with the current trend of sending your bottle back and forth, as it would discourage aggressiveness. People also tend to say that a midland match-up should never be lost or won. The bottle now being less accessible could probably lead to a change and should give more skilled players a way to shine. Whether this change will be sufficient has yet to be seen.
A minor, yet still important to note change is the decrease of Lifestealer's Open Wounds cast range. The spell is one of the key factors for the hero's effectiveness as it is often used to initiate attacks or ganks. The slow is so strong it basically works as a setup stun and makes the hero a good choice for aggressive trilanes. Now the range of initiation has been decreased, significantly on the lower levels. His laning phase is going to be a lot weaker, especially since maxing out Rage first is a rather common build, but maxing out Open Wounds will now be encouraged.
- Spirit Bear bounty increased from 100 to 300
A rather anticipated change hits Lone Druid, whose Spirit Bear will now get his HP drained by an active Armlet. This item has been made popular in the past months as it provides a lot of advantages without any repercussions. Lone Druid is by no means significantly weaker now, seeing as he has been a top tier pick before Armlet was popular, but it is still a great nerf. The increase of the Spirit Bear's bounty is not as big, but letting it die is going to be more and more expensive.
Omniknight - Silencer
Guardian Angel AoE becomes global and affects buildings (including regen)
One of the biggest changes in this patch - aside from the drafting change of course - is the new Omniknight Agh's upgrade. A better Glyph every 150 seconds that has a global range. This adds a new layer of tactics to this hero. He has been a good support already, e.g. being a of EG's "Knight-Strat". Bears might not give a fu**, but they will when there's an Omniknight, putting an extra layer of protection onto the buildings, including a 24HP/s regeneration.
Much like Ancient Apparition it is questionable whether a support farming up an Agh's is worth it or even possible, but in this scenario the advantages are definitely something to look out for.
Another hero, another Aghanim's upgrade. Silencer has received a minor buff, that makes him a better option. So far the intelligence based hero has only been seen occasionally, semi successful at that. LGD.int's Pajkatt ran him as a carry and farmed up quite a bit, including a Scythe and a Refresher Orb, likely to prevent the big teamfight ultimates like the opposition's Reverse Polarity from being cast. The spell itself already goes through magic immunity (buff removed when hero goes magic immune during silence), but now it also deals damage.
Curse of the Silent deals a total of 390 damage when running its full duration, burning 192 mana. In addition, the silence lasts one second longer. Silencing your enemies for seven seconds on level 16, that is definitely a combo breaker. It's still a situational pick, especially since the 4,2k gold could be put to potentially better use, but if your enemies have a very teamfight oriented line-up that relies on big AoE spells, Silencer is now worth a second thought, if he wasn't already.
Items:
The term "respect nerf" has been mentioned above and can be applied here again - although not as serious. Disabling the Courier from blocking a creepcamp is a direct nerf towards Kaipi. The team might not have been the first to do it (who knows) but they are the team that has been doing it the most. Baiting out a Sentry Ward even though there is only the Courier blocking the camp - a classic start from Kaipi. The speed nerf is fairly self explanatory and relates directly to the Bottle nerf mentioned in Invoker's paragraph.
As already mentioned above, Black King Bar has received yet another nerf. It scales down to four seconds, with a 55 CD. This encourages rebuying it in the lategame even further and is indirectly a slight buff to Lifestealer, a hero that is already really strong. His innate ability to be magic immune for five seconds from level seven onwards makes him hard to kill and very valuable in the lategame, as opposed to other carries who still have to purchase the item and would still eventually fall short in terms of duration.
Interestingly enough, Bloodstone has been improved. Your initial charges are increased by two and there is a suicide skill. This could mean that buying a Bloodstone as a first big item on Storm could become interesting again. The hero could benefit highly from the two extra charges and being able to commit suicide after diving too far, which - let's be honest - happens quite often, has a nice touch.
Vision is key throughout all stages of the game. It secures farming, can support aggressive diving and can decide teamfights before they even start. The team with the better vision has the advantage. The vision decrease of the Sentry Wards is only a minor nerf. It certainly is annoying when it comes to dewarding certain spots, as you usually try to cover most common Ward spots with just one Sentry. A negligible nerf.
The fact that the initial stock for Observer Wards is now one, that is huge. More often than not has the enemies' jungle been completely warded when they had a jungler. While they can still block those camps with Sentries, these blocks will only last two minutes and the cost is at least 50 gold higher - a seemingly small amount, but that could be an additional branch for the support.
The more important thing about this change however is the warding and dewarding aspect. Getting dewarded early on will mean a completely dark map for the first six minutes. People will have to get creative in terms of wardspots and have to be very careful and strategical as to where this ward should be placed.
The lack of vision, or the supposedly lack of vision, also encourages ganking. It puts an additional layer of pressure onto the midlane.
Gameplay:
A dummy draft:
The arguably biggest change in this patch is the rework of the drafting in the Captain's Mode.
In theory, the mindgames during the draft will only get worse, or better, depending on how you want to look at it. The drafting stage is already about countering picks, which should be intensified a lot. Naturally, there are picks that don't reveal too much information and cannot be countered as easily; with only two picks in the first phase, this will only add to a more strategical approach at drafting.
The more interesting part of the new drafting is the fact that teams actually both get to first pick once, as they switch for the 2nd phase. This 'spices' things up as there is now the opportunity for both teams to react to the other's picks. How exactly this will unfold has yet to be seen, but the shortened time and these strategical aspects definitely increase the pressure during the drafting stage.
A really interesting change that is often overlooked is the XP bonus change. Killing with four or five heroes is not as rewarding in terms of XP as it was before. Add to that the fact that you reach level 11 sooner, you could draw the conclusion that early ganking is now heavily encouraged, or ganking in general. If heroes like Queen of Pain or Puck haven't been popular enough, they will definitely be now. Reaching a fast level 11 can be clutch as it provides an additional bonus to your burst damage or lockdown - depending on the hero.
Five man dota being discouraged seems to be a given considering the new armor increase for tier one and two towers as well as the backdoor protection now reducing incoming damage by 25%.
A notable, meta un-related change is the longer cooldown on buybacks. This should raise the tension and pressure in the lategame quite a bit.
Conclusion:
Taking all changes into consideration, it seems like a new era of ganking could arise, maybe with a touch of global strategies. Grouping up early and taking down towers is not as rewarding and efficient as it has been before. Instead, there will be lots of opportunities to gank early on with the lack of vision. It is also highly rewarding as you can get an early level 11, but only if you run around with less than four. Another aspect that supports this theory is the fact that many supports have received minor buffs in this patch. In addition, the vision seems to be decreasing, as heroes like Shadow Demon, Batrider and Kunkka get their vision decreasen, while there's also a low stock on Wards.
A lot more attention could fall upon the midlane, with bottle crowing being less efficient. Supports will have to help out their midplayers a lot more, both with rune control as well as ganking the enemy.
In terms of new heroes on the horizon, Omniknight is going to be rather interesting. Dragon Knight is definitely worth a look as well - if he isn't already - and he fits the current meta game. But with the presumable change coming in, it wouldn't be much of a surprise to see DK being only a transition pick until people will eventually accommodate to the new meta, if that will come.
If the ganking era arises once more, what heroes could become more popular again? Of course Bounty Hunter comes to mind, a hero that could easily snowball and was a top tier pick until the end of last year. We could also see a comeback from Clinkz (not that he was ever out), but the hero shines in picking off supports and a lack of vision is highly benefitial for him.
Nonetheless, only time can tell how this patch will actually affect the "meta game".