A few days after the release of Dota 2 patch 7.34, we take a look at the big winners of the patch.

After teasing the community with the emoji patch notes for Dota 2 patch 7.34, the real thing was released on the very same day. The patch was released well over a week before the TI12 qualifiers, and is the early stages of discovery in pubs and professional games alike.

Patch 7.34 wasn’t a patch of huge nerfs. The heroes that were dominating the meta before were given a slight tap on the wrist. What will stir up the meta in terms of hero picks is a good chunk of previously unpopular heroes receiving sizable buffs. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the biggest winners of Dota 2 patch 7.34. These heroes will be seen more in pubs, and may also see an increase in their pick rate in professional games. The data for win rate and pick rate has been taken from Dotabuff.

Centaur

One of Centaur’s issues has always been the difficulty in landing Hoof Stomp unless you blink onto the enemy or use Stampede to get close. With the new change, landing the stun is a lot easier, and can be done as Hoof Stomp into blink instead of the other way around, giving the enemy almost no time to react.

The Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade is also much better now. Even if the cart isn’t used to save allies, Centaur gets a personal Stampede every 30 seconds, which he can use to initiate or make an escape. The hero should see a good amount of play in the upcoming TI12 qualifiers and in the pro scene in general.

Earth Spirit

Complete immunity while rolling and multiple avenues of damage increase means we might finally see a bit more of Kaolin after not being so popular for the last few patches. His win rate in pubs is not too reflective of that, but that is because of his difficulty level. He will roll to glory in the top tier of pubs and in professional games.

Gyrocopter

Gyrocopter’s farming speed just went up a notch with the second Side Gunner target, and it also adds to his damage in a team fight. Essentially, Gyro will be hitting three targets in a fight. He is the modern, mechanical Medusa!

Invoker

Invoker is definitely in the top 3 heroes to have benefitted from patch 7.34. Getting changed to a Universal hero was the main buff, but Quas, Wex and Exort now providing spell lifesteal, cooldown reduction and spell amplification respectively is a sizeable buff. Three Exort orbs is 21% spell amplification at the max level of Exort, which is huge! For comparison, Kaya is 8% spell damage amplification, and Kaya and Sange or Yasha and Kaya are 16%.

The change to Universal adds more weight to a right click build. Invoker can now go Witch Blade and Orchid Malevolence and have more of an effect on the game due to the damage, especially early on with the Quas-Wex build. Previously, Exort gave the hero additional damage, and Exort isn’t skilled early on for a Quas-Wex Invoker, who tends to right click more in the early game with Cold Snap. Although Invoker has 10 spells, he hasn’t been the most versatile hero in terms of playstyle. Dota 2 patch 7.34 is bound to add to that. Ever since patch 7.34 has been released, his win rate in pubs has gone up by 6%!

Jakiro

Jakiro was already doing well in pubs, and the only changes to him in patch 7.34 were to Macropyre. And still, he is one of the big winners of the patch due to how his Scepter has been modified. Scepter now makes the Macropyre wider instead of longer, and adds two walls of ice on either side of the Macropyre (similar to Invoker’s Ice Wall) that slow enemies by 70%. This is an absolutely insane tool to either lock an enemy in Macropyre, or zone out enemies while going or defending high ground or near the Roshan pit. Here’s a comparative picture of the before and after for the Macropyre. Now keep in mind, even the area below the ice walls is Macropyre region. You step on the ice, you get burned. That is the power of fire and ice, baby!

Popular Dota 2 streamer Janne “Gorgc” Stefanovski definitely thinks it is a strong change in favor of Jakiro.

We will definitely be seeing a lot more of Jakiro in patch 7.34. The question is, in what position will the Two Headed Dragon be picked in professional games? We will find out soon enough.

Riki

Riki’s increase in base agility may have been counterbalanced with the reduction in base damage, but overall, the increased base agi and increase in agi gain is more of a buff for Riki than it may appear on the surface. Riki now ends up with 42 more agility over 30 levels, and that not only impacts his damage, attack speed and armor, but also improves his abilities. Tricks of the Trade has a percentage agility bonus, which now gets enhanced. Also Cloak and Dagger has increased damage based on agility when attacking from behind.

Riki is firing on all cylinders in patch 7.34, and it shows from his increase in win rate and pick rate.

Shadow Shaman

Shadow Shaman is back in the zeitgeist due to buffs to Hex. A lot of skill builds on Dotabuff are showing Hex to be the second maxed out skill after Shackle now, when it used to be Ether Shock with Hex kept at level 1. The increased cooldown at the early levels and higher damage amplification at the higher levels provides impetus to get more levels into the skill. At level 9, Shaman can have a 7 second disable with 2.8 seconds increasing the damage taken by the target hero by 20%. In a snowball lineup where all heroes come together and fight early, that can have a tremendous impact.

Slardar

Slardar’s laning stage and jungle farming will see a significant improvement after the buffs to the Slithereen Crush puddle duration and Bash of the Deep damage in water. With the puddle and stun duration of Slithereen Crush being the same for all four levels now, Slardar can start with one point in it, and then max out Bash of the Deep and Guardian Sprint. Bash of the Deep is always maxed out first for the damage, with one point in Guardian Sprint at either level 3 or level 4. If the lane is extremely difficult and all you want to do is survive and get experience, additional levels in Guardian Sprint can be considered for the extra armor and HP regeneration in water.

Warlock

IceFrog and Valve came up with the Imp idea for Warlock in patch 7.33, and patch 7.34 shows they are doubling down on it. Units that die under the effect of Fatal Bonds now spawn imps, and that includes creeps as well! This may not be too impactful in the mid and late game, but in the laning stage, this is a lot of additional damage to put pressure on the enemy heroes.

Witch Doctor

Witch Doctor’s major buff comes from the fact that Death Ward now does pure damage. Even though the damage at level 3 of the skill was reduced from 210 to 160, the overall damage is much higher now. It isn’t the best increase in the early parts of the game, when heroes don’t have a lot of armor, although Ogre Magi or Terrorblade might disagree. But later on in the game, the Death Ward damage used to be affected due to increasing armors. Now, that won’t be the case! Previously with level 3 Death Ward and 50% physical resistance, Death Ward did a maximum of 3780 damage, which has gone up to 5760 with the damage changing to pure. Also, it cannot be blocked by Guarding Angel anymore!

Witch Doctor’s win rate has skyrocketed to nearly 60%. There is a good chance he gets nerfed in the first balance patch following patch 7.34, but till then, this is a strong hero to play in pubs.

These are of course, not the only heroes to have received decent buffs in patch 7.34. There are others like Bristleback, Phantom Assassin, Sand King and Wraith King who did see positive changes, but the jury’s still out on the effectiveness of those. As the patch becomes mainstay andhas more games played on it, we will know which heroes have the last laugh.

The big winners of Dota 2 patch 7.34