Dota 2 patch 7.30e is the post TI10 balance patch that brings with it nerfs to all the heroes that dominated The Interantional 10.
The big Dota 2 news for the day is the release of the new hero, Marci. But in the shadow of her release, a new patch has made its way into Dota 2 – patch 7.30e. It is the post TI10 patch which for the most part is nerfs to heroes that ran amuck in Bucharest.
The patch will bring a bit of balance to pubs, with Marci being the overpowered hero (at least what it seems like from the initial few hours the hero has been in the game). The entire set of changes can be found here. Let’s take a deep dive into some of the prominent changes patch 7.30e brings.
General Changes
This change will affect mid heroes like Kunkka and Templar Assassin, who posses wave clear and the ability to clear out the small camp early on in the game. These heroes can push the wave out, farm the small camp and be back for the next wave. Eventually, the gold and experience stacks up and they gain a significant advantage over their mid lane counterpart. This change, while not stopping them from doing that, will slow the ramp rate.
Item Nerfs
1) Fae Grenade
Fae Grenade is the most notable item nerf of patch 7.30e. On multiple occasions in TI10, Earthshakers held on to the item and basically had two Enchant Totem hits once the Totem was charged. It was quite broken when on a hero with massive right click damage (especially for a tier 2 neutral item), and has been rightly nerfed.
Hero Nerfs
1) Elder Titan
Elder Titan was the most picked hero of TI10. His laning stage has been significantly nerfed with Astral Spirit taking multiple hits. Vision is a big part of what the Astral Spirit brings, and the effect of reduced vision will be felt at all times in the game.
2) Lina
The machine gun Lina build got quite popular at TI10, and many teams played her as a position 1 hero from the mid lane, with the safe lane carry getting lesser farm priority. Patch brings the right click Lina build down a notch with nerds to Fiery Soul and the damage talent at level 10. It might be slightly more enticing to switch to a caster or hybrid Lina build now.
3) Lycan
Lycan was mainly picked as an offlaner at TI10, to get Aghanim’s Scepter and buff up the position 1 hero with Wolf Bite. The nerf to Wolf Bite will make Lycan’s bite on the game a little potent. With the range being fixed at 150, heroes like Morphling won’t get the same benefit with Wolf Bite and even melee heroes like Monkey King and Tiny with attack range over 150 will have to compromise in order to get the benefits of Shapeshift.
4) Magnus
The nerf to Magnus is a cause for celebration for two reasons – one, the hero will not feel overpowered in professional games and two, players in pubs will stop trying to emulate what Team Spirit and Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov did at TI10 with Magnus. Team Liquid’s Aydin “Insania” Sarokhi knows the feeling.
The Horn Toss stun being changed to a movement speed and attack speed slow will allow players to react to being initiated by Magnus with either skills or items like Black King Bar or Eul’s Scepter of Divinity. Also, as the damage is now done at the end, there is a 1.25 second duration where the heroes affected by Horn Toss can use Blink Dagger, because they will not have taken any damage (unless it’s from other sources). This, along with the double nerf to Skewer, will be crippling for Magnus to be played the way Collapse did.
5) Tiny
Even though Tiny was the most contested hero at TI10, the stone giant, though nerfed, hasn’t received the worst deal. Maybe GabeN and IceFrog still want to use him to gain some MMR? Possibly. But in all seriousness, his right click damage is still quite scary with only the 10% nerf from the talent. Buildings won’t fall as fast as they did before, but they’ll still crumble to Tiny’s huge right clicks faster than most other heroes. The only big nerf is to the splash damage of Tree Throw, which will affect his burst potential a bit.
Besides these five heroes, other prominent TI10 heroes like Bane, Doom, Monkey King, Morphling, Tidehunter, Void Spirit and Weaver have been hit with the nerf hammer as well. A few heroes like Broodmother, Chen, Keeper of the Light, Pudge, Pugna, Spirit Breaker and Zeus, who saw very few or no picks at TI10, recevied slight buffs, but nothing to write home about.
Patch 7.30e is a short time visitor, paving the way for the major patch Dota 2 patch 7.31 to be released in a few weeks. It won’t be surprising to see patch 7.30f and even 7.30g being dropped before that though, in an attempt to further balance a few things, especially Marci.
