Winners And Losers of Patch 7.20
Three weeks into 7.20 and we’ve already had three additional mini patches, but it hasn’t been enough to stem the trends of this patch’s best and worst heroes.
Phantom Assassin
Look no further for an exhibition of Phantom Assassin than NoPangolier’s run through the Chongqing Major qualifiers, where they went 6-3 overall, with all their wins coming off the back of Naive’s Phantom Assassin.
A 15 minute Desolator timing is all Naive needs to control the mid gameIt’s no surprise that Phantom Assassin was promptly nerfed after the qualifiers. Her Blur now has a 0.4s cast time, limiting it for more offensive purposes. Still, with 7.20’s Armor rework, the buff to Desolator, Wraith Bands, and PA’s Phantom Strike, she still stands to be strong going forward.
Dazzle
Dazzle’s new ultimate, Bad Juju, brought to light what had already been strong on the hero. Great base damage, animation, and Poison Touch is one of the strongest spells in the early to mid game. Now, with a cooldown reduction ultimate, Dazzle has been seeing some play as a core.
VP.No[o]ne gets ganked and brings down two with him off Poison Touch ticksThroughout the Chongqing Major, the hero has seen play as an offlaner in the hands of LGD.Chalice and a midlaner with Liquid.Matumbaman and VP.No[o]ne. While Midas offers great value with CDR, pros have opted for a Necronomicon 1 rush, which doubles both as a farming tool and a synergistic, offensive item with Poison Touch and Shadow Wave.
Sand King
Sand King’s new sandstorm is a nuisance, even in skill brackets that are adamant on detection. He’s at a 54% win rate across all brackets—a 10% increase from his 7.19 rate. He’s been nerfed in subsequent patches, but it’s only dropped his overall win rate about 2%. Sand King didn’t fare as well during the Chongqing Major, but his new buffs have made an impact on any pub players who have had to lane against him.
Slark
VP.Ramzes even at 50% hp, jumps in and grabs the early double kill
There’s no stopping Slark now that Dark Pact clears Hex again. Pounce can now be broken by Force Staff (and not Hurricane Pike) and gets the new Leash mechanic, which prevents TPs. If that’s sacrifice to dispel Hex again, Slark players will take it. The hero’s issues in lane makes him a little more situational in professional play, but his success in pubs (54%) has garnered him his share of nerfs. The hero has been out of the meta so long that it’s about time he’s at least viable, if not overpowered again.
Ursa
Ursa went through 7.20 unscathed, then patch 7.20c came for him and reduced Fury Swipes from 12/18/24/30 to 10/16/22/28 along with the Agility bonus of his level 15 talent from 16 to 14. This change also comes on the heels of patches 7.19b, c, and d—three patches, each with its own share of Ursa nerfs. The net change is that Fury Swipes now does 30% less at level 1 (15 to 10) and lasts for 8 seconds (from 20). His win rate has dropped since from close to 54.6% in patch 7.19 to 48% today.
Centaur Warrunner
Centaur peaked around 56% win rate in the previous patch and now he’s hovering barely above 50%, one of the largest drops in patch 7.20. It doesn’t seem like there will be any solace for Centaur players, as 7.20’s corrective patches have been aimed at heroes that have been overbuffed. Retaliate does help his laning stage, but it came at a cost of several nerfs to the hero. Double Edge no longer has its early-mid game burst, and Stampede’s mana cost and cooldown were drastically increased. Level 1 Stampede’s cooldown is almost two minutes (110 seconds) and its level 3 cooldown is as long as its original duration at level 1 (90 seconds).
Clinkz
To punctuate how bad Clinkz has been since his rework, patch 7.20d essentially gave his ultimate a 100% dps increase. The change was enough to buff his win rate 5 points to 51% overall, but the hero feels different with the loss of Death Pact. He's now more Necromancer/Archer than glass cannon. Skeleton Army's spawn rate makes it a bit clunky to use, but it does deal respectable amounts of damage now.
Storm Spirit
Storm Spirit was most affected by the new Boots changes, such that neither the new Phase Boots nor Power Treads fits on him. The original Power Treads gave him much needed attack speed and damage for his power spike at level 6, but now it seems that Arcane boots and a gradual buildup to Bloodstone is the more viable build. Storm Spirit was one of the best users (or abusers) of Bloodstone’s reduced respawn rate, since he could reenter a fight nearly anywhere on the map. But the reworked Bloodstone has hamstrung this potential, not to mention changes to Intelligence affecting mana regeneration scaling. Storm Spirit wasn’t exactly overpowered in the previous patch, but he felt too strong in the right situations. Now, those situations are far and few between.
First post lol
Second boiii
third boyos
Does anyone enjoy playing against Slark? I find him soooo frustrating!
Slark doesen't differs from it was before. Annoying hero, but still really weak to stuns. Especially AOE-ones.
"Pounce can now be broken by Force Staff (and not Hurricane Pike)". Wrong or misleading. You can still use Hurricane Pike on yourself to break free from Pounce's Leash status effect.
What about Naga?
Walrus. Delete the post before icefroggo sees it..
Nothing to say about Meepo? I am pretty sure never in dota history there was a hero with 67% win rate before. Specially in such a difficult hero. His new lifesteal managed to make the hero beat his biggest counters like Winter Wivern and Sven.
Similar to why Slark is so toxic now, since he can kill heroes that were previously his counters like Anti-Mage and Storm Spirit.
Still, I am happy that Riki is not such a big problem anymore thanks to the rise in popularity for Bounty Hunter.
AM is more annoyimg than slark, counterspell can reflect more than 1 spells unlike the old aghanim and easily spammable(this also linken as a main item to get after BF)
AM isnt OP, but now become a lot more annoying since hero that usually can counter AM is now not good (Kunkka, Lion, Shaman, Sven, CK)
While ironically, Slark is now a counter to AM and maybe this is the reason AM doesnt feel OP
As a support player, fuck slark spammers. Even when I pick a hero with a stun, Slark players just single me out everytime, while my team is oblivious to their support dying in the back lines. Have to rush a damn forcestaff now every time the enemy picks him.
Also, valve do a good job reworking dead spells into a useful spells that allows to be picked on newbie pub.
Tusk useless frozen sigil (maybe not useless on pros) into Tag Team that synergies with Walrus punch.
KOTL bland ulti (turning into spirits) changed into amusing Disco ball
IO can go to hell since he is now very unappealing to play
Dazzle old boring 'ulti' that make some kind of animation but looks like it has done nothing(eventhough it is useful)
Still, heroes that have dead skill set still existed and it's hard to changed, for example : Nature Prophet
NP sprout is basically useless early game since everyone have tangos or have 200 gold quelling blade
Teleportation is cool, but NP can only right click after TP
Nature call.. Converting trees into creep (really dude? I know it is useful, but for new player, what you gonna do if u find out that the hero they are using can only summon creep and it cost a lot of mana)
Wrath of nature deals minuscule dmg if you dont bounce it and sometimes if you try to bounce it, it doesnt reach in time or even worse, doesnt reach at all because it already bounced 18 times
HURICANE PIKE WORKS VS SLARK EVEN IF OYU CLICK ON SLARK EVEN IF YOU JSUT PUSH YOURSELF
I don't think it would be good to just make all of the abilities nice and useful. Even though it sounds nice, it would break the balance of the game. Dota is not all about skill, but about decision making in-game and even before the game. You might be a very good player, but if you get a bad match up, you might as well lose your lane. Making all heroes equally powerful and making their abilities all good, will break dota's balance in my opinion
Should show a picture of the win rate graphs and separate with a header when you're changing from Winners to Losers
clinkz is dead :(
Sad there is no mention of Meepo. Sure, his winrate is back around 50% but I think what happened in the last two weeks with him was worth mentioning.
i think ss has actually been buffed.
his jungling potential is actually a lot better now that his strom remnat damage got buffed a good amount.
also bloodstone also gives you a lot more mana regen than it did before, and the fact that bloodstone is now a much more reliable item(the old one used to be where if u died once u essentially wasted 5k gold on a useless item)
so maybe he got changed. i dont really feel any difference playing him tbh
LAST BOYOS!
Actually, its a 50/50% with Storm. His early game is a lot weaker and harder than the 7.19 but his late game is even stronger. New Yasha&Kaya on him makes him even more absurd zapper with his ultimate, due to the 16% mana loss reduction instead of 10% in the old kaya.
I enjoy playing against Slark more than Pa at least.
@Jozayaz
I don't think there is any danger of that happening though. Low winrates of heroes hasn't stopped Icefrog from nerfing heroes who are too strong for their intended situation. It's ok that there are a lot of heroes that are generally ok rather than situationally great, because the game is relying on both macro and micro. The counterpoint to your point would be that making all heroes situationally great would reduce the demand for micro so much that you might as well be playing Artifact.
Meepo 67% winrate change actually caused by a bug where all meepo gets 40*40*40*40 which is basicly straigth level 25 in just 1 kill. And that was one of the worst (yet quickest) bug in history of dota 2. Although the lifesteal somewhat went wild in some situation especially when 1 meepo ganked and the rest just beating the shit out of the enemy while healing the one being ganked.
Clinkz really have its worst this patch
Sven need some love to
"VP.Ramzes EVEN at 50% hp, jumps in and grabs the early double kill"
With lich's shield, even at 50% hp, he is more tanky than his normal self at 100% hp but thx
@Nep, I like Nature's Prophet just how he is. If you can't bounce the Wrath properly, it just means that you suck on the hero. The +2 bounces is a huge boost to the first couple of Wraths in the early-mid game.
@Naturang Propeta lol it's mostly RNG it's too unreliable the +2 bounces is useless if the target is already hit before the 12th bounce (which is 500 damage in lvl 3) or go into fog in 4 seconds.
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