“Though the general changes aren’t quite as glamorous as the item and hero changes they also carry a great deal of significance. There are many livability changes (like the fountain change, changes to Ranked All Pick, and pathing fixes) but the majority of the general changes are actually quite significant for those of us who play and love this game. A jacked up Roshan, new rune, increased juke potential and more await!
GENERAL
Fountain area is now at a higher elevation level | Fountain vision increased from 1400 to 1800 | Fountain attack range increased from 1100 to 1200 | Fountain True Sight increased from 900 to 1200
Fountain camping is no longer like shooting fish in a barrel. And, though I do miss beating on the opposing team mercilessly after a crushing victory, it makes sense to try and discourage this type of behaviour. Fountain camping was just an extension of an already painful experience for the other team and 97% of the time served merely to prolong their suffering. The 3% that were edge cases where the fountain camp resulted in the other team coming back weren’t quite enough to justify the suffering that so many had to go through on a regular basis. Note: These stats are clearly made up but I hope they are somewhat representative.
Reworked terrain surrounding the Roshan area | Reworked terrain around the Dire bottom lane | Reworked terrain below the Top Radiant Tier 1 Tower
Reworked the area to the left of the bottom Dire Tier 2 Tower | Moved Dire bottom Tier 2 Tower back very slightly | Added an alternate path to the north of the bottom lane Side Shop
Added an alternate path to the right of the bottom Dire Tier 1 Tower | Added a new ward spot near the bottom Dire Tier 2 Tower| Added a new ward spot near the top Radiant Tier 2 Tower | Added a new ward spot between Roshan and the Dire bottom lane | Bottom Lane Dire creeps now arrive slightly closer to the Dire Tier 1 Tower | Top Lane Radiant creeps now arrive slightly farther from the Radiant Tier 1 Tower
Added a bunch of extra paths which provide many more options for ganking, escaping and juking. These changes make the game much more dynamic during the laning phase because it is much more difficult to ensure one’s safety by standing in a certain position. The addition of various paths through the trees also makes heroes with flying vision potential (Beastmaster, Treant with Agh’s, etc) as it is more difficult to juke them with the new paths (whereas you have a much better chance now that you can split off in many more directions than you could before). These new paths have resulted in a great deal of confusion for me and my friends but I really like the possibilities that they have added! A great change.
The new ward spots are nice and give some more options for warding later on in the game (they also help with keeping an eye on those crazy new juking spots).
Added a Bounty Rune [?] – 50 XP +5/min and 50 gold +2/min | Two runes now spawn in the river every two minutes. One of them will always be a Bounty Rune | Runes are replaced every two minutes if they are not picked up
The bounty rune is an interesting addition. When I first read the patch changes I thought that it gave you a 50XP/Gold boost and throughout the rest of the game you got an extra 5/2 per minute (with that effect being stackable with additional runes). Unfortunately, for those long of us obsessed with long term returns, this is not the case. But you do get an instant boost in gold/XP when you use it which is nice.
The addition of the bounty rune and the 2 rune spawns per 2 minutes means that there is no longer any guesswork in going to a rune spot. This adds an awesome element of supports, offlaners and mid laners contesting rune spawns regularly which makes the early game a little bit more interesting and dynamic. It also favors heroes that are able to contest those types of situations more successfully.
Finally, this change brings heroes that are able to move to runes quickly and present a significant threat 1v1 into a better position for the mid lane. Along with the changes to the courier (huge cooldown increase for boost) it looks like Icefrog and Valve are trying to dissuade people from spamming bottle crow and going mid with any hero they like. I, for one, favour this change as it really was getting a bit tedious/ridiculous seeing all sorts of silly choices for mid justified by the ability to bottle crow.
Denied creeps now give less experience [?] | 50% experience instead of 36 per.
Denied creeps giving less experience than before means that denies will have more impact in lane. Greater rewards for players with the ability to balance last hitting and denying.
First Blood bonus gold decreased from 200 to 150
Part of the range of changes made to reduce the impact of early game momentum. 150 gold is still important but 25% less than 200 and a 50 gold difference is somewhat significant early on.
Reworked the bonus area of effect XP | Reworked bonus area of effect Gold and Streak ending
These changes resulted in a huge shift in kill rewards that people were referring to as “”rubberbanding””. Basically, if you had a huge lead and allowed heroes with large net work/kill sprees to be killed suddenly you found yourself even or below the opposing team. These changes were toned down significantly in following patches and were further reduced in 6.82c.
This change only affects the extra Gold given if within an area after a kill.
It does not affect the natural Gold received for killing a hero of a certain Level/Streak.
Old:
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VictimLevel = Level of the Victim
1 Assist: Gold = 125 + 12 * VictimLevel
2 Assist: Gold = 40 + 10 * VictimLevel
3 Assist: Gold = 10 + 6 * VictimLevel
4+ Assist: Gold = 6 + 6 * VictimLevel
New:
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The player that got the last hit now also gets the area of effect bounty.
VictimLevel = Level of the Victim
VictimNW = The victim’s Net Worth
EnemyTeamNW = Enemy team’s total Net Worth
AlliedTeamNW = Your team’s total Net Worth
NWDifference = ( EnemyTeamNW – AlliedTeamNW )/ ( EnemyTeamNW + AlliedTeamNW ) (minimum 0)
NWFactor = NWDifference * VictimNW
1 Hero: Gold = 40 + 7 * VictimLevel + NWFactor * 0.5
2 Heroes: Gold = 30 + 6 * VictimLevel + NWFactor * 0.35
3 Heroes: Gold = 20 + 5 * VictimLevel + NWFactor * 0.25
4 Heroes: Gold = 10 + 4 * VictimLevel + NWFactor * 0.2
5 Heroes: Gold = 10 + 4 * VictimLevel + NWFactor * 0.15
VictimLevel = Level of the Victim
VictimXP = Total XP of the Victim
EnemyTeamXP = Enemy team’s total XP
AlliedTeamXP = Your team’s total XP
XPDifference = ( EnemyTeamXP – AlliedTeamXP )/ ( EnemyTeamXP + AlliedTeamXP ) (minimum 0)
XPFactor = XPDifference * VictimXP
1 Hero: XP = 20 * VictimLevel + XPFactor * 0.5
2 Heroes: XP = 15 * VictimLevel + XPFactor * 0.35
3 Heroes: XP = 10 * VictimLevel + XPFactor * 0.25
4 Heroes: XP = 7 * VictimLevel + XPFactor * 0.2
5 Heroes: XP = 5 * VictimLevel + XPFactor * 0.15
In combination with these changes, the gold for ending a spree is in turn reduced, from 125->1000 to 100->800.
Factors have now have been reduced to:
* AoE Gold NWFactor reduced from 0.06/0.06/0.05/0.04/0.03 to 0.05/0.05/0.05/0.04/0.03
* AoE XP XPFactor reduced from 0.3/0.3/0.2/0.15/0.12 to 0.23/0.23/0.2/0.15/0.12
Glyph of Fortification cooldown is now refreshed whenever you lose a Tier 1 tower | Tier 2 Tower’s armor increased from 20 to 25 | Tower bounty gold for destroying Tier 1/2/3/4 reduced from 264/312/358/405 to 160/200/240/280 (denied is 50%)
These tower changes are a godsend when playing against pushing lineups. After witnessing the destruction that was the TI4 finals it is a relief to see that the power and momentum available to a pushing lineup has been reduced substantially. DotA is a game about objectives but the complexity and depth of the game was being compromised by the overwhelming power of a pushing lineup.
In Captain’s Mode, the 3rd ban phase order is swapped
This restores a bit of balance to the picking order
Reworked how All Pick works in Ranked Matchmaking
All Pick in Ranked MMing now progresses with each team taking turns to pick heroes one by one. It has brought a surprising amount of structure to the mode and greatly reduced squabbles over lanes, roles and the likelihood of the other team holding out attempting to counterpick. Now, if no one has picked within the duration everyone begins losing gold and a forced random occurs 30 seconds in.
Randoming has also become more difficult as you cannot random and repick into a hero. If you random you are forced to random again, making it a much more risky decision than before.
Aegis duration decreased from 6 minutes to 5
Adds urgency to push after taking Roshan. Again, not giving as much time for teams to build on early momentum. Bumping it down to 5 minutes gives them that much less time to prepare (farm, pick off, etc) before the Aegis expires.
Roshan’s Slam area of effect increased from 250 to 350 | Roshan’s Slam damage increases by 20 every 4 minutes
Roshan was a bit of a pushover in the mid to late game. This change mostly effects heroes with summons that would have been able to take him on quite easily later on by just letting the summons tank. Lycan and Nature’s Prophet are particularly affected by this change. I like it, removes some of the ease of soloing Roshan and pushes him more towards being a team objective.
Centaur Conqueror’s Swiftness Aura has been moved to Hellbear Smasher
Hellbear Smasher Attack Time increased from 1.35 to 1.55
Hellbear Attack Time increased from 1.35 to 1.5
Centaur Conqueror Attack Time improved from 1.65 to 1.5
Centaur Courser Attack Time improved from 1.35 to 1.3
Dark Troll Summoner’s Ensnare duration increased from 1.5 to 1.75
Satyr Banisher HP increased from 240 to 300
Satyr Banisher movement speed increased from 300 to 330
Satyr Banisher attack range reduced from 600 to 300
Satyr Banisher Base Attack Time improved from 1.8 to 1.7
Satyr Banisher’s Purge cast range increased from 200 to 350
Wildwing Ripper’s Toughness Aura now works on Siege units
In general, netural creeps have become stronger and more useful for heroes that can take control of them. Chen and Enchantress are going to be pleased with these changes.
Fixed some rare edge cases with pathing malfunctioning
Yay for bug fixes! Goodness, those pathing issues were so annoying when they did occur. Thank goodness this was fixed.
The following abilities can now be cast on Spell Immune allies: Ice Armor, Surge, Alacrity, Nature’s Guise, Chakra Magic, Recall and Mist Coil
Buffs for the heroes that happen to carry these abilities.
The following buffs are now properly dispellable: Chilling Touch, Thunderstrike, Inner Vitality, Alacrity, Chaos Meteor, Shadow Word, Liquid Fire, Shadow Strike, Warcry, Concussive Shot, Overpower, Mana Leak, Curse of the Silent, Press The Attack, Poison Touch, Flame Guard, Whirling Death, Viper’s Poison Attack, Sticky Napalm, DK’s Frost Breath, Whirling Axes, Walrus Punch’s slow
Nerfs to heroes that use these abilities. But brings a bit more of a standard to the way abilities work and are dispellable.
Dark Pact/Kraken Shell/Aphotic Shield/Press The Attack/Time Lapse no longer have a special condition for purging the following otherwise unpurgeable spells: Poison Nova, Heaven’s Halberd, Ensnare, Eye of Skadi slow
These are buffs to the above abilities are they can no longer be purged in these edge cases. It is also a nerf to the corresponding heroes that carry the abilities (Slark, Tidehunter, Abbaddon, Legion Commander and Weaver).
A great set of changes with the map and rune changes really shifting the way that the game flows. With the tweaking to the way that the new kill rewards we find ourselves with a nicely balanced patch with plenty of new content to enjoy. I’ve been enjoying it thus far despite my loss streaks.
That’s all for now. Have a pezant day!
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