Hero Updates - how they working out for you?

With the recent massive changes quite a few heroes got some pretty extensive reworks, buffs or minor nerfs. I'm interested to hear people's experiences with the various heroes in their new forms - how are you getting on with them?

To set the ball rolling - the only I've had much chance to spend time playing is Death Prophet (who people have randomed and then given to me a few times now :)). I liked her a lot anyway, but have found her to be really strong in her new form:

- The new Silence is ace. Having the max radius from level 1 means you don't need to allocate so many points to make it useful.

- The changes to Witchcraft and your base movement speed aren't massive, but you do feel super-slow to start with, and super-fast later on.

To me, it really makes sense to max Witchcraft earlier now as you don't need to put so much into Silence, and the extra movement speed with Phase Boots is brilliant. Course, they haven't changed her slow attack and casting speed :(

The two games I've played with her since the changes have ended: 18-4-14 and 19-3-19 so overall I like the changes :)

How are you guys finding the changes? Better? Worse?

Better for me, mostly considering that I enjoy the competitive matches more. I haven't really experienced how imbalanced some new aspects are except for Flesh Heap and Chain Frost, but overall I really like how the pro scene is changing to a DK-Treant ish meta with a lot more heroes.

Better for me so far. Slardar with his new physical Bash makes it even more worth it on an Amplify Damaged target. The new 10 second cooldown for Naga Siren makes it so that naga can take the middle lane now, using it as her harassing tool. Bloodseeker and his +armor during Blood Thirst makes it easier for chasing without the risk of dying while tower diving.

Huskar... Depends. In teamfight, the new Berserker's Blood is better but during the laning phase, I still prefer the old one.

Pugna now ***** on towers.

Towers aint 2 ***** to pugna.

It's good to hear the less popular heroes are getting some more use these days - the best thing about DOTA has always been the variety it offers, not just seeing the few "same old" heroes getting picked all the time.

Anyone stopped playing heroes cos of the changes? I did agree with most of the nerfs, just thought maybe a few didn't go far enough (Gyro, PL). Also think as much as I like him, Treant Protector is probably due a small nerf to Living Armor in the next patch - it's just so damned strong.

TIMBERSAW IS SMART NOW :O

On a more serious note, BREWMASTER DRUNKEN BRAWLER SPIRITS KICK *** :O

Just tried Bloodseeker last night twice in ESL matches, we won both, we ran him mid lane against Puck in the first match and against Magnus in the other. Worked out really well, each time Rupture was available, a kill was going to come.

I won 7 out of 8 meepo matches. Played in captains mode too. That buff to magic resistance is really serious thing.
Also, about death prophet I've got a match with something like 15/0 score, was pretty hilarious.
This changes were greatly reflected in win rates ( of the week ). Like, medusa has got 47% win rate compared to her being in the bottom 5 before. And Troll warlord went greatly down due to nerf of his battle trance.