The 6.88 Discussion Thread

It's out lads.

http://www.dota2.com/news/updates/

Thoughts?

Alright. First comment mode.

Arc Warden: A step in the right direction. Probably needs a base damage buff to truly be a legit mid though.

Bloodseeker: Level 1 Rupture is looking to be almost not completely unusable.

Centaur: Dude is getting really beefy now. Might actually see a return of the centaur offlane. His burst damage has been slowly turned into sustained damage over several patches.

Clock: Dunno how big these are. Need Clock player.

Doom: Oh come on... This skill is being given the Exorcism treatment without Doom being a good Octarine carrier to make up for it.

Drow: Turn rate buff seems nice. Helps when you get inevitably jumped on.

ESpirit: And another nerf. It's getting quite tough to play this hero it seems.

Invoker: Forge Spirits can be quite annoying. I would've been more for the direction of boosting the bounty or something but whatever.

Jak: Nice, helps his rather weak late game a bit.

Kotl: Hey dawg, I heard you liked eating lots of spiritlance/decay/breathefire/lightningstorm/ and the rest.

Kunkka: Laning against him past level 5 just got a lot harder. Getting much closer to pub meta mid levels. Still can't push tho.

Lich: Ohh, that Aghs just got more appealing. 30 to 50% is one of the most noticeable jumps.

Lifegollum: Makes him weaker with IAS builds. I don't think this trashes him either.

Necrophos: Support Necro just got hit really hard, since standing at the edge of fights no longer works as well, but Core Necro got a really nice buff. Maxing Aura first can now autowin all but the hardest lanes.

Omniknight: Oh, look buffs. That will do nothing but improve our pub experiences with this hero.

OD: I'll take anything. I like Safelane OD, I will do a lot to make it viable. He is a lot more buffed by the Pike change however.

PA: We did it Dotafire. We did it.

Pudge: And that snowball potential keeps rolling.

Pugna: A decent buff. 4.5 lets Pugna reclaim his throne.

Sand King: Oh, a generous buff. I still am not gonna skill Epi when I get tranquils, but its still nice of you Mr Frog.

SD: Late game is getting really freaking strong for this hero. I am hoping to see combos with TB.

Shaman: Slightly less massive Aghs dependence. Cool.

Silencer: Safelane Silencer, with Pike buffs, might be popularized soon.

Storm: Oh, a decent buff to Storm's farmrate. Bring in that safelane storm.

Terrorblade: Quite a bit less mana consumption. Maybe you can get closer to sustaining with just an Aquila.

Slardar: Seems to hurt his offlaning a bit.

Treant: *Laughs loudly*

Troll: 3 more armor bonus in melee form? Well, if this makes him viable, this might be the biggest Lifestealer nerf of the whole patch.

Ursa: Reminds Lifestealer about why he's the most dangerous melee carry at laning against other melees.

Venomancer: Helps with when you're losing with the hero. An arcaneless veno is so sad.

Warlock: Golems getting beefy too. With his laning power buffed too against carries, he looks to be good in aggressive dual offlanes with heroes like Axe or SK.

Bloodthorn: Int Carry Buff, I accept. Let me play OD, let my friend play Storm.

Butterfly: Ohh, a nice buff to TB and Carry Void.

Hurricane Pike: Active damage is nice. Still needs vision. If Pike carriers get popular (Ench, OD, Silencer), then expect an increase in BH despite the nerfs.

Atos: Well, okay. Skywrath, Necro, and Linkens poppers thank you for this.

Terrorblade is officially OSFrog tier. Hail to the new Naga. What have you done?

Arc Warden is still dog****. All his synergy with items is gone, only low cooldown items work now. Only thing you can do is go right click items with double Scythe of Vyse. But if you want us to play him as an illusion carry, buff his AGI gain to 3/level...and even then it's just a watered down TB.
(and even then travels cooldown is too high which limits the rat).

Brewmaster actually got buffed quite a bit. Fire spirit is significantly tankier.

Chaos Knight : <3

Clockwerk : deceptively big buff, since he's much less likely to miss cogs now. More early game kill potential, no change once he hits level 11 and sets up cogs with hook. It's a big buff, but only affects his early game.

Crystal Maiden : Crystal Nova, what a skill. What a hero.

Death Prophet, Phoenix : No, OSFrog, I'm not buying this ******* joke. Spirit Siphon and Sun Ray are still broken. Just crunch the numbers of that insignificant "nerf".

Gyrocopter : his aghs is complete garbage. You failed your design, just admit it and move on. The previous one was decent at least. It sucks on carry gyro because it's an aghs. It sucks on support Gyro because it scales with your right click.

Jakiro : Ice Path is disgusting. No cooldown, absurd range, Ravage level of stun...please. Good hero.

Legion Commander rushing Bloodthorn : yes this is a thing, and it's actually really good.

Lich : his aghs is finally good. Probably core, 50 AOE slow on top of his 2 other slows is really that good. Ummm...lich good hero btw.

Necrophos : 300 range on his aura...this is actually a major nerf, both to his laning, and to his damage later in the game. Because he clearly was first picked every game in the major? Kappa.

Ogre Magi : That's pretty big. His Q is a value point and you always max it second, you max W first every game. More stupid Clarity roam.

Phantom Assassin : Okay, she's not **** anymore, she just got upgraded to "meh" tier (still not even close to the "decent" tier tho). I honestly think she's an offlaner now. Abyssal Blade is now officially good on her, since she can finally jump BKBs. However it's still not a damage item, so as a carry she's still just a horribly watered down Clinkz. But in the offlane she can get CS by spamming the new Stifling Dagger that is good at only level 1. For me she's like a second LC : kills only one hero in a teamfight, can't reliably carry games, but has good laning and utility to make up for it.

Pudge : I seriously don't understand how this hero is balanced. Permanent 30% slow at level 1? 2 BKB-piercing skills that interrupt channeling, one of them being on a 4 second cooldown, the other being a 3 second stun on a 20 second cooldown? Absurd strength values and lifestealing ulti...on a support? For me this is a clear example of OSFrog brainlessly balancing heroes around their competitive pick rates, completely ignoring the hero's actual strength, completely ignoring that there is a roaming Pudge in every second game in pubs, and completely ignoring basic notions of balance.

Slark : you f**** kidding me? This changes NOTHING. ZERO. ZILCH. This is not a nerf, this is a rip-off.

Winter Wyvern : very underrated support IMO, her new ult is pretty good. People were put off by her ult rework but get a blink/force and a medallion, and you get a free kill every teamfight.

Treant Protector : Hello guys it's CLQ, the best tree-ant the world's ever fckin seen. I'm going to pick treant and rush a Quelling Blade to boost my carry's gameplay in the safe lane.

Shadow Demon : I'm picking him already! But keep buffing him me likey.

Clinkz : Bloodthorn + Scythe of Vyse new core build confirmed. Deals with literally everything, including Linkens, ghost scepter, blademail. Literally a free kill on every single hero in the game. Far better than MKB + crit. Always go full INT, since it's actually...more damage than going full damage. EleGiggle.

Windranger : same. Also, no nerfs.

Enchantress : buffed in 6.87, buffed in 6.88. Keepo.

Lion : no nerfs. Earth Spike and finger cast range are still OSfrog.

Bane could start encroaching on OSFrog territory for a support. A 300 damage pure nuke with an 11 cooldown? That heals him as well. On top of super cheap Enfeeble? Sounds fun.

Clockwerk might not be garbage tier? Sweet VEG buffs.

Pugna buff is probably really important. A .5s reduction of his Nether Blast adds up when pushings. It probably takes a second or two off of his tower pushing abilities all in all. Shame he can't flash farm jungle much anymore.

Treant Protector buff is silly. Maybe we get a resurgence of PPTree, but I doubt it. There heroes base damage was already absurd, so I don't think it changes that much.

Troll Warlord armour buff and a BAT decrease? I'll take those. Armour is arguably more valuable than raw HP given you build stats, and he's the fastest attacker in the game. A BAT decrease means a lot as a result.

Random Dragon Lance buff? Trading 2 stat points for 10 range feels like a buff.

Zet is still bad.
Cent will probably become T1/T2 pick.
Huge boff for Clock, cast time is super-important, so is cog radius.
Doom's ulti keeps getting dumpstered for no reason.
Big Enigma buff, will probably be picked more though his ulti's cd is still too big to be reliable.
Another small Kunkka buff that buffs already overpowered hero beyond imaginable. And again, huge buffs to low level Torrent, which pretty much means buffs to the whole skill until level 12 where you start getting more points in it.
Big Lich buff, again, for no ****ing reason.
No nerf for Timber(>)
No warcry nerf.

As well as plethora of other buffs to heroes that don't need them(kotl, morph, nyx, ogre, omni, oracle, pudge, pugna, storm, terrorblade, tiny, treant, warlock, wr, wk, zeus).

Huge unnecessary buffs to Bloodthorn(doe he want to yet again push Storm into the territory where reddit kids will be crying about him again, only to nerf him into oblivion in the aftermath?) and Butterfly.

Typical OSFrog patch. All my heroes are buffed tho, and I haven't had a heart attack like from the 2 previous patches, so nothing to complain about rly.

Has been for 2 patches already. This is just the 3rd. OSFrog doesn't understand that Aether Lens Fiend's Grip and Nightmare's invulnerability period are simply not balanced.

He needs a cast range nerf on both his E and his ult, or make his ult unaffected by lens.

Again, buffing tier 1 supports...makes no sense.




Actually...I didn't realize that one. It's 600 pure damage that goes through BKB, and gets amplified by his INT...that's actually pretty good. Enigma deals some real damage now.

Still if there's a Pudge, a Clock and a Void in every ******* game, playing 'nigma is not going to be very fun.



Yeah...now there's no hesitation on his skill build, you go 1/4/4 on core Kunkka and 1/0/4 into 4/0/4 on support Kunkka.
The fact that you can max Xmark early is really good.



Yep.
Timber is patch cancer tier now. He got buffed for no reason at all and Timbers going 1/2/4 are simply impossible to deal with in lane because of infinite HP regen and 30 armor. Unless you pick Lion or Anti-Mage.




Same here. It's not balanced, but it advantages me XD

Interesting changes. The genereal gist is to buff all of those heroes who are less picked in pro, regardless of their place in pubs ( Kunkka is a good example), probably in hope of seeing more of them in TI. Terrorblade is situated here, it might become too powerfull in low level pubs where people do not know how to play against him, but I don't think he will necesssarily become a general cancer.

In the same way, there were subtle and minimal nerfs to all things that seem too much now even in competitive (like Lifestealer and Armlet of Mordiggian). That's good.

I do agree with Hamster when he warns "OSFrog brainlessly balancing heroes around their competitive pick rates, completely ignoring the hero's actual strength, completely ignoring that there is a roaming Pudge in every second game in pubs" though. It's hard to balance only looking at pubs, we all know why, but still being careful with those makes for a better gaming experience for everyone. Pudge is an example of a hero that's just already super picked in pubs, not necessarily OP in those (cause let's be honest, people pick him but they arent' good with the hero), but why buff him, in pro games he's situational and that's why he isn't more picked (a bit like Undying, strong early game and situational very good late game, but mediocre in the mid game if not given the right circumstances).

Hopefully Troll Warlord and Phantom Assassin finally get a place in the competitive too (Hamster's idea of her as a offlaner is interesting, and even pairs with what we theorized about Vanguard). Sniper is probably not good enought still though, a remodel might be coming. Arc Warden is also threading carefully into becoming a nice common hero, I like the fact that they do not rush into any big change that could backfire.

Enchantress, Windranger and Lion do not need any change, they are perfectly fine in both pubs and competitive, so why change them. I don't see how or why we can claim them to be OP right now, tbh. Bane too, you're supposed to either jump him and stop channeling (how is that more difficult than a WD, about which no one is complaining) and just have a BKB against the rest of his spells. Tier 1 supports are fine in general, you want them to be all valid picks instead of just one or too (and Phoenix and Earth Spirit are being taken care of). Meanwhile Disruptor is also super strong, as we could see in Manila, but no one complains about him, I wonder why.

Treant Protector is indeed the only change I don't really get, since he's not picked because of his high damage in pro games but because of his Living Armor - doesn't this make more people in pubs do the cheesy Aghs into taking everyone's farm and building him as a carry? Might that be interesting for a change? Maybe, don't know.

Not sure how all of these are gonna turn out, in the last three patches a lof of people also said "oh this change is too minimal" and it turned out to make a difference, so yea, let's see. Slark for instance does have a damage problem in his early levels, where he needs all the "nuke" damage he can get, so maybe the little nerf helps pubs stop complaining about him. Same way, how can we consider some values too low and then say others, that are exactly as subtle, are immense (like Jakiro's buff).

Same for item changes, I don't think buffing Bloodthorn is detrimental, it's one of those items everyone screamed OVERPOWERED when they created it only to see it not being bought in almost no one, and it deserves a place as a relevant damage item just as much I guess. And trying to improve the Aghs, nice ( Lich's one is finally a very good choice for the hero cause of the slow, don't forget that "the slow persists if debuff was placed before spell immunity and when not dispelled").

Buffing Crystal Maiden more and more doesn't seem the way to go either btw, but why not I guess, unless you people start also screaming OP XD

Before the ag's was a thing, Treant used to be a hyper aggresive support. As in go boots and Leech Seed first and go ganking with 80 base damage and just kill people.

That's probably what the buff is aimed towards. Or a random zoning buff.

What are you guys' thoughts on the Sun Ray nerf?

I'm looking forward to rush Hurricane Pike and critz on Traxex and do some nasty ranged Phantom Strikes... seems like a troll build but it's the first thing that popped into my head. it's pitty that it pushes your enemy from you, but I guess it would be imba if you could just use it to gain that atck speed.

Anyway, ls huge nerf on his manfighting, his burst with infest bomb and echo proc untouched. Slark and Sven remain, but pugna buf o.O