‘Dota 2’ 6.87 Patch Notes Outline Hundreds Of Tweaks For Valve’s Ever-Changing MOBA

A new patch for Dota 2 will debut this week, delivering hundreds of changes for Valve’s fan-favorite MOBA, and early patch notes for Dota 2 v6.87 confirm this will be another one of those monstrous patches that completely changes the meta again.

With the Shanghai Major fading in the rearview, and the Manila Major looming on the horizon, it’s hard to think of a better time for Valve to introduce the latest major update for Dota 2. And the company clearly agrees because Monday brought word that we’ll see the release of Dota 2 v6.87 before the end of the week. This won’t be one of those little hot fix patches we’ve seen with increasing frequency in the last few weeks, either.

Hundreds of changes are being introduced in Dota 2 v6.87, tweaking everything from the way players pick heroes in Ranked mode to the equipment you can purchase for each hero during a round of Dota 2. This week’s patch also rebalances the entire Dota 2 roster, adjusting base stats and abilities for everyone, from Abaddon to Zeus. Several heroes were also the recipients of new (or retooled) Aghanim’s Scepter effects, including Gyrocopter, Mirana and Winter Wyvern.

Here are the general gameplay changes coming in Dota 2 v6.87, via Valve:

• Reworked Ranked All Pick. Before the picking phase begins, there is a 15 second voting phase to ban heroes. Each player votes for a different hero. Afterwards, half of the heroes that were voted on will be randomly selected and banned.

1. Two players cannot vote for the same hero. The game displays heroes as they are voted on, but not who voted. The number of bans is equal to half the total number of votes. If there is an odd number of votes, the number of bans is randomly rounded up or down.
2. The random ban selection will choose at most 3 heroes from one specific team's votes, so it's more evenly split.

• Each team now has a Scan ability, available on the minimap UI.

1. Scans a targeted 900 AoE for 8 seconds. Indicates whether there are enemy heroes in that area during the 8 seconds.
2. Starts on cooldown and has a global team-wide cooldown of 4.5 minutes
3. Note: Does not consider units inside the Roshan Pit, but does consider Smoked units. Does not show how many heroes there are, just if there are any enemies. Enemies do not know when your team casts it.

• Starting HP increased from 180 to 200
• HP per strength increased from 19 to 20
• Hero base mana increased from 0 to 50
• Mana per int reduced from 13 to 12
• Intelligence now increases your spell damage by 1% per 16 Intelligence points. [?]
• Stats hover on your hero now shows you your total Spell Amplification, including Aether Lens.
• Lane Creep health upgrade increased from 10 to 12 HP [?]
• Tier 2 towers damage now same as Tier 3
• Towers now grant an armor aura to allied heroes [?]
• Tower True Sight range reduced from 900 to 700 [?]
• Initial Bounty Rune no longer gives experience
• Melee hero attack range increased from 128 to 150
• Lane Creep Aggro duration increased from 2 to 2.5 [?]
• Lane Creep Aggro cooldown increased from 2 to 2.5
• Melee Creep gold bounty reduced from 40 to 38 [?]
• Melee and Ranged Creep gold bounty upgrade over time increased from 1 to 2 [?]
• Melee creep experience reduced from 62 to 45
• Ranged creep experience increased from 41 to 90 [?]
• Experience required to get to level 8 and 9 rescaled from 600/1200 to 800/1000
• Ethereal now blocks in-flight attack projectiles fully, rather than just ones launched before Ethereal [?]
• Evasion now uses Pseudo-Random Distribution
• Evasion is now calculated on impact rather than on launch
• Centaur Courser health reduced from 550 to 350
• Centaur Courser armor reduced by 1
• The large Centaur camp now spawns 2 Centaur Coursers instead of 1
• Roshan Magic Resistance reduced from 75% to 55%
• Roshan HP increased from 7500 + 125/min to 8000 + 175/min
• Roshan experience bounty changed from 1789 to 750 + 20/min [?]
• Double Damage and Haste no longer have special rules for being dispelled by Spell Immunity
• The following buffs are now purgeable: Nightmare, Spawn Spiderlings, Malefice, Cold Snap, Corrosive Skin, and Leap movement speed buff
• Minor adjustments to cast range mechanics to reduce overly long cast ranges when the target is moving quickly
• Illusions now benefit from Damage Block
• Captains Mode Pick time from 40 to 30 seconds
• Captains Mode Bonus time from 110 to 130 seconds
• Captains Mode: Adjusted the order of bans in the 2nd ban phase (from 1st/2nd/1st/2nd to 2nd/1st/2nd/1st)
• Captains Mode: Adjusted the order of picks in the final pick phase (from 2nd/1st to 1st/2nd)
• Captains Mode: The overall pick/ban order for the two teams is now:

1. Ban1: 1st/2nd/1st/2nd
2. Pick1: 1st/2nd/2nd/1st
3. Ban2: 2nd/1st/2nd/1st
4. Pick2: 2nd/1st/2nd/1st
5. Ban3: 2nd/1st
6. Pick3: 1st/2nd

• Removed Strong armor type, and moved affected units to Soft type, which is now renamed to Basic type
• Roshan armor type from Basic to Hero
• Dark Troll Summoner attack type from Pierce to Hero
• Thunderhide attack type from Basic to Hero
• Dark Troll Summoner damage reduced from 55-60 to 40-45
• Thunderhide attack damage reduced from 71-78 to 60-65
• Harpy Stormcrafter mana pool reduced from 540 to 400
• Satyr Tormenter mana pool reduced from 600 to 400

According to Valve, Dota 2 v6.87 is currently available via the game’s test client, giving the community an opportunity to experiment with some of the changes before they go live later this week. The company says the patch will make its official debut in a couple of days, provided the community doesn’t discover some kind of game-breaking issue while testing Dota 2 v6.87. To see all the changes coming later this week, including hundreds of item and hero tweaks, head over to the dedicated 6.87 sub-section of the Dota 2 website and read up on this week’s patch.

Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for more Dota 2 news throughout 2016 and however long Valve continues to support Dota 2 in the years to come.