Just a week left into the Stockholm Major, Valve released Update 7.31c for Dota 2. Then again, not surprising as the Spring Tour revealed that some heroes tended to dominate. The new patch pretty much solves that with a lot of nerfs.
Indeed, there are many of them, so we’ll focus on some of these changes. The first is on Tiny, which should have been done a few patches back. The building bonus damage of Tree Grab is now capped at 85%. Meanwhile, the tree attack damage multiplier is now maxed at 40%.
Death Prophet received a nerf as well, and mainly due to a bug that allowed the hero to deal a lot of damage to towers. Exorcism now does only 50% damage to buildings. The base health drain per second of Spirit Siphon is now scaled, while the fear duration given by Shard has been lowered.
We're not yet done. Necrophos also got handed with a nerf. Both the heal of Death Pulse and permanent health regeneration of Reaper's Scythe are reduced. Death Seeker has its cooldown and mana cost increased as well.
Finally, we have Medusa. The damage of her Split Shot has been lowered for each level. Her Stone Gaze has its mana cost increased from 100 to 150.
Let’s Have It
Of course, it’s not all nerfs. Players should be happy to know that Bloodseeker got a good buff with Shard effects improved. Changes to Blood Mist are:
- Self-damage now Pure instead of magical.
- Damage to enemies now at 7% from 5%.
- Cooldown is now 3 seconds.
Next is Sven, probably the most buffed hero in this patch. Let's start with his Warcry skill. The movement speed bonus of the skill has been increased by 2% for each level. The passive armor given by Aghanim's Shard is increased to 7. We move on to Storm Hammer whose stun duration has been rescaled. Its mana cost has been decreased and is now 110/115/120/125.
Less Vision
Some changes include the one done for the neutral creep Harpy Scout. Its vision ability has been "abused" by many players, so of course it's been nerfed. Vision has been lowered from 1800/1800 to 1200/800. Hopefully, that should balance things out.
A Bit Better
For item changes, players should take a closer look at Wraith Pact. This was one of the new items introduced, and while good on paper, it wasn't practical. That's because a lot of players thought it was too expensive. Hopefully, some players are going to change their mind with these changes:
- Vladmirs Aura radius from 900 to 1200
- Wraith Reprisal Damage Reduction increased from 25% to 30%
- Wraith Reprisal DPS increased from 25 to 30
- Casting a Wraith Reprisal deletes any previous totems spawned by the ability previously
- Bonus lifesteal increased from 15% to 18%
- Mana regen increased from 1.75 to 2
Check out the rest of the changes in Patch 7.31c here. Dota 2 is available on PC.
