The brand new patch is ridiculously massive. In truth, it’s so large it took us two days of continuous Dota to type an preliminary impression. Seems, there are manner too many issues to debate and analyse to suit right into a single weblog submit, so as a substitute we’re going to spotlight a few of our most fascinating and stunning findings.
Someway Dota remains to be Dota
That is probably essentially the most stunning bit, given the sheer dimension of the patch, however the Dota fundamentals are largely intact. In truth, we might argue that resulting from no map or economic system adjustments, the sport works surprisingly just like the earlier patch on the macro stage.
The highground push is certainly simpler these days. Taking the primary lane of barracks early on is feasible, particularly in case you are snowballing. That means that gaining the map management benefit is each simpler and might doubtlessly occur earlier, when it’s extra significant. The brand new Roshan Banner additionally feels much more intuitive and impactful to make use of, although it does really feel extra excessive danger, excessive reward.
There are a number of high quality of life adjustments as nicely, most notable being the mana bar being at all times seen. Contemplating that it was the knowledge available regardless, it shouldn’t be an enormous deal for larger stage video games, however in a median pub it could actually doubtlessly enhance the extent of aggression: punishing an enemy who’s out of sources is an effective behavior and this alteration ought to assist newer gamers in its growth. It’s a little bit of an oblique nerf to heroes who typically pretend their talents, like, for instance 
Kunkka, however it’s nonetheless a really welcome QoL enchancment.
Innates and Aspects are a diamond within the tough
The 2 new recreation mechanics launched within the new patch are numerous enjoyable. From a purely pub perspective, they permit for an entire new dimension in theorycrafting and jank buildmaking, one thing we’re personally a fan of. The place it could actually actually shine, although, is aggressive play. Being able to regulate on the fly and doubtlessly adapt to a counterpick could be a large distinction maker on the highest stage of play.
Proper now the system is already nice, although there are undeniably some over- and under-tuned Aspects. A few of them really make the hero worse than the earlier default, which can be barely questionable, however we now have little question that Valve will form the system into one thing actually nice, like they did with Impartial Objects. For now, you’ll be able to test which Aspect works higher on the Dotabuff hero web page.
Random concepts
Lastly, we come to the concepts that you may utilise at this time in your pubs, in case you are prepared to danger it. We aren’t going to go over the same old suspects: everybody might be conscious that Bladeform 
Juggernaut, One Man Military 
Axe, Stonehall Plate 
Legion Commander and Spectral Blade 
Wraith King are type of busted. As an alternative, we’re going to have a look at doubtlessly janky, however very potent concepts to attempt.
Methodical 
Phantom Assassin
The hero page paints a really bleak image for the methodical PA and for a great purpose. Regardless of having a better multiplier on her final, the 6-hit requirement is simply too punishing. It isn’t being methodical, it’s being gradual, until…
Being an impact that you just stack on makes it work with 
Manta Style, which is a recreation changer, so long as you’ll be able to really management your illusions nicely sufficient to proc the crit from the actual hero, somewhat than one of many clones. It most likely requires quite a lot of micro talent on the facet of the participant, however the potential payoff is a 550% Crit each second assault from the actual hero, with illusions setting it up. Is it constantly robust? Most likely not. Can it’s a enjoyable problem? Virtually positively.
Fast Wit 
Dark Seer
Place one Darkish Seer is, unironically, viable. At the least in our opinion. Common heroes are very robust DPS-wise by default, however Fast Wit Darkish Seer takes it to a different stage, with overlapping DPS-increasing Innate and Facet.
His innate makes it in order that his Intelligence at all times catches as much as his Power or Agility, relying on which is larger. The Fast Wit Aspect offers Darkish Seer 0.5 AS per level in Intelligence. The top result’s a hero who will get +1.4 injury and +0.5 AS per level of Power, when constructing Power completely. Informal 
Ogre Axe giving +14 injury and +7 AS, on prime of all the opposite advantages is, frankly, busted.
The hero farms extremely quick, courtesy of Ion Shell. Can lane into most offlaners, can take stack with ease and might be a part of fights comparatively early. By constructing tankiness gadgets completely, the hero turns into a quick and hard-hitting monk that has tons of HP, tons of Magic Resistance and excessive right-click and skill DPS. He additionally has all of the mana to maintain it, whereas additionally scaling with the enemy via Wall of Duplicate.
You may attempt to make the case for pumping Agi, however resulting from an enormous discrepancy between DS Agi (1.8) and Int (2.7) development the impact isn’t as pronounced. Although you do technically get +1.5 AS per level of Agility, which is an important DPS attribute, as mentioned lately.
Bone Guard Wraith King and 
Lich twin lane
We all know that the Spectral Blade Aspect is technically stronger, however we really feel like gamers are underestimating the Bone Guard. It’s a flash-farming Aspect with robust pushing potential and numerous chaotic teamfight presence. And it additionally makes Lich have near infinite mana in lane by stage 5.
Each skelly from Bone Guard offers Lich 2.5% of max mana when dying. Every of them dies twice, so a stage one capacity already offers lich 10% of his max mana, on prime of the 20% max mana he will get from the creep wave.
Bone Guard does have a fairly lengthy cooldown, but when consistently stacking, pulling and killing enemy heroes, Lich ought to have mana for days. Mana that he can convert into much more kills and lane presence.
Closing ideas
It’ll take us some time to determine the intricacies of the patch. Furthermore, some nerfs are greater than doubtless and greater than mandatory, from the appears to be like of it. So for now we are going to steer clear of speaking about stats and meta, as a substitute concentrating on enjoyable, academic concepts to check out or broaden on.
For that purpose, we additionally ask you to share your ideas within the remark part beneath. The patch is MASSIVE and there may be a lot to debate and experiment with, it’s actually unattainable for a single particular person to do. Don’t hesitate to suggest loopy and janky concepts both — Dota is a good looking recreation with limitless prospects, so all the things can work!
