7.09 — a Quick Review
As promised, a new version of Dota 2 was released yesterday. This new patch was a lot different to the previous one, focusing on global changes without touching any of the heroes. While the changelog might look small, it did introduce some fundamental changes that might drastically change how the game is played, especially in pubs.
- Courier cost reduced from 200 to 50
A massive change to support early game. Freeing up 150 gold is no joke, since it means at least some extra regeneration at the start of the game. Invisible heroes should be slightly worse off, since there are now more free resources at the start and mid players can feel a little more pressured, since the chance of an early Smoke gank is higher.
Coupled with the changes further in the changelog, it is now going to be quite normal for supports to be missing from the map for prolonged periods of time. Overall it should create a slightly more dynamic early game, with higher amount of skirmishes for resource control and less regeneration at base.
- Starting gold is reduced from 625 to 600
Given how support items are the only ones that got cheaper, this change only further solidifies their early game boost. Once again, however, there are also some other changes that might change the way the initial stages of the game are played.
- Initial bounty rune now gives +40 gold to all heroes instead of 100 to the hero that picks it up
There is an obvious increase in the amount of total gold from starting bounty runes, with each now providing 200g total for the team that picks it up. While each hero only gets 40g in the end and won’t be able to snowball into early boots of speed or an orb of venom, controlling starting runes is still a lot more important.
It is especially important for mid players, since it is unlikely the first-purchase-salve meta is going to change any time soon — mid players need this regen to sustain themselves long enough to get bottle and we have seen how punishing deviating from it can be.
Losing even a single bounty rune, coupled with a 25 starting gold decrease might make some mid heroes a lot harder to play, with either less regeneration at the start, or less stats. A 3-5 attack damage difference is not noticeable in vacuum, but when playing against a highly skilled opponent, it can make quite a bit of difference. Even a single last hit lost due to the damage differential can be devastating — there is a lot less XP when the enemy creep is denied and the gold difference can snowball into an even bigger advantage for the opponent.
- Tangoes now come with 3 charges and cost 90 gold
Support will now need to buy two sets of tangos at the start to have enough to pull to their mids, since it is unlikely there is going to be any money to spare for the mid cores.
At the same time, the instances where an extra set of tangos are bought after the game start is now higher — not only is there less of them, but they are also a cheaper total and can be a necessity for some heroes to sustain in lane.
- Killing a neutral camp stack now gives a bonus 15% gold bounty to the hero that stacked it.
This is seen as one of the biggest change of the patch, but in reality the actual amount of gold gained from stacks is unlikely to be over 1k by the end game. It is still a lot of money and the stacks did become a lot more important than they were, but it won’t suddenly make supports roll in gold. In fact, most of the time it might be even abused by the core players to boost their income, rather than share with supports.
What it did well, however, is shift the perception of stacking. There is an audio “reward” for successful stacks, there is also a monetary incentive and all of it will definitely have a huge impact on the pub play. Making supports more appealing and have even more ways to influence the game for a rather insignificant change in balance is a good change for pubs and an interesting one for the pro-scene, where, as mentioned previously, supports missing from the map is going to create a lot of extra tension.
- Tier 1 mid lane towers are now a bit closer to the river
When read, it looks like the change was aimed at protecting mid players from ganks and maybe even incentivize a return of true 1v1 mid battles. In reality, the positions of towers have been changed insignificantly enough, for them to make close to no difference.
Mid ganks are still going to be harder and there is definitely less room for invisible maneuvers, but it is unlikely to change the double-mid meta much, even coupled with a higher stacking incentive.
Closing thoughts
This patch is certainly unique. It slightly changes some fundamental Dota rules, without changing the hero balance, and the result of this patch should be quite interesting. Once again, we will recap the biggest winners and losers of the patch in a week. As for now, it is extremely hard to speculate how the meta is going to change in the professional scene, while pubs should see an increase in support play and their impact.
You did not talk about Range Creep agro! The cost per Tango remains the same if IIRC. 150/5 = 30. 90/3 = 30.
Since there are so few heroes which can easily take stacked camps early game I am going to have so much fun on bounty hunter ganking all the low hp carries trying to take on triple stacks 10 min into the game :)
The thing about the neutral stack is you forgot the next sentence.
"No bonus is given if the stack is cleared by an enemy or the hero that stacked it."
So if you stack it and you kill the stacked camp yourself, you get no extra gold.
oh yes. lich king is back
Look at the 5k+ winrates, icefrog, does it really look like we need general changes, and not hero-specific buffs and nerfs?
Antimage, slark, medusa, alch, even morph to an extent - those greedy cores were my goddamn favorite, and are now useless, while lycan and huskar are so stupidly overpowered.
The changes in this patch will likely result in a 1%-ish increase to the cores specified above for my opinion being as they benifit a lot from stacks, and stacking will now likely be important in later stages of the game too, but those heroes are still far from being viable and balanced.
no mention to ranged creep aggro change?
smoke gank 5 hero in early game with tusk most did again, especially in this patch
pull --> pool
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I actually dont want to play this game till they roll back or nerf hp increasement per str. It is so fucking hard to gank by 2 hero. Cant even purnish offlaner by 2 heros too. I really hate to see early push with str gay heroes and it is so hard to def. It was started from 7.06 and ice frog didnt notice the hp increase ruin game. He actually makes dota as lol now. What we want is assasinate or god like kill. It is not stupid team fight and pushing tower with hp gays
@isheezy- WHAT?!
90/3=30 150/5=30 the cost per tango has not changed at all, how can the people that write these articles not do third grade division.
@NecroCaucasian Pretty sure the tangoes costed 125 for 5 before, and now 90 for 3.
@Scarifar Nope, 150 before for 5 tangoes
Tango cost remains the same. Wrongly written in the article.
Before the 5 tango patch the cost was at 125 gold for 4 tangos - until now it has been 150 gold for 5.
150/5= 30 and 90/3=30 aswell.
Wth
Just a note on the bounty runes:
Previously two heroes would get 100 gold assuming even split between teams. Now, if there is no rune contest, EVERYONE gets 80 gold. If you were giving it to your mid for one rune, they lose 20 gold overall. Taking 3 runes is like your entire team taking 1.2 bounty runes in the previous patch, so contesting runes is huge as it affects all lanes. Heroes that can snipe from invis will do a little better in lower brackets on average while I assume upper brackets might see any income buff to supports be siphoned off by the possible necessity of a sentry ward to prevent said snipe.
@no solo supp - I think you are misunderstanding how they mean cores can abuse it. From some other posts i've read on it the theory for cores (mainly illusion cores like naga, tb, maybe meepo) is that you can stack all the camps in your jungle than a teammate can clear the camps while you farm lane. Now you get lane farm and the stacked camp bonus gold all at once. Now i haven't seen the math to know whether that's worth it or if you're better just taking the full stacked camp yourself and get no bonus. I think it really all comes down to how effective are you at micro-ing your illusions to stack multiple camps at once and how fast they can be cleared by teammates
@Porkchop sandwiches
I can't imagine many situations where you're going to be better off having the core stack it as a well stacked jungle is quite a lot of relatively safe gold. However if your cores split the effort, only stacking one here or there it could be worth it.
time to start carrying as a support... had a witch doctor game with 737 xpm last night..
"Cost of a single tango charge has gone up from 25 to 30."
CoolStoryBob
"In fact, most of the time it might be even abused by the core players to boost their income, rather than share with supports."
Farming your own stacks doesn't give you the extra gold
Vary nice!
I love support!
I have many golds!
Sorry about the tango cost confusion. Was sure it was 125 for 5 charges before.
hero does not receive 15 percent if he farm stacks himself
The ’Tier 1 mid lane towers are now a bit closer to the river‘ change is actually a significant one.
tango price = bulldog level math
@Backlit Flügel
It really is. Generally it's not smart to position yourself on the other side of the river in the laning stage but it's a little more 'safe' to do if you're a ranged hero. This accentuates that issue and makes it even harder for the lane to house melee carries going solo.
Also fun fact about the tangoes: this change reverts tangoes back to their 6.55 cost and charges. Recently players have been utizilizng the gg branch strat, stretching those 5 tangoes to 6 or 7, costing around 250 gold. These changes mean you can spend 180 for the 6 charges, or buy an extra branch for 50 gold and stretch that to 7 charges, for a total of 230 gold. This is a buff to mid lane survivability for sure, but it's balanced by the less gold at the beginning and bounty rune changes. I'm hesitant to say midlane life is better, but offlane life might be better.
what about the game breaking tree?!?!?!!
This patch so funny, only 3 tango, carry always weak at early game, buy 2 tango with 600 gold, it spend too much gold
пусть тут будет русский ретард