Valve has released the patch notes for Dota 2 update 7.34, and they feature some big changes to lots of heroes including reworks to some of the more underused heroes of the last few months.
Leading the patch notes are changes to the Captains Mode draft order, which is used in pro matches. There are now differing amounts of bans at each ban phase depending on if you were the first or second pick, with second pick getting an extra ban early on and first pick getting their ban back in the middle ban phase. In pro matches, this will likely be a big change but for most players, it won’t change anything as it does not apply to All Pick matches.
As the patch notes go on there is a distinct lack of system or map changes, with Valve giving the big changes from the last patch more time to see how they work out. Instead, the changes come thick and fast when it comes to heroes and items.
There are now only two Blood grenades available at the start of the game and they take longer to restock, so I am now feeling very sad as a pos 4 player. But Smoke has a really cool change where any ally that comes within 300 range of the player who smoked while they are still hidden will also smoke. So now you can just run past the player who refused to smoke with you.
It looks like most heroes have been given some kind of change, with some more than others. First impressions show that Beastmaster, who has been a top pick for the pros, has had his Hawk reworked, Bristleback has had his Aghs reworked so his Birstleback ability can now be cast to send Quill Sprays in a direction and Viper has a ridiculous level 25 talent that lets him become a Universal hero.
Obviously a lot of heroes who did not feature much since the last patch have been buffed. Grimstroke has been given a good amount of buffs which might see him come back to the meta, OD’s ult now causes enemies to take damage when they cast a spell after being hit by it and Razor’s old shard is now a part of his core kit with a new shard coming to Static Link.
Elsewhere Invoker has a ton of changes, and most importantly is now Universal, Warlock’s Fatal Bonds will summon imps so isn’t totally useless and Zeus’ ult now does percentage-based damage.
There’s a lot to get through, but there seems to be enough here to massively shake up the meta in time for the TI qualifiers, which after a good few months of often underwhelming pro play will be a welcome change. You can take a look at the patch notes and see for yourself.
This is the first numbered patch since the massive 7.33 update we got earlier in the year and it appears to be tidying up a few things that haven’t quite worked as intended. With these changes, we should get a fresh feel to Dota and hopefully start to fully realize the potential of the massive changes that 7.33 brought.
Valve actually released the patch notes a few hours ago, but they were in the form of emojis leading to the community spending ages trying to figure out what it all meant. From what we can see the patch notes do line up pretty well with the emoji version, so anyone with a detailed understanding of the emoji language could have figured all this out well before anyone else. While it may seem like a bit of a joke from Valve, it is nice to see them finally do some kind of marketing/community-based activities around a patch, instead of just releasing the notes with no fanfare or announcement.
Read the full article here
