Since the 6.75 patch just got released recently I thought it would be a good idea to write an article asking different people in the current dota scene questions about the various changes that this patch has to offer and putting it all into one article.

By order of appearance we have LuminousInverse from DotaCommentaries, Purge and WhatisHip from GosuGamers, Diamond from JoinDota, FluffnStuff from team Complexity, and last but not least TidesofTime and Aui_2000 from our very own Team Dignitas.

So Lumi in this patch we saw some interesting changes to Doom Bringer, his level restriction has been removed for his devour ability and also level death damage along with scorge earth damage/heal have been increased. What do you think about these changes and do you think that these changes could possible bring doom bringer back to the competitive scene?

Luminous: Doom being able to jungle is simply a trap. Historically, there has not been any junglers that does not contribute in ganks or tower pushes. Furthermore, competitive junglers are generally difficult to harass, and should be able to switch jungle when the harassment becomes unbearable.

Sure, Doom has the ability to stay in the jungle with the help of Scorthed Earth and even some creep abilities, but his jungle speed is too slow to make it viable. As for Doom being a competitive viable hero, I believe he has his place, since Doom is one of the unique catch-all solutions out there. However, I feel there are generally better choices aside from Doom...

Ice Frog has released a new hero by the name of Auroth, the Winter Wyvern. What do you think about this hero and do you think she will have any use to the teams in the competitive scene or is it too early to know really?

Lumi: I haven't been following the new Dota1 heroes too much. Generally these heroes gets their numbers changed or reworked heavily, so I'll learn the hero once he's ported into Dota2



Hey Purge, thanks for taking the time to answer this question. So a hero that we saw get buffed quite a bit this patch was Treant Protector.

Not only did he gain 14 base damage increase and extra 1.5 stun duration and cooldown reduction on his ultimate but he also gained a brand new ability replacing his old living armor. What are your thoughts about the new treant protector? Do you feel as if this was Ice Frog's push to try and get him into the competitive scene more?

Purge: Yeah, for sure. Almost every buff and nerf is targeted towards making a hero more viable in the competitive scene. I am not completely sure how he'll work out though, because people said his last version was overpowered(yet he was played less than 5 times in real matches). It's important to note that his ulti no longer does ANY damage, so he's going to be limited to auto attacking(the +14 damage) and Leech seed. His living armor is going to be fantastic to see in coordinated teams, and most people expect to see him as a long lane solo.

So WhatisHip, one of the changes that lycan got in this patch was that his wolves now cost 20 more mana to summon and along with that the hp of the wolves got decreased quite a bit. The wolves starting hp was halved and now the wolves start with 200 hp. Do you think that these changes will in any way affect the way lycan is now played and do you think this has weakened his jungling ability quite substantially? Is he still worthy for competitive picking?

WhatisHip: Lycans nerf in 6.75 is a fantastic way to deal with his current play state (slightly overpowered unless a super specific strategy is put in place to deal with him). The biggest problem with Lycan in the competitive scene is that he is extremely flexible and is one of the best junglers in the game. If barred from the jungle he is still effective in lane, but it is hard for the opposing team to place what lane he is in.

Let's take a quick look at the changes: "Summon Wolves manacost increased from 125 to 145" This is just a generic nerf. It will hinder his early game jungling ability as he is already rather starved for mana.

Change 2: "Spirit Wolves HP decreased from 400/450/500/550 to 200/240/280/320, also the wolves now have a 50% magic resistance" - This is an extremely interesting change. The main target of the nerf was reducing the viability of the wolves in the jungle early game. With half of the health they will die extremely quickly to creeps and are not a help at the earlier levels. They would have no way to take on the larger creep camps early. This basically renders Lycan useless in the jungle. The 50% magic resistance is to increase the viability of the wolves in lane and in the earlier parts of the game. Right now it is not practical to right click down the wolves early game because they have so much health, and it is too important to make sure you are killing heroes. With the much reduced health a spell like Rubicks fade bolt could despatch both of them extremely easily and quickly, making them pretty useless in ganks and things like that.

The magic resistance increases the tankiness of the wolves in the early game so they can't be instantly killed by smaller spells. This is a very smart buff to make sure the wolves are not useless.

Overall I think these changes are extremely appropriate for Lycan. This being said, he still is a fantastic hero and will be seen in many games. I don't think he will be an always ban now, as it will be easier for teams to predict where he will be and shut him down like any normal carry. His current explosive farming will be hindered and it will be harder for him to snowball out of control. However, this hero is still a pushing monster as none of the damages were touched. As long as there are other creeps around to tank the tower he will be able to push just as quickly, cementing his role in DotA as a pushing carry. I still believe he still has a few issues, chief among them being his Ult CD at level 16, but we will see if this nerf is enough to turn down his current state to a manageable level.





So a hero that we saw get a change in the recent 6.75 patch was Ancient Apparition, which I know is one of your favorite heroes. Arguably AA's Chilling touch ability was probablly one of the worst abilities in the game. Are you happy with the changes made to it? Do you feel that it is at least now usuable? What else would you like to see changes about it if anything at all?



Diamond: I am honestly not thrilled about the changes. I feel that Chilling Touch is still going to be an unused skill for the majority of DOTA players. I believe that the entirety of the skill should be changed, not minor damage buffs. Chilling Touch does not benefit Ancient Apparition or his teammates enough for it to be selected over stats, even with the 10 damage increase added per level because the charges are now activated on creeps. I think a good alternative to adding damage to allies while slowing their attack speed, would be to change it so the aoe is targeted on the enemy heroes, slowing their attack speed but not giving them damage. That would fit with Ancient Apparition's icy personality

Hey Fluff So in the 6.75 patch we see a lot of nerfing being done to Morphling. Literally nothing good happened to Morphling in the patch and so i'm curious do you think that this was a necessary nerf on the hero or do you feel that he was just fine the way he was?



Also do you think that these nerfs will discourage pro teams from using him as much as they used to?

FluffnStuff: I don't think that these changes affect morphlings ability to carry. These are good changes to nerf the insane survivability that the hero currently has. In my opinion this hero definitely needed some sort of survival nerf or a reworked ability. I personally thought that morphling's morph ability would be nerfed so that he couldn't use it during a CC, such as a stun. However, I think this change is much better (increasing the mana per second costs).

The other survivability nerf would be the casting animation time increase, which makes it that much harder to waveform out of trouble for example. The base damage nerf helps tune his early game dominance (last hitting with morph stats early on), due to the option of being pooled early game and having great early last hitting potential.

Waveform AoE decreased from 255 to 200 is a good nerf as well, it seemed oddly too wide before. This will increase the precision necessary to land kills and do damage effectively. The final nerf was Morphling not being able to cast/attack during waveform. It's a decent nerf, however like I said before it doesn't affect his ability to carry and deal out damage in the mid and late game.

Icefrog seems to be following a good philosophy when it comes to balance, which is not nerfing heroes out of the metagame and buffing heroes into it. In the past many heroes would simply just fall out of favor because of harsh nerfs, but now more and more heroes seem to be viable with each patch. Overall these changes should hurt Morphling, but not take him out of the drafting pool.





Thanks for joining us Tides, So one of the items that we saw get a change in the 6.75 patch was ethereal blade, instead of the damage it dealt being based off of agility, it now uses the primary attribute of the holder. Do you think that this will encourage competitive players to begin using Ethereal blade with carries other than agility heros now such as maybe Obsidian Destroyer for instance? What are your thoughts on this change?

TidesofTime: It'll certainly be considered a lot more with an extra 200 damage give or take depending on hero/level/item on str/intel heroes. I know a lot of the american pro players were not happy with the fact that eblade seemed to be customized for morphling so I'm glad they're changing it up a bit. Not sure about OD, since he already has a ton of burst damage - I think his items should usually be geared towards tankyness or mobility. I'm personally looking forward to playing a late game eblade pudge :D

Another change that we saw in the patch was one that many support players highly appreciate! The cost for observer wards decreased from 200 to 150, what do you think about this change?

TidesofTime: Well, I'm extremely happy about it, we'll be seeing supports with more laning presence and more items late game... which will help result in a change of picks and play style (which is why I love patches!).

Although I think if they're going to make observer wards 150 gold, they should reduce the cost of sentries or add a 25-50 gold bounty on observer wards. I believe one of these changes are necessary so the support that properly counterwards doesn't get punished with losing 50 gold to the enemy support.

The main difference between reducing the cost of sentry wards and adding a bounty to observer wards, is that with reduced cost, your supports will not be as gimped playing against invisible heroes such as broodmother and bounty hunter. But you also have to think about the fact that if sentry wards remain 200, the support that bought observer wards will still have an extra clarity of branch in lane and it's arguably harder to counter ward than to place observer wards.





Hey Aui, a hero that we saw get a decent buff was Phantom Lancer, his agility gain went up from 2.8 to 4.2. Do you think that Ice Frog addressed the lack of Phantom Lancer in competitve play properly with this? Do you see Phantom Lancer now being able to come into the competitive scene? And if not then why do you think hes not picked that much? Also are there any other changes that you were particularly interested in and would like to mention?

Aui_2000: I think that the agility buff on pl is actually an interesting approach to buffing the hero--mainly because of how illusions only gain attack speed from stats and specific items like yasha/drums. PL now has almost 8 stat gain/level which is actually quite ridiculously high.

However, I'm not entirely convinced that the buff will be enough to propel the hero into the competitive scene. The hero is a bit reliant on having a radi to actually farm anything and the soul ring nerf will hurt his farming speed. Furthermore, PL can't just get a radi and go win the game/push like a syllabear can; PL really needs to farm another item before he's is a real threat. I'm not too sure about a gank based PL because I think if you want a ganker with lategame carry viability, there are better options to choose from (ck comes to mind).

Moreover, the stat gain change seems to target PL’s lategame and I think that PL’s problems have more to do with the midgame than early/lategame, so I don’t think that this change was the best way to approach the hero. It is also very possible that I may be undervaluing the full point of agi gain above any other hero though—I’m just not convinced that PL is able to effectively fill a specific role in a team lineup that a hero like ck or naga wouldn’t be able to do better.

The three hero changes that I’m most looking forward to seeing more after this patch are batrider, gyro, and shadow fiend—all of which I thought were situationally pickable, but are now looking pretty good.

Hyperlinks to all the people in this article by order of apperance.

Luminous's Facebook

DotaCommentary's Website

Purge's Facebook

Purge's Website

WhatIsHip's Facebook

Diamond's Youtube

Diamond's Facebook

Complexity's Website

Also here is a video where Luminous gives more of his opinions about the 6.75 patch notes: Lumi's 6.75 patchnotes

Shoutout by FluffnStuff: Shoutout to my friends, family, and fans. Shoutout to my sponsors Gamma Gamers, PNY, Creative, Origin, Sound Blaster, and Qpad. Shoutout to Jessica?!

Shoutout by Aui_2000: Shoutout to Team Dignitas and its sponsors!