



6.79 review by Virtus.pro's NS

Table of Contents

Buyback prevents gaining unreliable gold (creeps, neutrals, etc) until your normal respawn time finishes

When buying back, 25% of the remaining respawn time will be added to your next death

Creeps now meet a bit closer to the tower in your offlane

Ranged Heroes now get the same denied experience as melee heroes (instead of less)

XP AoE increased from 1200 to 1300

Non-ancient neutrals now split XP with all heroes in the AoE instead of just the team that killed them

Swapped the medium pullable neutral camp with the small camp

Reduction of some neutral's XP bounty

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* Satyr Mindstealer XP bounty reduced from 88 to 62

* Satyr Tormentor XP bounty reduced from 155 to 119

* Mud Golems XP bounty reduced from 119 to 88

* Dark Troll Summoner bounty XP reduced from 155 to 119

Fixed Neutral Envenomed Weapons debuff dispelling regen items

Day/Night length decreased from 6 to 4 minutes

The following heroes now have the standard 800 night vision: Drow Ranger, Mirana, Puck, Leshrac, Enchantress, Ancient Apparition, Meepo and Treant Protector

Night Stalker

Darkness causes enemy vision to be reduced by 25% (affects heroes, creeps and wards)

Roshan will respawn at a random time between 8 and 11 minutes after death

Gold for ending a spree changed from 75->600 (3x->10x) to 125->1000

Your gold income is now 1 per 0.6 seconds, up from 1 per 0.8 seconds

Evasion now stacks diminishingly

Alchemist

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- Chemical Rage no longer provides 250/500/750 bonus HP

- Chemical Rage HP regen increased from 15/30/60 to 50/75/100

Ancient Apparition

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- Ice Vortex cooldown reduced from 5 to 4

- Ice Blast cooldown reduced from 45 to 40

- The Chilling Touch buff is now always applied to Ancient Apparition even if he is not within the target area

- Chilling Touch cooldown reduced from 50/46/42/38 to 50/42/34/26

Axe

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- Berserker's Call AoE increased from 275 to 300

- Battle Hunger duration reduced from 10/13/16/19 to 10/12/14/16

- Battle Hunger damage reduced from 15/21/27/33 to 15/20/25/30

- Battle Hunger movement speed slow/bonus increased from 8% to 10%

- Battle Hunger is now dispellable

- Counter Helix cooldown reduced from 0.55/0.5/0.45/0.4 to 0.45/0.4/0.35/0.3

- Counter Helix now hits siege units

- Culling Blade no longer goes on cooldown if it successfully kills a hero

- Culling Blade threshold reduced from 300/450/625 to 250/350/450 (Aghanim upgraded version is still 300/450/625)

- Culling Blade speed bonus increased from 25% to 40% and AoE from 600 to 900

- Culling Blade 40% speed bonus now applies to attack speed as well

- Culling Blade Aghanim allied buff duration increased from 6 to 10

- Culling Blade manacost reduced from 150/200/250 to 60/120/180

Batrider

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- Base damage reduced from 48-52 to 38-42

- Vision reduced from 1400 to 1200

- Flaming Lasso cast range reduced from 175 to 100

Bloodseeker

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- Base movement speed reduced from 305 to 300

- Thirst is now global instead of 6000 range

- Thirst bonus now stacks for each unit that is low HP

- Thirst HP threshold increased from 20/30/40/50% to 50%

- Thirst movement speed bonus reduced from 15/25/35/45% to 7/14/21/28%

- When Thirst is active, movement speed cap is removed on your hero

- Thirst no longer provides armor bonus

- Thirst provides bonus 7/14/21/28 damage

- Thirst no longer grants full hero vision around low HP targets, it only shows their model

- Thirst no longer lasts for an extra 3 seconds when the target is dead

Brewmaster

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- Base agility increased from 16 to 22

- Drunken Haze affects a 200 AoE around the target

- Thunder Clap is now dispellable

- Primal Split selection order is now Earth/Storm/Fire

- Reworked Primal Split Aghanim upgrade:

(No longer upgrades any stats, cd, duration, etc on Aghanim.

Instead, it now grants Thunderclap to Earth, Drunken Haze to Storm, and Drunken Brawler to Fire.

The skills granted are at the same level as Brewmaster's skills.

Cooldowns are independent of the original Brewmaster.)

Broodmother

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- Spin Web AoE increased from 650 to 900

- Spin Web cast range increased from 600 to 1000

- Spin Web cast point nerfed from 0.2 to 0.4

- Spin Web no longer destroys trees

- Broodmother now has completely unobstructed movement when under the web (can walk over cliffs, trees, etc)

- Removed buffer time when leaving Spin Web (you now immediately lose your regen/movement/pathing/invis bonuses)

Chaos Knight

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- Chaos Bolt damage and stun values are now inversely related

Chen

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- Test of Faith teleport is now dispellable

- Hand of God cooldown increased from 140/130/120 to 160/140/120

Dark Seer

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- Vacuum cooldown increased from 24 to 28

Death Prophet

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- Exorcism Spirit damage increased from 43-48 to 53-58

Disruptor

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- Kinetic Field AoE increased from 300 to 325

- Glimpse cooldown reduced from 60/50/40/30 to 65/50/35/20

- Static Storm AoE increased from 375 to 450

- Static Storm max damage increased from 170/220/270 to 200/250/300

- Added Aghanim's upgrade: Static Storm silences items, and lasts an extra 2 seconds

Drow Ranger

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- Precision Aura damage ratio increased from 16/20/24/28% to 18/24/30/36%

- Precision Aura no longer affects creeps

- Precision Aura can now be manually casted to affect creeps globally for 30 seconds (120 cd)

- Marksmanship attribute negation AoE increased from 375 to 400

Earthshaker

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- Enchant Totem damage increased from 75/150/225/300% to 100/200/300/400%

- Fissure range increased by 100

Invoker

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- EMP restores Invoker for 50% of the mana it drains from heroes (excluding illusions)

- Invoke Max Spells rescaled from 1/2/2/2 to 2

Io (Wisp)

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- Tether now does a -100% MS/AS slow instead of a stun

Lion

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- Mana Drain duration increased from 4 to 5

- Hex cooldown increased from 15 to 30/25/20/15

- Hex duration increased from 1.75/2.5/3.25/4 to 2.5/3/3.5/4

Lycanthrope

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- Armor increased by 1 (Shapeshift total armor is still the same as before)

- Base damage increased by 5

- Howl bonus damage for non-hero units increased from 4/8/12/16 to 5/10/15/20

- Wolves magic resistance increased from 50% to 80%

Meepo

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- Base armor reduced by 1

- Turn rate improved from 0.5 to 0.65

- Earthbind cast point improved from 0.5 to 0.3

- Divided We Stand leveling rebalanced from 6/11/16 to 4/11/18

- Removed 30% stat sharing on non-aghanim Divided We Stand

Nature's Prophet

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- Treants' XP Bounty increased from 20 to 30

- Treants' Gold Bounty increased from 12-16 to 14-20

Necrolyte

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- Base armor increased by 1

Night Stalker

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- Darkness causes enemy vision to be reduced by 25% (affects heroes, creeps and wards)

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If the enemy has no Slark or Luna, then when Night Stalker casts Darkness he gets 1600 range vision (with Aghanims he sees pretty much half the map) and the enemy heroes get 600 range vision. Some heroes even have a higher attack range than that. Night Stalker becomes incredibly powerful at night, which now happens more often. He can wait out the shorter 4 minute day and then prolong the night with his ulti, as usual. It's true that Night Stalker will be unlikely to pose a threat at the very first night, because he can't farm much in the first 4 minutes. Thus, getting to lvl 5 will be difficult. However, on the second night at 12 minutes, he can start running around with good levels and items, such as Power Treads, Urn, and Vanguard. I was joking how ArtStyle should return to Dota with all those changes; Night Stalker, Urn, Vanguard have all been buffed.

Phantom Assassin

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- Stifling Dagger shares the same crit chance/factor as Coup de Grace

- Stifling Dagger is now dodgeable

- Stifling Dagger damage rescaled from 50/100/150/200 to 60/100/140/180

Rubick

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- Telekinesis cooldown increased from 18 to 22

- Rubick can no longer steal the Aghanim upgrade of the enemy if they have Aghanim and he doesn't

- Added Aghanim's upgrade: reduces cooldown from 20/18/16 to 5, increases cast range from 1000 to 1400 and makes all stolen spells be considered to have their Aghanim's upgrade

Skeleton King

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- Base Intelligence increased by 5

- Removed Mortal Strike active

- Vampiric Aura now provides full effectiveness on ranged units

- Reincarnation slow increased from 30% to 50%

- Reincarnation slow AoE increased from 700 to 900

Skywrath Mage

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- Int growth increased from 3.2 to 3.6

- Added Aghanim's upgrade: reduces Mystic Flare's cooldown from 60/40/20 to 20/10/0

Slark

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- Shadow Dance duration reduced from 5.5 to 4

- Shadow Dance cooldown increased from 25 to 65

- Shadow Dance can no longer be revealed by Truesight

Spirit Breaker

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- Base attack time nerfed from 1.7 to 1.9

- Greater Bash no longer works while doomed

- Nether Strike now uses 1.2 Cast Time instead of a 1 sec magic immune delay (can be interrupted as a result)

Treant Protector

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- Leech Seed damage per pulse reduced from 30/45/60/75 to 24/36/48/60

- Leech Seed number of pulses increased from 4 to 6 (duration from 3 to 4.5)

- Living Armor cooldown rebalanced from 15 to 32/26/20/14

- Living Armor manacost increased from 25 to 50

- Nature's Guise cast point improved from 0.5 to 0.3

Visage

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- Base armor reduced by 1

- Base magic resistance reduced from 25% to 10%

Animal Courier

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- Movement speed increased from 300 to 350

- HP increased from 45 to 75

Flying Courier

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- Cannot be purchased until 3 minutes after creeps spawn

Clarity Potion

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- Is no longer shareable (but can still be used on a target ally)

Healing Salve

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- Gold cost increased from 100 to 115

- Is no longer shareable (but can still be used on a target ally)

Tango

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- Charges increased from 3 to 4

- Gold cost increased from 90 to 125

- Is no longer shareable

- Tango can be targeted on an allied hero to create a 1 charge non-stacking tango item in their inventory. If the inventory is full, the item will be placed on the ground. This item has a 60s cooldown.

Eye of Skadi

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- Eye of Skadi MS/AS slow increased from 30/20 to 35/35

Hand of Midas

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- Transmute no longer works against Necronomicon units

Helm of the Dominator

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- Dominate can no longer control Necronomicon units

Necronomicon

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- Summoned units duration increased from 35 to 40

Linken's Sphere

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- Linken's Sphere can now be cast on an allied hero to transfer the buff

Observer Ward

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- Duration increased from 6 to 7 minutes

- Killing Observer Wards now grants a 50 gold bounty

Shadow Blade

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- Shadow Walk cooldown increased from 18 to 28

Tranquil Boots

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- Reworked Tranquil Boots:

Previous Tranquil Boots

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Active Boots:

+ 75 Movement speed

+ 3 Armor

+ 3 HP Regeneration

Ability: Heal - Restores 250 HP over 20 seconds while out of combat. 60s cooldown. 25 mana cost.



Broken Boots:

+ 25 Movement speed

Restores when the last 10 seconds don't have 3 instances of damage.



Can be disassembled





New Tranquil Boots

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Active Boots:

+ 85 Movement speed

+ 4 Armor

+ 10 HP Regeneration



Broken Boots:

+ 60 Movement speed

+ 4 Armor

Restores when you haven't attacked or been attacked in the last 13 seconds.



Cannot be disassembled

Hello, friends. This is a review of the upcoming 6.79 version of Dota. I am not going to talk about everything. Many people draw attention to the Bloodseeker change, but believe me, it's far from the most important change in this patch.(You can find the full change log here - http://dev.dota2.com/showthread.php?t=109826 and here - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=432596) The most important changes are in the General section. Some hero changes are big as well, but people will figure out the default strategies with them quickly, in a few weeks or a month tops. These will only change the draft. The drastic mechanic changes, on the other hand, will seriously affect the game itself. I will try to explain how.This means that buying back to push a lane out has no point to it anymore. It's a good nerf.A very big nerf to buybacks. At the beginning people will still go somewhere and die saying, 'It's OK, I have buyback', but eventually people will understand that buying back is a big disadvantage now. It will change the approach to the game in this regard. It's a good thing in my opinion.Changes to creeps and neutrals' XP bounty is the most important part of this version.This means that a hardlane hero that comes into the lane versus a trilane will have a much easier time. This particular change was made so the safelane trilane will not be able to zone the enemy from the creep wave, because they will end up too close to the enemy tower if they will try that. It makes killing the hardlane much harder as well. The safelane is not that easy anymore.The 'solo hardlane hero' has lost some of its meaning though, I will explain why in a bit.Makes it easier to get XP on a lane and in some hiding spots around map.Very interesting change. It means that, for example, if you are pulling the creeps and your enemy comes and just stands near the spot, he will get a share of the XP from the neutrals even if he isn't the one who is killing them. It seems to be another buff to the hardlane, but as I mentioned before, I will explain why the solo hardlane hero is no longer meaningful later.The only way to pull the Radiant midlane creep wave toward the former easy camp is if you get Satyrs, because they are the only medium camp ranged creeps. They have 25% chance to spawn, 33% if you make a double stack. These chances are way too low, so you can't rely on this in a professional game. The same thing applies for the Dire former easy camp on the top lane, but it may be even harder to pull Satyrs there; I haven't checked it myself though.The second important change to the pullable camps is that the creeps give less XP, which makes it even more ineffective.At least half of the medium and big camp neutral creeps give less XP now. On the Radiant you can continue to pull to the nearby medium and big camps. However, on the Dire side, you can only continue to pull to the one big camp which makes it even worse. The Dire supports will get very little XP from pulling, making it hard to get at least lvl 6 by the 10 minute mark. Playing without ganks or any active movements around the map is now extremely difficult. If your enemy ganks mid twice while your supports are just pulling the lane, they will get a scary advantage, having much higher level supports than you in the early game. Fighting against that will be almost impossible.All of this suggests that pulling the easy lane while having a solo hardlane is completely pointless, even if staying on the hardlane is easier now, because there is no gain in pulling anymore.This is about Gnolls (Vhoul Assassins) that were cancelling regen items with their poison. It is now at parity with DotA 1.It's not very clear to me what will this do yet. However, the next change hints that Night Stalker is now a Boss.All these heroes had a much higher night vision before. For example, Drow, Enchantress, and Ancient Apparition had 1600 range vision. Now, as far as I remember, only Luna, Slark, and Night Stalker have improved night vision (1600).I will jump to the Night Stalker change right now.If the enemy has no Slark or Luna, then when Night Stalker casts Darkness he gets 1600 range vision (with Aghanims he sees pretty much half the map) and the enemy heroes get 600 range vision. Some heroes even have a higher attack range than that. Night Stalker becomes incredibly powerful at night, which now happens more often. He can wait out the shorter 4 minute day and then prolong the night with his ulti, as usual. It's true that Night Stalker will be unlikely to pose a threat at the very first night, because he can't farm much in the first 4 minutes. Thus, getting to lvl 5 will be difficult. However, on the second night at 12 minutes, he can start running around with good levels and items, such as Power Treads, Urn, and Vanguard. I was joking how ArtStyle should return to Dota with all those changes; Night Stalker, Urn, Vanguard have all been buffed.On a side note, this is another reason I am really happy with this patch; a lot of stuff that I have been talking about for two years have been tweaked in one way or another. Here are more changes to Roshan, preventing the dominating team to camp Roshan for 30 seconds before he respawns. You can't just wait for it for 3 minutes straight. This adds a bit more randomness to the game.This change, like many others in this version, is designed to speed the game up.You simply get more gold. It isn't very noticeable at the start, but in a 50 minute game everybody will get quite a lot of additional gold. I think that IceFrog wants to shorten the amount of 50 minute long games with these changes. Lategame will happen much earlier now.This is a very 'dirty' change. Heroes like Phantom Assassin can now get Butterfly; it's a very good item for her even without stacking evasion. Broodmother with her effectively 60% blind will be almost invulnerable. However, I do not believe that this will make them imbalanced, because MKB is cheaper than Butterfly so you can always counter the evasion.This looks more like a nerf to me. What is HP regen? If you hit someone very fast HP regen won't help him. Still, 50 hp per second is very impressive at level 1.Again, it looks to me like IceFrog wants to speed Dota up. He wants people to fight at level 1, to push early, etc, but he also buffs the ways to defend from it. If you want to defend from early aggression, then simply put AA mid and throw Ice Blasts.Many serious buffs, but this is still Axe; he still has no nukes, stuns, etc. No one is going to pick him anyway, especially when so many other heroes have been buffed.More nerfs to Batrider, good. To Lasso someone you now have to stand right on top of the enemy; if you are even slightly off target it won't work. I don't think many teams will put him mid after the damage reduction. -10 damage is a lot, even if you have Sticky Napalm.I have received about 20 messages of "Will you guys pick Bloodseeker? He is imba now!" I don't see how is he imba. Sure I've seen the video where he runs with almost 2000 movement speed, but you will not get 5 low HP heroes all the time, you will not build Shadow Blades, BoTs, MoM's etc. Your team will not run as fast as you do. Yes, he can run very fast, but when he runs into the enemy team, the enemy team breaks his face.With this Aghanims upgrade you will have to press a lot of buttons. It will take some time to get used to, but now the Spirits can do a lot of things, they are very powerful. I haven't tested it yet, but I definitely should.I have no clue why she was changed like this. I hope that this will be tested and removed. Trying to catch this Brood while she is running through the trees and cliffs is going to be a pain in the ass.It means that if you get a short stun, you will get high damage, and vice versa. This is a slight reduction of the CK's incredible randomness.Finally something is done about Test of Faith's teleport. Dispel in general was buffed; you can now dispel a lot of things, although there are not that many dispels in the game.At first Vacuum had a 16 sec cd, then 19, then 22, then 24, now 28. It is normal, Vacuum is a really powerful spell.Push push push. Adding 10 damage to the Spirits was a mistake, in my opinion. They were eating heroes alive already. What they will do to them now is scary.The new Aghanims Static Storm is basically an AOE Doom. I should test how this works with Song of the Siren - can heroes use items right after the song while being under the storm? But I am 99% sure they can't. This would make Disruptor + Naga Siren a very dirty combo.I really don't like this change, with the aura affecting creeps again. This is a very dirty thing. You can press one button at any moment in the game and suddenly all the lanes will start pushing like crazy. If the enemy is pushing one lane, you can press that button and the other two lanes will start to push into the enemy base and break the enemy buildings. Drow + Furion... well, you know where this is going. On the one hand this is to buff push strategies, but on the other it's good for counter push.Earthshaker will start to hit like a PA with his Totem. Jokes aside, it's time to consider building Earthshaker to take full advantage of this spell. A four second cooldown on a 400% damage hit is no laughing matter.Again, we have seen all these buffs to push, but here we suddenly have a buff to EMP and to Invoker in general. We'll see what happens. I personally never liked this hero, especially his EMP.Very strong nerf to Wisp. It means that you can still cast spells when you get hit by Tether, and it doesn't cancel channeling any more. It makes it much easier to defend yourself when jumped by Wisp+CK, for example.In my opinion, Mana Drain should be replaced with some kind of passive spell, and that would encourage people to pick him more often. The buff to Hex will probably make him appear in aggressive trilanes. 2.5 seconds on level 1 is almost as long as Sheepstick's hex.Yet again, a buff to a push hero.A buff to Meepo. N0tail is happy.Finally a promised change to Treants. However, as I said before, picking Prophet for soloing the hardlane makes no sense anymore. He can still lane 1v1 decently, but there are heroes that will rape him on this lane. I believe we will see less Nature's Prophets from now on, which is good in my opinion.The biggest change of the patch. Necrolyte is now first pick material.I talked about this in the General section. ArtStyle please come back.I did not expect this change. Very strong buff. She might get picked now.Strong buff, especially for skilled players. KuroKy is happy.Vampiric Aura is now good for pushing even with ranged heroes. He might get picked, but there are better heroes out there. There always are better heroes than Skeleton King. Still, he is not that bad now for early aggression.In theory, with some mana items, he could completely annihilate a hero in seconds. But the items are going to be very expensive. He simply might not get enough gold in the entire game .Without certain AoE spells like Black Hole, Slark becomes practically invulnerable for 4 seconds. It's a good thing the cooldown has been increased. Nasty change, especially for pubs. People will be crying when they die under their towers.A nerf after all those buffs, when he finally started to get picked. I guess IceFrog finally grew tired of him.Treant will get picked much less. The cooldown on the level 1 Living Armor is now very long. Plus, up till now he generally focuses entirely on pulling neutrals, something that is very ineffective now. No one will put him in an aggressive trilane with this cooldown on Living Armor; the enemy can just wait it out and then attack.This makes Visage very easy to kill on early levels. His armor was already low before and now he is going to evaporate from spells without the passive that he will not have at low levels.There are so many big changes to various heroes that I don't even know which ones to highlight. For the most part the changes were directed at buffing push strategies. All heroes that can push in one way or another were buffed, even the Necrolyte with his +1 armor buff. On the other hand some anti-push heroes were buffed as well, and I guess that's to balance it out a bit.This means that the quick bottle rush for mid is now a very sad story. You will not be able to get it quickly, even with the +50 movement speed buff. Plus the courier can be sniped. On top of it Bottle is now more expensive.Heroes will now go to their lanes only with the resources they can afford. This way a lot of current mid heroes will simply disappear, bringing back the old days. Tinker vs SF, something like that.35/35 slow is quite powerful. Strong buff.The only way to control Necro units now is through Enchantress or Chen. I think this will also be removed, so Necro will become imbalanced. No one was building Necro before this because the enemy almost always had someone with Midas or Helm of the Dominator. A 5200 gold item was countered by 1900 and 1850 gold items, but not anymore. Again, a buff to push.Nothing scary, will just have to get used to it.Ward wars will become fierce.Finally. Should have been done a long time ago.This is now a great item for supports to move around the map with very good HP regen. You cannot abuse them anymore, such as when Anti-Mage buys Tranquils first, then disassembles them and buys Vlads with those components.There you go. A crazy patch that turns Dota upside down. The most important changes that should be highlighted are the forest changes and the reduction of value from pulling neutrals that make it now pointless to do so. The Dota metagame will most likely shift to 2-1-2 or 3-1-1 with a 3v3 lane without much pulling from neutral camps, with early aggressive pushes. Other important changes are to the Courier, Bottle, and Consumables. This particularly affects the mid lane. Before this patch basically any hero could go mid with fast bottle, or stat items with pooled consumables. DK vs QoP is a good example, where DK would just take hits and constantly use consumables or bottlecrow. Now, if this DK goes mid vs QoP, he is done for. Heroes that can do things without getting pulled or having a fast bottle, such as Tinker and Viper, should be back in the mid lane.Dota should speed up significantly. Heroes that can team fight and push were buffed. You get more gold. It may start to look more like LoL, but that's probably a good thing. You shouldn't avoid LoL; you can take some of the good stuff that it has.Thank you for reading this review. It ended up being pretty big, but what can you do. Goodbye, play Dota!Original video - http://vk.com/video2158726_166618064