posted by Nahaz

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The new hero on the block *Picture from DOTA2.com

First, here are the five most picked heroes so far in 6.79, the only heroes to be selected in more than 1/3 of the 168 professional drafts we've had during the current patch:HeroGames in 6.79 Pick % in 6.78 (Rank)Record in 6.79 Crystal Maiden9415.8% (24) 47-47Visage7744.9% (1) 43-34Clockwerk7723.8% (15) 36-41Luna666.1% (51) 38-28Timbersaw5914.3% (25) 26-33After getting a substantial buff in 6.78, Crystal Maiden was one of the big success stories of the past few months. Her over 54% win was nearly 10% higher than in 6.77 and before, and her popularity had already started to climb before the current patch was released. Visage's presence on this list is no surprise - he was the most picked hero in the previous patch, appearing in 45% of pro matches in the past four and a half months. Clockwerk has become a staple of the competitive scene recently behind stellar offlane play by Bone7, Mag, and Bulba, among others.Luna is arguably the biggest rising star in competitive Dota 2 currently. She burst onto the scene in the opening hours of 6.79, with Speed's EternalEnvy taking down Na'Vi and iG's Hao handing DK the first losses they've suffered with their incredible all-star roster. Both players have continued to impress, each going 5-1 on Luna since 6.79 was released.Next, similar to the last column, let's look at win percentages for heroes with 20+ games played so far in 6.79, with 'Diff' again denoting the difference between a hero's win rate in 6.79 versus 6.78. Here are the six heroes who have (so far) shown the most improvement relative to the previous patch:HeroW-L Record (6.79)Win % (6.78)DiffDoom16-547.5%+28.7%Bounty Hunter23-856.7%+17.5%Lich22-1748.2%+16.0%Luna38-2845.8%+11.8%Mirana30-1752.9%+10.9%Venomancer26-2343.4%+9.7%As expected, offlaners have benefitted tremendously from the 6.79 changes. Five out of these six heroes received buffs in the current patch, with Lich and Venomancer arguably being the biggest changes. Lich has already been banned 120 times in competitive drafts, more than four times as much as he had beenbefore 6.79. After having the debuff added to his Plague Ward, Venomancer is now dealing almost 2.9k damage per match on average with Poison Sting, more than five times what he was dealing before the current patch.Bounty Hunter arguably benefits more than any other hero from the aggressive play and early skirmishes we've seen in the past eight days. Mirana's presence on this list is due in large part to SingSing, who is on a simply amazing run. He is undefeated (7-0) in his last seven pro games on the hero, including five in the current patch, with a combined 52-15-81 KDA score during that span. Arguably as impressive is s4's run on Magnus, with 6 straight wins in the past eight days. Magnus doesn't show up the table above due to having only 11 games played in 6.79 - s4 has played over half the total games on the hero!At the opposite end of the spectrum, here are the heroes who've fared the worst so far in 6.79 relative to the previous patch:HeroW-L Record (6.79)Win % (6.78)DiffNight Stalker17-2561.7%-21.2%Dark Seer9-2245%-17.7%Queen of Pain7-1648%-17.6%Enchantress9-1848.9%-15.6%Batrider12-1952.9%-13.1%Troll Warlord9-1550.5%-13%Batrider's presence here comes as no surprise, as he received arguably the biggest nerf in the most recent patch. Queen of Pain and Troll Warlord also received nerfs, though not nearly to the same degree. Enchantress's Presence here is somewhat puzzling, as she actually received a slight- keep in mind, though, that the same changes which help an offlane Bounty Hunter can potentially cripple a jungling Enchantress being run along with a safelane support and carry duo.Night Stalker is uniquely impacted by the shortening of the day/night cycle from 6 to 4 minutes in the current patch. Though many called this a buff, keep in mind that this is a substantial change to the hero's early game: He now has 2 minutes less to get up the items and levels he needs for roaming ganks during the first night. For example, Night Stalker is averages only about level 4.5 at the 4 minute mark in pro play, compared to almost level 6 at 6 minutes. Dark Seer, in a sense, represents the other extreme: the cooldown on his Vacuum has been increased steadily by 2-4 seconds in each of the 4 patches, going from 16 to 28 seconds. It seems the changes may finally have caught up to him.Naturally, the metagame takes time to adjust, and will continue to evolve in coming weeks. In our next few pieces, we'll take a look at how some recent changes have affected item choices and drafting. As usual, a big shoutout to Martin Decoud at datdota.com. For more stats, follow me on Twitter at @NahazDota!