Literally hours after the end of the third Major of this years’ DPC season, there is a new patch on the horizon. 7.21d. Similar to the other small patches, this one brings some buff and nerfs to heroes and items. Many people expected 7.22, but it seems like we will have to wait a little bit longer.

Items

Four items have been changed for this patch - Rod of Atos, Aeon Disk, Guardian Greeves and Solar Crest.

Aeon Disk - The recipe for this item is now 1100 instead of 1250

Guardian Greeves - The recipe is now 1800 instead of 1700

Solar Crest - Target attack speed increase/reduction changed from 70 to 80

Rod of Atos - Cooldown is increased by 2 secs, and the range has been reduced to 1100.

Heroes

There are way more tweaks done to heroes rather than items in this patch. Let’s take a look at the winners and the losers.

The Biggest winners

1) Arc Warden - His Agi gain increases from 2.1 to 2.4 and his tempest double duration is ow 16/20/24 instead of 16/18/20.

This will definitely make the pesky mid hero even more popular in the pro and pub meta alike.

2) Dragon Knight - Elder Dragon form slow is increased from 30 to 40. Level 10 talent increased from -20% to -25% Breath fire Damage, level 15 from +300 to +350, level 20 from +150 GPM to 180 and level 25 from +1.75s Dragon Tail stun to +2 seconds.

As we can see, DK is getting a lot of buffs, which is rather strange because the hero was popular without them as well.

3) Centaur - Double Edge damage is increased from 40/60/80/100% to 60/80/100/120%. His level 20 talent now provides +70 Retaliate damage instead of +50.

4) Sand King - Sand Storm Damage is increased from 20/40/60/80 to 20/45/70/95. Burrowstrike cast range is increased from 350/450/550/650 to 400/500/600/700

SK’s buffs are pretty reasonable because the hero rarely sees the light of day nowadays. However, after the following changes, we might start to see him in-game more often.

5) Storm Spirit - His intelligence is increased from 22 +3.7 to 23 + 3.9. Static Remnant damage increased from 120/170/220/270 to 120/175/230/285. Electric vortex pull distance is increased from 140/180/220/260 to 180/220/260/300.

Storm Spirit has been on the rise for several patches now. The hero has received a lot of buffs that definitely boosted his popularity. As we saw yesterday in the VP against Vici game, even without the current buffs, the hero was still doing exceptionally well. Now, following this, we will surely be seeing him even more often.

6) Drow Ranger - Agi gain is increased from 2.5 to 2.8, and her base agi is also increased by 6. However, the base damage is unchanged.

7) Templar Assassin - Agi gain increased to 3.2 and Meld debuff duration is increased from 10 to 12 seconds.

Similar to Storm Spirit, TA is constantly being buffed the last couple of patches. Despite that, until Viper gets out of the meta, playing TA is nearly impossible unless he is banned.

8) Zeus - Int increased from 20 +3.1 to 21 + 3.3. Static Field Damage increased from 4/6/8/10 to 5/7/9/11%

The Biggest Losers

1) Lifestealer - The CD of Rage is now set to 18 rather than 16 seconds.

Naix has been on the nerf wave after he became the most popular and arguably the strongest carry.

2) Oracle - False Promise CD is now 45 sec on level 3; it requires 200 instead of 100 mana, and the cast range has been reduced from 1000 to 700/850/10

Being one of the most popular heroes of this years’ DPC, this was definitely expected. The hero is just too good against some of the most popular meta heroes right now. I believe that despite those nerfs, he will remain one of the top picks until the meta shifts to different core heroes.

3) Pangolier - Lucky Shot can no longer apply both silence and disarm at the same time, and its proc chance is reduced from 20 to 17%.

Rolling Thunder mana cost is also increased from 100 to 100/150/200. This nerf was expected because Pango became one of the most popular heroes. He also kind of shifts his pos3 to a pos2 role, something that not many teams could deal with.

4) Viper - Agi gain is reduced from 2.8 to 2.5, and Nethertoxin’s CD is increased from 5 to 6.

Conclusion

Overall, most of the changes seem to be pretty reasonable. The current meta is very interesting because there are a lot of heroes that are being contested. Full patch notes.

Be sure to follow us on Twitter for the latest Dota 2 news.

Image Via: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCO-1MAyCmzTR4ez0id-xwQ