Most Picked Heroes

We witnessed one of the greatest shifts of meta in this 7.18 match, all the top 4 picks were buffed so hard in previous patches resulting that they had a pretty good Win rate and Pick rate.

Starting from 7.10, Necrophos have been continuously receiving buffs and finally back to the meta. The mana regen buff in 7.16 balanced out the great nerf in 7.07. Necrophos can now maintain his mana pool just by last hitting in laneing phase.

7.19 has a good idea on not nerfing his regen (which totally removed him from the pro scene) but makes him vulnerable when using Ghost Shroud, and also removes the too-frequent Reaper’s Scythe after Aghanim’s Scepter. 25 seconds of cooldown can easily remove 2 heroes per team fight in late-game.

7.16

Increased Death Pulse mana regen bonus per stack from 2/2.25/2.5/2.75 to 2.25/2.5/2.75/3.

7.19

Increased Ghost Shroud self magic resistance reduction from 30% to 40%.

Increased Reaper’s Scythe cast time from 0.5 to 0.55.

Increased Reaper’s Scythe cooldown from 55/40/25 to 60/50/40.

Pudge is one of the best support now, the previous buff on Meathook makes it the most OP Level 1 skills in the game, 1300 cast range and 150 pure damage is extremely fearsome. With the Flesh Heap buff at 7.18, every professional player goes 1–4–4 build on Pudge now, which also make him one of the tankiest hero at mid game.

Balance in 7.19 seems to be going a correct direction, which increases the cooldown of Meathook at the early level to encourage different skill builds. But I believe 10 seconds would not make a huge difference, moreover, the +30% experience trait at 10 level may be a bit too much, at the moment Pudge is still a top-tier hero.

7.16

Increased Meat Hook damage from 90/180/270/360 to 150/220/290/360.

7.18

Increased Meat Hook cast range and max distance from 1000/1100/1200/1300 to 1300 on each level.

Increased Flesh Heap magic resistance bonus from 6%/8%/10%/12% to 8%/10%/12%/14%.

7.19

Increased Meat Hook cooldown from 17/15/13/11 to 27/22/17/12.

For Crystal Maiden, we can take a look at the video from Purge.

Crystal Nova has became a very strong harassing skill in this 2-1-2 meta, increasing the mana cost at early game helps on balancing.

7.18

Increased Crystal Nova damage from 100/150/200/250 to 130/170/210/260.

7.19

Increased Crystal Nova mana cost from 100/120/140/160 to 130/140/150/160.

Winter Wyvern was suddenly discovered by the pros after a series of buffs from 7.10 to 7.18. With higher intelligence at 7.17, the low mana cost buff stacked up and made her an early game spammer.

In 7.19, her overbuffed Splinter Blast will have mana cost increased to balance it out.