Patch 7.32 Wishlist
With the Stockholm Major behind us, it is now time to start thinking of what we want to see in the future. The International Battle Pass some time soon™ is a given, at least we hope it is, but even more than cosmetics, we are excited about possible gameplay changes. Here are some of our ideas for what could be improved.
Item changes
There is no trinket that is as effective as Null Talisman in the late game. This item single-handedly allowed for an entirely new playstyle for Storm Spirit, one that goes against many Dota fundamentals, such as gold economy being relevant. Toning it down or at least making Null Talismans stack diminishingly would go a long way.
Toning down, but not completely destroying Wraith Pact also seems necessary. Reverting it to the previous version should be enough and we hope it doesn’t get too harsh a treatment. The game needs a solid, general purpose, late game support item that is both effective and easy to use.
There are several mostly irrelevant items in the game right now, most notably it is Mage Slayer and Orchid into Bloodthorn. Revenant’s Brooch is also not very popular, though we believe this situational item just hasn’t been explored enough. It is clear these items need a buff. Perhaps a “Notice Me” buff, where nothing fundamentally changes for the items, but they get on the players’ radars.
There is also BKB, which is now built as the first item on every single core, it feels. Perhaps making it so that it goes down to five or even four seconds would dissuade some players from building it too early, as currently it is more or less forced: you can’t fight without BKB if enemy has BKB, so everyone has to go BKB, but if no one went BKB, perhaps we could play something other than BKB-piercing or instant stun supports and tempo, BKB-building cores.
Hero changes
All in all, 7.31c is a fairly balanced patch. There are some questions about Null Storm and how balanced it is, but otherwise, we genuinely don’t see a lot of problems with the hero pool. Only ten heroes had a 50%+ contest rate at the Major, with only five having 70%+. Those are great results.
That said, we wouldn’t mind seeing the likes of Axe, Dazzle, and Warlock being relevant. Axe has a bit of a rocky laning stage nowadays, especially against all those tempo cores. Some early game buffs, even at the cost of late-game scaling, would go a long way for the hero. BKB-piercing AoE disable on a low cooldown is undeniably strong, so the hero must be balanced with it in mind, but it feels like he desperately needs some seemingly minor +1 Armor buff for the laning stage.
Dazzle is slowly turning into OD with the amount of reworks he has been getting. That is not a good sign, in our opinion. Since the Oracle release, Dazzle’s been kind of forgotten in the professional scene: his highest impact spell was what Oracle did, but worse. The changes were necessary, but they went wildly in every single direction simultaneously. Right now Dazzle is a below average: laner, healer, armor reducer, clutch saver and with shard he also gets to be a subpar disabler. We have close to no idea how to use the hero right now in pubs, let alone the professional scene and that is with Dazzle being my most played hero.
Warlock needs one talent, preferably at level 15 or 20, that says “Fatal Bonds Undispellable” and he will always be an option in high level pubs and the professional scene. Right now the hero doesn’t work as a healbot past the laning stage, even with a shard. He doesn’t offer consistent teamfight, since his BKB-piercing interrupt has a massive cooldown while the golem itself is largely irrelevant. He also doesn’t scale well into the late game, since the “dispel” effect is currently slapped on too many items, some of them being Neutral, hence free. The hero just gets naturally countered by the default game and item progression and that makes him unplayable at higher levels of Dota. He is a great Wraith Pact carrier, though, so maybe he is one buff away from becoming popular.
Slark and Tinker also remained uncontested, indicating that the heroes might not be in a good spot right now. Let’s keep it that way for a while longer, maybe?
Map Changes
There is nothing wrong with the map per se, but it currently feels slightly too formulaic to play. Not because of the layout specifically, but because there were no changes to it for so long.
There was an interesting idea of switching Ancients to one side of the map which we personally feel was underexplored. While it did create a lot of extra small problems, it helped immensely with restoring balance between Radiant and Dire.
Changing Rune behaviour could also be quite impactful. By making them closer or further from the midlane, it would be possible to change the behavior of sidelane support rotations at even minutes, once again breaking the flow a little bit. Runes themselves could use a bit of tone-down as well: One-and-three-quarters-damage Rune doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, but it would be a welcome change.
Closing Thoughts
There are many things Valve could change to freshen up the game. The last patch was huge for higher-level players and the professional scene, as the jungle changes had a ton of implications for all positions. We hope the next one will be slightly more average player focused, though.
What are you hoping for in the next patch? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Good article.
i would prefer a full map change.
Maybe reducing the amount of gold on the map, carries are going into the jungle at min 6 and leave at min 15 with two items
Dazzle as a 3 is the answer my boy
https://www.dotabuff.com/players/54865664/matches?date=year&hero=treant-protector&teammate_hero=dazzle&enhance=overview
These are me and my duo picking dazzle 3 with treant *
why all the hate on wraith pact?
Solid article
I appreciate your post, but axe is the highest winrate hero in dota 2 rn according to Dotabuff. Is buffing axe further a good idea?
Axe used to be a terror on the offlane... And still can be, but it is very matchup reliant. If you get the right matchup, he can shut down the enemy core, but in the wrong one, he will have that nice 22 minute blink and be generally useless. I like playing Axe, but he is quite bad in some games. With multiple ranged heroes and a lot of magic damage is just something Axe doesn't deal well with...
I would like to see some item reworks, like the drums into the new boots thing. Just make the item tree deeper and combine items in new and interesting ways... Something needs to be done about the null talisman stacking. That just makes everything too easy. Once those numbers double at 25 minutes, it is just insane. No matter how "diminishingly" they stack up. Having mana regen and mana cost reduction on a single item is double dipping on the same thing and is really good for those spell spammy heroes like Storm... I would expect heroes like Lesh and Pugna etc. to follow suite...
Wraith Pact with skills that lower damage already adds up to a lot of reduction. I think the wraith pact will lose the "reduce all damage" and it will be just physical damage or something along those lines. That the item is good against "right click carries" but not against that Lina or Tiny that wants to burst you down fast.
The upcoming patch is usually the TI patch, with maybe some tinkering still before the tournament. So I hope they do a deep dive here on the changes and not just dabbling. As the post TI10 patch was mostly just tinkering and tuning with a few new items... We haven't had a real blow it up patch in a year.
oracle is good, but so many restriction.
harder to control.
terrorblade is so bad too..
I hope we get a massive patch with considerable map change and some major changes to some heroes or mechanics. Adding more items or more heroes will only help so much, and at some point it will be oversaturated and many heroes/items will be neglected. Reshaping how the game progress, or having new ways to win the game might help along the way, although at first it will be hard to balance properly
Nerfing Skywrath Mage is a necessity that little punk can spam spells from the fountain.
The most logical I see for Revenant's Brooch is replacing the mystic staff with Dragon Lance, and the recipe with Staff of Wizardy or Robe of Magi. This gives it a more reasonable build up, with an alternative to Hurricane Pike. It might seem too accessible at first for the likes of TA, but Hurricane Pike would still be the superior upgrade for her Dragon Lance as the Witch Blade component is largely lost. The heroes who might access it too easily (Silencer, OD, Enchantress) now have a redundancy to keep them in check from building it with Hurricane Pike while it becomes accessible to those heroes who might only need to capitalize off of the specific hits without Hurricane Pike (Puck, Pugna, Leshrac).
It's a right click int item, with only a few right clicking int cores in the pool, so the issue isn't popularity, but accessibility. Nullifier already exists for 75% of right clicking cores. This is, and will remain, a niche item that is an alternative to Nullifier that capitalizes on ethereal targets, rather than dispelling it.
Well said. Axe is dead for a long time now (unpicked and unbanned in the major) , so is right clicking offlane heros like slardar, legion commander etc.. there are too many dispel mechanics in game some skills, some talents, some items (neutral items inclusive) . Slardar's level 25 talent, corrosive haze undispellable if its moved down to 20, would make the hero more relevant in the upcoming patch, plus his talents are very bad, almost all of them. hero needs to be buffed heavily for it to make a comeback. Axe, LC, Slardar, Tide, cent, night stalker all seem very weak, need some decent buffs on them to bring these heros back to the meta..
Buff terrorblade then i play again :)
Too few flex heroes i think.
I want back my pa 550% coupe de grace
I want all neutral items to be in shop but neutral anymore
I want rapier upgrades
New hero, new item(s), bring back shrines!