One Week With 7.11
The latest patch introduced economic changes to Dota, and in our patch review we wrote that the changes are probably going to be significant, but highly unpredictable. It turned out be both right and wrong at the same time: the game is definitely different, but not in terms of hero win rate changes.
Buyback for the win
Looking at both professional meta and high level pubs, there is a definite increase in the amount of early buybacks. Teams bait big enemy ultimates and then re-engage, supports quickly come back into the fight to get gold and experience, and defending your structures became significantly easier.
Perhaps the best example of how to use the buyback mechanic really well is a Team Liquid vs. Fnatic Game 3 in Dreamleague Season 9:
In this episode you can see Mind_Control trading himself for a Universe Black Hole only to quickly buyback and return to the fight, allowing his team to bait Fnatic into disadvantageous situation.
The best use of the “buyback comeback” is probably when defending sidelane Tier 2 towers: there are two TP access points nearby and the enemy is already in an overextended position with one of the escape routes leading to shrine and the other deeper into the enemy base.
Given that there is no longer a buyback gold penalty, this technique can be used often, especially when playing from behind. Map control is extremely important if you want to farm up and even with the reduced comeback gold, there is a great monetary incentive to get back into the fight, especially on position three to five.
Comeback gold changes
To counterweight the changes to how likely a turnaround fight is now possible there is significantly less AoE and comeback gold in the game, leading to teams feeling a little more secure. Smoke ganks on secondary targets don’t give as much gold, so “space creating” as a support isn’t as punishing for the winning team.
For better teams the result is definitely changing the way they approach the game. With kills giving less gold, there is an even bigger focus on objectives. This source of reliable gold should not be underestimated, as it allows cores to give back to their supports through extra gold from towers and Roshan.
It is also worth noting that we often see winning teams playing 4+1, with space taken by a position 4 support: if he tanks a smoke gank, it’s not the much of an issue, since he doesn’t give away as much gold. If he manages to farm up a crucial item, your team is going to be in an even better position. Some of these supports are also good pushers on their own, showing the waves into the the enemy side of the map, potentially taking an objective or at least forcing the enemy to react.
Caring for your supports
This early economic boost from objectives directly translates to how much utility supports can provide throughout the game—an extra item can allow for an unlikely survival or an extra kill on the enemy, creating a snowball effect. Surviving in an engagement means more XP and Gold, which means better items and higher levels, which means higher probability of survival and kills or assists in the next engagements.
Because of it you often see very proactive cores in both the safelane and mid: they are threatening on their own, have a kill potential with the help of supports and can transition an early kill into a push.
Looking at the most popular cores of Dreamleague Season 9, there is a lot of Gyrocopter, Tiny, Death Prophet and Lifestealer: these heroes “enable” their supports, creating a situation where they can actually have early assists and then progress through their utility items.
Expectations for 7.12
Without touching hero balance, the patch was unlikely to force a significant meta shift. For the most part the same heroes we saw at Bucharest and Katowice are still dominating the professional scene.
There are, however, some developments. Lifestealer finally became a priority pick, as an excellent countermeasure against Gyrocopter. He matches and even exceeds his aggression in the early engagements, while easily going toe-to-toe with him cet. par.
As mentioned in our Katowice to Bucharest blog post, teams might not have had the time to come up with new strategies and there are definitely some signs of development in Dreamleague. As always, be sure to check our full professional meta recap next Monday, once the Swedish tournament concludes.
First....WOW!
second plis delete peru or dota gonna die
ty i love all
Hopefully new patch will bring other hero to the meta
not first...WOW !
Gg n9ob tnc
I wouldn't mind seeing a little more gold put into the actual kills, just to make engagements feel a little more strenuous. I also wouldn't mind seeing a little more damage from towers to make those tower dive kills appropriately risky, as well as provide more necessity to get a little more farm before tackling towers.
Still, the removal of gold stunting buybacks was smart as it provided another layer of 'you can' mechanics that provide variety and interest to what is already the most varietous (no it's not a word according to various dictionaries shut up) game currently available. Honestly, I'd love to see the 'dieback' provide a bonus: if you kill a player for the second time before they would have naturally respawned, you get a gold bonus based on how much gold they would have naturally earned over time. This would make the buyback risky, but would also promote risk from the other team attempting to get a little extra gold.
Q:Is Nightstalker still in the meta?(Just Asking)
Chinese teams play him quite often, but he's definitely not making headlines. He's too greedy as 4 and not impactful enough as 3, so with no XP from bounty runes he kinda got shifted out of regular meta.
you know, i think lycan is underrated right now still, hes stupid strong still. don't seem to see him picked much, hope you guys write an article on him soon ;). I've been spamming him to get some easy mmr back.
Silly sobe, lycan already had an article! Support life has most certainly improved with the introduction of the stacksharing, and decreased courier cost. However, with the increased cost of boots I feel that by the time the stacks are taken (and boots are affordable), it is too little too late for many supports. Slower ones like CM and Treant struggle especially.
In other news,
Currently the Enchanted Mango has a 33.31% win rate. This is unacceptable. It is our duty as fellow gamers of the DotA 2 community to put this item in the position of power it deserves. It has been there for us when we needed mana for reincarnation, when we had that clutch nyx stun saving our teammate's life, and when we accidentally used it in fountain before the runes even spawned. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
@KawaiiSocks
What's your take on the biweekly updates? Personally I'm kind of against them for a couple reasons, but I'm curious to know how you see them effecting both the pro and the pub scene, and if it has been a positive or a negative method of updating the game.
@brock hall yes i think your point of giving extra gold for dieback is a very gd one to add back a layer of risk as well for the hero esp when it can lead to such a big teamfight win
Lifestealer is not balanced. They should fix him somehow
@Brock Hall:
Honestly, I'm still on the fence about this one. One of the positives is that we always have something to write about. Last year there was a 6+ month period with no updates and we literally ran out of good ideas to write about and it made the work both hard and less satisfying.
When it comes to actual patch quality... I like that there are "global patches" and "hero balance patches", so essentially we get a monthly hero balance patch rather than a fortnightly one. The last several patches also worked towards mitigating the comeback gold mechanics I wasn't a fan of, so that's a good thing.
Balance-wise we are still quite far away from a TI-worthy patch. There is an argument that shorter patch life cycle doesn't provide enough reliable data to jump to conclusions, forcing a knee-jerk reactions out of the balance team, potentially nerfing balanced heroes and buffing imbalanced ones, because the meta didn't have time to develop, but I honestly don't subscribe to it. There were no instances where a seemingly OP/very popular hero got a serious nerf and there were even less of substantial buffs. The balancing process currently seems VERY careful and VERY smooth, and I like it. In that regard the shorter patch life cycle definitely seems to work: the overall change across a 6-month period is probably going to be the same as if there were only two big patches, but it is more controlled, more refined.
That is a good spectator and pro dota approach. Probably the best approach there is and I'm almost confident that the TI patch is going to be really good.
Now from the player perspective, we definitely get less of OMGWTF moments in the game right now. There are no massive hero reworks, no huge balance swings and it does take away from patch excitement. 7.10 was a MASSIVE patch and took me a while to go through in a blog post, but most of the changes were very careful, maybe even too careful, from a player's perspective.
Sooooo. I'm still on the fence) Last couple of years I mostly enjoyed Dota as a spectator. I would still play 3-4 games a week, but that was a far cry from what I did back in the days. Now I play 3 games a day on average, while still watching most pro matches. Spectator/Player in me is currently 50/50, so in the end I am on the fence about the fortnightly patches.
lul lul
Buying back on a core seems impossible now, around the 35-45 minute mark. It's insanely expensive
@KawaiiSocks
Hmm, I'd agree that there haven't been knee jerk reactions, and that has really made it easier to swallow the constant requirement of flexibility. My main issue with the system is that it's hard to prepare for TI as a pro gamer when you are unsure what strats are going to require change or be dropped entirely, shortly before TI. In that light, it feels almost like a team has to be lucky to be prepared for the upcoming patch. Smooth as the changes have been, it's hard to shake that feeling, especially when a patch changes something as substantially as this most recent buyback patch.
That being said, Yapzor plays Rubick no matter what, and that skewers my theory...
I personally ascribe to the philosophy that player perspective is unimportant almost universally. UI changes are one thing, but the game should be balanced entirely upon people playing the hero to the best of the game's potential. Anything else cheapens the game and ruins the pro scene, so for me I don't even care what pub players want from the game. Still, I really appreciate your input and love the points you brought up as some were not on my radar.
Side note: there might be an articles' worth of content for where we are now and what it will take to make the game TI ready. It would likely be an opinion article rife with debatable stuff, but I'd read and discuss the crap out of that.
só fazem merda quando mexem nos herois e itens, deixa como esta