Patch 7.34e First Trends
As Dota fans ourselves we absolutely get it: this is not what we were expecting three whole weeks after TI. As a stats website, though, there are some interesting trends we would love to discuss. Dota is a very complex game with many interconnected moving parts and even miniscule changes can have massive consequences.
Biggest Winners
Off the back of 
Helm of the Overlord +1 Armor buff as well as some direct changes, we might be seeing a comeback of Zoo heroes like 
Lycan and 
Beastmaster. Both of them jumped really high in the first several hours of the patch and while the high level players adapted already, there is still a reason to believe Zoo is here to stay. Maybe not as the most dominant strategy, but as one of the many viable ones.
One interesting consequence of the potential Zoo comeback is a jump in 
Clinkz win rate. Pre-Overlord creeps are basically free food for Clinkz and when playing against most Zoo heroes, it is much easier to lane or even rotate for a gank in the earlier stages of the game.
Another big winner of the patch is 
Gyrocopter, who now has a 240-damage ability for 75 mana on a 7-second cooldown. We feel like this could lead to interesting support Gyro developments. The hero was already somewhat viable as a greedy DPS support in lower level games and now he might be making a comeback in higher level games as well. Definitely a hero to watch out for, especially if tankiness will stop being the meta-defining concept.
Biggest losers
The usual suspects are all here. 
Chaos Knight was the biggest loser of the patch, and despite losing 4%+ win rate, he is still well above 50%. That is to say, the hero is still very much viable and worth playing, even though he is no longer overpowered. His laning stage is a bit harder and he can no longer spam Phantasm for farm with impunity, but otherwise the hero is as good as he used to be. Mana Burn is a much bigger problem, though, so that is something that can be exploited.
Bristleback also got some substantial nerfs and is now below 50%. Truth be told, the hero really didn’t feel too problematic at the higher levels of play. He was frustrating to lose against and could sometimes turn around whole fights through spell lifesteal, but most Ancient+ players knew what to build and how to play around it. The end result after the patch is a hero that should be a little less overwhelming below Archon and is probably out of meta in Ancient and above.
Kunkka is similar to Chaos Knight — the hero did lose a ton of win rate, but still remains above 50%. Conceptually, the hero is doing the same thing he did before, just roughly ~25% worse. He is still one of the best teamfight and catch heroes even after the nerfs, so don’t give up on him quite yet.
General meta developments
We’ve touched on the subject of Zoo already. We feel like it will be making a comeback in some form and this generally leads to an overall meta-shift towards shorter games. Zoo wants to win as early as possible, not necessarily by destroying the Ancient, but by dealing some heavy economic and map control damage.
Typically, you can’t go too greedy against this kind of approach, so midrange and tempo cores should theoretically increase in popularity. Going too late with hard carries like 
Faceless Void is potentially punishable, though for now this is mostly a prediction of how the meta will develop over the next week or so.
If this prediction does come true, and there are definitely some trends to support this idea, we feel like players should pay more attention to a long-forgotten 
Pavise. This item was almost completely ignored at the International, with only four games where it was built. The reason for it is that even as a support you typically don’t want to have a 1400 gold item in your inventory in the late game and TI games typically went late.
However, since games are most likely going to get shorter, and since Pavise was buffed in the patch there is a good reason to believe it is once again going to become one of the best support items.
Casual late game 
Vladmir's Offering is also something to consider on support heroes, if your team doesn’t have a dedicated Helm of the Overlord builder. +4 Armor as an aura is a massive and often underrated difference maker in a fight.
These two items were already borderline viable and with the buffs in the new patch they should definitely be considered. Pavise is especially strong in the earlier stages of the game where a 300 physical barrier is frequently a +30% of max HP against physical damage for the hero.
Closing thoughts
The new patch is smaller than we expected and while it is slightly disappointing, there are some things worth pointing out. First of all, as mentioned previously, there is a good chance that this letter patch will have a large meta impact. For example, while 
Spirit Breaker isn’t among the biggest losers of 7.34e, he was tamed quite substantially and shouldn’t feel overwhelming, while still being viable.
Secondly, 7.34 released just three and a half months ago and while TI naturally expedited the meta developments, we already saw some new ideas in ESL qualifiers. We feel like “meta is completely figured out” is a bit of an overstatement. Thinking outside the box and finding solutions is what Dota players should be striving for and while there were occasionally overpowered heroes in the long history of Dota, there was always some sort of an answer to them.
Finally, there is still going to be a cosmetics and miscellaneous content patch before the end of the year, so if you were primarily waiting for an event, not all hope is lost. Personally, we would love to see Aghanim’s Labrinth make a return. Share your favourite events and your biggest hopes for Frostivus in the comment section below.
Or just vent a little — we absolutely get it.
<<< Best old school Dota2 player, by far and wide
I was hoping for a bigger patch, but they delivered what I presumed they would. Just some number tinkering. They did take into consideration the "pain points" of the meta, but nerf hammer was quite soft this time around. This smells more like a "pro player" patch than anything else. The nerfs are so slight that this won't change pretty much anything in the trenches I play at. It is interesting to see if these changes will have ripple effects on the pub meta and at what type of a timeframe the effects can be seen. I just hope after a lackluster compendium for TI we get something exciting to care about for Frostivus.
I don't think there are many players who felt the Battlepass monetization of Dota was all that bad. It was justified in showing the love to the pro scene as some of money went into the TI prize pool, but if they now come up with the cash grab for Frostivus, it will feel quite bad as they have had these things ready for TI already. Sort of stiffiing the players and pro scene to line your own pockets and I have a feeling that it won't go over as well as the battlepass did in previous years.
But we'll just have to wait and see. I just don't understand why they said "no" to money for the TI... We all play this game for free and we love it, we don't mind showing up with our vallets for the TI.
I will suugest LoneDruid Helm of the Overlord easy to push and hard to kill its effective i think haha ZOO META is back.
Time for me to practice Lycan and Chen.
Here are some further trends we're seeing in the highest MMR pubs:
Spectre is reigning supreme as carry holding a 55% winrate and being the most picked in that position. We still see a lot of void despite zoo making a return, but he's holding a more balanced winrate of 50%. Weaver and Chaos Knight are currently still seeing quite a bit of play, although both of their winrates are a more reasonable 48%. Muerta and Wraith King are still quite strong at 52% and 57% winrates respectively. Slark, PL, and Naga also seemed to be solid picks in development.
Mid has completely turned on its head. Lina is now the most picked followed up by Invoker still holding a 54% winrate. We're still seeing a lot of Puck and Necro, although the latter now has dropped to a 44% winrates. Pango still sees a lot of play, yet is still only a 45% winrates hero (borderline ember tier), and OD has now dropped to that as well. QoP, Kunkka, and Zeus are all still reliable picks, and to some degree Primal and Earth Spirit as well, although neither are quite as prevalent.
While zoo meta is creeping up, not a whole lot changed about the offlane. Centaur and Wraith King as still the two most prominent picks, but Slardar has now joined them. Primal and Kunkka seem to have fallen a bit out of favor here, which could be why they're also seeing less play mid due to less drafting ambiguity. Brewmaster, Legion Commander, and Night Stalker are also proving to be strong picks.
For soft supports, Grimstroke and Muerta as still very common, although nerfs and meta shifts have dropped their effectiveness substantially. A new contender has come in the form of Nature's Prophet, currently bolstering a 60% winrates, although not finding as much success in other roles. Pugna and Rubick are still here to stay in pub scene, but Willow and Tusk seem to be getting cycled out. We're seeing a lot of success with Gyrocopter, and Tiny after the buffs at 55% and 53% winrates respectively. Bounty Hunter also currently holds a 56% winrates, although heroes of his nature tend to capitalize more on the chaos that comes from people trying to explore a new patch.
Finally, for hard supports, Treat is still king holding a 53% winrates and seeing twice as many picks as the next hero. AA and Grimstroke are proving substantially weaker, each at a 47% winrate, but Pugna is still holding a 52% winrate. We're seeing Nature's flexed into 5 still, but only holding a 50% winrate here. Chen is absolutely dominant with a 60% winrate despite a lower pick rate, but that's to be expected for a hero of his design; I would expect a lot of people to be trying to learn him for this patch. Gyro is also shining as a position 5, and Phoenix is still a consistent pick, but one of the bigger winners has to be the Lion the people are sleeping on. Getting a simple +75 cast range on Earth Spike has shot his winrate up to 55%, although his popularity didn't seem to increase much.
There will certainly be more developments in the near future as the dust settles. I have my eyes mostly on mid not only because it's the role I play, but it also seems to be the role that is the deepest in the fog.
WildeManBeats should definitely pick brood here.
I’d pick brood here