Two nerfs and one buff for 7.07

Besides adding two new heroes, patch 7.07 is set to shake up DotA 2. It has been over five months since we have seen more than balance changes. That is all set to change on November 1. While 7.06 has been a fun patch the prospect of new heroes and tweaks to other heroes who are dominating pubs is needed.

The only thing this hero can’t heal is pubs

Necrophos has been a scourge on pubs for what feels like a while now. The pace of the meta brought about the perfect storm for this hero. Continuous skirmishes became normal and this hero has the perfect spells to withstand this fighting. All beginning in 7.00 when his passive, was absorbed into Death Pulse, opening the door for the creation of Ghost Shroud. Adding this ability to the hero propelled Necro into relevance. Boosting his heals by 75 percent, nullifying physical damage and only amplifying magic damage taken by 25 percent. Let’s hope this hero gets hit hard by the nerf hammer.

A welcome change that wouldn’t completely render useless would be lowering the amount of regen provided by Death Pulse kills. At level four, kills with Death Pulse provide seven regen per second to both health and mana. Stacking once with creep kills, but ten times on a hero kill. The first remedy would be providing a stack limit instead of just a timer, along with a re-scaling of the overall regen. Hopefully, this would nerf Necrophos enough in the laning stage to give teams a chance.

No more blood left to give

Another hero that is seemingly in every single game is Bloodseeker. For good reason as he is incredibly strong right now. This hero needs almost no regen if you can last hit enough thanks to Bloodrage. Bloodrage has 100% uptime at level two and provides a 30 percent damage increase on top of healing the hero for 21 percent of a killed unit’s max health at no mana cost. Add onto this one of the games most powerful teamfight spells in Blood Rite. Not his ultimate, Rupture, that does pure damage anytime a hero moves. Blood Rite is arguably more powerful in teamfights due to its burst damage, large AoE and six second silence at level four.

Tweaking Bloodrage by adding a mana cost seems inevitable, though this hero should see numerous nerfs to all of his spells. Reducing the burst damage and silence duration on Blood Rite should help balance this hero out, while letting Rupture and Thirst define him.

Snowballing into the meta

One hero that could really use a buff is Tusk. The hero has zero base regen. According to Dotabuff his winrate is a pathetic 42 percent. Which is odd because one would think Tusk would benefit immensely from the current fight-heavy meta. This is partially because of the high cooldowns on his abilities before they reach level three, on top of a high mana cost on his Ice Shards at all levels. Really detrimental for a hero that wants to push tempo, but suffers from a small mana pool.

Adjustments to the early game of this hero could very easily make him relevant. Damage and cooldown boosts at the early level of both Ice Shards and Snowball would provide him with a great toolkit to be a four-position support. Putting him firmly in the niche of other roamers with spammable spells such as Earthshaker.

The upcoming patch is one of the most anticipated in recent memory. Carrying with it the ability to change the roles of heroes with any simple adjustment. Some heroes that were highly picked are bound to fall to the wayside, while others will surge to the forefront with the help of new builds. Patch season is always an exciting time in DotA 2.

Featured Image courtesy of DotA 2 In-Game Client

You can ‘Like’ The Game Haus on Facebook and ‘Follow’ us on Twitter for more sports and esports articles from other great TGH writers along with Eli!

You can follow Eli here – https://twitter.com/E_Sherman58

To continue enjoying great content from your favorite writers, please contribute to our Patreon account! Every little bit counts. We greatly appreciate all of your amazing support! #TGHPatreon