Gameplay patch 7.22c dropped this week and we saw some more fairly impactful changes. Some big team fight combination abilities received a nerf. But was it enough?
Join us as we breakdown the most important patch 7.22c highlights.
As we’ve discussed in a previous article on the hero, Chen enjoyed a major buff in 7.22. However, lead developer IceFrog has made some fairly significant changes to the hero in 7.22c.
Image courtesy of Valve
Instead of granting the Holy Persuasion aura for bonus damage, Divine Favor now grants Recall on a 60 second cooldown. The essentially eliminates the bonus damage conferred to heroes and instead buffs the hp regeneration.
Chen, being an incredibly difficult hero to play already, enjoyed a big win spike off the back of 7.22. However, with these nerfs we can expect those numbers to normalize again. Expect Chen’s pick rate falling back into the low 30% range.
I know, right.
In patch 7.22, Dark Willow received a new Aghanim’s Scepter ability. This, combined with buffs across the board made her a pub and professional monster. Mid professionals like OG’s Topias “Topson” Taavitsainen used the hero to devastating effect.
Image courtesy of Valve
Then came patch 7.22b. Dark Willow received some heavy nerfs to almost all of her abilities.
Now, one of the big patch 7.22c highlights is Dark Willow getting rebuffed again. Her attack speed has been increased by 15. In addition, 0.5 seconds has been removed from the time it takes for Shadow Realm to reach max damage. We aren’t quite at 7.22 levels, but this buff keeps Dark Willow right up there in the current metagame.
One of the more interesting patch 7.22c highlights was the slight rework to IO. At the recent ESL ONE Birmingham tournament, IO was one of the most banned heroes. It seems as though Valve has recognized this and has chosen to rework the hero slightly in patch 7.22c.
Image courtesy of Valve
We use the word ‘rework’ instead of ‘nerf’ because the changes aren’t a straight nerf. In patch 7.22c, IO gains a base armor increase of 1 and his strength gain increases from 2.5 to 3. Tether has been rescaled, but still confers the same benefit at the top two levels. This nerfs the hero slightly in the laning stage.
The big change is applied to his Spirits ability. The slow passive effect has been removed and instead changed to a level 10 talent. Combined with his Aghanim’s ability, IO’s Spirits were incredible at kiting melee heroes. This was down to the frequency of their spawns and the passive slow. Now players must choose between +45 Damage or Spirits Apply Slow at level 10.
The eagle-eyed readers among you may have noticed the question mark in that title. Warlock’s Fatal Bonds has been one of the stand-out talents of recent Dota 2 professional tournaments. The interaction with Grimstroke’s Soul Bind has causes entire teams of heroes to be deleted in seconds.
Image courtesy of Valve
This obviously hasn’t gone unnoticed by the dev team. One of the major patch 7.22c highlights is the reduction of Fatal Bond’s damage. The damage is now reduced by 1% per level and the corresponding talent is also reduced by 1%.
But is it enough?
Some don’t seem to think so. If you clicked the link above you would have heard popular Dota 2 caster Toby “TobiWan” Dawson reacting to OG deleting TNC’s heroes. When the patch 7.22c highlights were announced, TobiWan took to Twitter to share his thoughts.
It’s succinct, but I think we can all understand TobiWan’s opinion on the reduction.
Ah, the plight of a support player. All of our patch 7.22c highlights feature support heroes. When will Valve stop meddling and let us do what we do best – get blamed every game for our team’s performance?
For a small iteration, there have been some fairly big changes this patch. Our patch 7.22c highlights showcase some of the major ones, but there are definitely others worth checking out. You can read the full patch notes on Valve’s website.
Is there a hero you wanted to see changes to that didn’t appear in this patch? Think the changes here are too much, or not enough? Why not let us know in the comments? We’d love to hear what you have to say.
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