Valve dropped a new patch on us recently so we spent some time looking over the patch 7.22d highlights. From first impressions, it looks like a nerf-fest, but let’s dive in and see what the biggest changes are.
Take a seat as we take you over some of the most impactful changes in patch 7.22d.
You may remember from our patch 7.22c highlights article that we mentioned Chen took a pretty big hit. Well, Valve has seen fit to slap the poor lad with the nerf stick again in 7.22d.
Image courtesy of Valve
This time, IceFrog has reduced the heal provided by Chen’s ultimate, Hand of God at levels 1 and 2. In addition, the active cooldown time of Divine Favor has been increased from a flat 60 to 90/80/70/60. This will impact Chen’s ability to set up ganks in the early/mid game.
He has been one of the first heroes to be banned in many of the professional games recently. It’s too early to say whether this nerf will change that. However, we suspect the pros will be able to live with a slightly longer early cooldown for those teleport ganks. Time will tell.
Image courtesy of Valve
I guess it would be fair to call this one a buff. However, seeing as Valve has tinkered with Marksmanship again, we thought we’d go with rework.
Procs of Drow’s ultimate are now treated as a single instance of damage. This means that the bonus damage is combined with the regular attack instead of being a separate instance of damage. In addition, the bonus damage now increases per level from 120 to 120/130/140 and it can deal critical damage.
In practice, this makes it easier for Drow to deal huge crit damage but will prevent her from removing abilities and items that require a set number of attacks to destroy. Examples of this include wards, Phoenix’s ultimate and Templar Assassin’s Refraction.
Sad news for players of the little ball of light. IO’s level 25 talent has been reworked to provide +15 Armor instead of Tether Grants Scepter Bonus.
Image courtesy of Valve
The +15 Armor talent will certainly be nice. IO is a strength hero, but he’s no tank. A big buff to armor will definitely give him survivability, but does it justify the replacement of his Tether talent?
The change has certainly generated some discussion in the community. Some Reddit users claim that Valve has removed the most fun talent in the game with this rework. Other’s say that some heroes, like Gyrocopter, were too reliant on a pocket IO to be effective. If you’re looking to have your say on this one, head over Reddit or join the discussion in the comments below.
Let’s face it, we’ve all been there. You’re up against a Morphling. He’s had a fairly bad laning stage and your feeling like your team’s on top. Then, all of a sudden, he comes out of nowhere with the shotgun and now you’re fighting 4v5.
Image courtesy of Valve
Morphling is a really tough hero to kill throughout the game. His Attribute shift gives an experienced Morphling player all the tools they need to survive a gank. They are also a real menace in lane thanks to the bonus damage they get by shifting to Agility. This makes last hitting and denying against them really tough.
The change to the scaling of Attribute Shift bonus stats is a really effective way to nerf the hero in the early/mid game. It will make it a lot easier to bully the hero in the lane and reduce his impact and ability to snowball into the mid/late game. Despite the nerf, overall, we think this is one of the better of the patch 7.22d highlights.
Sorry, Morphling players.
Base intelligence increased by 3…
Yay…
As we’ve previously mentioned, it has been possible recently to pull off some absolutely disgusting Fatal Bonds combos. Never mind being one of the patch 7.22d highlights, the interaction of Fatal Bonds and Soul Bind makes it a 2019 highlight.
Image courtesy of Valve
Valve have therefore seen fit to nerf Warlock again. This time they have changed the way Fatal Bonds acquires targets. This is done specifically with the Soul Bind interaction in mind. Fatal Bonds will now treat units already affected by Fatal Bonds as low priority. This reduces the likelihood of the same unit being under the influence of the spell twice.
This is a practical change designed to limit the impact of a very over-powered interaction. However, we confess to being a little disappointed by this one. Seeing the casters go wild as entire teams get deleted by Fatal Bonds and Soul Bind has been a real treat of the Dota 2 pro scene.
We’ve covered some more balanced changes in the patch 7.22d highlights this time around. Our patch 7.22c highlights articles was pretty support-heavy and we recognize that not everyone has the stones to play a support hero. It’s okay, nobody’s perfect.
What’s your favorite or least favorite change in patch 7.22d? Did Valve forget to nerf an overpowered hero? Why not let us know in the comments below?
Featured image courtesy of Valve.
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