Small, frequent balance updates had been missing from the game for the last few years, and some of us are happy to see them happening again. The chances of watching another tournament that only consists of the one fifth of the available Hero pool are getting slimmer.
This time, we got:
* Doom cooldown increased from 125 to 140
* Armlet health drain increased from 40 to 45 per second
* Sun Ray cooldown increased from 20 to 26
* Beastmaster Boar Attack Damage reduced from 15/30/45/60 to 10/25/40/55
* Call of the Wild Hawk/Boar manacost increased from 15 to 25
* Rolling Boulder slow duration reduced from 2 to 1.4/1.6/1.8/2.0
* Lion’s base intelligence reduced by 2
* Track self bonus gold reduced from 200/275/350 to 170/260/350
Doom, after all the nerfs and remakes and more nerfs is still considered a serious threat, and with good reason. His ult now has one of the longest cooldowns in the game, and it remains to be seen whether that’ll be enough to finally put him down.
The Armlet tweaking series continue. I’m not sure anyone even pays attention to them anymore.
Sun Ray focused Phoenixes have seen a rise in play too. I doubt the slightly longer cooldown will do too much to them, but it’s still welcome.
Beastmaster keeps getting pounded, this time with something a lot less painful than the last time though (his boar’s slow not going through spell immunity anymore). His map and Hero control will always be something to watch out for.
Earth Spirit nerfs? Gimme. He’s received dozens of them and he’s still powerful.
Lion has also become quite popular, though I don’t think he’s the type that needs to be weakened much, if at all. 2 intelligence down isn’t a lot, although it CAN be for a support, and the Hero already has his weaknesses.
And finally, our buddy Bounty Hunter will have to work more for a living once again. His early game impact is considered very important by many pubs and pros alike, hence the continues nerfs on him. He’s one of those types that requires constant attention to not cause the game to go out of hand quickly.
This, as you can see, was a patch consisting only of nerfs towards some trending picks. Perhaps we’ll see a bit less of them in the upcoming Manila Major.
