Dota 6.81B analysis.

Hello everyone and welcome to my review/thoughts/analysis of Dota 6.81B

When I wrote about patch 6.81 I had assumed we'd get a minor patch or two to tweak some heroes a little in preparation for TI4 which will begin at July 18th and Icefrog just updated Dota 2 with a new minor patch, 6.81B. There is still time to add one more minor patch I believe before TI4 but time will tell if we even need one, the current meta is remarkably versatile with many different ways to win so I'm not sure we'll be getting a patch soon or not, either way don't expect any big changes till next August.
So let's talk about the new patch shall we?

HEROES

-Ice Vortex slow decreased from 18/22/26/30% to 15/20/25/30%.

Hmm, this is one of those nerfs where I think " yes it's a nerf but... does it do anything?" so Ancient Apparation slows enemies 3% less at level 1, not exactly a big deal is it? 

As long as his ultimate is untouched, this hero will remain viable, plain and simple. A minor nerf to his slow doesn't change a thing.

• Sticky Napalm bonus damage is now halved against non-hero units.

You gotta assume that Icefrog hates Batrider, this dude goes through big nerfs every couple of patches and what's amazing is that he survives them every time, I read a patch and it looks like a nerf will kill his gameplay completely and yet he still gets picked so while this nerf will hurt because it makes his last hitting even more difficult early game, will it kill him?

Oh and here's a list of nerfs Batrider has enjoyed recently.

6.77

• Batrider can no longer attack while using  Flaming Lasso.

6.78

• Vision decreased from 1800/800 to 1400/800.
•  Flamebreak manacost increased from 80/100/120/140 to 140.
•  Flamebreak cooldown increased from 11 seconds to 14.

6.79

• Base damage reduced from 48-52 to 38-42.
• Vision reduced from 1400 to 1200.
•  Flaming Lasso cast range reduced from 175 to 100.

Not being able to attack during Lasso made him unable to solo kill anyone, he lost so much damage from that, the nerfs to Flamebreak aren't much compared to the rest, Bat got a break in 6.78 basically. Later his vision got further reduced and his base damage was reduced by 10 but he had Sticky Napalm to help him last hit, not anymore it seems... oh well.

Oh and to Lasso someone you basically have to be hugging them now, so that's nice too.

• Shadow Walk duration increased from 15/20/25/30 to 20/25/30/35.

I like this, it's not a huge buff but it's a good one. Early game Bounty needs to stay invisible to survive the lane so more duration = less mana spent spamming the spell so you'll be able to stay in lane longer. This also helps a little in last hitting since sometimes you lose the bonus damage just as you're about to hit a creep and this buff allows you to wait longer before trying to last hit, making it easier to get gold early on. It's not much of a buff later since going from 30 seconds to 35 is rather minor but it's a good change for his early game.

• Devour manacost rescaled from 60/50/40/30 to 60.

It's not a big nerf here for Doom because while his Devour now costs the same at all levels, at least it doesn't cost more early on, if Devour cost 100 mana at level 1 then we'd have a problem but this nerf while a little painful isn't going to change too much I believe.

• Gust knockback duration increased from 0.5 to 0.6/0.7/0.8/0.9.

Gust is basically a disable followed by a silence, it first started out at only 0.2 seconds but has steadily been buffed to last longer each patch and now it's almost 1 second disable at level 4 followed by a 6 second silence which is pretty damn impressive for a hero who can right click like a truck.

• Turn rate improved from 0.6 to 0.9
• Echo Slam's Initial Damage, Echo Search, Echo Damage AOE increased from 525, 550, 500 to 575, 575, 575.

Well this is a slightly confusing buff but basically before Echo Slam dealt damage in a 525 AOE, it then searched in a 550 AOE for enemies, these enemies would then each send out an Echo that damages other enemies, this Echo has a radius of 500 AOE.

It's a little bit confusing to explain in numbers like that but basically Earthshaker has more consistent damage for his ultimate and a larger AOE for it as well, the Turn rate is nice but what I want is a buff to Enchant Totem casting time.

• Echo Stomp damage increased from 80/85/90/95 to 80/90/100/110

In the last patch Elder Titan had his Echo Stomp damage increased from 80 to 95, of course it's a little more than that because the ability hits twice so it was a total damage increase of 30. 

Here he gets another 30 bonus damage so a total of 60 damage this patch, nice but is that what he needs? this hero feels like he's lacking in some other areas and I don't think it's his echo Stomp to be honest. 

• Midnight Pulse duration increased from 8 to 11

How hard is it going to be to push against Enigma now? not only does Midnight Pulse have 50% larger AOE than before, it also lasts almost 50% longer as well, throw this infront of your tower to defend it or behind enemy towers to push and enemies will have to keep their distance for a long while or risk being caught in it's huge AOE for the duration of a team fight. I like this change.

• Forged Spirits 33% magic resistance removed
• Cold Snap damage reworked from the initial and secondary proc damage of 60/30 to 7xQuasLevel per proc
• Deafening Blast's Disarm is now dispelled when Magic Immunity is applied

In the last patch I found out that apparently Ghost Walk would slow magic immune heroes until it got nerfed, and today I find out that Deafening Blast also affected magic immune targets? crazy, so not only does he have 10 spells but some of these spells also go through BKB eh? wow.

Forge Spirits being nerfed is somewhat expected, it remains Invoker's strongest spell and it's what makes the Quas/Exort build so popular, it was also nerfed earlier in 6.81 and now again but not so sure it will continue to receive nerfs.

Cold Snap has been reworked to deal less damage early on and more later, Cold Snap is stronger starting at level 5 and above, it will deal 7/14/21/28/35/42/49 damage per instance depending on the level of Quas. This change makes leaving Quas at low levels very bad for players who enjoy using Cold Snap.

• Omnislash damage per slash rescaled from 175-250 to 200-225
• Base Attack Time improved from 1.5 to 1.4

I like the damage change, the more consistent something is the better in my opinion, would you rather a spell that does 0-300 damage or one that deals 100-200? both average at 150 but the latter is just far more reliable.

Faster Base Attack time means Juggernaut will hit faster and will requie less attack speed items to proc his bonus attack during Omnislash, I think you can get bonus attacks starting at 340 attack speed now, can anyone confirm the math?

• Pulse Nova damage increased from 66/100/144 to 80/120/160 (Scepter from 100/150/200 to 100/160/220)

That's nice, not exactly game changing in anyway but it's just nice really. Leshrac has been receiving some love lately and he might make a comeback in TI4 but for now he remains something of a niche pick but the buff to his Lightning made teams take notice of him, let's hope we see more of him soon.

• Light Strike Array stun duration increased from 1.6 to 1.6/1.7/1.8/1.9

LSA has been unchanged for so long, so has Dragon Slave I guess since most buffs for Lina went to her ultimate and her passive. But then again this isn't much to write about since it's a 0.3 second longer stun at level 4.

The point of this buff though is that a lot of players have begun to ignore LSA, they max out Slave and put one point in LSA for the stun and then just get Fiery soul early on, this might make some players rethink their skill builds a little.

• Howl duration decreased from 12 to 10
• Howl bonus damage reduced from 20/30/40/50 to 14/26/38/50

More nerfs for the big bad wolf eh? I like it since I despise his split pushing abilities and now Howl doesn't last as long and is less effective at all levels except 4 which is excellent since Lycan usually levels up Howl later in the game after maxing Wolves and Feral spirit. 

• Sacred Arrow minimum stun duration decreased from 0.5 to 0.01 (maximum duration is still 5 seconds growing linearly)
• Sacred Arrow minimum damage reduced by 40 (maximum damage is still 190/280/370/460 growing linearly)

Do you like getting up close and personal and landing those close ranged arrows? well now you shouldn't anymore because it's a lot less effective.

Still the effects here are just if you're shooting at point blank range, apart from that long range Arrows are just as deadly as before, plus Mirana was being picked in everything thanks to her versatility, she can carry, support, mid and offlane very effectively so it's expected that she'd receive some sort of nerf.

• Multicast's passive manacost penalty on Fireblast reduced from 30/70/110 to 20/40/60
• Bloodlust can now be cast on Magic Immune allies

I have never liked the idea of not being able to buff allies who are magic immune, it just doesn't seem right that Magic Immunity blocks negative and positive effects because it makes using magic immunity a bit of a double edge sword sometimes, sure you are immune to magic but you can no longer be healed or buffed by allies and that is dangerous.

So good buff to Bloodlust here, the reduced cost from Multicast is nice but not much of a big deal really.

• Degen Aura slow increased from 7/14/21/28% to 10/18/26/34%

Oh very nice indeed. Degen Aura affects both movement and attack speed so it's always useful and bigger numbers make it a flat out better spell. It was also buffed in the last patch to "stick" to enemies longer but now that it slows 6% more at max level I don't think anyone is going to be escaping anyways for the stickiness to matter.

* Phantom Strike bonus attack speed increased from 100 to 130

Apart from her Ultimate every spell has been buffed for Phantom Assasin this patch, blur evades more, Dagger has a lower cooldown and now Phantom Strike grants even more attack speed. Phantom Assasin never needs to worry about attack speed thanks to this buff and it makes items that proc even more effective (MKB, Basher) plus more attacks = more crits so she's just stronger overall now.

Is she competitive worthy though? no I think not, she still lacks a disable and her laning is also very weak. Teams might be able to work around that though.

* Shadow Strike cast range increased from 435 to 450/475/500/525

Queen of Pain fell out of favor some time ago and hasn't been seen as a mid for a while now,  Shadow Strike has had it's cooldown reduced and it's range increased from 400 in patch 6.80 to 525 in this patch. This is needed but how many players put a lot of points in Shadow Strike early on? it stays at level 1 until at least level 8 and the extra 15 range isn't a big deal.

• Smoke Screen cooldown reduced from 13 to 11

Oh that's nice, basically more Smoke Screen now. Yeah that's all I got guys.

• Ancient Seal damage amplification increased from 18/24/30/36% to 30/35/40/45%

I just finished updating my Skywrath Mage guide and now he gets another buff *sigh* gotta edit it again now.

Anyways the change is big at all levels but especially level 1 where you get an extra 12% more damage. Level 4 gives 9% more but it's still a nice big buff because it also amplifies the magic of your allies as well. 

• Bash bonus damage increased from 40/60/80/100 to 60/80/100/120

20 extra damage at all levels for Bash, this is bigger than it seems because Bash deals physical damage and Slardar massive armor reduction means that an extra 20 damage is more like an extra 40.

• Leech Seed damage per pulse decreased from 24/36/48/60 to 15/30/45/60

While it does the same amount of damage and life drain at level 4, the nerf to the early levels of Leech Seed hurts Treant quite a lot actually because he simply levels up very slowly. Not only that but early on Treant has to level up his Living Armor so having a weaker Leech Seed means Treant is just not as effective early game as he used to be.

• Snowball cooldown reduced from 21 to 21/20/19/18
• Walrus Punch cooldown reduced from 30/24/18 to 25/20/15

Snowball had too long a cooldown before but since the spell has changed I don't think lowering it's cooldown makes too much of a difference because the spell has quite a charge up time.

Walrus Punch also has a lower cooldown, my issue with this spell is that Earthshaker has a 5 second 400% damage attack while Tusk has 15 seconds cooldown, sure it can slow but Earthshaker hits harder and faster with a basic spell than Tusk does with his ultimate.

• Intelligence growth increased from 2.0 to 2.5

Undying is a hero that I feel gets ignored too much, his Tombstone early on is just an automatic team fight winner and Soul Rip is a very versatile skill while Decay gives him a ton of tankiness. 

Of course he does have some mana issues due to how easy it is to spam his spells, Decay has a 4 second cooldown and Soul Rip has 6 seconds only so giving him more Intelligence gain is a nice way to allow him to spam his spells early on. 

• Focus Fire manacost decreased from 150 to 75/100/125

I don't think Focus Fire will ever deserve a skill point in it before maxing out Windranger's other 3 spells, her ultimate is the weakest spell she has but I suppose it makes sense due to how strong her other abilites are. 

• Lightning Bolt vision and truesight duration increased from 3 to 4.5
• Lightning Bolt search area of effect increased from 250 to 325

That's a nice buff, firstly we have 50% longer vision from Lightning Bolt, I believe this change was due to the fact that dewarding with Zues required 2-3 Lightning Bolts if the enemy put their wards on cliffs so thankfully that no longer is an issue. Bigger search area also means it will be easier to hit enemies in the fog with Lightning Bolt now.

Well that's about it for this patch, please leave me any comments on your thoughts for these changes and share this post. Thank you for reading this.