First!

Arent towers further away from river or is it only my impression? I didnt play yet, only checked map quickly and it seemed it is (but maybe those are the night changes(?), so only the vision looked different?

OK, it seems "the issue" is only night vision early. Shame, it would be great to have back the roaming meta with towers slightly further away from each other.

The random hate on neutral items is kind of surprising, especially from someone who literally wrote weeks ago that "overall there is nothing inherently wrong with the system". They provide unique variations on builds in a way I find fairly interesting.

Trident shouldnt have been removed. Fish Bait on Slark is too much situational.

Dota buff: "we need a new ranged hc"

Valve launch's a new ranged mobility scaled hero.

Also Dota buff: "there's no necessity for this op hero"

Dota buff : "Does Lion need rework"?
Valve : Hex unit movement speed reduced from 140 to 120

lol you got them there @SkullCker

I honestly ho back and forth on neutral items from game to game, but the most recent batch just feels wrong. Tier 1 items shouldn't be game-changing and both Chipped Vest and Possessed Mask are. They essentially allow certain heroes to skip full items. Blade Mail was used as a farming tool in the previous patch on some heroes, most notably Spectre, and Chipped Vest might suddenly be enough for her to farm non-ancient neutrals and maybe go Yasha/Diffusal Blade/Manta without sacrificing much farming speed while also becoming a lot more of a threat. Guess that's why the hero was nerfed in the same patch as they introduce the vest, but... is it really the best idea to introduce something potentially problematic and then nerf the potential problematic interaction? Just irks and baffles me.
Same with Possesed Mask, but on a much bigger variety of heroes. Any carry can now skip Morbid Mask and go jungling come minute 7 IF they get the Mask. If they don't and the enemy does, well, good luck: the enemy carry just won 900 gold against you without any interaction whatsoever, cool.

Aghanim's Shard is also kind of bloating the game, but it is doing it in a predictable manner. It leaves room for actual counterplay and can be solved by planning. Some neutral items, as discussed previously, just do too much. They are also the more interesting ones, for sure. Things like Spider legs, Minotaur Horn, Flicker etc. are game- and matchup-changing, which is precisely why I personally have a problem with them.

New hero... dunno. Looks like WR 2.0, even in terms of visual design. Maybe that's why I am so salty)

I would like to disagree with Elevated. Slower paced meta is welcomed, and is what made dota fun again. THe peak numbers of players Dota reached, was during 6.83, which was very slow-paced, late-game oriented patch.

The push for faster-paced, brawling-style, teamfighting heavy deathballing meta that has been in the game since 7.00 is what lead to the playerbase losing 30% in about 2-3 years

The changes they made to Lifestealer is straigth up the worst changes they could possibly do to him, they took his best skill into a 1400 gold price item, and gave him a free orb of venom instead which aint even the orb of venom atall (cause it doesnt have the same damage per second). and reworked his aghanim into a single target riki's tricks and trade. i mean what the Actual F*** is wrong with icefrog and his team? seriously, just what is this type of nerf?? the hero was already in the shit tier, now that they litteraly cut off his open wound and turned it into an item, what can even this hero mean during laning phase???? the mana increase on his abilities since he no longer has open wound is so stupid aswell, it forces you to get an item like soul ring during laning stage...

Months ago people complained about his feast, and the danage he lacks, and now they litteraly just stole it from him, gave it to bloodseeker which was already on the top of the mountion...

i hope they rethink this idea...

/\ haha

Like what happened to Snapfire, same may happen to hookwink. The first skill acorn shot is already so op, its like upgraded luna glaives, with no damage reduction, with slow and further range. Bushwhack does 360 aoe damage with 2.2 second stun, scurry is an overpowered windrun, sharpshooter is another overpowered sniper's ulti. Basically no point playing windranger or sniper as you already have a much better ranged carry/support. What we will see these few days is instaban and instapick hookwink, followed by counters to hookwink.

Actually the patch is not too bad aside from the one and only annoying hero that everyone wants to pick. Stuff that needed a nerf were nerfed and stuff that needed some buffs were given the buffs. What is important is to take advantage of the buffs and possible new builds. Rise of the mages.

Nerfs that we will see in the next few weeks:
Acorn shot cooldown increase, mana cost increase, and bonus damage change to reduced damage.
Bushwhack damage decreased by 50%, aoe decreased, cooldown increased and cast range decreased.
Scurry evasion decreased, mana cost increased.
Sharpshooter, damage decreased and cast range decrease.

@positive_player - I think that it is just with people growing older and there are not new players coming (or staying) anymore - or not in the numbers to replace those, who played for years. It happens to all games - WOW, starcraft, dota, lol, CS and others as well - it creates fanbase and it slowly drops.

Honestly I was waiting for this patch to make big changes to the game. It feels exactly the same as before the patch.

Finally I am loving this game again hope it stays like this. I don't want to say about the new hero but the new neutral item and Aghanim's Shard make every match more interesting be it I we win or lose.

First of all, Valve - what are you smoking? You have made a second Chen "no damage abilities" hero from Lifestealer who's a worse version of Wraith king without Disabling, Damaging, Farming, or Catching ability with low base damage growth and low armor. I am sorry, what?!

Second of all - can you finally make up your mind what OD should look like? Hero was bad already (same as Naix) and you've taken out his AoE farming ability and Slow.

LS nerfed bad I agree. the mana increase beside that orb of venom skill is a joke.
Sven-Spectre nerfed as I guessed.
was expecting more buff to Slark but they didnt :(

I agree that the new hero has no reason to exist, and provides nothing new to the game. Top it off with cringy furry crap. The hero is beyond broken, not like I've successfully been able to play it yet though. I really like the Aghs shards, but still wish Icefrog would delete neutral items. Too much rng imo. If you get bad drops and your opponents get good drops, it's feels really bad.

Furries have been in DOTA since day one.

Enchantress
Meepo
Brewmaster
Bristleback
Earthshaker
Slardar
Naga
Ursa
Slark
Phantom Lancer
Wyvern
Jakiro
Magnus

Furry game? Always was.

I think valve nailed this hero. It isnt too hard to counter and its balanced in my opinion after nerfs.

Uninspired is a good word for this hero. Its very lackluster and I can't see why they would add it. If anyone has realized most new heroes they would usually add a new mechanic. Dark Willow fear, Pango Vector ability, Monkey King Tree hopping. It seems that idea took too much time out of them and they became uninspired in general. Not going to lie, I hate the artwork for hoodwinked but it's irrelevant now.

Her W doesn't even feel integrated into the game very well. Her Q is ONLY unique because it's physical damage and her ult is not bad for a spell but doesn't warrant a new hero.

To me it seems like their way of balance now is to give us more options New aghs, Talents, Neutrals, Shards and then worry less on the "boring" mechanical parts of the hero (Movement speed, cast point delay, etc). This also may be to make balancing less focused. The amount of options they are putting in the game make it where you don't actually have to completely "Balance" something if this makes sense. They can do minute tweaks to items, shards, talents, aghs and see if players can find a way to find balance in the game. It also seems that Talents are becoming just for extra buffing to abilities in case you need them in certain games. While the Agh shard is a way to add those unique ability changes. (For example Wraith Kings lvl 20 talent now being a shard).

Essentially instead of praying for patches, they might be hoping to make the game so dense that it is more of the player decision of what hero choices they make rather than following a smaller variable of meta. Which I don't know how to feel about it and when will it stop? Will we get 3 agh shards now? Will we get outpost items? Like how many more decisions and options will you put in the game till you think the game can fend for itself?

лул блять, ало патч с экономикой подвезут позже.