“Have I been buffed, Mortred?” “No. Just because nobody knows how to use you doesn’t mean you’re not obscenely good in the right hands.”
Dota 2‘s 6.83b patch has been released with pretty much no ceremony, bringing with it a few small balance changes.
The balance changes are sufficiently few in number that, for once, I can actually list them all here. The short version is that respawn times have been rejigged (although not massively), destroying barracks now get you more gold, and Juggernaut, Slark, Brewmaster, Tidehunter, Faceless Void, and Vengeful Spirit have all had a few minor nerfs. At least, I think they’re minor nerfs. I can’t speak to the Faceless Void one because I don’t ever really play him, so I’m not really sure how mana-hungry he is.
Lo and behold, Dota 2‘s 6.83b patch notes:
- Respawn time rescaled from 4*Level to 5 + 3.8*Level (total is still 100 at level 25)
- Melee/Ranged Barracks team bounty from 125/75 to 175/100 gold
- Anchor Smash radius reduced from 400 to 375
- Brewmaster’s Hurl Boulder damage reduced from 100 to 50 damage
- Pounce damage reduced from 55/110/165/220 to 50/100/150/200
- Juggernaut base armor reduced by 1
- Omnislash cast range reduced from 450 to 350
- Chronosphere manacost increased from 150/175/200 to 150/225/300
- Magic Missile cooldown rescaled from 10 to 13/12/11/10
For those of you too lazy to do the maths, the respawn times are bigger at earlier levels, and then gradually fall in line with what they used to be. At level 1, you’re now out for 9 seconds on death rather than 4; at level 10, it’s now 43 seconds rather than 40. At level 20, it’s 81 seconds instead of 80. And so on. It’s not a huge change in terms of pure numbers, but it does mean that dying a lot in the early game is going to punish you harder than before.
This new Dota 2 patch is presumably out right now.
