Dota 2 Patch 7.08 – Important Hero and Item Changes

After 6 weeks without any changes, we finally have a new patch: 7.08. And with it, IceFrog decided to nerf a lot of heroes and items, while buffing others. I personally enjoy playing many of the heroes and using many of the items that got hit by the nerfs (try not to cry, cry a lot), so I can’t stop focusing on the “negatives” in this patch for the time being. That aside, it should be interesting to see how the meta evolves over the next month as a result of the changes.

Here are some of the most important hero and item changes in patch 7.08:

Big hero changes

• Lycan: Shapeshift cooldown was increased by 10/15/20 seconds.
• Morphling: Morph cast range was increased by 400 units, from 600 to 1000.
• Omniknight: Degen Aura range was reduced from 300 to 275; Purification cast range was also reduced from 450 to 400. Both of these nerfs are actually really big. Aether Lens is a must now on this hero.
• Pangolier: Rolling Thunder cooldown was increased by 20 seconds for all levels. Finally! What a joke hero to begin with!
• Tinker: Base movement speed reduced by 15. This is a huge nerf in the laning phase. This hero just got a lot more gankable.
• Nature’s Prophet: Wrath of Nature cooldown was reduced by 20 seconds at level 1 and 10 seconds at level 2. Omg, why buff this cancerous rat IceFrog?
• Lion: Mana Drain slows the target by 14%/16%/18%/20%. This is a huge buff and is likely to change the hero’s skill build.
• Lina: Base intelligence increased by 3; Base damage random variance reduced from 18 to 12. More attack damage and mana for a hero with 670 attack range and a powerful AoE nuke? (AOE meaning in games) Great. Laning phase will not be fun against Lina.
• Jakiro: Attack backswing reduced from 0.5s to 0.3s. This is a big buff to Jakiro’s laning phase.
• Shadow Fiend: Necromastery got nerfed at the early levels: 12/20/28/36 max souls instead of 18/24/30/36.
• Shadow Shaman: Ether Shock cooldown was increased from 8s to 14/12/10/8s; Shackles total damage was reduced from 120/200/280/360 to 60/160/260/360. Practically, the hero’s laning phase was nerfed by a lot.

Big item changes

• Blink Dagger: Cooldown was increased by 2 seconds, from 12 to 14. This is actually a huge nerf, making the act of blinking in a lot more risky. It also makes chasing and catching heroes considerably more difficult. Farming patterns for heroes that always buy a Blink Dagger are also disrupted by this nerf. Combined with the previous nerf to the Diffusal Blade, which no longer purges, this change makes the life of all heavy right clickers with limited mobility a lot more complicated. The only things your enemies need now to get away from you are a Force Staff and a Ghost Scepter.
• Black King Bar: its active now has a 70-second cooldown. This is big nerf in the late game.
• Hurricane Pike: cooldown increased from 18s to 23s. Yet another nerf for a mobility item.
• Meteor Hammer: cooldown was reduced from 40s to 28s. This item just got very powerful.
• Enchanted Mango: mana restore was increased from 150 to 175. If your main concern in the laning phase is mana (on a hero like Zeus for example), 1 Mango now gives you the equivalent of around 4.4 Bottle charges, for just 100 gold. That’s huge!