Now, 6.87c has been released with more balance changes to address individual heroes and their spells and we take a look at each and every one of them.
Infernal Blade base damage reduced from 40 to 25/30/35/40
His pubstats overall may not be impressive with only a roughly 48% winrate, but in just the 5k+ MMR bracket he is sitting at a 54% winrate, while being the 5th most picked there.
The nerf doesn’t necessarily address his biggest appeal, the ability to farm up reliably while being able to provide a strong silence, but it nerfs his ganking power quite a bit by reducing the damage by 60 on level 1. This definitely reduces him impact as a ganker early on, something that teams have utilized him as, often running him on the 4 position. It may not be enough to edge him out of the meta though, considering all of his other advantages and strong points still being viable.
Dota 6.87b changelog:
* Fixed Hurricane Pike interaction with Gyrocopter’s Homing Missile
* Fixed only 4 broadcaster channels being visible in the lobby instead of 6
* Fixed hotkeys on Arc Warden’s Tempest Double when reconnecting
6.87b:
* Sacrifice Cooldown increased from 44/36/28/20 to 60/50/40/30
* Sacrifice Mana restore increased from 25/40/55/70% to 30/50/70/90%
* Blade Mail cooldown increased from 13 to 18
* Jinada slow reduced from 25/27/29/31% to 18/22/26/30%
* Armlet’s armor bonus is now granted after it is fully activated
Dota 6.87c update and changelog:
* Infernal Blade base damage reduced from 40 to 25/30/35/40
* Armlet armor bonus when activated reduced from 5 to 4
* Essence Aura now uses Pseudo-Random Distribution
* Wind Lace cost increased from 225 to 235
* Wind Lace is no longer available in the Side Shop
* Silver Edge now has a 300 gold recipe
* Arc Warden base damage improved by 4
* Vengeful Spirit Intelligence reduced from 15 + 1.75 to 13 + 1.5
* Super Creep gold increase over time reduced from 2 to 1.5 per upgrade cycle
* Beastmaster’s Boar Poison no longer pierces Spell Immunity
* Greevil’s Greed no longer benefits illusions
* Storm Spirit Intelligence increased from 23 + 2.6 to 24 + 3.0
* Slardar base movement speed reduced from 300 to 295
* Metamorphosis no longer increases Base Attack Time
* Conjure Image damage taken reduced from 425% to 400%
* Stifling Dagger base damage increased from 60 to 75
* AoE Bounty Gold based on level reduced from 8/7/6/4/4 to 6/5/4/3/3 per level
* Grave Chill cast range increased from 600 to 650
* Jinada slow reduced from 18/22/26/30% to 15/20/25/30%
Dota v6.85k RGC came out sooner than expected for many. It may not be here to stay for long, as we could see 6.86c before New Year’s still, but it’s still surprising to see so many adjustments after a short time. The individual changes and nerfs seem to make sense for the most part (Pudge being the bigger exception here), but implementing these heroes into Captain’s Mode has caught many people off guard. It feels as if more testing needs to be done to make these hero work. As mentioned above though, pros will likely be forced to figure out these heroes much quicker and we’ll likely see some changes towards them soon – if they are warranted.
- Latest map in Dota 1: Dota 6.85k
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