Major patch day is always exciting for us Dota 2 players. It feels a bit like opening Christmas presents as a child – you know they are coming, you’re full of anticipation, and when they’re finally here it’s one of the most exciting moments of the year. When you open them you’re either extremely happy that you got what you wished for (or even something beyond your imagination!) or a bit disappointed.

7.20 so far seems to leave the community with feelings of the first kind. There is, however, a pinch of disappointment as well, especially if one of your favorite heroes got heavily reworked for no apparent reason. There are many major changes to heroes that seemed to work perfectly fine. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

The fact is, there was a time in Dota when the balance in the game reached an almost perfect equilibrium. There was a rather large period when ~90% of heroes were picked and were viable competitively.

If you think about it, however, probably your fondest memories of the game aren’t of this time period. Rather, they are of the time when you discovered new things, stumbled upon imba heroes, combos, and strategies and got to share them and test them with your friends. As the game grows older and its players more experienced, this sense of discovery fades away.

It’s probably not a coincidence that some of the changes in 7.20 feel a bit like Dota 1 (the Drow instant kill mechanic, etc.) – for many of us, these fond memories of discovery date back to Dota 1.

In that sense, it’s not a surprise that 7.20 tries to shake up Dota fundamentally!

All the chaos (and all the imbalances that come with it) make it fresh and bring back the sense of wonder.

We talked with a couple of immortal players to try to deduct some of the most significant changes in the game and to try to get a grasp of where things are headed:

The most impactful changes are usually not the changes to heroes and items in a vacuum but in combination with the general changes in the game.

So, controlling the jungle is easier and farming the jungle is more rewarding (1). Heroes that like to spend their time in the jungle and especially heroes that love farming stacks will benefit from this change greatly.

It’s also worth noting that the lanes feel more vulnerable, especially the areas which are close to the jungle HGs. For example, the T2 towers seem like a death trap if your team doesn’t control the HG next to them.

This change is a huge buff to split pushing (2). With BOT’s, you can go to a pushed-out lane, pressure the tower, and then TP back to base to defend with a TP scroll. Previously, NP was the only hero that could do this efficiently (and heroes like Tinker, but Tinker lacks building damage). Now it’s an option for every carry with BoTs, which will make the super late game very different from what it is right now. Committing to a push without pushing out all three lanes in preparation will be extremely risky. This could lead to longer games (3).

Cores who are good at split-pushing anyway (Meepo, AM, TB, LD, Beast) will become much stronger if the game goes late. Earlier BoTs for fast-farming cores could also become a standard.

Source: Pimpmuckl

What this formula means is that very high or very low levels of armor are a bit more impactful (4). A buff to high armor heroes (AGI carries and heroes like DK), and to armor reduction stacking (Slardar, Dazzle, TA, etc.).

It’s harder to snowball your lane in terms of levels. It’s possible, however, to get a bit more farm from a won lane. This means that cores that don’t care that much about levels but desperately want their core items (any carry that likes a fast BF or Radiance) will benefit more from denies (5) in the lane. In that sense, securing your AM or Spect a great start early on could pay big dividends. Moreover, leaving a core in a bad situation (1v2) wouldn’t result in a huge XP gap right away. This means that the supports might be able to afford to be a bit more active and ganks by both supports in one lane could become possible again even in the earlier laning stage.

The changes to the jungles (1), teleporting & split-pushing (2 & 3), armor (4) and denies (5) lead us to believe that this patch presents a very big buff to farm-intensive AGI carries.  The age of Terrorblade, Morph and Arc Warden might not be over, and other AGI carries like LD, Slark, Luna, and AM might join them.

Luna looks like one of the biggest obvious winners from the patch so far. She received a simple but powerful buff and at the same time, she benefits from all general changes to the game.

Her Lunar Blessing rework is very strong in two situations: laning and 5-man pushing.         

Besides damage, Her INT supports will now have more mana to harass with spells, while her STR supports will have more HP to trade harass, which makes the lane a bit easier to win.

More importantly, the significant primary attribute bonus to all allies (especially with the talent – 40 STR is no joke) is very powerful when you are 5-man pushing in the mid game. The Luna + DK classic combo, for example, is now even stronger and can lead to fast mid-game victories.

Moreover, Luna is one of the fastest Jungle farmers, which means she benefits greatly from the changes to the map and the changes to the neutral creep gold and stacking buff. With a good lane and a few stacked camps, she can easily snowball out of control.

Last, with the TP changes it’s easy to imagine Luna split-pushing in the late game. She pushes out lanes very fast and deals significant building damage. The ability to get in position to split-push and get back to base in an instant with BoTs and TP scrolls is very valuable on this hero. 

Luna has one of the most significant win rate spikes since the new patch (+11% to 61% WR). This is likely to level-out a bit, but it’s obvious that she is finding a lot of success already.

There was a hint in the last patch that AM is close to being viable, and with the current changes, everything is looking in his favor. AM received a 50% uptime Lotus Orb (it’s a bit harder to use than it sounds, but it’s insanely powerful in the hands of players with fast reactions). It gives him a lot of defensive potential early on and makes him harder to focus down in fights, which might allow him to play a bit more aggressively.

He benefits from some of the map changes as well – in the mid game AM loves the jungle, and it will be easier for his team to provide him with protected space even if the T1 towers fall.

In the mid-late game, keeping all lanes pushed-out and split-pushing with BoTs can make it very hard for the enemy team to end the game versus a farmed AM.

AM’s WR is currently falling with 2%, but this could be due to a fact that his pick-rate is increasing a lot (players that don’t usually play him are trying him out). Moreover, he still has a problematic laning phase. If the meta shifts a bit away from static dual lanes, however, combined with the new deny mechanic, AM could all of a sudden find himself in a great place.

Slark sees a big rise in both win rate (+11%) and pick rate (+15.5%), which clearly speaks that the patch is very favorable for the hero. The buffs he received are not game-breaking, but they add up. For example, the Leash state makes Slark’s ganks much harder to counter with a TP.

More importantly, he benefits from the general changes as well. He loves farming the jungle, which is now safer and more rewarding.

Moreover, he loves ganking the lanes out of the jungle or lone jungle farmers. The new jungle HG areas are very helpful in this regard, especially once he gets his Shadow Blade. 

Lastly, the wards in the HG areas are extremely valuable. Thanks to his ult, Slark can easily see if enemies have vision there and help his team deward and establish map control there. 

Of course, all of this is speculation and only time will tell if we were right. There are plenty of other interesting changes to heroes and items, and imba combos and tactics will surely emerge. Because of this, as time progresses we plan to make a couple of other patch and meta-analysis articles here on DotaHaven to see which heroes are the biggest winners and losers of 7.20, so stay tuned. 

As for our own library of hero guides created with pros (e.g. with Qojqva), we will slowly begin to update them as the meta shapes up and the correct way to play the heroes solidifies – we have ~ 600k words of written content, so wish us luck!