Pope Amole II
Nerd Commando Game Studios
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2012
- Messages
- 2,052
My impressions as I'm reading (this is gonna be a fucking long post which no one will read, lol):
Nerfed buybacks - don't like it, tbh. Doesn't matter in pubs, but in competitive gaming late game mistakes already are game-defining (too many situations when one casual feed results in throwing away a 60 min stalemate game), and now mistakes are even more backbreaking. On the other hand, it's a great stimulus for a faster meta-game.
No ranged deny - real stupid. Being melee is already a huge disadvantage, no need to press the issue even further.
Pull nerf - arguable. Not sure if I like it or hate it.
Hellbear smasher nerf - good for some pub junglers (guys like SK who take shield+axe and go chop neutrals), bad for chen and enchantress.
Flying dragons - bye-bye ancients windrunner, medusa and whatever.
Day/night cycle - probably buff for balanar.
Random roshan is random. It makes vision much more important and it will lead to some very stupid (and random) rosh steals and team wipes.
Moar gold for everyone is great for pub. Too bad they nerfed randompicks, though. Real men random. On a competitive scene, that probably means more wards for supports - more vision for the team.
Stacking evasion seems stupidly strong. Butterfly on phantom assassin - that's, like, 61% dodge? That's strong. On the other hand, it's not like MKB doesn't exist in this game, so I doubt anything broken will come out of this.
Abaddon is nerfed, but he probably will get over it.
Alchemist is hit much harder - HP regen is nice, but it's nothing that will allow you to survive the huge stunlocks. I guess now you need to go for a really early heart (or maybe support mek alchemist with more durability?)
Apparition is eh. Like, small buffs, but he's still bad because his skills cost a ton of mana (which he doesn't have).
Axe got much better - it's not even about the various ultimate goodness, it's all about counterhelix cooldown. He's a jungler hero (when you talk competitive) and the ability to jungle faster is what matter here. Current meta isn't friendly to the junglers, though, so who knows. And new ult can be nice, but you'll probably need arcane boots to chaincast it.
Batrider now suffers the same fate as the invoker - great solomid, but not so great without damage. Yeah, he can still harass with sticky napalm, but his last hitting is ehh... On the other hand, if you jungle him, not much has changed (though your dagger jumps will have to be extremely precise).
Beastmaster got small buffs and the ability not to feed excessively with his creeps - good.
Bloodseeker becomes better and better with each patch, but he's still a horrible laner so I dunno what to think about him. I'm sure Navi will troll someone with him, though.
Panda becomes tier 1 again - 6 agility is huge, aoe misses in teamfights is huge (even if they're hard to hit), new aghanim is... Curious. But not really needed, I think. Well, it's not like you have zero ways to spend 4k gold on a semi-carry hero.
Bristleback is whatever, his too pub for a competitive play.
New broodmother is really interesting - much greater mobility now. Her other issues (feeding with spiders, useless in late) are not addressed though, so I dunno how useful she'll become.
Clinkz shoots through BKB - that's huge. That changes a lot, especially against squishy heroes like Shadow Fiend for whom BKB is their main protection.
Dazzle is interesting, but poison tuch is more about that pub solo-mid Dazzle and I'm just not sure that these buffs make him viable in competitive.
Death prophet gets even better exorcism... Who knows. I like the hero so maybe she'll make a comeback - her ultimate is already unbearable and we're talking about 25% extra damage.
Disruptor aghanim is great, but I just don't see him farming it (unless your team is balling anyway). Small buffs are nice, though, NS is probably happy.
Doom was already strong in competitive games and now he's even more broken - that dark seer tries to surge away from you? Fuck him. Aghanim is whatever, it's useless anyways.
Drow is awesome. Even more damage to your teammates and you don't push your line unless you want to push it (or anything else). I'm curios, does "creeps" include spawned creeps like enigma summons? Because if yes, then it's stupidly awesome.
Carry shaker for the win (no).
Enigma aghanim is nice (that's 28% of their life lost), but you already have tons of shit to farm (blink+bkb at the very least) and even then, is it better than hex or refresher? Good for 60 mins games, I guess.
huskar is nerfed, but he's not in CM so whatever.
Invoker's emp buff is really interesting, but then, he still sucks at laning (where mp restoration matters) and in team fights it's really not about running out of mana.
Io is nerfed (tethered guys being able to cast is huge, obviously), but he's still great so whatever.
Aghanim jugger got much better (I'm curious what happens if you use blink dagger in midst of omnislash?).
Aghanim leshrac became much stronger - still, I forgot when I saw carry or semi-carry leshrac last time in competitive. Pub players rejoice, though.
Lich is awesome. Enemy heroes getting no xp denial doesn't matter because it's not like you can sacrifice at your tier-1 or wherever, and free levels for your supports (or even carries) are awesome. Who cares about slightly nerfed (if that's even nerfed) frost armor when you get to that devastating chain frost much faster?
Lone druid is punished for feeding his bear even further. You really don't want to lose it when you are laning.
Luna gets even more teamfight damage. Like, aghanim upgrade is also nice (lvl 3 is 2700 dmg total, kinda hard to surive that), but that's more about pub and extra-damage when facing 2-3 opponents is the real deal.
Lycan gets better at laning and destroying towers - hmm, considering you want to play much faster now, more push-oriented meta?
Magnus is interesting - +0.3 turn rate buff seems solid (though I'm obviously not sure how it would actually feel in the game).
Medusa is... Eh, you don't want to play 60 min games.
Meepo seems strong. Like, 100% stat sharing without aghanim (if I understand correctly)? Yes please. And clone at lvl 4 means you can increase your xp gain much earlier or maybe do some faster ganks or lane control or whatever. Heck, I hope we'll see the little bugger (buggers) at the pro scene. Go-go, Meepo Dendi!
Nature prophet feeds more - not a huge nerf, but it can be pretty significant. Especially in the pub games with bad nature profits.
Night stalker seems great - I think that 4 minute day/night cycle benefits him more than it harms him, and, since vision became even more important, devastating your enemies vision is a great ability, if only on purely psychological level. And once you remember that Artstyle is returning on competitive scene (or so he says)...
OD is nerfed, kinda. 3 damage is negligible, you'll steal dmg for your enemy, but no longer proccing aura with items... Well, it wasn't that important, but it helped to break some bad luck streaks. Still a strong laner, though.
PA is buffed by stacking evasion (honestly, even casual talisman of evasion seems good - you just can't respond it with mkb fast enough) and dagger getting proc crits will mean for some stupidly lucky lane victories.
Go-go, blink pudge dendi! I'm not sure if Pudge needs blink, actually, but it's Dendi so you know he'll go for blink.
Pugna seems much stronger. Better protective decrep, better offensive decrep, tougher nether ward (starting from the mid-game), free life drain if you're already full - aghanim's pugna is gonna wreck some pubs.
Rubik is nerfed. 5 sec cooldown will make for even more dota top 10 weekly appearances, but, in serious game, how do you farm it?
Shadow shaman seems even better now - his serpent wards were already strong, and now there's even more of them.
Silencer became much better in lvl 1 mass teamfights - now you can have useful last word in them and still drain experience. heck, now you aren't even forced to get glaives until you really need them which makes your laning much better. I like the support silences that Empire play nowadays so who knows, maybe it'll catch up.
SK losing active mortal strike makes me sad, but his vampiric working on ranged units... That can be powerful. I'm sure your shadow fiend will like it. And +5 int actually allows you to pump it instead of getting early stats. I guess you can try to make a support SK + ranged support + ranged carry tri-lane.
Skywrath aghanim is probably pointless, but extra int growth seems cool. With batrider out of mid, we need some new midders and for skywrath, every point of int counts (kinda).
Slardar is buffed. That's good, I want to see him in competitive games, especially coupled with an elder titan (armor? fuck your armor!)
Slark needs to be tested. On one hand, shorter and less frequent shadow dances hurt his laning, kinda. On the other hand, being able to dive or escape without any kind of reprisal is awesome. Especially in the late game, where you'll be able to drop one or two supports during those 4 seconds. But getting to that late game... Dunno.
Spectre is rofl. Jumping through an entire combat can be devastating, although it's more for competitive scene and high-tier pubs - I doubt that your run of the mill player will abuse that thing greatly.
Spirit breaker is bashed and I don't think that he deserves it. He's not broken and he's only recently became picked on the pro scene, why spoil it for him almost immediately? In the related news, Doombringer gets stronger and stronger.
Tidehunter becomes even more survivable - cool, but not that good. You don't see him as mid or hardlane nowadays so it's gonna be hard for him to get skill points for the kraken shell. But if you go for a pub-style carry tide...
Treant gets better leech seed, but now he really needs lots of xp and how do you gain that? He's still a good hero if you can lane him, but I'm not sure how do you do that.
Blink vengeful spirit - fuck yeah. Now that's gonna be used at the pro level. Carry venge seemed like a joke, but who knows, who knows...
Much stronger wards for Veno, but his gale is absolutely shit at the low levels. And, however strong those wards/sting combo is good level 4 each skill, it's definitely not that good at levels 1 and 2, and getting those xp points... Seems hard. Pulling then jungling, I guess? At least carry Veno is gonna be awesome.
Much better laning for Viper - that's interesting.
Nerfed visage - well, his birds still remain even when he's dead so who cares? It's a nerf, of course, but he'll get played as much as he's played now.
Warlock... Reliable bonds are good (though they can be somewhat countered with proper positioning), but otherwise, nothing that matters here.
Weaver nerf is survivable, but not pleasant.
Slight bkb recipe increase isn't that important and you're gaining more gold anyways.
Armlet toggling is finally fixed? We'll see.
10 dmg from bloodstone - nice. Not important, but nice.
Bottle nerf - kinda ignored via higher starting gold & gold gain. You can't start with bottle, though, that may be significant.
Better Eul - good, I like that item a lot.
Better skadi - ditto.
Wow, 3 mins until the flying courier... That's huge. Like, lots of things will change - from laning to courier sniping (so it seems that Furion is not that nerfed...)
No pulled salves (and, to lesser extent, clarities) is also significant - yeah, you can use it on other units, but that means your supports have to waste their time.
Transferred linkens, wow. Now that's gonna be a popular choice for semi-carries. Or even rich junglers like doom or furion - extra free linkens on anti-mage? yes, please.
Finally a gold bounty for ward killing - not huge, but definitely important. Seems like supports won't be so piss poor anymore. Longer duration also means having to spend less (or having more opportunities to deward).
Ah, so all boots got a 5 movement speed nerf. Can be great heroes with innate movement speed bonuses like Razor or Death Prophet.
Slightly better refresher orb - also good. It's never gonna be popular, but I like that item a lot.
Great buff to S&Y (especially in conjunction with boots nerf).
So sentries are now for laning mostly and you can no longer scout smokes with them. That's a huge change - smoke becomes much more powerful, as well as all heroes with invis and lucky dudes with invis runes.
So you can't pull your mid and safe lane heroes at all, only if you're close to them... Well, that's huge. Less so for lane heroes, you almost always have supports on your safe lanes, but your midders... Damn, things change entirely at the mid lane.
Hmm, need clarifications on tranquils - does it breaks the same way? If yes, then it's ridiculously good for junglers - previous nerf made it almost unusable for them, but now... Especially since you can almost rush them... Though you can't quite deliver them because of the courier change... Well, this all needs more testing. Anyhow, they're much better now, especially since they're still faster than other non-travel boots even when broken.
Better vanguard - good. But it needs some kind of upgrade available to become competitive again.
Veil via null - even better. Maybe now we'll see it somewhat more often.
All in all - extremely interesting patch.
Nerfed buybacks - don't like it, tbh. Doesn't matter in pubs, but in competitive gaming late game mistakes already are game-defining (too many situations when one casual feed results in throwing away a 60 min stalemate game), and now mistakes are even more backbreaking. On the other hand, it's a great stimulus for a faster meta-game.
No ranged deny - real stupid. Being melee is already a huge disadvantage, no need to press the issue even further.
Pull nerf - arguable. Not sure if I like it or hate it.
Hellbear smasher nerf - good for some pub junglers (guys like SK who take shield+axe and go chop neutrals), bad for chen and enchantress.
Flying dragons - bye-bye ancients windrunner, medusa and whatever.
Day/night cycle - probably buff for balanar.
Random roshan is random. It makes vision much more important and it will lead to some very stupid (and random) rosh steals and team wipes.
Moar gold for everyone is great for pub. Too bad they nerfed randompicks, though. Real men random. On a competitive scene, that probably means more wards for supports - more vision for the team.
Stacking evasion seems stupidly strong. Butterfly on phantom assassin - that's, like, 61% dodge? That's strong. On the other hand, it's not like MKB doesn't exist in this game, so I doubt anything broken will come out of this.
Abaddon is nerfed, but he probably will get over it.
Alchemist is hit much harder - HP regen is nice, but it's nothing that will allow you to survive the huge stunlocks. I guess now you need to go for a really early heart (or maybe support mek alchemist with more durability?)
Apparition is eh. Like, small buffs, but he's still bad because his skills cost a ton of mana (which he doesn't have).
Axe got much better - it's not even about the various ultimate goodness, it's all about counterhelix cooldown. He's a jungler hero (when you talk competitive) and the ability to jungle faster is what matter here. Current meta isn't friendly to the junglers, though, so who knows. And new ult can be nice, but you'll probably need arcane boots to chaincast it.
Batrider now suffers the same fate as the invoker - great solomid, but not so great without damage. Yeah, he can still harass with sticky napalm, but his last hitting is ehh... On the other hand, if you jungle him, not much has changed (though your dagger jumps will have to be extremely precise).
Beastmaster got small buffs and the ability not to feed excessively with his creeps - good.
Bloodseeker becomes better and better with each patch, but he's still a horrible laner so I dunno what to think about him. I'm sure Navi will troll someone with him, though.
Panda becomes tier 1 again - 6 agility is huge, aoe misses in teamfights is huge (even if they're hard to hit), new aghanim is... Curious. But not really needed, I think. Well, it's not like you have zero ways to spend 4k gold on a semi-carry hero.
Bristleback is whatever, his too pub for a competitive play.
New broodmother is really interesting - much greater mobility now. Her other issues (feeding with spiders, useless in late) are not addressed though, so I dunno how useful she'll become.
Clinkz shoots through BKB - that's huge. That changes a lot, especially against squishy heroes like Shadow Fiend for whom BKB is their main protection.
Dazzle is interesting, but poison tuch is more about that pub solo-mid Dazzle and I'm just not sure that these buffs make him viable in competitive.
Death prophet gets even better exorcism... Who knows. I like the hero so maybe she'll make a comeback - her ultimate is already unbearable and we're talking about 25% extra damage.
Disruptor aghanim is great, but I just don't see him farming it (unless your team is balling anyway). Small buffs are nice, though, NS is probably happy.
Doom was already strong in competitive games and now he's even more broken - that dark seer tries to surge away from you? Fuck him. Aghanim is whatever, it's useless anyways.
Drow is awesome. Even more damage to your teammates and you don't push your line unless you want to push it (or anything else). I'm curios, does "creeps" include spawned creeps like enigma summons? Because if yes, then it's stupidly awesome.
Carry shaker for the win (no).
Enigma aghanim is nice (that's 28% of their life lost), but you already have tons of shit to farm (blink+bkb at the very least) and even then, is it better than hex or refresher? Good for 60 mins games, I guess.
huskar is nerfed, but he's not in CM so whatever.
Invoker's emp buff is really interesting, but then, he still sucks at laning (where mp restoration matters) and in team fights it's really not about running out of mana.
Io is nerfed (tethered guys being able to cast is huge, obviously), but he's still great so whatever.
Aghanim jugger got much better (I'm curious what happens if you use blink dagger in midst of omnislash?).
Aghanim leshrac became much stronger - still, I forgot when I saw carry or semi-carry leshrac last time in competitive. Pub players rejoice, though.
Lich is awesome. Enemy heroes getting no xp denial doesn't matter because it's not like you can sacrifice at your tier-1 or wherever, and free levels for your supports (or even carries) are awesome. Who cares about slightly nerfed (if that's even nerfed) frost armor when you get to that devastating chain frost much faster?
Lone druid is punished for feeding his bear even further. You really don't want to lose it when you are laning.
Luna gets even more teamfight damage. Like, aghanim upgrade is also nice (lvl 3 is 2700 dmg total, kinda hard to surive that), but that's more about pub and extra-damage when facing 2-3 opponents is the real deal.
Lycan gets better at laning and destroying towers - hmm, considering you want to play much faster now, more push-oriented meta?
Magnus is interesting - +0.3 turn rate buff seems solid (though I'm obviously not sure how it would actually feel in the game).
Medusa is... Eh, you don't want to play 60 min games.
Meepo seems strong. Like, 100% stat sharing without aghanim (if I understand correctly)? Yes please. And clone at lvl 4 means you can increase your xp gain much earlier or maybe do some faster ganks or lane control or whatever. Heck, I hope we'll see the little bugger (buggers) at the pro scene. Go-go, Meepo Dendi!
Nature prophet feeds more - not a huge nerf, but it can be pretty significant. Especially in the pub games with bad nature profits.
Night stalker seems great - I think that 4 minute day/night cycle benefits him more than it harms him, and, since vision became even more important, devastating your enemies vision is a great ability, if only on purely psychological level. And once you remember that Artstyle is returning on competitive scene (or so he says)...
OD is nerfed, kinda. 3 damage is negligible, you'll steal dmg for your enemy, but no longer proccing aura with items... Well, it wasn't that important, but it helped to break some bad luck streaks. Still a strong laner, though.
PA is buffed by stacking evasion (honestly, even casual talisman of evasion seems good - you just can't respond it with mkb fast enough) and dagger getting proc crits will mean for some stupidly lucky lane victories.
Go-go, blink pudge dendi! I'm not sure if Pudge needs blink, actually, but it's Dendi so you know he'll go for blink.
Pugna seems much stronger. Better protective decrep, better offensive decrep, tougher nether ward (starting from the mid-game), free life drain if you're already full - aghanim's pugna is gonna wreck some pubs.
Rubik is nerfed. 5 sec cooldown will make for even more dota top 10 weekly appearances, but, in serious game, how do you farm it?
Shadow shaman seems even better now - his serpent wards were already strong, and now there's even more of them.
Silencer became much better in lvl 1 mass teamfights - now you can have useful last word in them and still drain experience. heck, now you aren't even forced to get glaives until you really need them which makes your laning much better. I like the support silences that Empire play nowadays so who knows, maybe it'll catch up.
SK losing active mortal strike makes me sad, but his vampiric working on ranged units... That can be powerful. I'm sure your shadow fiend will like it. And +5 int actually allows you to pump it instead of getting early stats. I guess you can try to make a support SK + ranged support + ranged carry tri-lane.
Skywrath aghanim is probably pointless, but extra int growth seems cool. With batrider out of mid, we need some new midders and for skywrath, every point of int counts (kinda).
Slardar is buffed. That's good, I want to see him in competitive games, especially coupled with an elder titan (armor? fuck your armor!)
Slark needs to be tested. On one hand, shorter and less frequent shadow dances hurt his laning, kinda. On the other hand, being able to dive or escape without any kind of reprisal is awesome. Especially in the late game, where you'll be able to drop one or two supports during those 4 seconds. But getting to that late game... Dunno.
Spectre is rofl. Jumping through an entire combat can be devastating, although it's more for competitive scene and high-tier pubs - I doubt that your run of the mill player will abuse that thing greatly.
Spirit breaker is bashed and I don't think that he deserves it. He's not broken and he's only recently became picked on the pro scene, why spoil it for him almost immediately? In the related news, Doombringer gets stronger and stronger.
Tidehunter becomes even more survivable - cool, but not that good. You don't see him as mid or hardlane nowadays so it's gonna be hard for him to get skill points for the kraken shell. But if you go for a pub-style carry tide...
Treant gets better leech seed, but now he really needs lots of xp and how do you gain that? He's still a good hero if you can lane him, but I'm not sure how do you do that.
Blink vengeful spirit - fuck yeah. Now that's gonna be used at the pro level. Carry venge seemed like a joke, but who knows, who knows...
Much stronger wards for Veno, but his gale is absolutely shit at the low levels. And, however strong those wards/sting combo is good level 4 each skill, it's definitely not that good at levels 1 and 2, and getting those xp points... Seems hard. Pulling then jungling, I guess? At least carry Veno is gonna be awesome.
Much better laning for Viper - that's interesting.
Nerfed visage - well, his birds still remain even when he's dead so who cares? It's a nerf, of course, but he'll get played as much as he's played now.
Warlock... Reliable bonds are good (though they can be somewhat countered with proper positioning), but otherwise, nothing that matters here.
Weaver nerf is survivable, but not pleasant.
Slight bkb recipe increase isn't that important and you're gaining more gold anyways.
Armlet toggling is finally fixed? We'll see.
10 dmg from bloodstone - nice. Not important, but nice.
Bottle nerf - kinda ignored via higher starting gold & gold gain. You can't start with bottle, though, that may be significant.
Better Eul - good, I like that item a lot.
Better skadi - ditto.
Wow, 3 mins until the flying courier... That's huge. Like, lots of things will change - from laning to courier sniping (so it seems that Furion is not that nerfed...)
No pulled salves (and, to lesser extent, clarities) is also significant - yeah, you can use it on other units, but that means your supports have to waste their time.
Transferred linkens, wow. Now that's gonna be a popular choice for semi-carries. Or even rich junglers like doom or furion - extra free linkens on anti-mage? yes, please.
Finally a gold bounty for ward killing - not huge, but definitely important. Seems like supports won't be so piss poor anymore. Longer duration also means having to spend less (or having more opportunities to deward).
Ah, so all boots got a 5 movement speed nerf. Can be great heroes with innate movement speed bonuses like Razor or Death Prophet.
Slightly better refresher orb - also good. It's never gonna be popular, but I like that item a lot.
Great buff to S&Y (especially in conjunction with boots nerf).
So sentries are now for laning mostly and you can no longer scout smokes with them. That's a huge change - smoke becomes much more powerful, as well as all heroes with invis and lucky dudes with invis runes.
So you can't pull your mid and safe lane heroes at all, only if you're close to them... Well, that's huge. Less so for lane heroes, you almost always have supports on your safe lanes, but your midders... Damn, things change entirely at the mid lane.
Hmm, need clarifications on tranquils - does it breaks the same way? If yes, then it's ridiculously good for junglers - previous nerf made it almost unusable for them, but now... Especially since you can almost rush them... Though you can't quite deliver them because of the courier change... Well, this all needs more testing. Anyhow, they're much better now, especially since they're still faster than other non-travel boots even when broken.
Better vanguard - good. But it needs some kind of upgrade available to become competitive again.
Veil via null - even better. Maybe now we'll see it somewhat more often.
All in all - extremely interesting patch.
