6.86b - Short Breakdown & Analysis
6.86 had been out for only 4 days and Valve already made some slight adjustments, introducing 6.86b. We’ll go through these patch nottes little by little.
- Enabled Doom, Faceless Void, Death Prophet, Lone Druid and Winter Wyvern in Captain's Mode
Whenever a hero’s abilities are significantly changed, Icefrogtakes these heroes out of Captain’s Mode and re-introduces them after a bit of a revision. These heroes have been re-introduced without almost any changes to their new abilities and also with only a few days of playtesting.
Yes, if we look at their pub winrates so far, 
Doom fields the highest winrate of almost 46%. The rest are just below that. Except for 
Lone Druid, these winrates have dropped by roughly 5% per hero from the old patch. That may not sound like much, but, alongside Riki, they are at the bottom of this week's Trends in winrates, even below 
Huskar, who was deemed nerfed to death. ooking at just these raw numbers, one might think they have been balanced out a bit, or that they are no threat to the competitive scene.
However, these drops in winrates are completely expected. New heroes, new abilities and new items will always have to be experimented with, resulting in bad performances. People will either try to apply the old playstyle to the hero, or tinker around with new item builds, possibly even ways to lane the hero. It’s usually when decorated (pro-)players have found the seemingly one and only solution to a hero, that others will start adapting that way to play him. Afterwards, that playstyle will usually be improved upon by others until it becomes the so called meta for the hero.
That said, having these heroes exposed to the pro scene will force players to come up with playstyles even quicker. Pro players now have to actively wrap their heads around how these heroes work in a short amount of time and try to make sense of them, which in return will change how the pub scene perceives these heroes. Whether this is a good decision for the competitive scene though is up for debate.
- Arcane Rune mana reduction reduced from 50 to 40%
Arcane Rune was the Double Damage Rune of your average spell caster. One could argue that the Regeneration Rune provided similar advantages for heroes like 
Zeus or 
Lina, but the Arcane Rune seemed designed to be a more specific fit. Has it had a huge impact just yet? Not yet. It seemed stronger on paper, but the fact is that even if you do get that Rune, you’ll need a specific scenario to make full use of it. The Rune can be very valuable when attempting to take stacks, something that has become much more tedious now for nukers.
Regardless, dropping it down to 40% seems like a reasonable approach, considering how useful it can be during teamfights. It seems like less of a “I have this Rune, let’s kill their safelaner” Rune, at least compared to an Invisibility or Haste Rune.
- Spirit Siphon duration increased from 4 to 5 seconds
It depends on whether the new 
Death Prophet will be played around this spell or not, meaning if item builds will be built to synergize with the spell. Otherwise it seems like a minor
change for now.
Arcane Orb Int steal increased from 0/1/2/3 to 1/2/3/4
Astral Imprisonment cooldown rescaled from 20/17/14/11 to 22/18/14/10
[missing hero: outworld-devourer] still has a 46% winrate, but is also only picked roughly 4% of the time right now. From playing around with the hero a bit, it seems like he’s still halfway stuck in his old build and playstyle, with a new ability/functionality added, which doesn’t seem to synergize too well with the rest of the hero’s design.
If you want to steal Intelligence, which used to make him so strong in his laning stage, you’ll need to skill [missing skill: outworld-devourer-arcane-orb-5391], a skill that was often ignored until level 9, maybe even 10. Improving Arcane Orb is okay, probably necessary, but it doesn’t change the fact that maxing [missing skill: outworld-devourer-astral-imprisonment-5392] early on is strictly better, despite being nerfed on early levels now. Thus, you would not steal any intelligence early on.
Usually you could say that a value point in Arcane Orb would be helpful, to steal intelligence and harass the opponent. But 100 Mana per hit seems quite excessive unless you max it.
Cloak and Dagger backstab damage multiplier increased from 0.4/0.6/0.8/1.0 to 0.5/0.75/1.0/1.25
Tricks of the Trade now only affects heroes
Tricks of the Trade AoE increased from 450 to 475
Tricks of the Trade cooldown rescaled from 90/80/70 to 70
Let’s focus on Tricks of the Trade for now. The spell was quite similar to 
Ember Spirit’s 
Sleight of Fist, thus quite scary.
In fact, it was even stronger as you would attack more than just once. Item builds started adjusting to that and you’d see 
Battle Fury picked up on him, building 
Riki quite similar to Ember Spirit.
Valve has now intervened and the ulti only works on heroes now. A huge nerf, but a logical one, especially considering the cooldown reduction to a steady 70 seconds.
The Cloak and Dagger backstab buff also makes sense, given his Agi growth nerf in 6.86. It also puts Riki’s backstab damage multiplier back to where it was before.
The AoE change is negligible, still a buff of course.
Time Dilation slow rescaled from 4/6/8/10 to 7/8/9/10%
Time Dilation duration rescaled from 6/7/8/9 to 5.5/7/8.5/10 seconds
Depending on the match-up, Time Dilation could be maxed first, despite 
Time Walk scaling really well. Generally, you’d want the cooldown of Time Dilation to be rather low, but now that the slow is stronger on early levels, it’s justifiable to max Time Walk first, as Time Dilation now scales worse.
- Meat Hook Scepter damage reduced from 175/275/375/475 to 180/270/360/450
Everybody’s darling. 
Pudge has become incredibly strong due to 6.86. 
Aether Lens is the go to item for Pudge these days - in fact he’s the uncontested number 1 hero to pick it up. It combines everything the hero would want, mana, health regen, magic resistance and the extension on pudge-meat-hook-5075] is just the cherry on top, with a little bit of whip cream.
His new 
Aghanim's Scepter upgrade reduces his Hook cooldown down to 4 seconds - which may have seemed clowny at first, but is incredibly strong. Farming up these items does not seem like big of an issue these days. So it was only logical to see Pudge increasing his 6.85 winrate from just above 50% to now 52% in 6.86 - and that with an 8% pickrate increase!
Is this nerf enough to make him less of a pain? Certainly not. 25 damage is rather negligible and hooking somebody out of position is a bigger deal than the damage Meat Hook provides.
Conclusion
6.86b 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.
What are your thoughts on this little patch? Let us know in the comments below!
My thoughts is Riki was 90% trash, now he's 100% trash. When he was reworked I thought "ok, I have no idea how to build him now, I guess like Ember?". It was alright, but gimmicky. Now that it only effects heroes, I have no idea how to build him. Shitty hero.
Riki is still a trashcan. There is no reason to pick that hero in cm nor normal games. Aoe is too small to be effective and it only attacks to heroes now like it was too powerfull. When you go out of it, you avoid damage and it attacks only sick times at max. Synergie it with attack speed at least. Even jugger hits in omnislash and they get it out from cm like it can do imba shits.
dank 👌👌👌
GIVE DIRETIDE!!!!!!!
👌👌👌👌👌👌
I kinda like tricks of the trade, im glad that they nerfed it to "damage to heroes only".
i dont like the new riki now..
I have always hated riki. shit player, a real coward
So fucken dank 👌👌👌
"ooking at just these raw numbers"
I hate pudge
Currently the Enchanted Mango only has a 34.43% win rate. Together, we as a community, have the ability to fix this problem and end this horrific tragedy. Please help. It is our duty as gamers to give this item the respect it is due.
alright Riki buffs lol
I hate the riki buff so much. He'll be more favorite by shitty players especially in pub.
"Icefrogtakes", "ooking" etc.
Was the author drunk or something like that?
I maybe start practise lone druid 1/2 patches ago and was kinda struggling to win games. Now pushing, specially highground, is so much easier. With scream you have some free tower time and like 3 seconds is enough to burn half a tower away. Think my winrate raised 5% already.
Riki was already so strong despite the nerfs, even though they certainly felt excessive. Now with bigger damage on his backstab and CD reduction on ult, we will certainly see more of him, too bad they didn't add him to CM.
^Yeah what a shame that Valve did the right thing.
I bet OP was high. I also like to type shit while stoned.
Cool, Riki has a 4/5/6 second long Phase-Shift as his ulti. Only 70 seconds cooldown as well, and it costs mana.
Just pick Puck.
So Riki is even more terrible now.
The new siphon of death prophet will never be as good as witchcraft and seems like a spell completely out of position with her hero.
Voids time walk got nerfed so hard he needs a blink just to land a chrono most reliably so I guess that rules out void hard carry for a long while.
And OD laning phase has been completely destroyed so by the time he's relevant the other teams carrys should be stacked with BKBs so OD has no potential in the team fights anyway.
Great patch lol.
i find it rather upsetting one can no longer farm creeps with riki ulti
valve how could you
Actually, Riki is OP on "Situational" conditions.
Such as Magnus's RP and Skewer to a setup will definetely be a teamwipe, i have done it three times with a Riki that has 2 BF and a Crit and it is surprisingly good, but will NEVER be beaten by Ember Spirit, because Riki's ult is just a different kind of SoF that has a long long cd
Silencer - no chance. Curse went from being a no-pick to being either a value level 1 point or no-pick.
From what I've seen Void is still pretty crap, but then again it may just be the people playing him who are bad. Can't wait for this "figuring out" phase to be over, all my games have been awful today simply because people are being caught off guard by new things or doing random s**t just to find out what something does.
Ya'll need to hire an editor, this is just getting ridiculous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pHW2wGJI2Y
I like Riki's new ultimate because it seems very 'ninja'.
For flavour i think it's great. But i haven't seen an effective Riki yet.
I find savage roar OK ability cause it can change team fights. But still lone druid is a weak hero cauz you and your bear just auto attack to kill the enemy
Riki's ulti good for flavour and bad for everything else. Too low damage and aoe, just unplayable.
Riki is trash now, one hit per second ulti with 70s cooldown is very weak compared to Sleight of Fist, and Riki laning is very bad now..
Now Riki goes invis AND has backstab at lvl1, why is laning stage bad now? I'm confused, did I miss anything? Anyway, Riki still is the hero I hate to see picked in my team, as he's been and still is a weak hero. Changing subject now, y'all people are complaining about typos in text, saying to hire a new guy, but his text is still readable and I love his commentaries&analisis (yeah I might just be a noob, but this guy asserts well imo, and his texts are very didactic). Dotabuff isn't gonna lose visitors because of this guy; it'll probably be the other way around. Nice post Skim, kudos.
Good, Riki and Techies have no place in this game anyways. Just playing radar command central and minesweeper is just a headache no one likes. "Heroes" for cowards.
pudge buff= dondo back?
my cock is so hard
@NeoArcadia NO MORE REGEN
Thank you Valve for completely ruining Riki so he can't be anything.
Mid - No wave clear or harass spell.
Offlane - No more regen and less armor.
Safelane - No carry potential with God awful stat gain and an ult that might be the worst in the game.
Support - Useless without farm/
Jungler - Less armor, no regen. (You should've never done this in the first place.)
THANKS A LOT FOR RUINING MY FAVOURITE HERO, LIKE YOU DID TO TROLL, TECHIES, GYRO AND NOW RIKI.
im have run riki jungle now 3 times and its incredible
And all the riki pickers have gone crazy... thanks Ice Frog!
Making Riki Disappear will make the game a lot more fun!
@Renegade Wow. Much insight from a guy who plays in "normal" skill bracket. Wake up scrub
Riki is shit as fuck. BRING BACK THE OLD RIKI !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LD used to be weak against early initiation heroes like Slark, Storm, QoP, etc. Now, one can be flexible with his build and be more defensive with added points on Savage Roar instead of Rabid.
Make Riki with a skadi. The move slow keeps them in the aoe, and the extra agi gives him more backstab damage, and get a maelstrom for wave clear and procs during the ultimate instead of battlefury. The additional attack speed should be amazing with backstab. He's still probably not good, but that should make him a bit better.
Od is fine in lane. Max the passive first, interchanging with the orb (which you then max second). Take maybe a point in the trap if you need to teamfight early, but as it does aoe you end up pushing lane, which you don't want until later anyways.
I haven't tried void or prophet yet, so I can't say anything there.
Riki used to be more pain in the ass, but now he is less good and not as annoying. He was better at roaming and ganking before when he had more agillity and better regen. Now he is just trashy. and if you build bf on him you just delay the diffusal blade, which hurt his dmg gain and also makes it easier for the other team to just dust him out and kill him.
I'm happy pudge is more meta now, he felt a little out of place in the last patch vs so many escape heroes like qop, wind etc. I like his buffs, I hope to see him in some pro-games, he is fun to watch & play imo :)
The amount of salt in this chat makes me laugh. Especially based on how its 95 percent Riki based. He doesn't even show up in that many games unless you're 3k or below?? He was never the meta at anything above 4k?
I deleted dota...
Riki literally faded away from the pub scene, cos he was a 'good' assassin.
Icefrog is Bob Ross
You know 6.86 is going to nerf magica. It's nice to see fixing some mages in 6.86b. Going 6.86c nerf physical damage?