Changes The Next Patch Needs
MDL Disneyland marks the end of the patch 7.21 era. There are still some qualifiers to be played for Epicenter, but next week we are finally leaving the patch behind. It was a good patch with a decent variety of heroes, but it doesn’t mean it was perfect. Here is our top 3 wishes for changes introduced in 7.22.
Nerf 
Drow Ranger
We’ve talked about the hero previously, and can’t stress it enough—Drow Ranger needs a nerf. Her ultimate, 
Marksmanship is absolutely broken when it comes to damage output.
To understand exactly why, we need to understand how armor works in the game. Luckily we recently made a post about Armor, along with a spreadsheet of damage mitigation from different values.
Marksmanship procs fully ignore armor of the target and you can think of it as a kind of a critical hit, since it indirectly multiplies Drow Ranger’s attack damage. Attacking a target with 16 armor (~50% damage resistance) with a marksmanship attack effectively doubles the damage dealt by Drow Ranger. Attacking a target with 30 armor (~66.6% damage resistance) triples the damage output. For a hero with ~42.5 armor (~75% damage resistance) the pain is quadrupled.
Most agility heroes currently popular in the meta have upwards of 35 armor in the later stages of the game. Most Strength carries also have at least 20 by the 25-minute mark. We can’t stress it enough—2x, 3x or even 4x crits with a 40% proc chance are not alright. That is even without taking into account the extra 120 physical damage on proc. Even 
Phantom Assassin rarely has access to so much physical burst damage.
The highest we’ve seen armor go in MDL Disneyland was on a Morphling and he had 64 armor at one point in the game, corresponding to 83.79% physical damage mitigation. Drow Ranger attacking this Morphling would essentially crit for 5.17x and deal 120 extra damage on top, with a 40% chance of proc.
That corresponds to almost 2.7xAD expected damage from the hero on all attacks even if we disregard the 120 extra damage, where AD is attack damage. Jugg’s crit expected damage value is 1.28xAD and PA’s crit with +5% talent expected damage value is 1.7xAD, for comparison. In real-life scenarios all of it gets infinitely more complicated, but we remain absolutely sure that Drow needs a nerf.
Buff Tinker and (maybe) Riki
Riki, Tinker and Techies were the only three heroes who made no tournament appearances throughout the whole patch 7.21 DPC period. We are certainly not mad enough to wish for Techies buffs, but Tinker and Riki both could use some love.
Tinker didn’t change much in the last several patches, but the map and the game did. The ability to have BoT’s and TP’s at the same time made Tinker split-push a lot weaker and he can longer stall the game as easily as he could previously.
Moreover, the hero currently doesn’t fit the meta too well—mids in the current patch are typically the tempo-setters for their team. They are space-creators, who use their level advantage to hunt squishier enemy heroes. Tinker, on the other hand, just wants to farm until he has at least BoTs and a Dagger. This is too slow right now and the payoff isn’t as massive, as there are a lot of tanky heroes in the meta.
Perhaps extra stats for laning or some early talents reworks could make the hero feel slightly more at home in current Dota. Or maybe slight price increases for items like Pipe of Insight and Hood of Defiance could bring the hero back, along with slight tankiness nerfs.
Riki on the other hand, suffers from lack of identity. You don’t necessarily want him as your position four support or position three offlaner, since he offers very little in terms of lane presence and gank potential early in the game. As a Carry he is mostly outclassed in terms of both DPS, Utility and reliability by most other carry heroes. He does decently well in pubs in his current state, but doesn’t seem to entice professional players.
Perhaps this is for the best—not all heroes must be viable competitively and buffs to Riki to make him ready for the pro-scene could result in him running rampant in pubs. If there are changes to the hero, we hope they will focus on making him better in one role, while making him worse in others. We love flexibility in heroes and cherish this aspect of Dota, but Riki seems like a hero who is one small buff away from completely ruining lower level pubs.
Give us the extra 5-10%
7.07 changed the deny XP from 70% to 25% and ever since then Dota has been gradually evolving into dual lane meta with the laning stage becoming more and more important. We are firm believers in the fact that all stages of the game in Dota should be important, but none of them should be as dominant as the current laning stage.
Over the last couple of major patches deny XP went back up to 35% and it is still too little. Dota is a game about both strategy and execution, but right now it feels like in the majority of cases better execution will always beat the better strategy.
One could argue that picking lane-dominating heroes is, in fact, a part of the strategy and they would be correct, but the current reality is that many heroes in the game are hard-countered by other heroes not because of how their abilities interact with each other and how one hero can outplay the other through better spell usage, but through sheer stats. In our opinion Hero A shouldn’t make the opposing Hero B completely irrelevant for the first 15 minutes because they have 10 more damage and 2 more armor. Sure, Hero A should get an economic advantage and should absolutely be rewarded for having better laning presence, but it shouldn’t also mean that Hero B has no game at all.
The last wish is probably going to be somewhat controversial within the community, especially given how most dedicated players frequently win mostly through mechanical skill advantage, but personally, we would really like to see riskier picks, lane compositions and the ability for professional players to draft some interesting combinations of heroes, without fear of getting stomped in lanes.
Do I happen to claim the prestigious first comment?
Secondst
I claim the third spot, sadly.
Happily fourth
If you gonna buff Riki you might as well rework him. He makes this game super disgusting to play as a support, so for the good of Dota community he better stay irrelevant.
Drow isnt OP because of her damage, but because she can lose the lane AFK farm jungle and come back with more farm than everyone else. Just remove her ability to instant kill creeps and she is fine.
do something about io plz
I would buff slark but as riki, he snowballs on pubs on every buff he gets
buff lone druid
the only rework riki needs to make him viable is changing his lvl 20 talent +0.25 backstab dmg to -0.2 Tricks of Trade interval which will boost his DPS to compensate smaller aoe and higher CD while also removing access to ultra long blinkstrike. Oh, also agha on riki allows trick of trade to hit building
Oh yeah, also change the irrelevant lvl 25 talent of ultra big tricks of trade, and changes it into bonus backstab damage like +0.75 multiplier. This way, riki will need to buy agha to make his ult relevant without basher and gives crazy dps and pushing power
I want changes of meta item too, like buff Basher ranged chance from 10% to 15% so ranged heroes could actually buy basher or there is a combination item of dragon lance + desolator which will open early pushing ranged lineup since dragon lance allow most ranged heroes to outrange tower and desolator allows ultra fast pushing, maybe SF would actually buy it and get the Presence aura affect building talent to push
JUST BUFF MY FUCKIN AXE YOU FOOLISH VALVE!!
HE GET PICKED 1 TIME IN TOURNAMENT WITH 0% WINRATE, YO FUCKERS VALVE ASSHOLE RETARTED MONKEYS!!
Axe is actually OP, especially in Pub, it's just that pro player make Axe unplayable by since their inhuman reaction could mostly negate axe 0.4 cast point with manta or adapt with using item that enhance endurance, also Axe is not a good matchup against TB, Morph, or Drow since TB Morph has way too high armor and Drow damage is negated at close range while ignore armoe at long range making blademail useless
Then why he had 47% winrate in all brackets while he also get picked 1 time in tournament with 0% winrate, and you said he was op? Im using fact and you are using opinion, thats huge difference dude
He has zero armor, zero escape, weak presence, stupid shit ulti and most of all, how do you survive lane in this meta? There’s ton of heroes which counter him, Mk, ursa, drow, viper, necro, razor, jug, etc. How the fuck you survived that?!
I would greatly appreciate it if Valve decided to revisit Zeus. The hero finally became relevant for once with the reworked aghs when the Nimbus' bolt interval still was influenced by cooldown reduction. Ever since that was removed, the hero has once again become rather obsolete due to changes to meta and the lack of utility he provides. The change to Static Field helped in some cases and hurt in others. Usually you're trying to burst lower hp pool heroes with your spells in fights which means it likely won't have the same affect in larger ones, but it does allow for ganks against bulky targets to be more likely in his favor.
I prefer axe and tinker stay in dumpster. Kthxbye
For the shake of fun games don't fucking buff cancer tinker, same reason cancer techies needs to stay low. Thanks.
To buff tinker first start thinking first about nerfing machines so they break against your own buildings so already won games are not delayed by 20 minutes because of tinkers spaming machines.
give the player with the least networth in the team a 100% bounty rune gold bonus.
#supportlivesmatter #pos6meta
I'm definitely on board with the last wish, but I'd like to continue the concept just a bit by having the average cooldown and regen of the game nerfed. The game is explosive, sure, but it means that plays have less impact on the overall game. I don't need to see it be soccer goal level impact for each kill like in the days of TI2 and TI3, but right now there are just too many kills and too little tension. Make committing mana risky again. Make positioning just a little more risky. I guess maybe make people just a little tankier to encourage a little more placidity?
Heroes that need a buff :
- Puck : really fun to play but really weak right now
- Rubbick : make him a little more viable during the laning phase. before 6 he's useless
- Death Prophet : too hard to farm, needs a damage buff or something like this
fuck death prophet, most boring hero after viper
Buff slark again and timber
up lancer BLESSRNG
Death prophet is weak overall give her a serious buff
"We can’t stress it enough—2x, 3x or even 4x crits with a 40% proc chance are not alright. "
AND she's ranged. AND she has an attack speed steroid (with additional global utility, and that scales up as you gain agility which also increases your AS). AND she one shots ancients.
I know you can't judge a hero in a vacuum, but for just two skills that's pretty wild.
I agree that puck and timber need buffs. If tinker or riki get buffs it’s gonna ruin pubs. Riki already kind of ruin pubs but not all the time.
It's so stupid that drow istn nerf in a small patch beewtwen tournaments. Just lower some % and see what happens. But valve always do a big update and make some other hero overpowered....
didnt Valve said that they will make more small patches than big ones? ...
Lets wait.
delete techies
Buff some unpicked heroes at previous major?
@DSP
last year Valve worked on a biweekly schedule leading up to the International. A lot of pros were having difficulty working with it because it gave too little time to prepare a proper strategy. It may have aided in the OG victory as a volatile meta leads to an increased potency of luck. Players also didn't like it because they either regressed to comfort picks while they figured out the new patch or stumbled on a new strat that everyone ended up copying as they didn't have time to figure anything else out.
Here's my list of the heroes who need to be buffed for the next patch and who deserve better: Luna, Batrider, Broodmother, Naga Siren, Shadow Shaman, Lina, Omniknight, Lycan, Gyrocopter, Vengeful Spirit, Outworld Devourer, Bane, Huskar, Dark Willow, Dark Seer, Meepo, Grimstroke, Abaddon, Venomancer. And here is the list of heroes who need to be nerfed for the next patch and who deserve worse: Troll Warlord, Underlord, Terrorblade, Phantom Assassin, Lifestealer, Night Stalker, Viper, Skywrath Mage, Zeus, Storm Spirit, Juggernaut, Faceless Void, Riki, Drow Ranger
delete sniper from dota....
Go **** yourself author with ideas about Riki buff. I am rarely reading those articals, but this one is too awful.
firth!
Riki sucks, don't buff him
if they, buff tinker and riki and nerfed drow
i will, tuckibg leave game
Would rather tinker and riki stay in the toilet to be honest. They should keep nuisance heros out of the meta and make the game fun to play by buffing heros which take skill to execute and arent boring to play against.
I personally hate playing against Riki primarily for the smokescreen. Most of my comfort picks rely heavily on either high mobility through the use of spells, or need to garantee that their attacks are landing and aren't subject to missing or evasion. For a hero that can influence both of those with a single spell while also offering a slow, it's rather annoying that I'm forced to go with a force staff as a mobility item just about whenever I play against him.
I believe a lot of what makes the hero lackluster is how the utility of his spells aren't spread out too well. All your damage stems from two abilities, and your entire utility toolkit is on another. If there were a way to incorporate a better mix between the three, I think the hero would somewhat have a more clear identity as a scaling utility core throughout the entirety of the game instead of commiting to one or the other early on.
I feel that a lot of the offline meta has just been tanks and bruisers for quite some time as well. It would be nice to have some more variety with heroes that make use of strong escapes instead exclusively meat shields make a return.
BuFf MeDuSa To ReTuRaN hEr PoWeRfUl SwTcHiNg SpLiT sHoT aNd GiVe HeR 99999 mAnA pOiNtS! I dont really know why people want to buffs slark, techies, tinker... Lion? (why didnt you write about lion? The biggest mistake is giving him stackable ulti (slark too, but stilling agillity is propbly worse than ult lion)). Even Drow is counterable lel...
@MM.Ugh Brock Hall
I understand more now, thanks
idc visage buff k
AXE and MEDUSA surely needs some buff, plz note this Gaben. tough for AXE to survive laning stage now-a-days, atleast increase his armour so that he can trade some hp in the lane. MEDUSA is not very effective till the mid game as always, though she can be made useful with playstyle and making mask of madness early on.
BUFF CHEN
<45% winrate in all bracket what kind of idiot design this hero? You dumb it down and dumb it is now. Let microing be rewarding again, I’m sick of relying on rng to find ghost or harpy lvl 1. Fffffffff*ck
nerf drow , she is absolutely op when she came to free hit , and also nerf arc warden , his ult and skill 2 cooldowns are so fast , it makes any team that have him on their draft had advantages when defending. and we need to buff od
@DSP
No prob
Visage needs a buff, bring the damage back to the birds, or just give him more strength stats. Anything would be nice. Nobody ever plays him.
"buff tinker and riki" -satan