Introduction
DOTA2 6.78 changelog
Majority of the changes aren't that interesting - most of them are just numbers tweaks, weaker heroes and items get improved slightly, overly strong heroes and items get nerfed.
There's some interesting and flashy changes related to Aghanim Scepter, but they're mostly on heroes where 4200 gold could have been better used on something else, say a Force Staff and Mekansm. So they don't really impact how the heroes are played.
I'm interested in changes which force players to alter their playstyle and approach to the game, and here I've picked the four biggest ones.
1. Bloodseeker
- Bloodrage dispels the target before applying its buff
Some good buffs on Bloodseeker... who was long derided as a terrible hero. Bloodrage is now similar to a Diffusal Blade purge, except it doesn't slow and can't target magic immune heroes (Repel) to dispel it.
Given how rare dispel effects are in the game, it's still pretty damn useful. It allows you to remove some annoying buffs from enemies (like Ethereal, Ice Armor, Living Armor) and also can be used defensively to remove annoying debuffs on yourself and allies (like miss chance / slows)
There's 101 uses for this spell now and this gives the Bloodseeker some much needed utility.
- Rupture damage is now HP loss
This damage now pierces magic immunity, which means you will absolutely cripple enemy melee carries - forcing them to stand still for 5 seconds in a fight is pretty much a 5 second disable, especially on heroes banking on their mobility like Anti-Mage or Phantom Assassin.
Ganking with this could be harder, as HP loss does not interrupt Bottle regeneration or Healing Salves, so a smart player could possibly immediately start running away while healing the Rupture damage.
2. Huskar
- (Rework on Berserker's Blood - replace the attack damage gain per missing hp into magic resist gain per missing hp)
Big buff on Huskar, who desperately needed one... At 30% HP (arbitrarily chosen) with the rework he gains 88 more attack speed and 58% more magic resist than before, but loses 88 attack damage.
To illustrate the magic resistance improvement, let's model a Huskar with base 25% magic resist, and his HP is at 300/1000HP (30%) and he starts to take a series of 300 magic damage nukes. Without the additional magic resistance he takes 225 damage from the first nuke and another 225 from the second and dies.
With the new Berserker's Blood, he has 83% magic resistance at 300HP, and only takes 52 damage from the first nuke, putting him at 249HP. The second nuke also does 52 damage, taking him to 197HP, increasing his resist to 88%. The third nuke does 36 damage, taking him to 161HP, increasing his resist to 93%. The fourth nuke does 20 damage, taking him to 141HP. In fact, it takes 6 more nukes to take him down to 21HP, at which point he gets up to 99% magic resistance, and he has so far absorbed 3000 magic damage without dying.
Basically it's pointless trying to kill Huskar with magic damage.
The loss of that 88 damage means lifesteal isn't as viable on him anymore, and he instead relies on the 88 additional attack speed and Burning Spears to do damage, and his magic resistances to keep him alive.
The current popular build on him is an early Ghost Scepter - at low HP he's virtually immune to magic damage anyway, so he doesn't mind popping it to gain immunity to physical damage, plus he can manually cast his Burning Spear through the Ethereal effect. After that, he gets an Aghanim Scepter for the 4 second cooldown on Life Break. His luxury item would probably be Heaven's Halberd.
If you're wondering how to kill Huskar as a spell-caster hero, your best bet would be using the Urn of Shadows... it only does 150 damage but it ignores magic resistances because it's Direct HP Removal. There are an assortment of spells that trigger damage this way (ignoring magic resists) like Bane's Nightmare, Invoker's EMP, Vengeful Spirit's Wave of Terror, and Warlock's Fatal Bonds. There's also a bunch of spells that deal "Pure" damage that also ignore magic resistance - Bane's Brain Sap, Enchantress' Impetus, Chen's Test of Faith, Invoker's Sun Strike, Tinker's Laser, Pudge's Meat Hook, Spectre's Desolate, everything that Timbersaw casts, etc.
3. Siege Unit HP
- Siege units HP increased from 500 to 550
This is a sleeper change that will catch many players unaware. When farming under a friendly tower in the early game, it typically takes 2 tower hits + 2 auto-attacks to kill a ranged creep, so we need to "prime" the ranged creep by hitting it once first, then letting the tower hit it twice, then only attacking and scoring the last hit. It's only a general rule, of course, since all heroes have a different damage range, but it works most of the time.
For Siege Units, it used to require 3 tower hits + 1 auto-attack to kill, so we would normally let the tower hit it 3 times and then only use our auto-attack to take the kill.
For whatever reason, this change was made and Siege units get another 50HP. Now it usually takes 3 tower hits + 2 auto-attacks to kill the siege units, meaning we have to "prime" the siege unit first just like we did for the ranged creeps.
A minor change, but an important one to note, considering how much gold the siege units are worth!
4. Tower Bounty Changes
- Towers no longer have separate bounty values when creeps or allies get the last hit, it now gives the same reliable bounty to all players as if a creep killed it.
Previous patch gold bounty calculation for Tier 1 towers:
Hero gets last hit on tower = 261 extra gold for hero getting last hit, 200 for all 5 players = 1261 gold total
Creep gets last hit on tower = 264 gold for all 5 players = 1320 gold total
Enemy denies tower = 100 gold for all 5 players = 500 gold total
It was actually slightly better for creeps to get the last hit, although you might want to stack more gold on the carry by letting him get the last hit.
Current patch gold bounty calculation for Tier 1 towers:
Hero gets last hit on tower = 150 extra gold for hero getting last hit, 264 gold for all 5 players = 1470 gold total
Creep gets last hit on tower = 264 gold for all 5 players = 1320 gold total
Enemy denies tower = 100 gold for all 5 players = 500 gold total
Now it's definitely better to always get the last hit on the tower. May the odds ever be in your favour!
DOTA2 6.78 changelog
Majority of the changes aren't that interesting - most of them are just numbers tweaks, weaker heroes and items get improved slightly, overly strong heroes and items get nerfed.
There's some interesting and flashy changes related to Aghanim Scepter, but they're mostly on heroes where 4200 gold could have been better used on something else, say a Force Staff and Mekansm. So they don't really impact how the heroes are played.
I'm interested in changes which force players to alter their playstyle and approach to the game, and here I've picked the four biggest ones.
1. Bloodseeker
- Bloodrage dispels the target before applying its buff
Some good buffs on Bloodseeker... who was long derided as a terrible hero. Bloodrage is now similar to a Diffusal Blade purge, except it doesn't slow and can't target magic immune heroes (Repel) to dispel it.
Given how rare dispel effects are in the game, it's still pretty damn useful. It allows you to remove some annoying buffs from enemies (like Ethereal, Ice Armor, Living Armor) and also can be used defensively to remove annoying debuffs on yourself and allies (like miss chance / slows)
There's 101 uses for this spell now and this gives the Bloodseeker some much needed utility.
Guys, I'm actually useful now!
- Rupture damage is now HP loss
This damage now pierces magic immunity, which means you will absolutely cripple enemy melee carries - forcing them to stand still for 5 seconds in a fight is pretty much a 5 second disable, especially on heroes banking on their mobility like Anti-Mage or Phantom Assassin.
Ganking with this could be harder, as HP loss does not interrupt Bottle regeneration or Healing Salves, so a smart player could possibly immediately start running away while healing the Rupture damage.
2. Huskar
- (Rework on Berserker's Blood - replace the attack damage gain per missing hp into magic resist gain per missing hp)
Big buff on Huskar, who desperately needed one... At 30% HP (arbitrarily chosen) with the rework he gains 88 more attack speed and 58% more magic resist than before, but loses 88 attack damage.
To illustrate the magic resistance improvement, let's model a Huskar with base 25% magic resist, and his HP is at 300/1000HP (30%) and he starts to take a series of 300 magic damage nukes. Without the additional magic resistance he takes 225 damage from the first nuke and another 225 from the second and dies.
With the new Berserker's Blood, he has 83% magic resistance at 300HP, and only takes 52 damage from the first nuke, putting him at 249HP. The second nuke also does 52 damage, taking him to 197HP, increasing his resist to 88%. The third nuke does 36 damage, taking him to 161HP, increasing his resist to 93%. The fourth nuke does 20 damage, taking him to 141HP. In fact, it takes 6 more nukes to take him down to 21HP, at which point he gets up to 99% magic resistance, and he has so far absorbed 3000 magic damage without dying.
Basically it's pointless trying to kill Huskar with magic damage.
Showing Anti-Mage who's the real "Anti Mage"
The loss of that 88 damage means lifesteal isn't as viable on him anymore, and he instead relies on the 88 additional attack speed and Burning Spears to do damage, and his magic resistances to keep him alive.
The current popular build on him is an early Ghost Scepter - at low HP he's virtually immune to magic damage anyway, so he doesn't mind popping it to gain immunity to physical damage, plus he can manually cast his Burning Spear through the Ethereal effect. After that, he gets an Aghanim Scepter for the 4 second cooldown on Life Break. His luxury item would probably be Heaven's Halberd.
Don't worry guys... we can stop that Huskar =)
If you're wondering how to kill Huskar as a spell-caster hero, your best bet would be using the Urn of Shadows... it only does 150 damage but it ignores magic resistances because it's Direct HP Removal. There are an assortment of spells that trigger damage this way (ignoring magic resists) like Bane's Nightmare, Invoker's EMP, Vengeful Spirit's Wave of Terror, and Warlock's Fatal Bonds. There's also a bunch of spells that deal "Pure" damage that also ignore magic resistance - Bane's Brain Sap, Enchantress' Impetus, Chen's Test of Faith, Invoker's Sun Strike, Tinker's Laser, Pudge's Meat Hook, Spectre's Desolate, everything that Timbersaw casts, etc.
3. Siege Unit HP
- Siege units HP increased from 500 to 550
This is a sleeper change that will catch many players unaware. When farming under a friendly tower in the early game, it typically takes 2 tower hits + 2 auto-attacks to kill a ranged creep, so we need to "prime" the ranged creep by hitting it once first, then letting the tower hit it twice, then only attacking and scoring the last hit. It's only a general rule, of course, since all heroes have a different damage range, but it works most of the time.
For Siege Units, it used to require 3 tower hits + 1 auto-attack to kill, so we would normally let the tower hit it 3 times and then only use our auto-attack to take the kill.
For whatever reason, this change was made and Siege units get another 50HP. Now it usually takes 3 tower hits + 2 auto-attacks to kill the siege units, meaning we have to "prime" the siege unit first just like we did for the ranged creeps.
A minor change, but an important one to note, considering how much gold the siege units are worth!
4. Tower Bounty Changes
- Towers no longer have separate bounty values when creeps or allies get the last hit, it now gives the same reliable bounty to all players as if a creep killed it.
Previous patch gold bounty calculation for Tier 1 towers:
Hero gets last hit on tower = 261 extra gold for hero getting last hit, 200 for all 5 players = 1261 gold total
Creep gets last hit on tower = 264 gold for all 5 players = 1320 gold total
Enemy denies tower = 100 gold for all 5 players = 500 gold total
It was actually slightly better for creeps to get the last hit, although you might want to stack more gold on the carry by letting him get the last hit.
Please remember to last hit us now
Current patch gold bounty calculation for Tier 1 towers:
Hero gets last hit on tower = 150 extra gold for hero getting last hit, 264 gold for all 5 players = 1470 gold total
Creep gets last hit on tower = 264 gold for all 5 players = 1320 gold total
Enemy denies tower = 100 gold for all 5 players = 500 gold total
Now it's definitely better to always get the last hit on the tower. May the odds ever be in your favour!
