Ravenous update-fiends can finally rejoice! The Dota 2 6.87 patch has now been released, bringing a slew of gameplay, map, item and hero changes to the game. We even get to see Valve joining in some fun community-memes with a rather hilarious change to a particular skill, causing a great chuckle from Dota 2 fans.
The patch itself has quite an extensive list of updates, and kicks off with a bang right off the bat with a few interesting changes to the All Pick mode itself, along with some bold adjustments to hero stats, creeps and towers.
Reworked Ranked All Pick. Before the picking phase begins, there is a 15 second voting phase to ban heroes. Each player votes for a different hero. Afterwards, half of the heroes that were voted on will be randomly selected and banned.
Several new items have been added in, focusing a little more on a few early/midgame buffs and assistance items that’ll help progress heroes into the midgame. Others are high cost items that look to have a sizable effect on the late game, with the Bloodthorn providing a progression onward from Orchid, and Echo Sabe giving a relatively low cost smash-and-grab item for melee heroes.
Echo Sabre
Requires:
- Oblivion Staff (1650)
- Ogre Club (1000)
Total: 2650
Provides:
- + 10 Strength
- + 10 Intelligence
- + 10 Attack Speed
- + 15 Damage
- + 75% Mana Regeneration
Passive: Causes melee attacks to attack twice in quick succession. Your double attack applies a 0.6 second 100% MS/AS slow. Has a 5 second cooldown.
Note: The passive only works on Melee Heroes.
A number of items already present have received some updates – be it their recipe requirements, cost or the individual properties of the completed item itself.
Defending a tower? Now you get a small armour bonus underneath your friendly tower, promoting a bit more delay to the early game and some through the mid game. Jungle creeps have had a variety of changes as has the big man in the pit, Roshan.
Trees, ramps, tower positions and more have been changed on the map itself, and it’ll be something that many players will need a little time to adjust to.
Some old faithful heroes have received some buffs, others that have been quite strong in the current meta (looking at you, Earthspirit and Zeus) have received some balances to try and dissuade their high presence that we’ve seen at the top level, and even in standard pub games.
Aghanims Scepter changes were also quite a notable point of this patch:
Bloodseeker – Grants 2 charges to Rupture with 40 second replenish.
Earthshaker (reworked) – Enchant Totem becomes a 900 range ground target ability. Causes you to jump in the air and land at the target spot, casting enchant totem there. Self casting the ability will make it behave in the original form, without jumping.
Gyrocopter (reworked) – Adds a Side Gunner, fires an attack automatically at random enemy units within 600 AoE every 1.4 seconds. Same firing rules as Rocket Barrage, but does not attack while invisible and is disabled by Break.
Mirana – Passively triggers Starstorm every 8 seconds. If there are no units to affect, the spell waits until there is a nearby enemy. Does not trigger if the enemy does not see you. Passive procs are disabled by Break.
Oracle – Reduces Purifying Flames cooldown from 2.25 seconds to 1.0 and lowers cast point from 0.3 to 0.1
Storm Spirit – Causes Electric Vortex to be a 475 AoE ability around your hero. Requires vision over the units to affect them.
Winter Wyvern – Causes Arctic Burn to be a toggle and drains 40 mana per second. Activation mana cost is the same as the current, 120/110/100/90. No longer has limit on number of attacks per target.
Check out the rest of the patch notes here.