It wasn’t long ago that we were reporting on Dota 2’s Primal Beast update, which brought with it all kinds of madness. Even so, a new patch has been released just five days later that further tweaks characters and items, including more adjustments to Techies, who was subject to a significant rework in the Primal Beast update.
It’s never a good sign when a character is patched again so soon, but that’s what happened with Dota 2’s Techies hero. Patch 7.31b sees Techies’ new Sticky Bomb attack be modified already, and it now causes a slow effect on enemies caught in the attack’s radius. This might seem like good news for Techies players, but it comes amidst a slew of more general changes to the cart-laden fiends.
The dynamic duo’s Blast Off! ability now deals damage based on their current health when using the ability, rather than maximum health as it stood before. The overall amount of self-damage you take when using the ability has also been decreased by 15% at each level. And the cooldown of Blast Off! has been reduced, meaning that it can be used faster, but the damage it deals to enemies has likewise decreased, too.
The patch isn’t just compartmentalised to Techies though, and there are more sweeping changes. Items that give you mana cost reduction now stack diminishingly; this makes buying multiple of the same item to gain increased mana reduction no longer a viable strategy, for example. Orchid Malevolence now requires you to buy a 300 gold recipe, and that tacks an extra 300 gold cost onto it’s upgraded version, Bloodthorn.
The other heroes receiving changes in this patch are Zeus, Lina, Batrider, Pudge, Meepo, Tiny, Undying, Terrorblade, Riki, Storm Spirit, Puck, Naga Siren, Morphling, Lycan, and Huskar. This is despite dozens of hero buffs and nerfs dropping in the Primal Beast update.
With so many changes going on at the minute, pinning down the best Dota 2 heroes for ranked play is rather tricky. Once the dust settles on all of these hero changes, we might have a better understanding of what the current meta looks like.