Obeying only their own schedule, Valve have released a new Dota patch, 6.88b, to the world. It’s not one of their larger, numbered patches, but it does have plenty of gameplay changes, offering more than a couple of dozen changes to heroes and mechanics as ways to keep The International 6 interesting. This year’s tournament looks like it will have the biggest prize pool yet, both for the game and eSports as a whole.
Get involved with next year’s tournament with our guide to Dota 2 heroes for noobies.
Buffs and nerfs were mostly targeted at heroes, but one line jumps out – creeps killed by neutral minions now grant a small amount of experience, rather than none. That might not seem like the biggest deal, but in a world of creep pulls into the jungle and who waves being denied, it makes a significant impact on xp bars. The exact change is as follows:
- Lane creeps now give 20% of experience when denied by neutrals rather than 0% (normal player denies give 50% experience).
As for the heroes, it’s majority buffs, but these smaller patches do like nerfing as a quick way to get things balanced. Here’s the nerfs first:
- Timbersaw
- Strength gain reduced from 2.1 to 1.8.
- Death Prophet
- Base strength reduced by 1.
- Spirit Siphon base health drain reduced from 16 to 14.
- Terrorblade
- Metamorphosis mana cost increased from 50 to 100.
- Metamorphosis no longer lingers after reincarnation/death.
- Faceless Void
- Time Dilation mana cost increased from 50 to 75.
- Elder Titan
- Astral Spirit vision reduced from 450 to 400.
- Beastmaster
- Boar experience bounty increased from 59 to 60/70/80/90.
- Riki
- Blink Strike damage reduced from 60/80/100/120 to 55/70/85/100.
Now the buffs:
- Outworld Devourer
- Astral Imprisonment damage increased from 75/150/225/300 to 100/175/250/325.
- Arcane Orb intelligence duration increased from 60 to 80.
- Ogre Magi
- Bloodlust mana cost reduced from 75 to 50.
- Meepo
- Agility growth increased from 1.9 to 2.2.
- Visage
- Stone Form (Familiar) icon.png Stone Form cooldown reduced from 26 to 20.
- Silencer
- Arcane Curse damage increased from 14/21/28/35 to 14/22/30/38.
- Brewmaster
- Hurl Boulder damage increased from 50 to 50/100/150.
- Dispel Magic damage to illusions and summoned units increased from 500 to 850.
- Legion Commander
- Press the Attack attack speed bonus increased from 60/80/100/120 to 65/90/115/140.
- Sniper
- Turn rate improved from 0.6 to 0.7.
- Night vision increased from 1000 to 1100.
- Warlock
- Warlock’s Golems health increased from 900/1350/1800 to 1000/1500/2000.
- Bloodseeker
- Thirst bonus rescaled from 10/20/30/40% to 16/24/32/40%.
- Zeus
- Lightning Bolt mini-stun increased from 0.1 to 0.2.
- Centaur Warrunner
- Stampede slow duration increased from 1.5 to 1.8.
- Shadow Fiend
- Movement speed increased from 310 to 315.
- Treant Protector
- Living Armor cooldown reduced from 32/26/20/14 to 30/24/18/12.
- Pudge
- Dismember strength based damage increased from 30/40/50 to 30/45/60%.
- Sand King
- Sand Storm cooldown reduced from 40/30/20/10 to 34/26/18/10.
- Epicenter manacost reduced from 175/250/325 to 150/225/300.
- Magnus
- Empower cleave AoE increased from 225 to 240.
The full list is over on the full Steam update. The patch is now live, and a few extra behind the scenes bits were noticed by datamining, as detailed on Reddit. These include a possible new hero, Underlord, who Legion Commander is not a big fan of.