Dota 2 patch 7.33d general impressions

Dota 2 patch 7.33d comes not that long after the previous subpatch, 7.33c. This was in response to the wild meta and numerous spammed heroes that many players have been complaining about for the past several weeks.

At the ongoing DreamLeague S20, teams are fighting over heroes that used to be regarded as average. Techies has become a phenomenon. Void Spirit, Timbersaw, and Pangolier were also extremely strong.

Other heroes, such as Bloodseeker, Windranger, and Batrider, were getting picked and banned a lot despite their low win rate. But some of them had to be addressed by IceFrog.

Overall, Dota 2 patch 7.33d brought only a handful of item changes that will take a long time to change the meta. But it did bring dozens of hero changes, many of which are nerfs.

How Dota 2 patch 7.33d might change the meta

Support heroes like Crystal Maiden, Disruptor, Keeper of the Light, and Lich received small nerfs that seem to be designed to make people pick them less often. Right now, there are 5-10 support heroes that get spammed and it feels as though the dozens of remaining supports are not in the game.

Every single hero should be viable. When the entire community picks Lich, Spirit Breaker, Crystal Maiden, Windranger, and Silencer with regularity, that’s a sign that those heroes need to be nerfed a bit. Or perhaps, other heroes need to get buffed.

One such hero was Lion. His Earth Spike now has a 140 radius and his Hex can be cast from 625 units away. This means that his ability to control enemy heroes has gotten much better. Will that be enough to get him picked? At the professional level, probably not. But who knows? Perhaps the community will start picking Lion again.

Some of the commonly picked heroes, including Magnus and Medusa, received major nerfs. Medusa’s abilities got rescaled to make them weaker at the early levels while Magnus had his base agility decreased by 6. On top of that, his Empower now only gives a +50% bonus when it’s self-cast.

This will prevent people from playing Magnus in a self-sufficient way and will force them to think of it as a powerful buffer for a hero like Juggernaut or Anti-Mage.

Nature’s Prophet got massively buffed and for a good reason: he has the lowest win rate of all Dota 2 heroes, 41.5%!

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