How Balanced Is Dota 2 Patch 7.36c?

The International 13 is only six weeks away. Its 16 participants will need to prepare for it and some of them are also taking part in events like Clavision Snow Ruyi Invitational.

Right now, it’s only been several days since the end of Riyadh Masters 2024, which likely means that the players haven’t begun their intensive training. But once the preparation is in full swing, IceFrog will face a lot of pressure to stop changing the game.

Dota 2 patch 7.36d is likely about to be announced. If it isn’t announced until around August 7^th, then it will not be announced at all until the end of TI13. Whether we’ll see it or not in the next few weeks, a question must be asked: is Dota 2 patch 7.36c balanced?

At Riyadh Masters 2024 we saw a very strange meta. Around 30 of the game’s heroes were almost completely ignored, which is pretty bizarre if you start from the premise that in a balanced patch, every hero should be viable.

Meanwhile, around 30 other heroes were heavily contested. Game after game, many of these heroes were either picked or banned. This resulted in a stale meta. Those who watched most of the games probably had the feeling of déjà vu more than once.

In Dota 2, the goal should be to encourage creativity and to never see the same game twice. Ideally, every draft should feel completely different. But the reality is that even the strongest teams fall prey to familiarity. If they know that something is highly stable, they will go for it even when better heroes are still in the draft.

Valve

Community Statistics

At the community level, Dota 2 patch 7.36c doesn’t seem to have that many heroes that are overpowered. The win rate of even the most successful heroes is currently below 55%. But the problem is that plenty of heroes have abysmally low win rates. Batrider, Morphling, Nature’s Prophet, and Tinker are just some of the examples.

Chen’s pick rate is 0.6%. Meanwhile, Pudge can be encountered in 28% of all games. This clearly indicates a lack of balance that can only be solved by major changes to Dota 2’s heroes and items.

IceFrog is probably trying hard to find the perfect formula, but with so many things to balance, it feels like an impossible task.

Header: Valve