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Will Dota 2 patch 7.32c impact the meta?

Every Dota 2 patch changes the meta, at least a little bit. And Dota 2 patch 7.32c will be... Radu M. | 29. September 2022

Every Dota 2 patch changes the meta, at least a little bit. And Dota 2 patch 7.32c will be no exception, even though many of the changes that it introduced feel either inappropriate or underwhelming.

Strong heroes got buffed even more for some reason, while weak ones got heavily nerfed. It seems that IceFrog is relying on a lot more data than we have available on Dotabuff and is mainly watching professional teams.

He’s clearly not trying to optimize the game for the broader community. Otherwise, why would he nerf Batrider when the hero already had an abysmal win rate of around 44.7%?

Big meta changes that are coming

One of the biggest changes has to do with the nerf that was applied to Refresher. This item was abused so much during the late stages of each match that IceFrog decided to no longer allow players to do that.

In some cases, people were casting their BKBs and ultimates three times in a row! And they were able to do it thanks to the Refresher Shard dropped by Roshan, whose cooldown was independent of their own Refresher.

But now, that tactic is completely over. In fact, Refresher tactics are dead for good. Because the cooldown of the item no longer ticks when you keep it in your backpack, which means it’s completely useless.

Nobody will keep this item in their inventory for more than two minutes just for some HP and mana regeneration, at a stage of the game when other things are 10 times more valuable.

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Valve Corporation

Other big meta changes will occur because of the nerfs that were applied to frequently picked heroes like Death Prophet, Lina, Undying, Slark, Shadow Fiend, and Pudge. All of them are slightly weaker now but will no doubt continue to be picked, simply because the nerfs are not strong enough to deter players from abusing certain tactics.

A meta often forms around a specific set of strategies and professional players don’t really care about the details. They don’t pick heroes for their drafts. Rather, they pick combinations of damage, disables, initiation, survivability, lane-clearing, building damage, Roshan-taking potential, and so on.

Their minds go to the core variables that make the difference between success and failure and then they pick heroes that are closest to what they need to succeed.

In the current meta, we see a strong tendency to play for the mid and late game because the early game is hard to win. With so many stat-giving items and such low costs for support items, even supports get quite tanky at an early stage and can no longer be killed with ease.

Header: Valve Corporation