Merlini 6.84 Patch Analysis
Posted Apr 28, 2015, 7:44 AM UTC
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Centaur aghs is nuts. Imagine rushing into the Rosh pit from the Dire side.
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Ult and shout LEEROY
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I want a video of that already.
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But this time, Leeroy clears the room.
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Or how about ignoring highground choke points and just barging in from anywhere? Super scary shit.`
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You thought he was nerf batrider... now all team is batrider
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Stomping in between towers in base. Sup guys, just storming through this wall
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can someone make a gfy when aragorn drop from a ship and million of ghost army follow up, but replaced aragorn's head with centaur and other heroes as a ghosts?
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At first light on the fifth day look to the east...
Riders of Roshan!!
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I'm ridiculously excited for this change. At least the way I build Centaur I get to an "item void" fairly quickly since most of his core items are relatively cheap and easy to build for how good of a farmer he is. At that point I'm usually like, eh guess ill start saving for a heart now. But now I can just go right into an ags.
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Yeah, I've always felt like most items are just underwhelming on centaur after blink. You never really NEEDED anything else and yet you can farm so well. Aghs now gives you a much better option and much more relevance.
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How is that he is a very good farmer? Usually I imagine running a centaur offlane maybe in very situational cases a position 1, how do you play him in a way that he farms tranquils blink vang +or blademail and aghs?
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Off lane is the way to go. I basically make him the immovable object. Getting a good 3/4 points in bladed armor quickly. Tranquil a and a ring of health will pretty much make you really difficult to push out of lane. I like getting a hood on him so you can double edge with total impunity, between double edge and bladed armor you can clear creep waves/jungle camps in seconds. It's practically AM level farming only you don't need a battle fury.
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Thanks m8, never thought about the hood so that your double edge comes with total impunity.. that really makes sense
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After the laning stage he clears waves and jungle camps very quickly due to his max level double edge and eventual max return.
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I mean, his double edge can pretty much clear out an entire wave of creeps, he can sweep through the jungle really fast with it as well.
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the sound is global
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Doesnt really matter. Thr buff only lasts a few seconds so by the time they hear the sound you would be coming.
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I prefer athmospheric horror but Icefrog filled my game with jumpscares (and spooky wraiths).
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Play it like Lion King, son.
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Imagine if you have a support in the mix like Dazzle.
How do you even stop that? I guess Techies?
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Yup agh/refresher will be legit now and incredibly scary... He only needs tranquil and blink (and you could probably go without it now for a faster aghs) and then he can work on those. 7.5 seconds of haste, 70% damage reduction, and the ability to cross rough terrain, plus the slow, all GLOBALLY. It's ridiculous, not to mention that he farms well so it won't even be hard to get.
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Did everyone forget that when centaur's ult was first changed from a flat strength buff to stampede, it was like this? Let allies charge over terrain, and it stunned. It was ridiculous.
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It didnt allow you to pass over cliffs. It was just the stun that was so op about it.
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It didnt allow you to pass over cliffs. It was just the stun that was so op about it.
In it's first iteration it did. Then they removed the cliff passing thing, but the stun was still OP, so they made it a slow.
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That was only in DotA 1 because he couldn't code in the increased movespeed, he instead coded in unpathable terrain pathing. In DotA 2 it never let you pass over terrain.
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Came for his impressions and thoughts, stayed for the fucking amazing slideshow presentation
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Off topic, but dear god I feel sorry for you. Having to go through all your guides with this fucking monster of a patch...
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Happens every time a new patch comes, no worries. Takes about 12 hours to do an initial revising.
http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/343o4f/dota_684/cqr6r09
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Glad to see you're alright. Just wanted to commend you on your guides man, they're so great for new players and idiots like me who can barely play Techies. And since you have an LS flair, what do you think of the new Aghs? I think it'll go the way of his 6.83 Control buff, overhyped then underused. Double N'aix bomb might be cool but I don't think it's worth 4200 gold and an item slot for what is likely your team's hard carry.
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I think it works with the right team composition, but a lot of Aghs these days are situational (Sven aghs for example).
Blink Dagger will be even more desirable on Lifestealer though.
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I'd just like to say thanks for always keeping your guides up to date. I've seen so many guides still using the old bloodstone buildup.
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I was thinking this, too. With the new items, he's got a lot more to consider than usual. Our friend Torte really has his work cut out for him this time.
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Merlini is one of the few persons I know that uses Prezi well. It's a great tool for vivid presentations, but if you think of it as a Online Powerpoint (most people I know think so at least), it's not going to do much.
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Man, your builds! I have just realized you have some hefty updating in your hands now!
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Prezi is not merely a slideshow!
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Keep up the great work Torte, your guides are amazing as a baseline for pretty much any hero you try and play, especially when you're not familiar with that heroes intricacies... your builds provide a standard and stability which is awesome. Any new friends I bring into the game, I always tell them to just refer to TorteDeLini's builds as a starting point as they learn to become more proficient with that hero!
Look forward to your 6.84 updates! And good luck!
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Hey are you going to update your builds and stuff? I really use them a lot and they are awesome! :)
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What he said about upgraded boots of travel seems wrong.
Boots of Travel can now be upgraded by purchasing the recipe again. Allows you to target and teleport to allied heroes
It does not let you teleport other heroes. Just lets you teleport TO them, which may be useful for some backdoor/baserace type things, but usually shouldn't matter.
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He fixed it with an annotation.
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but usually shouldn't matter
Are you kidding me? Being able to teleport to an ally is huge. It's like a fucking wisp relocate gank. Are you fucking telling me whenever you buy BoT's you never think "wow I wish I didn't have to wait for this fucking creep wave to teleport to" or "wow I wish I could tp into the enemy jungle and join the teamfight my team is having rather than teleporting to an approaching creep wave that's 2000 units away".
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Even better, since you don't have to worry about being relocated back you can use it as a straight up initiation tool. Your carry can BoG (boots of gank) to Batrider as he lassos somebody and you can turn that into a push.
Boots of Gank: for when you want to buyback and haunt in to the fight but you didn't pick Spectre.
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It's huge, but the item only seems useful late game and questionably at that. 2k extra gold for relatively minor function when towers are up is too much. It's probably just another effective item-slot expansion when you're 6-7-8 slotted.
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I think its a huge tinker buff. Before I'd have my allies fight in the jungle and it was hard as hell to get there sometimes but now I can just tp into them.
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It's not like Wisp Relocate at all, since a hero needs to be present at the location. There is a huge difference, along with not being able to bring two heroes - but only one hero to the potential gank.
And stop swearing like that, it makes you look like a child.
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And stop swearing like that, it makes you look like a child.
rofl like i give a fuck, dumbass.
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This is quite a big buff for Tinker. Previously Tinker's 1 weakness was not being able to join fights if he had nothing to TP in the jungle say (unless there was summons) now you don't need to draft a Beastmaster, Elder Titan etc.
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rofl that just made me think of a tinker with adv. bots and an octarine core. this patch so silly.
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ironically octarine core won't be an item you'd get except as a very last one, as you need all your slots and other items before (and even then you only want the spell vamp so might be better items, as tinker is the one int hero who doesn't care about cd reduction,) same with travels 2, as it's too costly to buy early when it has zero effect on his fighting strength.
so very rarely will you see a tinker with those. the better buff for him is that alch can give him aghs without using a slot.
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no I don't think that you would rush either of the items. It's more tinker as a hero has a tendency to run out of slots b/c of how fast he can farm. So more than likely tinker will at some point end up with adv. travels. Also have octarine core will help him fight later in the game by making him harder to blow up since he can spell steal off the marches he lays down, and if it works in conjunction with dagon. if it does it, will be do i go bloodstone or do i go octarine core.
Octarine core maybe, but adv travels you will see every game the tinker doesnt get shut down.
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Neat but seems like something you would only buy when you run out of slots and have way too much money. Maybe tinker would get it before that.
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What about when split pushing while your team goes for a smoke gank with a lineup that doesn't use summons? Useful but still niche I guess.
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Niche as in 'I'll never waste 2k on that'. It's uber late game I have 10k gold and I've bought everything in the game.
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Tinker+Nyx/Bounty/Riki Gank train.
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Not that it matters, but he also said Batrider was the only hero that could slow down turnspeed before this patch.
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Always my favorite one to do these. Thank you, Ben!
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I have played 2 games in the last year...I still came on specially for merlinis overview!
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Great Work Zeus, I like your point of traditional shakedown of position 1-5 system which is the BIGGEST change this patch IMO.
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ppd is no longer dirt poor anymore
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Knowing PPD he'll still find a way to be 10th in networth in a game where his team is leading by 10k gold.
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"o man we are 20k ahead finally I can finish that bracer I've been working on"
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i just came here for merlini's prezi presentation
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His prezi-ntation? :D
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Merloobi, my favorite caster and patch analyst! I've been waiting for this, thank you.
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... ok so Mud Golems are called Mud ..Glubs ? what the fuck, never even noticed.
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No, no, no; Mud Glebs.
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Love this kind of patch analysis , short and to the point. Can't wait for the other 6 hours analysis where for 5 hours they discuss the importance of mango in the current meta.
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shoutout to merlini thanks man!!
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Merlini even totally ignores Tusk buffs + aghs in the analysis. I guess this means we still won't be seeing him picked that often.
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I can't see how aghs will prioritized on tusk. Aghs doesn't work with punch which is low cool down and generally what people build into (cheap damage boosts to multiply). Kick seems cool, but not worth sidetracking for. The snowball drive by pickup is super cool but likely not super useful in practice.
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True. Tusk didn't get much of a buff to his skills, and I don't see the aghs coming into play all that often. I really think he was a good hero before this patch and will be a relatively better hero in 6.84. One of the main reasons is the new item, silver edge. Not only will this allow him to gank more effectively in what seems to be a early game gank heavy patch, but it will allow him to be able to reliably gimp any core on the opposing team because of the 40% damage debuff and break application.
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Agreed, probably biggest change will be more shadowblade tusks if they're core because of the transition, but the 3-4 tusk is likely largely unchanged in frequency and builds.
In pubs he might get slightly more popular but he lacks the sustain of better gankers like slark or the farming tools of better carries to really get super popular (i could definitely be wrong though)
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Tusk is now like Batrider. Jump in a kick a hero back to your team then snowball after them while throwing shards at their team to slow them down from coming in to support. Offlane Tusk totally viable. Rush Blink like Cent or Bat then go straight into aghs. Set up ganks early/mid and then have aghs late to really take the game over. I think its a huge buff for Tusk as an initiator if used correctly.
Also Tusk is now a huge Bat counter. Jump in and kick a hero into your team and bring your ally into the snowball to save them. Any ability that changes an enemy's positioning has a lot of potential.
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Sounds like it has potential. IMO, trying to rush blink aghs (>6k) is prohibitively expensive compared to other positioning initiators (ES, VS, Bat, Pudge all need zero items or just blink/force)
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The only other hero who can safely initiate in that way is bat and he needs blink force to do so. Tusk can close the gap and safely bring heroes with no items. Nobody else can do that. As a pos 3 you get blink by 15mins then aghs by 30/35. And have two distinct options to initiate. No other hero really offers that utility in initiations/counter initiations. Tysk also has the ward, shards, and huge burst with the ult. I think his utility is what sets him apart. Yes, there are other heroes who do the individual things better but none offers the amount of variety. I agree with you but I also think he has a new niche that is extremely powerful.
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Yeah I think some of the new items might change what role he plays in the game, probably more of a ganking core than a support. I also thought he was strong last patch and he got some very nice buffs (max speed snowball no matter what will be extremely strong). Aghs could be very strong but definitely situational, like being able to kick their carry out of the Roshan pit during a fight and having time to deal with the rest of the team. Any enemy position-altering item has the potential to be very strong. It might be hard with blink + turn rate to make sure you are actually kicking the enemy towards your team instead of just shifting them 900 range without much value.
I asked Merlini about tusk on stream once last patch and he said that the hero is strong but has a very high skull cap and is hard to use effectively. Snowball is an all in kind of spell that is risky but could have a huge or terrible impact. I just hope we see him getting picked more in the pro scene.
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Tusk is now like Batrider. Jump in a kick a hero back to your team then snowball after them while throwing shards at their team to slow them down from coming in to support. Offlane Tusk totally viable. Rush Blink like Cent or Bat then go straight into aghs. Set up ganks early/mid and then have aghs late to really take the game over. I think its a huge buff for Tusk as an initiator if used correctly.
Also Tusk is now a huge Bat counter. Jump in and kick a hero into your team and bring your ally into the snowball to save them. Any ability that changes an enemy's positioning has a lot of potential.
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Merlini's patch analysis is simply the best. He weeds out all the "insignificant"/smaller changes and focuses on those which would impact the game. Bonus point for using organized and effective visual aids :D
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The summary way seems like a good way to do it. I like listening to the long ones on audio while doing something else as entertainment/hype, but let's bet honest even pro dota2 players are pretty bad at predicting the effects of a patch. Getting 2/10 predictions right doesn't count.
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He fucked up about BoT
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Melee attacks now miss if the target is farther than 350 range more than their attack range
Did he mention this? I think it's a pretty decent buff for Enchantress coz she can now just run away from melee heroes, literally untouchable. actually she's like the only hero who can make use of this change.
and did he mention WK agh changes? he's underrated this
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It buffs force staff as well. Sometimes if you forced, ursa would still swipe you one last time.
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actually she's like the only hero who can make use of this change.
Phoenix says hi
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I think this patch kinda makes it easier for a dominant player to not lose so many matches in games...he can get 6-7 slotted and icnrease his chances.
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I think he hit the nail on the head with the "Increase skill cap" theme going through this patch. This patch introduces so many new items and abilities; there is so much new room for new and unique strats and item builds
The downside to it is that the game's learning curve - which was already a notoriously steep one - just got even steeper for new players
They have cut out a lot of the weird interactions that made the game confusing though.
A lot of the weirdly specific numbers got rounded out too, like the lane creep bounties (now multiples of 5) and the times when the game adds extra lane creeps to the spawns (now multiples of 15 minutes).
They also changed toggle abilities, so they persist after death. Before if you died with aegis on Medusa you would respawn without Mana Shield on, in 6.84 you will respawn with it on. Not only is it a buff to the hero (before you could lock her down after respawn and prevent the Mana Shield from being toggled) but it's also a nice change for beginners.
That's true, but as a new player I've never felt like that was a major part of the learning curve. My issues have been things like "So should I be solo-pushing this tier 3 or defending throne with the rest of our team?" and "Huh, they have a Phantom Lancer, I wonder what he does." Not so much "But if I farm lane creeps instead, I will increase my GPM by an average of 5.6."
And added some more like this new mute/break interaction
I see it as more streamlining the mechanics. They are both things that already existed but now they follow a much clearer rule.
whoa ya you're right. i shouldn't be getting upvoted, for some reason I was thinking mute/break were always occurring simultaneously like with sheep but this wasn't the case at all. If anything they've made the game slightly less confusing. There's still so many different types of disables (like 10-15) which must be crazy for new players to pick up on. I'm a 5k player and just got tripped up for some reason...
I think there's a lot more defensive items and abilities this patch, not just about damaging enemies, but magic resistance, physical damage resistance, healing etc. Makes the team fight aspect even more difficult.
That always existed though, they just named and standardised it.
I makes it 100x easier to explain to someone new to the game. Less exceptions to general rules is always better.
I feel like they've been doing a very good job in recent patches trying to trim out the completely unnecessary, arbitrary complexities of the game while leaving in the ones that add depth.
Dota's origins as a WC3 mod that went through numerous iterations and lead developers resulted in a lot of really strange design quirks that would never arise from normal game development by a sane developer, and I think this is often both the game's greatest strength and greatest weakness. It results in things like denies, who h are incredibly unintuitive and nonsensical but add a lot of meaningful depth to the game, but also adds nonsense like the old damage system with bizarre damage types like universal or composite that increases the learning curve of the game without really adding anything meaningful to the skillcap.
Dota will never become an easy-to-learn game. The genre already has a steep learning curve, and many of the traits that distinguish DOTA from other games like LoL are ones that also makes its learning curve even steeper. But they can at least trim off some of the unnecessary complexity and just leave the stuff that really adds something meaningful for the game. Complexity for the sake of complexity is bad if it doesn't add any depth or meaningful skillcap.
On a brighter note, now everyone is confused as fuck.
Doesn't make much difference when the learning curve is already a vertical line.
Yeah the learning cliff is quite steep.
As someone who has played nethack, space station 13, and tried Dwarf Fortress, no, dota does not have a vertical learning curve
I would say that is simply because of the matchmaking.
Rather than playing against the game you play against equally bad players while learning the game.
I'm kind of at peace that I'll be a noob in Doto forever. Which makes it perpetually interesting if somewhat scary.
He said comeback mechanics nerfed, but I feel like they just got reworked. Getting a kill on the enemy teams fat carry is going to be even more punishing and rewarding than it is currently.
Well the whole comback gold was nerfed 25%, and carrys only give 20% more, so isn't it still a reduction?
Yea but underfarmed supports earn more now. So an enemy carry giving more to a pair of under farmed supports that earn more should balance that out.
Right, but I think more people were complaining about carries getting 2 items from a rax defense, not the supports getting enough for a mid tier item like euls/force
Not quite, the same amount of gold is given out but a larger percentage goes to the hero with less farm.
Overall, they are nerfed. No more instant 3 levels if you manage to solo kill their out of control carry. The gold bounties were only part of the insanity of the rubber band.
You are right on that end, exp bounty got more nerfed than the gold bounty did. But I do think giving gold to supports shouldn't be underestimated. Getting good initiator a blink can really turn the tide.
Huge buff to PPD
Super buff to PieLieDie
dude this was the bulldog patch of bulldog patches
Also this patch fools a little bit around with new mechanics. A item that just usable on one hero. Spell reflection. Night Vision on a item.
Don't forget that there are new heroes coming (eventually) as well. Forever noob.
I don't think the issue becomes any worse for new players... or at least theoretically it wouldn't if it weren't for smurfs. Sure, there's lots of new things to learn and increased depths, but if everyone playing in 1.5k games was actually 1.5k, that depth would be more or less equally obscure to everyone in the match.
The game might be easier for new players
Turning the game into league of legends increases the skill cap?