Gaming
Gaming
Team OG speak out on Dota 6.87
The Frankfurt Major champions give their thoughts on the latest patch.
If you’ve been wondering why your Earthshaker has been leaping around in your pubs Echo Slamming people, then check the updates page because there’s a big new patch out. Figuring out its intricacies and impact on the meta is all pro Dota teams can focus on right now ahead of the Manila Major.
“Earthshaker’s new Aghanim’s upgrade is just priceless,” Team OG’s carry player Johan “N0tail” Sundstein told us, whereas their captain Tal "Fly" Aizik was a bit more realistic in his appraisal of the item: “looks really funny, not sure how good it really is though”. Dota 2’s 6.87 is here and with it came a whole bunch of new items, map changes, hero tweaks, adjusted mechanics, and more.
The race to figure out the best strategies is on and N0tail thinks the top teams will have their work cut out for them ahead of Manila in June. “Adapting to a big patch is always about time – at first it's going to be chaotic and experimental but give it a few weeks and patterns usually start appearing already.”
Fly told us that Team OG will be training hard over the next few months online. “We just have to play a lot – we’ll be playing a ton of pubs, and then mixing in some scrims.” With a direct invite to the Manila Major, Fly and his side are in the envious position of being able to watch the qualifiers whilst saving their own game plans for the tournament itself.
Perhaps the most unexpected change we’ve seen is the introduction of the Scan function, which checks a selected area for eight seconds to see whether it contains any enemy heroes. Thankfully it does not consider units inside the Roshan Pit, but it does consider Smoked heroes. Fly told us that it’s a welcome addition: “I like it – I think it adds a new aspect of strategy to the game. It can be used in very crucial times to detect enemy smokes and movements, or lead the way when you are smoking and looking for your enemies. I think it will be interesting and will add something exciting to matches”. How much of an impact it has in competitive play remains to be seen but it could allow for some very sneaky plays.
One hero who has seen his win rate shoot up in public games, already at least, is Axe, whose Counter Helix damage changed to pure and benefits from the changes to Blade Mail. Whilst Miracle was unsure whether he’d be strong or not, saying that “only time will tell”, N0tail is confident he’ll be strong competitively. “I think these buffs make him a lot more viable – both the Blade Mail and pure damage spin changes favour him in my opinion.”
Invoker, the stand out hero of 6.86, meanwhile did see a range of small nerfs, including the addition of a tiny cast point to his Invoked spells, but Miracle told us “I still think that he still might be playable in competitive,” while N0tail joked that “I think we can expect 20 new Miracle invoker YouTube videos by the end of the week.” It sounds like Invoker is certainly not a dead hero, and as one of the top Invoker players in the world you can expect to see plenty more Chaos Meteor with Deafening Blast combos from Miracle.
Possibly the most significant changes 6.87 has given us are the tweaks to the Dota map itself. N0tail certainly thinks so from what he’s played so far. “I think this patch actually helps Dire side, but it is too early to say for sure if anyone received a large advantage.” Despite Dire being closer to Roshan, in public games at least the Radiant side of the map had a higher win rate during the past patch and this may have partly been down to how difficult it was to gank the Radiant mid lane, a move that has become easier now thanks to some of the terrain adjustments, which include new paths through the trees for roaming heroes to make use of. Over the next few weeks we’ll quickly learn whether professional teams are favouring one side of the map.
Despite the changes to the game, there is a feeling that this patch is less significant than some we’ve seen in the past. When we asked Miracle which heroes he’d be banning in his pub games (thanks to the adjustments to All-Pick), he told us “probably Bounty and Beastmaster,” – two of the most popular heroes in the last patch.
Bounty Hunter and Beastmaster both provide their teams with vision of their opponents and despite them both receiving nerfs, this advantage is too important to see them fall from popularity. N0tail explained that with so much vision disappearing from the game in the patch, teams will have to adapt fast: “Dota has always been about knowing the enemy, where he is, what he's planning to do. Vision is definitely a key aspect of competitive Dota and it will be an interesting couple of weeks to see how teams will adjust.”
What’s the best thing to try out online then? We have to admit the Aghanim’s Earthshaker does look like a great way to have fun, but we also like Fly’s idea, given the massive movement speed buff to Keeper of the Light: “Perhaps the race-car Kotl could be fun to try out in pubs.” If you see a Keeper of the Light racing through your next game like a Kentucky Derby champion, brandishing a Wind Lace and Mana Leaking everything within range, then you’ll know who to thank.
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