Gaming
The patches before Dota’s major tournament change the game drastically, but some more than others.
In the first few months of summer every year, IceFrog secures himself away in his impenetrable crystal dome at Valve’s headquarters in Seattle. The International is approaching and everyone is too good with all the wrong heroes and too bad at the others. It is his job to fix this injustice, and maybe even tempt someone into picking Earth Spirit for once.
IceFrog has done the pre-International task of re-balancing all 100+ of Dota 2’s heroes every year since the early Internationals, when the game was in beta – a state which it has returned to this year, thanks to Reborn. The hopes of tweaking and shuffling just enough to make the upcoming tournament interesting without completely breaking the game have paid off most of the time. But which year was the resultant recombination the most fun to watch? Let’s take a look.
The International 2 (2012, played on 6.74)
The first pre-International patch wasn’t exactly intended to shake things up just before the world’s biggest eSports tournament. Back then they were still just keeping parity with the changelogs for DotA a week or so after balances were made in the original game. Nevertheless, it made a big impact on the hero choices of the upcoming International when it was released in early March.
The previous year’s meta had revolved around BIG carries, the sort that come online after what seems like days of toil in the jungle, and support to allow them to do that. But the addition of heroes like Naga Siren and Rubick in the months before August’s big showdown shifted attention onto AoE teamfighters – immortalised in a perfectly turned around smoke gank in Na`Vi vs iG.
There were also the beginnings of some split-push attempts, as Nature’s Prophet, Lone Druid and Lycan emerged into the primordial metasoup. Even Morphling was a viable split pusher at this point in his life cycle, with teams opting to use his replicant to keep pressure on other lanes. But that was only the start of things to come. Rank: B+, good effort
The International 3 (2013, played on 6.78)
What a difference a year makes. In the post-TI2 patches, many of the split-pushing favourites saw heavy nerfs, particularly to Lycan. However going into the 6.78 patch, Nature’s Prophet remained fairly untouched, good news for a certain Alliance team member. After the mediocre success of the last year’s forays into “rat doto”, the nerfs forced most other teams to look into other tactics, including heavy use of Io (then Wisp) and melee carries who could benefit from the speed boost of Tether.
The age of Tiny-Wisp was upon us, and after a weak intro to the game, several buffs in rapid succession for Batrider also made him a must-pick-or-ban hero. The resulting meta was a mix of heavily carry-oriented teams with wicked teamfight potential and some global split push. This torn meta worked nicely for a team like Alliance, who could take care of themselves in outnumbered teamfights even when AdmiralBulldog was off pushing elsewhere. And, crucially as S4 proved in the final against Na`Vi, disrupt attempts to return to prevent the rat.
Rank: A-, exciting moments but could be more cohesive
The International 4 (2014, played on 6.81d)
This was a mess. You only need to look at the patch version to see that something went wrong here. Yes, other patches had minor fixes applied in lettered updates after the initial changes, but after three attempts they were still altering hero abilities. The overall landscape of the meta by this point did not help matters either.
By now rat doto is all but dead. Teams have discovered how to completely remove any split-pushing threat through bans or counter-picks. Multiple small changes to Razor and Brewmaster make them perma-pick mids. Razor neutralises the enemy carry, along with Skywrath Mage if they rely on spells. Both are useful before they hit level six or have any farm. Brewmaster and Tidehunter become the initiators of choice once they have farmed their Blink and Shadow Shaman follows up with his serpent wards. That is the only time-sensitive part of the machine known as “deathball”.
Once your initiator has Blink, you jump on whoever under their own tower. If a carry comes to help, you remove their damage or their ability to cast spells. You drop Shadow Shaman’s wards and watch as they melt the tower. You kill everyone who comes to stop you because you are a team and you push every tower together. Rinse. Repeat. The final game is over in 15 minutes. Rank: D-, see me >:(
The International 5 (2015, played on 6.84)
Items like Glimmer Cape may still be a tad unrefined, as a transferrable 66 percent magic resistance and invisibility could have some unsavoury applications. But as yet, no alarms are ringing and there’s little-to-no outrage on Reddit about the meta, so perhaps IceFrog can sleep soundly in his crystal dome. Until next year, anyway.
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