Dota Allstars Map Version 6.71 Review ~ Itsme Gaming

Several changes have been made in the past versions of Dota but there are still imbalanced heroes existing in 6.70 version. Some of these heroes are Visage, Pugna, Doom, Morphling, Alchemist and Broodmother. These heroes are called imbalanced heroes not because they are the strongest but because they possess more potential from other heroes if used correctly. Does Ice Frog's quest to balancing every heroes in Dota now achieved in this latest version, 6.71? What would might be the changes in hero picking and strategies in this version? What would now be the top pick and ban heroes? Let us analyze what will happen after the major changes made to some heroes.

Morphling

Morphling is a top pick hero by professional players because of several reasons. 1st, survival rate is very high. Among all the heroes, this hero has the highest number of escape mechanisms. 1. Wave Form can teleport him from one place to another instantly. 2. Morph if activated can increase his strength a lot giving him more time to run. 3. Replicate can be used to simply disappear from danger. Not to mention his adaptive strike that can push opponents backward with a slight stun duration. May it be early, mid or late game, morphling rules. Now, with the item Ethereal Blade, morphling can easily kill a fully equipped agility heroes or int in a single combo. Casting Ethereal blade, waveform and adaptive strike is one sick combo. Morphling can have all his strength turn to agility which makes adaptive strike able to deal crazy damage.

Now, what have Ice Frog done to nerf this dangerous liquid monster?

Dota 6.71 changelog for Morphling:

Adaptive Strike damage rescaled
Original: Up to 0.75/1.5/2.25/3.0x Agility
New: 20/40/60/80 + up to 0.5/1/1.5/2.0x Agility

Review: At first I thought this was only a slight nerf but when I further analyzed it, it's a huge nerf for morphling. The old adaptive strike have 3 x Agility at maximum level which means that if morphling has 150 agility, adaptive strike will have 450 damage.

Now, max adaptive strike will have 80 + 2 x Agility damage which means that if morphling has 150 agility, adaptive strike will have (80 + 2x150 = 380) 380 damage. The difference is a lot specially when morph has greater agility like 250. Old Adaptive strike will have 750 damage but the new Adaptive strike will only be 580.

Using Ethereal blade would further show how great the nerf was to adaptive strike. 40% additional damage for magical damage from ethereal blade made the old adaptive strike a killer blow but now, the damage wont be so high. The old adaptive strike will give a total of 1050 damage out of using adaptive strike on a banished opponent if morph's agility is 250. But now, it will only have 812 damage. It cannot take down a fully equipped agility hero anymore in one blow.

Overall, I believe that morphling would still be a top pick because of his high survival rate and versatility all through out the game. He may have lesser adaptive strike damage but it is still dependable. Ice frog simply balanced the skill because he is like having a free Laguna blade in the previous versions.

Alchemist

Alchemist is an imbalanced hero for having a great tanking ability, a long range duration disable, a great nuke best for defending and team fights, additional gold skill and regeneration + hp bonus ultimate. This hero is one of the hero I'm praying to be nerfed. I hate to ban heroes just because they are imbalanced. I know good counters for this but some errors would lead this hero to be an invulnerable monster late game.

Now, what have Ice Frog done to nerf this indestructible armored beast?

Dota 6.71 changelog for Alchemist:

Alchemist
- Movement speed reduced by 5
- Chemical Rage bonus HP from 350/700/1050 to 300/600/900

Review: Movement speed being reduced by 5 is quite ignorable. Alchemist has +30/40/60 movespeed from his ultimate. Movespeed reduction by 5 may lead him to be a little slower to hit his target but this hero is always placed on the trilane so he have slowers and stunners to make the prey easier to kill. One good thing about this nerf is that you can escape Alchemist chasing you while charging his unstable concotion if you have the same or faster boots. Level 3 Chemical rage bonus hp being reduced to 900 disappointed me a lot. This change made to Alchemist is a very unnoticeable nerf. He can still tank with like he used to. It's hard to even take his hp half when it's late game so I guess 105 hp nerf from chemical rage is really useless. It would be more helpful to nerf his regeneration rate when Chemical Rage is activated.

Overall, Alchemist didn't change that much and I expect him to still be used a lot.

Pugna

Pugna is one of the Dota Top 10 Fastest Pusher Heroes and he is also a good hero for clash. Most players would often ban pugna to avoid losing towers early. It's hard to defend a pushing team with pugna with them because of his ability to clear creeps and to damage your hp and mana whenever you cast a spell. Early game his ward hurts a lot. You would want to destroy his ward first before entering the battle but it is not that easy.

Now, what have Ice Frog done to balance this skeleton tower terrorist?

Dota 6.71 changelog for Pugna:

Pugna
- Strength gain reduced from 1.45 to 1.2

Review: That's it. Ice Frog simply reduced his strength gain. Every 1 strength gives 19 hp for the hero. Giving lower str gain for every level makes pugna a stat-item dependent hero. This str gain nerf is a big one because at level 25, pugna would only be having 1005 hp without any item or stats. One laguna wave with aganims will burn this skeleton to death in an instant. Pugna was already a low hp hero but with this str gain nerf he would just be a worm that needs to give more effort being safe.

Overall, with the strength growth nerf on pugna, he would still be a viable pick but not a top pick. It only takes a good initiator to aim on pugna and he's through. He is not that versatile anymore because he already lack the team fight potential. He should not be displaying a lot anymore making him not cast his blast quite often. Nevertheless, with good playstyle, pugna is still one dangerous hero to fight with. It's up to you on how to utilize this hero to achieve his full potential.

Tuskarr

Though this hero still cant be used at captain's mode, I heard a lot of complaints about this hero and I experienced it myself. It was posted at My First 6.70 Map Review where I played Leshrac and solo laned against tuskar and phoenix without even knowing what their skills are. Though I died on my lane, we still managed to win because of reaching late game and having BKB. Tuskar gave our team a hard time from early to mid game because of its imbalanced ganking, laning and clash initiating skills. He have a nuke that will create a barrier behind you for trapping purposes. A snowball that can bring the whole team with him and initiate the clash from the snow ball. Though I know good counters for this hero I have to admit that this hero is really a strong hero that even a not so good player can dominate using this hero.

Now, what have Ice Frog done to nerf this dirty old man?

Dota 6.71 changelog for Ymir

Tuskarr
- Snowball maximum roll duration reduced to 3 seconds
- Snowball movement speed per extra hero reduced from 100% to 50%
- Frozen Sigil HP reduced from 300 to 220/240/260/280
- Removed the extra landing damage from Walrus Punch

Snow ball having a duration of 3 seconds is easier to dodge. You may either be a high move speed hero or a hero with escape mechanisms like blink. Snowball now isn't a big problem anymore having its extra move speed reduced to 50%. Nerfed HP from Frozen Sigil is good because Tuskar would need to max this out to be able to use it longer. Removed damage from Walrus Punch is also a good thing because Walrus punch by default already gives a great amount of damage.

Overall, Ymir wont be feared that much anymore in public games but I think in captain mode games he still shouldn't be included. Good teams can take great advantages on his skills specially his snowball and ice shard making it easier to dominate early game.

Phoenix
One of the most coward hero created in Dota. He have the ability to dive out of danger just by using his dive and casting another skill. He also have very long range nukes that can continuously damage and slow heroes from a very safe place. Moreover, he has an ultimate that makes him invulnerable to magic while inflicting damage to opponents and give him full hp afterwards. He is a very imbalance hero from early to mid game because of these skills he have.

Now, what have Ice Frog done to nerf this gay painful chicken?

Dota 6.71 Changelog for Phoenix:

Phoenix
- Base strength reduced from 22 to 19
- Sunray activation manacost increased from 10 to 35
- Sunray slow from 14/20/26/32 to 10/16/22/28%
- Fixed a bug that caused Sunray to always affect the first target regardless of magic immunity
- Reduced the duration Sunray slow lasts on you from 2 to 1 second
This is the duration that the slow lasts on you after you are no longer hit by the Sunray.

Review: The base strength reduction makes him weaker early game because most of his skills requires some of his HP to cast spells. Icarus dive requires 10% of his hp to cast, Fire Spirits also cost 10% of his hp to cast. His sunray requires 25% of his hp. Reducing his hp is good but with right amount of playing safe, this nerf didn't make Phoenix weak at all. Mana cost of sunray activation increased. I guess this helped in nerfing this bird because it wont be advisable now to turn this skill on and off anytime. The slow nerf for sunray, making it 28% at max and making the slow last for only 1 second instead of 2, also is a good nerf. The Sun Ray before isn't that hard to evade. Right when you see the ray, make it chase by moving to your side. The ray moves slow. If incase you're hit, you still can lose it if your not disabled by another hero. Now, that the slow is nerfed to 28%, it will be even easier to avoid this skill. Anyway, if you get bkb, there's no way he can use skills on you for they are all magic.

Gem of Truesight

I find it incredibly funny that they only nerfed it now. It's been a long time Techies, Rikimaru, Bone Clinkz and invisible heroes are waiting for this. Techies, with all his efforts placing mines and tactical strategies on where to put it, only takes 700 gold to make him useless. Rikimaru even have his ultimate called 'invisibility' but Gem of truesight makes him feel like he only has 3 skills and no ultimate. So far, this Gem of Truesight nerf really balanced the game. Invisible heroes and Lothar's Edge will be a viable choice in this version. Sents and Dusts are good but these require more gold. Sents have short range while dust needs perfect timing to be used making invisible heroes have more time stalking or positioning. I can say that this is a brilliant move by icefrog.

Keeper of the Light

Dota 6.71 Changelog for Keeper of the Light:

Keeper of the Light
- Manaleak now applies a stun instead of a slow when the target runs out of mana
Stun duration: 1.25/1.5/1.75/2.0 seconds
- Manaleak duration from 5/6/7/8 to 4/5/6/7
- Manaleak cooldown from 20 to 18

Stun for 2 seconds is way better than his slow before. Ezalor wasn't pick much before because of not having a stable disabling skill though he has perfect skills for supporting. With his damage, mana support, mana leak for enemies, recall and blind, I guess he is arguably the best support hero in Dota allstars. Now, with his improved mana leak duration cool down and disable, he will be giving more trouble for the opponents and I'd do the honor picking him on our first CM game depending on the line up.

Blood Seeker

Bloodseeker
- Bloodbath now gives 50% of its normal regeneration if he doesn't kill the target but is near it
This change does not affect creeps, it is hero only. By default you gain 10/20/30/40% of a dying hero's max HP if you get the killing blow. If you don't but are within 200 range of the dying hero, you gain 5/10/15/20% of the max HP.

Review: Blood Seeker owns a lot in pub games where people aren't caring for their team mates. He has the ability to kill low hp heroes alone. But in team fights he is not a top choice because of his low hp and easily countered ultimate. Now, with this rescaled blood bath, he can now engage in team fights because he doesn't need to kill a hero to regenerate his hp. Whenever an opponent dies, he will regenerate 20% of that hero's max HP. This can make blood seeker engage in battles and end it with close to full hp. Maelk, whose favorite hero is blood seeker, may have thought of this idea and suggested it to ice frog. Blood seeker is now a gank and team fight oriented hero. Good job.

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