Dota 2 7.05 is another round of minor balance tweaks

Dota 2 patch 7.05 has launched with little fanfare, and as is becoming commonplace, it’s mostly a load of minor balance tweaks than massive sweeping changes. No new heroes or items this time.

In general terms, the Dota 2 7.03 patch’s change to tower armour (increasing it based on the number of enemy heroes nearby) has been tweaked a bit, with 1 more armour per hero and a larger radius now in effect, but a lower base armour to compensate. Spell amplification based on Intelligence has been increased slightly, Shrine regen is now 90 instead of 100, and you need slightly less XP to level from 20 to 25. Also, Treant Protector is now in Captain’s Mode.

Item-wise, there are a few notable changes. Hand of Midas gives way less XP (the multiplier has dropped from 2.5x to 1.75x), but its gold bonus has increased from 190 to 220 in a rather uneven trade. I’d actually argue that this is a bit of an Invoker nerf, considering that’s one hero who really likes it for the levels rather than anything else. Tranquil Boots now require a Wind Lace rather than a Ring of Protection, and appropriately, they now offer no armour but have a slightly higher movement speed when disabled (and when enabled, and also a higher health regen when enabled). Power Treads give an extra attribute point, Orb of Venom does more damage per second but its slow lasts for less time, and Quelling Blade’s bonus damage no longer stacks with Iron Talon, which… I honestly didn’t think it did anyway. So hey.

Then there are the heroes, which is where lots of changes appear. Plenty of heroes are getting those little minor buffs in the hopes of edging them back into being competitive picks again, with Death Prophet inching a little bit closer to being pickable thanks to things like a nice boost to her Strength gain and some minor buffs to her talents. Bristleback’s another with a bunch of boosts that’ll hopefully make him more effective, and Lich – while not in a great place right now – has some Chain Frost improvements that should make that skill far more lethal if two people are in close proximity.

Conversely, some heroes have obviously been smacked with the nerf bat. Somewhat surprisingly, Alchemist isn’t one of them, so his Manta/Octarine/Radiance build is still viable in pubs despite a few changes making him less effective in the early game. Brewmaster’s had a few nice buffs, but Alacrity Bear has been hit with a pretty big nerf as the Demolish damage – while still nice –  has been dropped significantly. Monkey King has been rescaled in a few interesting ways which should make him more effective and survivable in the late game, but his early game should be a fair bit weaker. And, yes, Lina’s respawn time reduction talent has been swapped up to level 15. Arguably, I actually think this might make it a bit more desirable because at level 10 it felt like overkill if you were also going for a Bloodstone, but at 15…

In any case, you can read the full Dota 2 7.05 patch notes over here. There are obviously plenty of changes I haven’t noted, so you should probably do this!

The patch weighs in at about 220MB and is out now.