Dota 2: Patch 7.24b is Live

Here is what’s new in the latest Dota 2 patch.

Despite the fact that we are just days away from the third Minor of this DPC, Valve decided to release a small gameplay update. Even though there are not that many big changes, some things are new, so let’s take a look. Spoiler alert, nearly everything suffered a small nerf.

The 7.24b Gameplay Update has been released https://t.co/0HCeHZIm2G

— DOTA 2 (@DOTA2) February 26, 2020

Items

As expected, some of the most popular items in the patch didn’t leave unnoticed. Following the LA Major qualifiers and WePlay!’s tournament, IceFrog decided to release the nerf hammer for the following items:

Maelstorm – the bounce distance of chain lightning is now 650 instead of 900

Mjollnir – the bounce distance of chain lightning is now 650 instead of 900

Diffusal Blade – it now burns 40 mana instead of 50

Desolator – removes one less armor (6, instead of 7). However, the overall damage to the item is increased by 10. This is the only item that gets some sort of a buff here, even though it’s not really a buff. Minus one armor is stronger than having + 10 damage. Nevertheless, during the early stages of the game, 10 damage more might be better.

Bracer now provides 4% magic resistance instead of 5%. This will hopefully put an end to the ever-growing Bracer spam by some heroes.

Hero Changes

Every single hero change in this patch is related to some sort of a nerf. Be sure to read the entire release here if you want to see everything that’s new. We will just cover the more significant hero changes.

Lifestealer

Slowly but steadily, LS became one of the strongest carries of this patch. Thanks to his incredible attack speed and high base damage, this hero was amazing in the laning stage and after that. However, it seems like Valve made him a little bit too strong, which is why he now gets two nerfs. First, his base attack speed is reduced by 10, whereas his base damage suffers a -3 loss.

Slardar

The next hero that will have to learn how to cope with the new changes is Slardar. This was expected because he became one of the most popular Dota 2 heroes in the last couple of months. Sadly, this might change after the new patch.

Slardar suffered three nerfs in this patch:

• his Bash of the Deep now  does 25 less damage on level 4
• Guardian Sprint costs 25 mana
• Corrosive Haze reduces 2 armor less (18 instead of 20)

This is all bad news for the “fishy hero” but we believe that the mana cost for the sprint is the worst one. Slardar is not really the type of a hero to have a lot of mana to work with, so it will be hard for him to cope with that.

Snapfire

The last hero that we will take a look at in this article is Snapfire. Similar to Slardar, this hero absolutely exploded in popularity in the last couple of weeks. This was expected because patch 7.24 “released” her and Void Spirit to CM mode.

Unfortunately, the pick rate of this hero might be reduced after the recent changes. Now, Snapfire Cookie stuns of 2.2 seconds instead of 2.5 seconds on level 4. Also, Mortimer Kisses now does 320 damage on level 3, instead of 400, which is a pretty significant change.