Ceb blasts “noob-friendly” Dota 2 meta, offers Necronomicon fix

Dota 2’s 7.26 meta has been very poorly received by players at all levels, and Sébastien “Ceb” Debs gave a lengthy explanation as to why.

The two-time The International champion broke down his issues with the current meta and discussed how Valve might change things in Dota 2’s upcoming 7.27 update.

“I’m not enjoying the meta at all. I think it’s really noob-friendly and I hate it,” Ceb said.

Ceb then discussed some of the specific dynamics of Dota 2 as it stands today, honing in on the low value placed on securing kills. He stated that if a mid laner starts roaming at level five, spends two or three minutes in the side lanes, and notches four kills for their efforts, that they would still end up at a gold and XP deficit against a lane rival that simply remains still in mid and kills creeps. And it wouldn’t be close.

Discussing this actually seemed to rile the OG offlaner up a bit and while he might be overreacting, he’s certainly not alone in his feelings on the state of Dota 2.

Dota 2 pros upset with patch 7.26 balance

Dota 2’s 7.26 meta has been widely panned by pros and other high-MMR players. The update made a number of significant changes to the game, including reducing gold bounties, removing secondary perks from base attributes, and making several alterations at the macro level.

These changes ultimately turned Dota 2 into a significantly slower and longer game, and also made split pushing the most powerful strategy in the game. The resulting meta has been labeled the “zoo meta” due to the disproportionately high win rates enjoyed by “zookeeper” heroes that have abilities that conjure controllable units. Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao recently demonstrated how powerful the Necronomicon item can be by building it on heroes that previously wouldn’t even have considered it an option.

Though the Necronomicon turns any hero into a zookeeper, Ceb insists that isn’t the only reason why it’s a great item.

“The problem about Necro book isn’t about the cost, it’s the mana regen…it’s one of the only items that will fix your mana issues. It gives you strength and farming potential, meaning it’s good for carries, strength heroes, intelligence heroes. Necro is very broken,” Ceb said.

Dota 2 update 7.27 likely to end zoo meta

IceFrog took the rare step of jumping onto the Dota 2 developer forum and personally teasing the next Dota 2 update. While he gave no details on what changes were in store, the update is lined up to come out in the very near future.

“We are planning on releasing the first part of 7.27 in a couple of weeks, with a focus on item changes, economy and misc general adjustments. It will be followed up later with hero focused changes,” IceFrog said.

Though IceFrog doesn’t always bend to the whims of Dota 2 players, odds are that the pace of the game will be increased and that Necronomicon will be weakened in some way.