The ESL One LA Major didn’t happen, but that didn’t stop Valve from putting out a huge post-major patch.
Dota 2 update 7.25 has arrived, bringing a slew of changes to the game. While there are the normal roundup of tweaks to items and heroes, version 7.25 also brings big changes to other factors as well.
The change that will be most obvious to players is a shakeup to how all pick drafting works. Previously, the system saw players ban any specific heroes they liked, with 50% of the heroes nominated being banned as a result. From there, one team would get the first pick, which was followed by the teams picking two apiece until the opposite team received the final pick.
Following Dota 2’s 7.25 update, the drafting system has been overhauled. Each individual hero ban now has a 50% chance of succeeding. From there, each team will simultaneously pick a hero with their choices hidden until both sides select a hero. The picks are then revealed and, if the two coincidentally chose the same hero, the one that selected second will be granted bonus time in order to select a different hero.
A more subtle, but arguably more important, change is a new hero kill gold bounty formula. Previously, a number of different factors were taken into account when calculating a hero’s gold bounty including the net worth of the hero that gets the kill, the net worth of the dead hero relative to his team, the dead hero’s level, and more. Now, the formula has been simplified to simply scale on the dead hero’s net worth.
Alongside this are increased gold and XP yields for killing sprees.
Another huge change comes to the power runes that spawn in the river on either side of the mid lane. Runes will not start spawning until the four-minute mark, rather than at the two-minute mark. They will continue spawning every two minutes after. Additionally, there will no longer be double power rune spawn after 40 minutes, with just one rune spawning randomly.
Naturally, the majority of heroes received some manner of change in the 7.25 Dota 2 update.
Many of these were subtle, with a number of stat changes and rescalings of damage and cooldown. There were some uniquely notable ones.
The ever-popular Gyrocopter saw a mix of buffs and nerfs, with Flak Cannon and Calldown their power altered in exchange for an increase or decrease in cooldown time. Ursa’s ultimate was reworked to give increased status resistance instead of an improved Fury Swipes modifier. Sniper was greatly improved with higher base damage and a strengthened Headshot.
Additionally, there were a number of changes to heroes’ Aghanim’s Scepter abilities.
Spirit Breaker no longer has an AOE ultimate and instead has a faster Charge of Darkness. Bounty Hunter’s Shuriken Toss will add a Jinada effect to heroes hit by the spell. Dazzle has a different effect, where spell casts are accompanied by a Medusa-style attack on eight nearby enemies.
Alongside this are the first Aghanim’s Scepter abilities for Void Spirit and Snapfire.
Snapfire gains a new ability, Gobble Up. The ability functions similar to Tiny’s Toss skill, throwing a creep or allied hero at an enemy. Instead of dealing AOE damage, the ability instead does an AOE stun and creates a small glob of lava around the impact zone.
Void Spirit’s is less unique, but significantly more powerful. Aghanim’s Scepter gives Void Spirit two charges of Resonant Pulse, and applies a silence effect to enemies on impact.
This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to changes in Dota 2 update 7.25, so make sure to check out the full patch notes on the official Dota 2 blog.
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