Your Dota 2 games will take much longer after 7.32 update

The long-awaited 7.32 update has arrived in Dota 2 and major system changes, including a new kind of creep, are about to make your games last longer.

Dota 2 has largely been the same game for the better part of two years. That’s not the worst thing ever, as most exploitable and overpowered strategies have been patched out or rendered obsolete. Still, fans are always wanting something new.

Icefrog and Valve delivered with Dota 2 update 7.32, with gameplay changes that are largely set to slow down the way games play out. This manifests in a number of different ways including rescaled experience, changes to creep camps, and much more.

New flagbearer creeps allow for more sustained pushes

The biggest change in the latest Dota 2 patch is the addition of the new flagbearer creeps. 

The 7.32 Gameplay Update is out! https://t.co/8cEPyXKLrq

— DOTA 2 (@DOTA2) August 23, 2022

Flagbearer creeps are effectively powered-up melee creeps, distinguishable by the banner they have on their back. After the two-minute mark, every other creep wave will contain a flagbearer creep. They have the same health pool and damage as a regular melee creep but also have 40% magic resistance and an aura that offers 3.0 health regeneration to all allied units in a 700 AOE. 

When the creep is killed by a hero, it offers bonus gold but equal to a melee creep. This does not occur if the creep is denied, killed by an enemy creep, or killed by a tower.

This will impact the game in a number of different ways. In the early game, players will have some extra sustain as they can count on extra healing every minute but clearing enemy creep waves will be a bit more difficult. As the game rolls on, creep waves will be able to apply more pressure to towers.

This will likely be a mixed bag in terms of how games progress, but most of the other key changes are designed to slow things down.

Leveling takes longer, Ancients and Glyph of Fortification buffed in Dota 2 update 7.32

Many of the system changes in Dota 2 update 7.32 are designed to slow down the pace of the game and prevent death pushes through a single lane.

Much of this is focused on slowing down leveling. The XP required to level up was uniformly increased, with 500 more XP in total required to hit level 30 and all other levels being increased. Alongside this the jungle was changed to offer less-accessible farm. The most notable change is the removal of the mid-lane small camp that has offered easy XP to heroes such as Shadow Fiend and Invoker.

Passive gold income was also decreased by 15%. While this was likely done in part to compensate for the introduction of flagbearer creeps, it will still be a profound hit to support players.

Alongside this is a new methodology to Glyph of Fortification refreshes. Glyph’s cooldown will now be refreshed each time the first tower in a tier is knocked down. For example, if a team has all three tier-two towers up and the enemy team knocks over the tier-two mid, Glyph of Fortification will be refreshed. This will happen again for tier-three towers and tier-four.

This will mostly prevent the devastating mid-game team fights where a team can clear a tier-two, tier-three, and lane of barracks in quick succession. Heroes will obviously be impacted as well, with base defense heroes such as Arc Warden and Sniper being a bit more powerful while hard-pushing Lycan and Troll Warlord should take a hit.

The cherry on top of all this is a huge buff to the Ancient. The Ancients’ armor is increased from 13 to 23 and its backdoor protection HP regen has been doubled.

Pro players and analysts such as Troels Lyngholt “syndereN” Nielsen have discussed how Dota 2 has become too fast-paced in recent years. How this will pan out at different levels of play will be important to see. It’s also set to have a profound impact on The International 2022 qualifiers which start on September 3.