Overview of Dota 2 Patch 7.22

After the long wait, patch 7.22 is finally here. This is the biggest patch we are going to get until TI9 ends. Regardless, this is one of the best patches we’ve ever had in a very long time. Patch 7.22 adds a lot of new, exciting content and so many intuitive features that any player can appreciate.

Since there are so many changes in this patch, I will not be able to cover them all in one single article. So, I will be only be doing an overview on the General Changes and Item Changes in this article. I will be covering the Hero Changes from 7.22 in the next article.

General Changes

• Added new Scepter upgrades for all of the 24 remaining heroes without an upgrade
• Updated various older Scepter upgrades
• Scepter can now be consumed as a buff by purchasing a 2000 gold recipe upgrade. Scepter buffs do not grant secondary stat bonuses
• Roshan now drops a consumable Scepter buff item. The third Roshan will randomly drop either a consumable Scepter item or a Refresher Shard. The fourth Roshan has both. You can select Roshan to see his inventory and find out what items will drop
• Added a new visual effect under heroes that have a Scepter upgrade

This is possibly one of the most exciting additions we’ve got among the last few patches. Players have always complained about the fact that some heroes don’t have an Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade, which gives the other heroes an unfair advantage in terms of itemization and scaling. 7.22 finally brings an Aghs Scepter upgrade for all heroes.

Scepter can also be consumed now, with a 2000 gold recipe. I think this is a massive buff to all late-game heroes. Previously many heroes couldn’t go for the Aghanim’s Scepter simply because they do not have enough item slots to support it.

Now you can also get the Scepter consumable from 3^rd Rosh, which I think is an incredible addition to the game.

• Added Mars to Captains Mode
• Added Io to Captains Mode

Finally, IO is back in Captains Mode, and Mars is going to make his grand entry into the competitive scene. It is going to be incredible to see how the best teams will use Mars. These heroes have also received a few changes in 7.22. I will be covering those changes in the next article.

• Killstreak XP bounty increased from 200->1250 to 400->1800
• XP requirement to reach level 5/6 reduced from 600/620 to 580/600
• XP required to reach level 19+ increased by 100 each level

This will ensure that both the supports will hit level 6 at the 10 min mark. I say this because the Tome of Knowledge has also received a few changes, which we will talk about in the Item Changes section. Ultimately, this will bring a lot of action into the game, as soon as the laning phase ends.

• Siege creeps base attack time increased from 2.7 to 3
• Siege creeps now spawn two units at 35 minutes instead of 30 minutes
• Siege creeps can no longer be dominated, enchanted or converted
• Tier 3+ towers damage increased from 152 damage to 175
• Tier 1 Tower Protection aura armor bonus increased from 2 to 3
• Tier 2+ Tower Protection aura armor bonus increased from 4 to 5
• Tier 2+ Towers now have a multishot attack when glyph is activated. Attacks up to two additional targets. Prioritizes the closest units.

All these changes make it harder to breach into the high-ground. They will also increase the average length of a game.

Changes like these are very easy to ignore and take for granted, but these are the type of changes that highly impact the meta. It all depends on what the pros and players from the higher MMR brackets think is viable after these changes in 7.22.

For example, since breaching high ground is harder now, teams can start making Turtling strats like how OG played in the last TI. This, combined with the Aghanim’s Scepter changes might also completely change the meta heroes of the game.

• Roshan: Base armor increased by 2
• Roshan: Attack damage per minute increased from 4 to 6
• Roshan: Last hit gold bounty range changed from 150-400 to 225-325 (average unchanged)
• Roshan: Last hit XP bounty reduced from 750 to 400

All these changes make it a lot harder to take Roshan down. IceFrog is also slowly trying to remove all the additional benefits that Roshan provides, mainly the XP bonus. The items Roshan drops, and the gold bounty on him is already more than enough for one of the teams to get an incredible advantage.

• Heroes can now have non-standard initial attack speed values (previously 100 for all heroes)

* Abaddon: Base attack speed increased from 100 to 115

* Broodmother: Base attack speed increased from 100 to 125

* Crystal Maiden: Base attack speed increased from 100 to 115

* Gyrocopter: Base attack speed increased from 100 to 125

* Mirana: Base attack speed increased from 100 to 115

* Silencer: Base attack speed increased from 100 to 115

* Slark: Base attack speed increased from 100 to 120

* Venomancer: Base attack speed increased from 100 to 115

* Weaver: Base attack speed increased from 100 to 120

So all these heroes just got a lot of extra attack speed in 7.22. I guess most of them needed that, but definitely not Slark. Slark is going to benefit a lot out of 20 extra attack speed at the beginning of the game.

Item Changes

Eye of Skadi

• Slow duration changed from 5/2.5 for melee/range attackers to 3 seconds
• Slow amount reduced from 35% to 20% when used against melee heroes
• Slow amount increased from 35% to 45% when used against ranged heroes
• Attack speed slow now matches the movement slow values above

Skadi is one of the best late-game items, and we see it getting picked up very frequently. Therefore, even small changes to this item will be very impactful in-game.

The changes to Skadi in 7.22, is a direct nerf to all ranged heroes. Ranged heroes were a big nuisance in the previous patch. Although it was mainly because of Drow Ranger, I guess IceFrog decided that Ranged heroes need a nerf in general.

Observer Ward

• Cost decreased from 75 to 50
• Gold bounty increased from 100 + 2/min to 100 + 4/min
• XP bounty increased from 50 + 4/min to 50 + 6/min

This is a massive buff to support heroes. 50 gold is so incredibly cheap for something as important as an observer ward. They have also increased the gold/XP bounty for dewarding, which is also very helpful for supports.

Moreover, it allows the supports to get extra items at the beginning of the game, which basically increases the impact of the position 5 in the early-game. I hope the next versions of

Sentry Ward

• Cost decreased from 100 to 75
• Now have a stock limit (max limit of 10, starting capacity of 4, replenish rate of 70 seconds)

I can’t begin to express how huge this is for supports. 25 less gold on sentries makes a huge difference on a support’s net worth, because the gold spent on support items like wards/sentries/dust adds up to a lot. Getting to pay 25 less gold on each sentry purchase is massive for us support players.

I’ve seen many comments on forums like Reddit, talking about how big of a buff this is to invisible heroes because of the new max stock limit of 10. I don’t think that’s true at all.

It is very rare for anyone to buy 10 sentries in one go. Also, we have a replenish rate of 70 seconds, which will keep filling up the stock very fast. I doubt anyone will purchase so many sentries that they will run out of stock.

This is especially true in the high MMR bracket, because the best players are very conservative and thoughtful on where they use their sentries. If they think they need too many of them, they just get a gem instead.

Tome of Knowledge

• The initial 10 minute stock now provides 2 tomes.
• Now has a 5 minute use cooldown.

The amount of happiness I felt after reading this change is ineffable. Finally, both the supports will be able to reach level 6 close to the 10 min-mark, regardless of whether either of them had a bad game or not.

IceFrog has plenty of reasons for adding the 5 minute cooldown, but I think they should have made it so that a player wouldn’t be able to purchase a second tome at all if he purchased/used one in the last 10 minutes. I know how toxic Dota players can be, and they might just buy both the tomes and wait for the 5 minute cooldown to use them both.

Vladmir’s Offering

• Mana regen reduced from 1.75 to 1.5

This is a very small change but I needed to talk about Vlads, because it was so popular in the previous patch. It is not uncommon for IceFrog to sometimes ignore/only minorly nerf popular heroes/items. I guess what this means is that IceFrog is satisfied with where the item/hero is at right now.

Personally, I think that this is the right way of balancing. Just because something is popular, doesn’t mean that it can’t be balanced as well. Vlads as an item is popular simply because of how good of a team item it is, and because of how the meta was in the previous patch. Moreover, Vlads has already received a lot of nerfs in the previous patches, and if it got anymore nerfs, players would never buy it at all.

Be sure to check out the next article for an overview of the hero changes in patch 7.22.

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