Developed by Valve, Dota 2 is never short of updates as the team is constantly busy balancing their heroes for an even match.
The newest patch named 6.88b is out. It is not a huge patch but big enough to affect most of the heroes in game.
With over 110 heroes to pick from, you may have probably used Timbersaw and Death Prophet repeatedly or never at all. For those who love the hero, it is important to know that they may not be as powerful as they used to be, especially Timbersaw. The hero’s strength gain has been reduced from 2.1 to 1.8 making it slightly weaker. The same goes for Death Prophet as her base strength has been reduced by 1.
Sniper is easily one of the favorite heroes and is among the most picked characters in pub matches. Sometimes, even the ranked and pro level matches feature sniper who has an insanely long distance fighting capability even though he is squishy most times. The hero’s turn rate has improved from 0.6 to 0.7. His night vision coverage has been increased from 1000 to 1100 allowing him to spot enemies from a much higher distance and start firing.
Due to micro management issues, very few players pick Warlock. But, he is an extremely offensive pusher with his golems. The overall health of the golems had been significantly increased making them extremely powerful. They now have a base health of 1000 compared to the earlier 900 while the maximum health has been increased from 1800 to 2000. It should be really tough to go against those golems unless you are using the right hero.
The mana cost for Bloodlust used by Bloodseeker has been reduced from 75 to 50 allowing him to repeatedly use it to strike enemies. Another nerfed hero is Riki whose blink strike maximum damage has been reduced from 120 to 100. He is always invisible making it tough to spot and kill him. The character was removed of all its previous attributes due to too many complaints and now further downgrades are being done to make sure Riki doesn’t become an annoying menace in important games.
An entire list of changes made to each specific character is available in the Dota blog. It is short compared to major patch updates but will have a definitive impact in the game, if you use the specific hero in most games.