Valve releases Dota 2 7.25 gameplay update

Valve dropped an update, the 7.25 Gameplay Update in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the changes in Dota 2.

Reworks on All Pick

The classic All Pick matchmaker of Dota 2 has one of the most distinct changes in 7.25. Now, picking heroes will have five rounds, with both teams from Radiant and Dire picking heroes at the same time. Teams will not be able to see the selection until the next round. Should there be a duplicate pick, the player who picked second will be given time to choose another hero.

Furthermore, a standard number of 10 heroes will be banned for every round. This means that the game will automatically ban other heroes should there be less than ten heroes voted. Each ban now has a 50% chance of succeeding, instead of banning only half of the voted heroes. In Captain’s Mode, ban counts have been changed to 4/1/1 instead of 3/2/1, which means that more heroes are banned during the first phase.

Team-based rubber band mechanic removed

A simplified formula was provided in the update to balance out the loss and gain of every kill.

( 50 + VictimNetWorth*0.03 ) / #Heroes

Hero kill sprees gold bounty increased from 60->480 to 200->690
Hero kill sprees xp bounty increased from 400->1800 to 500->2040

Items mostly buffed, but some nerfed

Most of the items had minor changes for balancing. Perhaps one of the most distinct items nerfed is the Boots of Travel, which is no longer active. It instead upgrades the town portal scroll, but you can no longer use it to teleport quickly.

The Headress, Ring of Basilius, Buckler, Pipe of Insight also no longer provide +3 stats, which may be a bummer for some, but maybe necessary for balance. Crystalys also increased it’s cost, from 500 to 700. Its damage was also reduced a bit, but crit chance rose to 30%.

Heroes buffed up…

Some of the noteworthy buffed up heroes in this patch update maybe be the reworked Scepter abilities of Dazzle, Void Spirit and Snapfire. Dazzle can attack eight enemy units at the same time whenever he casts an ability. Void Spirit’s Resonant Pulse is now a charge-based ability with two charges, which silences enemies for 2 seconds. Snapfire, with the Scepter, can Gobble Up an allied creep or hero for 3 seconds and spit it towards enemies, stunning enemies in the area for 1.5 seconds.

… except for a few

Crystal Maiden and Batrider had minor nerfs. Crystal Maiden’s Freezing Field Scepter Frostbite timer was reduced from 2.5 to 2.0. On the other hand, Batrider’s Firefly and Flamebreak were nerfed.

The gameplay update will most likely be the update to be used in the future majors and minors. We can only hope that the pandemic will not progress further.