Dota 2’s 7.30e patch nerfs Magnus and Tiny, decreases Rune stored duration for Bottles

With The International 10 in the rearview, it was only a matter of time until Valve hit us with the big post-TI update that would shape the game based on how the meta evolved before and during Dota 2’s biggest event. 

Gameplay update 7.30e is just that, although outside of a few core changes, it appears that Valve just wanted to tweak a lot of little things and let the players do the work in shifting the meta again. And Valve is also adding Marci, the game’s newest hero.

A lot of the nerfs from this patch focused on heroes that saw a large amount of use and a decent success rate at TI10, including Magnus and Ember Spirit. Outside of a few exceptions, however, a lot of the more dangerous heroes seem to have gotten off lightly. 

For example, Magnus had his Horn Toss nerfed twice and his Skewer range reduced across the board, but it will still likely be a heavily used hero despite lacking some of the devastating impact and Horn Toss stun. 

Monkey King is another good example since it was the most heavily contested hero at TI10, having been banned 140 times, the most of any hero. He only saw a small reduction in movement speed and cooldown increases for Primal Spring and Boundless Strike, although the latter is pretty significant, going from 23/22/21/20 to 28/26/24/22 seconds. 

Tiny, a hero that was highly contested at TI and seen as a meta-warping threat heading into the event, also got nerfed. Tree Throw and Tree Grab both had their damage restructured. 

Another potentially big hit was Void Spirit, who had Dissimilate changed from a 0.2 cast point to 0.3 and its shard bonus reduced slightly along with his level 20 and 25 Talents. All of these were minor changes, but when combined, they could throw some Void players off. Similar changes happened to other heroes like Earthshaker and Elder Titan. 

Overall, it looks like the general update that reduces small camps XP bounties by 10 percent or the Rune stored duration going from 120 seconds to 90 seconds for a Bottle might be the most impactful changes outside of a large number of item updates. 

The small camp XP reduction will potentially hurt safe-lane Support players, and the Bottle not being able to hold a Rune for as long as it used to is likely going to spice up the mid-lane meta since players won’t just be able to farm, collect a Rune, rinse, and repeat as easily anymore.