MOBA Madness: Dota 2 6.81 Spring Cleaning patch highlights and analysis

Details for the Dota 2 6.81 patch, Spring Cleaning were announced over the weekend, and while it isn’t as crazy as the 6.79 patch that threw the meta game into disarray, it does have its own share of changes.

(See: Dota 2 gets an update before WC3 DotA and it is crazy)

These changes are significant enough to possibly signal the resurgence of certain heroes such as Keeper of the Light, Vengeful Spirit, Tusk, Windranger, and Ursa. The full patch details, can be found here, but if you don’t want to read that large wall of text, here’s a significantly smaller wall of text with some of the significant changes and some insight:

Broodmother

• Broodmother’s Spin Web’s free pathing no longer deactivates when enemy has vision on Broodmother
• Broodmother’s Spin Web’s free pathing is now disabled for 3 seconds when Broodmother takes damage

  This means: Broodmother still isn’t in captain’s mode, but this makes it easier to play this hero on the offlane. Before this update, a single sentry ward can disable the free pathing, which sometimes makes it difficult to offlane since you are without an escape mechanism. This is compensated, however, with the three-second disable similar to the Blink Dagger.

Earthshaker

• Creeps no longer try to path around Fissure; they will wait for it to disappear
• Echo Slam no longer ignores units that are invisible or in Fog of War

This means: You can most certainly delay creeps using Fissure, but you can no longer use it to pull or reroute creeps. This method used to allow farming of the Ancient Creeps stacks or for stacking creep waves. The Echo Slam change, Lycan’s Wolves, anyone?

Ember Spirit

• Ember Spirit’s Searing Chains duration reduced from 2/2/3/3 to 1/2/2/3. Total damage is still 80/120/240/300
• Ember Spirit’s Sleight of Fist bonus damage reduced from 30/60/90/120 to 20/40/60/80
• Fixed Ember Spirit’s Sleight of Fist to do no damage if cast while disarmed

This means: A lot of people have been calling Ember Spirit “Imba Spirit” because he’s considered to be so imbalanced. This slight nerf to Searing Chains ought to do something to lessen his impact especially in the early game. The third point, which is actually a bug fix, now gives us a good way to deal with him aside from the usual disables. Tah-dah! Heaven’s Halberd and Deafening Blast!

Gyrocopter

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