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Dota 2 developer Valve released the latest 7.21d patch towards the end of March with the conclusion of DreamLeague Major. While the patch features some re-balancing to items like Atos, Aeon Disk, Greaves, and Solar Crest, it also brought forward many welcoming changes to heroes. The most unnoted and unclearly described change was made to the Dire hard camp. The hard camp pull on the Dire side was made easier, this change is significant because it was really difficult and frustrating to pull the hard camp into the lane, substantially affecting the laning phase in the early minutes of the game.
The most exciting changes of the patch were made to the heroes of the game. After the patch has settled and analyzed here are few heroes worth playing in this patch:
#1 Sniper
Sniper was average in the last patch, but 7.21d gave the little hero a much-needed boost. Now that Shrapnel replenish time has been reduced from 50 to 40 seconds, sniper’s early game has become much stronger. The Take Aim ability was also buffed by reducing its active cooldown. The new sniper build in this patch focuses more on nuke rather than right click damage. One could choose both but it is good to try new things when they are in the meta.
Basically, sniper makes Midas along with other early lane items, then the hero takes the cooldown reduction talent available to him on reaching level 10. This enables the hero to farm faster with Midas and gain XP along the way, it also reduces Sharpnel cooldown to about 30 seconds which is insane. A Ghost Scepter into Ethereal Blade is then recommended for easy kills by using ethereal and ult. Other hybrid items like Yasha and Kaya which deal with damage and increase nuke potential are also suggested.
#2 Sandking
Sandking had fallen off as an offlaner or position four in the previous patches. However, with recent buffs to his Sand Storm ability the hero is back in the meta. Sand Storm damage increase from level two onwards really made it easier for the hero to farm and deal damage to the enemy. It is a critical ability which enables Sand King to farm very fast, deal damage in an AOE and disengage from fights, making it an offensive and very reliable defensive ability. Apart from this Burrowstrike was also buffed, granting the ability significant cast range.
Items recommended on this hero are power treads and soul ring for mana if your lane is comfortable, otherwise tranquil boots if you need tons of regen. In general, Treads give tons of stats and health points, later in mid game a hood or a van Guard will gel really nicely. If you are really controlling the game a radiance will absolutely kill the game because your hero will be dealing with insane amounts of AOE damage to the opposing team.
#3 Storm Spirit
Storm Spirit was pretty much a dead hero since last two patches but after the buffs to him in 7.21d the hero is back in the game. The hero was basically given a series of buffs including an increase in his Intelligence from 22 + 3.7 to 23 + 3.9. Both the base Intel and bonus per level was increased making him really strong. In addition to this Static Remnant was also buffed increasing its damage from level two onward. Electric Vortex was also buffed by increasing the pull distance. These changes have really made the hero extremely strong in the laning phase and as we all know Storm scales really well late game. Item builds on the hero have slightly changed. A player starts with normal treads, bottle, and kaya or orchid situationally. However, they can build two to three bloodstones depending upon the game. The limitless mana and HP provided by bloodstone makes storm tanky and literally unstoppable at the same time.
#4 Drow Ranger
Drow has been receiving buffs in the recent patches and was slowly starting to get into the limelight. However, in 7.21d Drow was massively buffed with an increase to her base agility gain from 2.5 to 2.8 coupled with base agility increase by six. She now has more armour, attack speed and other stats which come from a better agility gain. The base agility of drow has increased from 19 back in patch 7.21b to 29 in the current one. The agility dependent hero has seen a massive jump in her win rate and pick rate in the current meta. A squishy hero like Drow is now enjoying 53-55% win rate from higher to average MMR bracket.
#5 Templar Assassin
Templar has been very far from the meta for quite sometime now. In 7.21d, the hero was buffed by increasing her agility gain from 2.8 to 3.2. The Meld ability debuff duration was also increased from 10 to 12. The changes don't look very attractive on paper but the hero has really picked up in her win rate on dotabuff from tiny 43 to 47%. A four percent increase is very significant and shows that TA is pretty much coming back in meta. Especially the players who love and know the hero well. The hero has a BKB piercing stun from Meld which was added to her level 25 talent in patch 7.20 contributing to her late game effectiveness. One more round of buffs and this hero could become overpowered in the right hands.
