Neutral item nerfs in the latest Dota 2 patch, 7.30d, set to dictate the course of TI 10

The final Dota 2 patch was recently released before TI 10, less than two weeks away from the tournament.

This is the closest a balance patch has been released to TI. The same can also be said about the major update, 7.30, which arrived only five weeks prior to Valve's premiere annual tournament.

Now, with the release of 7.30d, players expected monumental changes. Notably, the neutral item nerfs will have a huge impact on the game's proceedings.

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Dota 2 might not have the same focus on neutral stack-farming going into TI

The 7.29 meta was all about stacking up ancients and protecting them. The reason for stacks being so important in tier-1 Dota 2, as well as most high-skill bracket pubs, was a meta that incentivized hitting early item timings. This was done to group up and take objectives before the other team.

This is the common root that explains all the characteristics of the Dota 2 meta throughout the AniMajor. It explains the prevalence of healing and sustain-based lineups.

Coupled with that, it sheds light on Luna and Templar Assassin, who can take advantage of early Dragon Lance stats to take ancient stacks and get a huge farming boost at the 10-15 minute mark.

Going into TI 10, the 7.30 update echoed some of these meta tenets. Sven and Kunnka were buffed both directly and indirectly through Silver Edge changes. More importantly, Clinkz became the highest trending Dota 2 carry of the new update, thanks to Burning Barrage.

However, Valve has added two countermeasures against this in patches 7.30c and 7.30d in the last two weeks. The first, and most direct, is the nerf to neutral stacks. Currently, neutral stacks grant 15 percent less gold and mana to the core players.

On its own, a 15 percent nerf may not seem like enough to take the focus away from stack-farming. But most heroes who prioritize farming stacks to quickly get their item cores also benefitted from timely neutral item drops. Arguably, this was a big part of what made 20-minute deathball pushes so effective in 7.29, and brought Templar Assassin back into the meta.

Now that these items are nerfed, the incentive to hit this midgame timing is also less dominant. Instead, the most successful carries of 7.30d seem to be strong laners who tend not to farm stacks in the jungle, such as Weaver and Life Stealer.