One Week With Patch 7.00
Dota’s newest version has so fundamentally changed the game in both form and function that it feels less like a patch than a sequel. One week later, we take a look at Monkey King's balance, and the winners and losers of the changes in patch 7.00.
Monkey King Imbalance Status: TBD
The overreaction to Monkey King is familiar to anyone who has played Dota long enough to see their own share of new hero releases. It should be stated that Monkey King’s win rate is currently 49.80%, which means he is losing more games than he’s winning. But what’s been most inflaming to opponents is the way he’s winning, and when Monkey King’s pick rate for patch 7.00 is 64.14%, everyone has something to point to for why they lost.
He’s one of those heroes that requires a counter and a competitive lane opponent, and the answers to what those specifics are haven’t made it to public knowledge. New heroes benefit from ignorance, and it’s that moment of surprise when he sneaks past your tower disguised as a tree and ganks you underneath it that we overreact. It’s something that has never happened before, and we have to question if it should even be allowed.
Like all previous patches, it’ll take some time before Monkey King’s balance in the meta can be judged. Valve recently doled out some minor nerfs in 7.01. It most likely won’t be enough to change public opinion, if he’s still dominating the laning stage against unaware opponents.
Lycan and Visage Top Greatest Win Rate Increases
The increase in win rate for both Lycan and Visage are more than double the next highest hero (Chaos Knight at 4.13%). Visage is finally a winning hero (52%) in pubs, escaping the longstanding pub curse of Dota heroes with summons. It was usually the case that the more units you had to control, the more likely someone wouldn’t know what to do with them. That’s long been the story with heroes like Broodmother, Enchantress, Chen, and Lone Druid, whose pub win rates belie their success in pro Dota.
This all speaks to the impact of Visage’s buffs in patch 7.00. If a pub player can control 3-4 units and get above a 50% win rate, then there’s something wrong. Both 
Gravekeeper's Cloak and 
Summon Familiars received significant buffs. The rework to familiars made them more reliable and consistent damage dealers without having to reset to Stone Form, while their HP change and synergy with Cloak made them that more durable in fights. Visage also benefits from being one of the better counters to Monkey King, who is in nearly every game.
At his peak in 7.00, Lycan’s win rate increased by a shocking 9 points, from 46 to 55%. That’s what happens when Howl gets buffed, Necronomicon gets buffed, Feral Impulse now increases Lycan’s damage by near 50%, and 
Summon Wolves gets a new Cripple ability. If it was already hard to run away from a max speed Lycan before, now it’s even worse. Like Visage, he’s a hero with summons that became a >50% win rate hero. It also helps when Howl now also buffs your teammates HP. You don’t need to control summons effectively to provide a benefit to the team.
Sven and Omniknight Are 7.00’s Biggest Losers
Sven dropped 7% in pick rate, moving from 14th most popular to 24th, and received the greatest hit in win rate, dropping 4 points to 49%. Though the new Mask of Madness seems like a viable build for Sven, he has suffered most from the changes to
Helm of the Dominator and the jungle. There are simply less things to farm on the map, and players can no longer self stack the ancient camp (if he’s even able to clear it), now that HotD is basically a support item.
It says a lot about Omniknight’s balance in pubs when he has the 2nd largest dip in win percentage and still the 4th highest win rate. Repel’s downtime doubled with the change to its cooldown in patch 7.00, and it’s also no longer dispellable, which doesn’t matter much since pub players don’t buy 
Diffusal Blade anyway. Purification also took a hit, but it was cushioned with some buffs to to mana cost.
Omniknight benefit the most from the map changes and a talent tree. He’s always been a poor laner and farmer, and now Omniknight has access to more gold and XP by roaming the map and its bounty runes. At level 10, he has the luxury of either increased gold (60/min) or XP (+15%) depending on the flow of the game.
There will be more time before the dust settles, but it seems for now Valve is keeping a close eye on the meta, with daily UI updates and patch 7.01 just a week later.
"now that HotD is basically a support item." LMAO
It is. It's more of an early-game stat boosting/pushing item.
Sven picker gonna cry haha Anh Nguyen
Well i didnt play any games on 7.00 but looking at how pros play in this meta, it seems like 2-1-2 laning with 3 carrys is pretty good option for the current meta. However downside of 3 carrys lineup means weak early game, but if u can survive from it, then the game is on your side literally.
HotD work for omni xD
HoTD is an amazing support item. 430 movespeed on dominated creeps is just too good. All the disables and auras you can get for 1800g plus 8 hp regen and 10 atk speed aura.
Only problem is that many supports have better core items to go for first. and in later stages of the game HoTD might not be a good choice anymore when you can push for a force staff for example.
No comments on the new shitty UI?
Sven wtf , please buff osfrog
Dota's most balanced hero got nerf by technically downgrading the only item that made him OP.. which in technically the hero needs revamping on item build..
And visage has already been dumpstered
sven was a cancer in last patch, now he is ok, i like that change... at least that one
I would rather have a cancerous sven than any cancerous agi carry to support in lane
@MONKEY but that happens cuz of BAD PLAYERS, no for BROKEN CANCEROUS HEROES.. but this patch have his owns.. specially the super OMGWTF BROKEN MONKEY KING
Not Sven :(
"it’s that moment of surprise when he sneaks past your tower disguised as a tree and ganks you underneath it that we overreact"
Did the author actually watch the clip? That's not remotely close to what happened.
madbro...clearly not as there is no sneaking going on at all! Just singsing slaying a small child.
+1 Neoarcadia
Wth, today they even worsened it, by forcing the auto build over the shop....
Sure now everyone has to make a custom build, not to have a shity shop layout with random useless item, that some monkey at valve choosed to put there ...
matrice lul
Enemy monkey king = 30-0
My Team's monkey king = 0-12
HotD is still by no means a no-go for carry heroes I think. Despite no longer having any lifesteal, it still adds an average amount of Stats, HP regen, and attack speed.
I still can't understand why they changed Necrophos' aghanim. Sure, the cooldown reduction is nice, but why can't I put players on the spectator couch anymore by disabling their buybacks?
I dont like the game as much anymore...
I think Lone Druid need some bear buff... =/
Yeah, nice Ui changes! Now i cant see my stats when i press alt but therefor i can see them at the fucking edge of the screen by hovering my mouse above and accidently scrolling the fucking screen. And i love the changes to the shop. No srsly the ui even gets worse on a daily basis... i dont know what valve is trying to accomplish...
I think HotD is too costly for a support to buy. I think a tanky offlane would be better of with it, maybe like Underlord. Stack auras and generally be a annoying shit for the enemy team.
om telolet om
WO L O L O the reason why necro aghs got changed was because it was literally op before, necro was an overall weak hero, and his aghs made him viable, they want to make necro viable, not the most powerful ultimate in the game viable. he is definitely weaker now than before but next patch or in some small patches he will be buffed, and he will be a nice hero then who is not quite as obnoxious. in other news my theory that monkey king is not op is confirmed by stats, but that may be totally different in pro games, so whatever.
Expanding on finnaggann's points:
1. keep in mind that there are a few heroes that are balanced around their aghs upgrade. Easiest one to think of before the patch was Tiny, who didn't come online before he had aghs, and it really felt like just an extra point in Grow. That's not a problem, lots of heroes are balanced around the assumption that they will get an item. Slark has skadi. Legion has blademail. Tons rely on blink. So while a lot of heroes can get aghs as an optional depending on the game, I don't see it as a problem for a few heroes to be required to have aghs.
2. Taking away Necro aghs removes a truly unique selling point for the hero, especially with the advent of death timer cooldown reductions in skill trees. He could have been a great pocket pick which would have forced heroes to grab the timer cooldown instead of their better option. In a lot of situations you want to force your opponent to make a decision they don't want to make, and this would have been a great last pick.
3. You're right about the overall changes to Necro. He feels a lot less like a reactionary pick and more like a hero that can round out the shortcomings of your lineup. It's a step towards making him less of a pocket pick who only works in a limited role. That's great, but all of those new additions are not enough to compensate for making his ult incredibly underwhelming. I would rank it among the lowest valued ults in the game, and that's on top of heartstopper still feeling useless after the laning stage. The skill does a very similar thing as Snipers' ult, but that's on such a low cooldown. Why can't necro get an AOE ult instead of a marginal cooldown upgrade?
Bottom line is that it is frustrating to see Necro in this position as while he is more functional, he is less unique and more clunky. Whatever they tried to do ended up changing him from a "sweet but too risky" to a "competent but unrewarding".
"Pub players don't buy defusal" HA. In the patch of every ago carry goes manta defusal really?
nice path, nice monkey..
You can easily owned this mk using ta 💯.
"Monkey King Imbalance Status: TBD"
Really shows how little Dotabuff staff understand about the game, especially when the hero already got nerffed once
lol, the writer hasnt even played the new patch
They need to remove all respawn reduction talents or have them not apply to die back timers for this to feel like Dota again
"...pub players don’t buy diffusal blades anyway" WHAT? That is a very popular item for a lot of agillity carries, and in pub games, a lot of people spam those carries. Jugg? PA? PL? Riki? They are in a lot of pub games and diffusal blade got nerfed because people overuse it, not the other way around.
Writer is a pro-player suck-up hahaha
has the writer ever played pubs? diffussal blades were in almost every game in 6.88.....Helm of dominater is still super common on luna in 7.01, its now a standard jug item as well instead...its a great alternative to drum
я пидарас ебучий я свою мать ебал
@Zombi3 I'm not so sure I can agree that it is a VERY popular item, but the comment shouldn't be taken out of context. Diffusal is intended to be a carry item that counters buffing heroes, much like how MKB counters dodge heroes. The difference is that a lot of people will change their build to get the MKB when there are dodge heroes, but not many will change their build to get the diffusal. Some heroes benefit from the item regardless of its general counter style, just like sniper benefits from MKB even when there isn't a dodge hero. But I wouldn't call either item popular like a Daedalus or Deso is.
In regards to the nerf, it was kind of not a nerf to the carry heroes, but more to remove those rare situations where the item is bought by a support or is simply too useful in very certain situations. The majority of the time the nerf won't be felt, thus the carries that buy it will keep buying it.
i think dotabuff staff should stop reading stats and watching gameplay videos and actually play the fucking game
Totally agree with author on MK - its not as imba as people picture it. The thing is in order to deal with him you need good map control/awareness aka wards etc. which is a problem in many pub games, at least from my experience - not every pub game will have position 5 support who invests ALL his money in wards/dusts/smokes etc. thats why sneaking mk can crush you, BUT if you know he's coming and react properly, he's not that scary. Think of kotl for instanse who invests heavily in wards, getting agh's at some point in the game and gives you alot of map vision or night stalker. From there stun, silence, slow, root and mk is not that scary anymore
My main problem with monkey king is that there aren't a lot of ways to see him in the trees. Ward-cliff wards can see over trees, but even high ground wards can't see him on the trees a level lower. Because of this he has one of the most unseen initiations in the game (second to of course Specter and Zeus who require no approach to begin a fight ). This is an incredibly powerful tool against pubs, where communication is scant and counterplay is much lower than high mmr and pro games
Seems Good
Helm is not a support item. Support have better things to buy.
I thought Eye of Skadi was no longer an attack modifier, it clearly seemed like it when I tried to use Satanic.
Since when pub players do not buy Diffu?