The new 7.27b Gameplay Update went live on the servers on July 16,
2020. Usually, b-patches are rather small. This time, Valve brought a giant
update with a few item changes and most importantly, nearly every hero received
a minor or even larger rework.
Valve often tries new mechanics and skills, but sometimes, IceFrog
and his team do not seem to approve of how their experiments turn out. Several
abilities got reverted to an older version. For example, Clinkz’ skill Burning
Army now got shifted to an Aghanim’s Scepter bonus skill. His main ultimate got
changed back to Death Pact, which used to be his ult. until Patch 7.20.
Treant Protector’s Leech Seed is now an enemy target spell again.
Chaos Knight’s Chaos Strike now has a 30% chance to proc instead of using a
cool down. Tiny’s Tree Grab no longer slows his movement speed and has a five
charge limit again. And the most important part of the patch notes – Dark
Seer’s Vacuum cooldown got refined from 60/50/40/30 to 60.0/50.0/40.0/30.0. The
toggle feature for Medusa’s Split Shot celebrates a comeback as well.
A lot of heroes received movement speed buffs. Most notably, IO’s
base speed got increased from 280 to 320, so prepare for a fast ball of light
dashing through your pubs. Apart from base values, abilities are affected as
well.
Shadow Fiend has seen some action in competitive play as a
hard-hitting midgame monster that can end games quickly if he’s able to
snowball. 7.27b makes the hero stronger in that regard by amping up the bonus
damage he receives from his Necromastery passive.
Despite being nerfed for what feels like eight-straight patches now,
Phoenix remains a strong pick for both support roles. So Icefrog nerfed him
some more by increasing the mana cost of Fire Spirits from 80/90/100/110 to 120
and rescaled the hit count for Supernova from 5/8/11 to 6/8/10.
Hand of Midas is back, as the item’s recipe cost has been reduced
from 1850 to 1750 gold, meaning you can now get it faster and easier.
Meanwhile, Monkey King Bar has been nerfed as its recipe cost has been
increased from 350 to 550. Finally, Abyssal Blade, Mjollnir, Silver Edge, and
Solar Crest can no longer be disassembled while Silver Edge can now be
disassembled.
The list of changes is extremely long, as nearly all heroes are
affected in some way, one can find all detailed changes in the official patch
notes, either on the official Dota homepage or in-game!
