Speeed on the 7.41f patch in Dota 2: “It’s a little frustrating that it’s nothing but nerfs.”

I think this hero is terrible now. Don’t get me wrong: in terms of his skill set, Treant is one of the best heroes in Dota. He can push lanes, scout, excels in team fights, and remains useful in the late game thanks to his ability to control the map through BKB and his vision.

But these are very harsh changes. The duration of invisibility after exiting the trees has been cut in half—now you literally won’t be able to move unnoticed through many of the gaps between the trees. People might tell me, “Just use your first ability.” But you can’t use it just for every single such movement. Plus, you have three less intelligence, and your second ability now costs mana.

If you have 3,000 MMR, don’t pick Treant. In my opinion, that’s already overkill, especially combined with the nerfs from the last patch. I’m betting his win rate will drop by five or six percent and become one of the lowest in Dota.

Aghanim’s Shard no longer deals damage to non-hero units. Seriously? Is that really how they decided to change it? Not just reduce the damage?

That’s pretty harsh. Invoker relied heavily on clearing waves with Ghost Walk—that approach had practically become standard. I’m sure you can play him just fine other ways, using Forge Spirit and all that. But I’m not sure I would have changed him exactly like that.

I suppose a nerf was necessary, but this one seems too harsh. I don’t like it when heroes are stripped of their versatility and farming options. I like it when many heroes can farm—it makes them more flexible. Invoker, of course, can farm just fine without it, but Ghost Walk was a very interesting tool for map play. Although he was extremely unpleasant to play against—perhaps that’s exactly why they decided to get rid of it.

Bounty Hunter has been significantly nerfed. Losing that much gold from Track is a real blow. His level 10 talent has been weakened by nearly half, and they’ve also taken away his best level 20 talent.

That said, I still consider him a good and reliable hero. If you really enjoy playing him, these changes shouldn’t make you give him up. I think he’ll remain one of the best heroes for setting the pace and providing vision.

But the nerfs are still insane. Necessary to some extent, but insane nonetheless. His time at the top was short-lived: Bounty Hunter had only recently entered the meta. I don’t want to say the hero is dead, but I’d guess his win rate will drop by four to five percent.

It’s a good patch. At least the changes here seem less random. Sometimes you read the patch notes and think, “What was that all about?” It feels like the changes don’t affect anything. That’s definitely not the case here: I liked a lot of the changes.

But I’d like to see more buffs. Maybe the developers are afraid to raise the overall power level of the heroes too much, and I’m missing something. Still, it feels like there are a bit too many nerfs here and not enough buffs. Marci got a slight buff, Mars got a slight one, Warlock too—but who actually got a serious buff? Disruptor didn’t, Chen didn’t really, and neither did Broodmother or Batrider.

It’s a little frustrating to me that this patch is full of nerfs. Valve, if you’re listening: you’ve significantly weakened a lot of heroes in this patch. Maybe there’s a good reason for this. But add a few buffs in the next patch so there’s something to try out. Although, to be fair, nerfing some heroes makes others more viable.