Winners and Losers of Patch 7.18
Right after the conclusion of qualifiers, Valve released a new patch, addressing some issues present during the qualification process. The patch mostly focused on hero balance changes. Given there is only one tournament left until TI and it is unlikely to have all the top teams, it might be safe to assume that this version of Dota is either final or very close to what we will actually see at The International.
The majority of heroes haven’t been changes significantly enough to result in win rate swings, but there are several notable exceptions we shall discuss today.
Biggest Losers
Io and 
Night Stalker were hit the hardest in 7.18, as everyone reasonable expected from reading the patch notes.
For the first time in recent history Io actually received a nerf that will have a major impact on his competitive presence. Changing Relocate from delayed cast to an actual Channeling spell means saving allies is going to be a lot harder: it creates positioning problems, hence makes the cancelling easier as well.
This change resulted in Io losing 4.04% win rate in pubs and will potentially dethrone the hero from being an almost guaranteed first phase ban or pick. This alone should substantially help with diversifying the meta for the upcoming TI—ever since the Tether rework the hero has been banned in almost every single game.
Night Stalker also got weaker, but only during the daytime. His movement speed was further reduced, while Void now deals only half its damage during the day, resulting in a 3.52% win rate decrease. Changes made the hero even weaker while Hunter in the Night is inactive, but don’t change anything for when the hero is at his best.
Night Stalker is a very unique hero with a very unique set of advantages he offers his team. Scouting, coupled with early game pressure should theoretically allow him to retain his position in the competitive meta: it is still excruciatingly hard to play when the enemy has a massive advantage in terms of initiation, vision and disengagement potential for more than half of the game.
Several other heroes also got worse, all losing slightly over 1.5% win rate: 
Phantom Lancer, 
Naga Siren, 
Skywrath Mage and 
Windranger all got some very deserved nerfs. While the changes for the latter three were quite small, mostly restricted to stats and number changes on skills, they were noticeable enough to open way for other support heroes, further helping in diversifying the meta.
Biggest Winners
Ursa, 
Terrorblade and 
Enchantress were the biggest winners of the patch, all gaining more than 3% win rate.
Ursa’s lane dominance, Roshan potential and teamfight presence have all been substantially increased with a simple +1 stack of Overpower. At level 1 of the ability, he hits the enemy 4 times in less than 1.5 seconds, making it very hard to react to, while the extra damage from Fury Swipes makes every hit count.
The hero is still at his best when supported by teammates who can actually take objectives, other than Roshan, but the amount of space he can create in the first 20-25 minutes of the game is almost unparalleled. If players of all skill levels actually used the provided space, the hero would probably win even more than 55% of his games.
Terrorblade received a rather boring, but evidently effective change. His Agility gain has been further increased—4.2 a level is something old “cancer-lancer” used to have. This change resulted in win rate shift from 48.7% to 52.8%.
The way the hero was balanced lately is somewhat saddening: all of his interesting abilities were nerfed and to compensate for it he was simply made stronger. He is not necessarily easier to play against, compared to his Reflection spam days, but it is probably less frustrating for the opponent and that might be something Valve and IceFrog were going for.
Finally, there is Enchantress, who spent the last several months in Chen’s shadow. The hero received some small all around buffs: Untouchable now scales much better, Impetus deals slightly more damage while the hero herself can attack from slightly further away. The end result is surprising 3.7% increase in hero’s win rate.
It is unclear how well the hero will fit into competitive meta: one one hand she is a decent counter to Chen laning, especially after his cooldown on Holy Persuasion was increased. On the other, that was mostly true even before the Enchantress buffs and almost no one actually tried to play the hero.
Closing Thoughts
Heroes covered today are the only heroes we expect to be played substantially more or substantially less in the upcoming TI. At least during the group stage. As was always the case, by the time playoffs hit, most teams draft not around the meta, but rather around their opponent and it looks like this patch will actually support this approach well.
There are probably going to be small balance adjustments further down the road, especially after the Summit, but they should be mostly smaller number adjustments, rather than drastic overhauls. It is both saddening, but also quite helpful: we will keep you up to date with all pub developments in the upcoming months, explaining how win more of your everyday pubs and what heroes to pick.
Next patch --> Night stalker now has a vision range of 500, and losses 1% of max hp per second during the day.
second!
i repeat -> buff heroes ,nerf them, buff them again, nerf them again...'meta' they call it they just have rounds and a lottery, all the losing heroes are pulled from the lottery and given buffs and then the winning heroes are picked from a lottery and given nerfs
just on and on and on without any actual meaningful additions or interactions...single biggest problem in dota i would say even bigger than the community
Winners- Nobody
Losers- Everyone who plays dota
Valve breaks dota before every TI to "better adjust the game for the pro scene"
More like rig the meta for some teams over others...
Dota 2 needs to be represented by an honest company not Valve.
when community like reddit whine on certain heroes, here come the nerf. when pro dont pick or ignore certain heroes in pro match, here come the buff. this will repeat to infinity.
Why is Night Stalker still getting a lick of play? Heroes have completely disappeared off the meta for a few minor nerfs. Meanwhile this guy is literally eating the nerf hammer and still relatively prioritized
Article forgot to mention lycan.. hes been hard hit big time too with winrates plummeting even in the ancient to immortal tiers
Why is everyone outraged ? The eternal cycle of buffs and nerfs is rather normal in a game where picks are asymmetric. If anything, the fact that the meta is tilted and refreshed more often lately is a good thing. The time where you would see the same hero pool in every single game is gone. Thanks Icefrog !
valve needs to buff unnoticed heroes like winter wyvern,dazzle,and weaver more.Their laning stage is so horrible that none want to pick them anymore.The slight buff like Winter Wyvern's arctic burn cd from 50/40/30/20 to 44/36/28/20 would help,since Winter Wyvern cant harass much beside her arctic burn.The fact that splinter blast destroy the lane equilibrum also worsen thing.
they buff my favorite hero clinkz and nerf my all time favorite lycan... in my bracket lycan is hardly pick. he is now walking with -2 base armor... making and nerf his base damage.... but then checking on divine bracket he still at 2nd best winrate... but i can see his pick rate is gradually going down. 0.02% in my bracket.
i still doubt we can still see lycan first pick or ban, that includes IO, NS etc.... pros play them in a very coordinated team, if played well they are very strong... but in pub its totally different. You dont expect a coordinated team who happens to meet the first time.
Los unicos perdedores son los peruanos
@Sleight of My Fist In You...
I don't know what you want, man. Could you please expand ? The buffs and nerfs come because it is impossible to balance the pro and pub scenes. Everytime a single tweak is made, the whole game is being changed. And no matter the patch, the players will always, ALWAYS, find the most OP stuff and try to use it to their best abilities. As a developer it's just not possible to foresee all the available heroes and spells combinations. So everytime a change is made, someone from the community takes notes and uses it in a way that will guarantee them a win. That's what drives and changes a meta.
What meaningful interactions or additions are you talking about? What do you want to see ? Are shrines, new roshan, new camps, new runes, new heroes, new items not meaningful additions ? If they would add them more often, then you would complain that the game is changed and it's not Dota anymore. I'm really interested in your answer.
In my humble opinion, in the last one and a half years the game has achieved unimaginable levels in terms of balanced meta and amount of heroes played. The game in itself is beautiful. The problem lies within the toxic community, that's what stopped me from playing. And that is Valve's fault for not adressing this huge situation that will ultimately kill the game. I still watch all the important competitions and I am very happy with my current relationship with Dota, but sometimes I miss playing. I just know what will happen if I start again, and I don't want those feelings. It's a shame really that Valve does not care about the players.
But the meta and hero diversity are awesome, I don't understand why people are complaining about this, maybe someone can give me an insightful answer. Cheers, have a nice day!
Free game no bitchin boys
@sleight you ever get tired of whining every single patch?
@slight and @Librock whinging again... is there any way we could nerf you two out of Dotabuff comments?
nah... @Failing_Yak, @Librock has a point, unlike @sleight he's not simply whining every single patch like @Aqours said, but a big so-called balancing patch shouldnt nowhere near TI starting point, that being said, other than bug fix patch, the qualification stage and above should off of any interference. Would you say it fair to change the rule in the midst of a tournament?
Give CM more MS
Pls fix zeus!
Make Omniknight Great Again!
The meta is always predicated by the professional players. Only a huge shit storm in reddit or equal can result in other changes. It has always been so and it will forever be so. So the low skill pub stompers can receive buffs if they are unused by the pros... The pros play this game on a whole other level. No matter how Divine you are...
@HOO HOO HAA HAA you..... you deserves a medal, Sir
I wish they would give dota plus subscribers give out more reports..
Слабая статья
I can confirm Ursa is pretty good right now. :P
Gyro needs much more str gain btw.
https://dota2.gamepedia.com/Aeon_Disk/Changelogs
7.10 - 7.18
gg volvo, that's just 1 of many
@HOO HOO HAA HAA
In my opinion valve have tried to combat toxicity, with report and mute option, but people abuse the report system to report innocent player, maybe he was a player that play bad not a griever not a flamer or he picked techies, if I remember correctly because of that report are now limited. Yea there are things that can be improved ny valve but it won't stop toxicity. (Sorry for bad english)
JAKIRO talking, all bug(weaver,nyx,viper bla bla) hero talking, winter wyn talking, but PHONEIX squawking... Someone must fix that shit. He is not bird. He is God of Icarus..
squawking
As long as Oracle flys under the radar I am happy.
Still ppl ignores how hard lycan is nerfed for the 3rd time in a row.. not sure if he is meta viable anymore..
Lets thank GabeN that he doesnt put people like @sleight of my fist or @Librock Games in charge of the balancing. Otherwise we would be HotS or LoL soon.
Just remove zues agha or remove the stun!!!
Всеравно будут и дальше пикать баланара.
Подправьте там про урсу, там "Ураc"
Опять на зевса насрать, заебали, удалите его нахуй
I see this runner bitch called wr and retarded god called zeus like every game now and people keep saying "balanced patch" "so diverse hero pick"
nerf that cancer shit called riki son
Chen not listed on the biggest losers. Clearly the article creator didn't play a single game of Chen in his life to realise it's the worst Chen nerf in years
Valve nerf and buff heroes just to make sure people not leave this game lol. Like patch every 2 weeks and dota plus every month.
7.19 update , kunkka talent 25 level change tidebringer -1,5 sec to -1,8 sec , it would be