Dota 7.19c First Impressions
Image by CiDDi
Valve continues to release small balance patches and now it is highly unlikely we will see major balance changes until after the upcoming announced Minor qualifiers are over. Or even longer.
7.19c can be considered an even harsher version of 7.19b, with the meta heroes receiving further nerfs. The only non-hero nerf in the patch was a 
Blade Mail nerf, increasing the item’s cooldown and reducing the bonus armor it provides. Given how the item was a staple on both Spectre and Wraith King—two of the most problematic pub heroes, the nerf was probably aimed at them specifically, rather than the item as a whole.
Clinkz
- Base strength reduced by 2
- Searing Arrows mana cost increased from 10 to 12
- Level 20 Talent reduced from +20 Health Regen to +16
- Level 25 Talent reduced from +4s Strafe Duration to +3s
Clinkz received further nerfs to his starting strength. The hero currently starts the game with 416 HP, confirming him as the squishiest hero in the game. Early trends show that the hero now wins less than 50% of his games.
Top it with extra 20% manacost on Searing Arrows as well as an exact 25% reduction to the popular level 20 and 25 talents' effectiveness and it is unsurprising to see him fall below the "gold standard" for balance, given how he wasn't particularly dominant in the last month.
Dark Willow
- Bramble Maze total damage reduced from 140/180/220/260 to 125/150/175/200
- Shadow Realm cooldown increased from 30/24/18/12 to 32/26/20/14
- Cursed Crown stun duration reduced from 2/2.5/3/3.5 to 1.75/2.25/2.75/3.25
- Bedlam damage reduced from 60/120/180 to 60/110/160
Dark Willow received some all-around nerfs, with 
Bramble Maze probably being the harshest. The ability now deals 60 less damage at level 4. 
Bedlam now also deals 20 less damage per second at maximum level, making it a lot harder for a support to solo kill a core hero in the late game.
Overall it should make hero a little more fair—she required a lot of skill to be truly effective, but in the right hands she was more or less overpowered.
Grimstroke
- Ink Swell no longer makes the target immune to attacks
- Ink Swell no longer silences and disarms the target
- Soulbind duration increased from 4/6/8 to 6/8/10
Grimstroke got his 
Ink Swell reworked. It no longer provides any defensive bonuses, apart from the MS boost, but can be used on your initiating ally to make the initiation a lot more potent and automatically extend the duration of disables. It is hard to call it a nerf or a buff, but the hero’s been losing 1.5% more games ever since the rework.
Spectre
- Desolate radius increased from 375 to 500
- Dispersion rescaled from 10/14/18/22% to 7/12/17/22%
- Haunt mana cost increased from 150 to 150/200/250
- Level 10 Talent changed from +15 Desolate Damage to +4 All Stats
- Level 15 Talent changed from +8 All Stats to +15 Desolate Damage
- Level 25 Talent reduced from +8% Dispersion to +6%
Spectre got some heavy nerfs in the new patch. 
Desolate no longer works if there is a unit allied to your target, within 500 AoE. It basically means the ability will no longer work in most teamfights and it will be much harder to kill supports with your 
Haunt and 
Manta Style illusions. Talent changes will also play a big role in the hero’s late game progression, but we don’t believe they are the primary reason for a 5% win rate drop for the hero. The hero is still viable in pubs, even after the nerfs, but her professional career is most likely over.
Weaver
- Base intelligence reduced by 2
- The Swarm cooldown increased from 35/30/25/20 to 44/36/28/20
- Time Lapse cooldown increased from 60/50/40 to 70/55/40
- Level 10 Talent changed from +20 Mana Break to +7 Strength
- Level 15 Talent changed from +12 Strength to +20 Mana Break
Weaver, who now has less mana to work with, as well as longer cooldowns on early levels of 
The Swarm and 
Time Lapse, is now a hero who loses more than 50% of his games. His early game was also nerfed, with the +20 Mana Break talent moved to level 15. That said, he can now go for both +35% XP gain and +20 Mana Break talents, potentially allowing him to remain competitive.
Wraith King
- Wraithfire Blast stun duration rescaled from 2 to 1.1/1.4/1.7/2
- Wraithfire Blast base damage rescaled from 50/100/150/200 to 100
- Wraithfire Blast DPS rescaled from 20/35/50/65 to 10/30/50/70
- Vampiric Aura is now a melee only ability
Wraith King, similar to Spectre, also lost around 5% win rate, but still manages to win the majority of his games. Interestingly, 
Wraithfire Blast now deals 30 more damage at level 1, compared to the previous version. However lack of scaling and lower stun values make this ability definitely weaker overall. Coupled with Blade Mail nerfs and [missing skill: wraith-king-vampiric-aura-5087] no longer affecting ranged allies, it is unsurprising to see the hero struggling after a long period of dominance. The hero is far from being non-viable, but his pub dominance days, as well as his professional scene prevalence days, are probably over.
Closing Thoughts
Small patches are rarely exciting, but compared to 7.19b, 7.19c has a much better chance of actually changing the meta, at least in pubs. With two biggest meta heroes receiving massive nerfs, and most other heroes remaining intact, we expect to see higher variety of picks across all skill brackets.
It doesn’t feel like it is enough and a big 7.20 patch can’t come soon enough, but it feels like for now we will have to be patient. With Major and Minor qualifiers probably lasting until the end of September, the big patch is most likely to get released somewhere in early October.
Much needed nerfs, and yes, it has impact on those heroes, but as stated earlier, it's still boring.
Also, rushing Manta on Spectre looks like a bad idea, and from the games I've seen from the Major's qualifiers, it is indeed unsuccessful build now.
I hope 7.20 will make up for these things.
Omg 2nd commend me
But in all seriousness; I started on the solo climb again after the release of 7.19c so I never really got to experience WK before 7.19b but I like the article says I've been spamming WK quite a bit and winning the majority of them.
Clinkz also seems to be doing pretty well too.
The patch we desperately needed to fix broken heroes. Good guy gaben
I see, days of the future past...
Vampiric Aura now becomes what it was in DotA1 Times...
How Nostalgic
boring cycle of buff - nerf - buff -nerf repeating itself
The must redicolous change of all time is mask of madnes silence!!!!!!!
For the god remove this silence from item
The author forgot about Ursa. Valve was thrown into the dustbin of my favorite character. Today, Ursa can not do anything on the line, including Midgame. And in the later game this character will NEVER dominate.
Not even an ursa player and I think the ursa nerfs were uncalled for. Should focus more on buffing the underplayed heroes at ti.
And what about URSA?
And so they nerf ursa again, and só sven is not buffed, nor jugger. More and more room for drow pickers
"Spectre and wk's pro days are over"...
Every single pro team continues to pick wk and spectre because these are two of the strongest heroes in the late game and thats what matters right now.
Its a 20% reduction on the Level 20 talent and a 25% reduction on the level 25 one.
Damn it I love the smell of fotm nerfs in the morning.
Most nerfs were definitely necessary, but now we need buffs for the heroes who have completely fallen off. I guess we wait for 7.20
Venge too became weaker in lightning fast 1v1 duels, as slower stun projectile leaves her prey more time to press their defensive buttons
@KawaiiSocks: Why don't you edit your article to also include Ursa?
If Icefrog managed to make the appropriate adjustments and made sure ALL heroes have 50% or lower winrate at the higher brackets in the first place, I highly doubt any hero would become particularly OP regardless of the meta. Maybe 1 or 2 exceptions like gyro and io, but that's about it.
Fucking pros picking Dark Willow too much, now she's getting nerfs :/
@Just-Give-Only
I'm not sure that has ever been the goal. I've usually read patches under the assumption that the goal is to make the winrate inversely proportional to the pickrate. I could be wrong, but it does seem like most of the heroes getting nerfs were the ones with both a high pickrate and a high winrate, while low pickrate/high winrate heroes were mostly left alone.
On top of that, surely if one hero has 48% winrate it's all but guaranteed somebody has above 50% right? A weak hero means there is a hero capitalizing on it (again just an assumption).
Nerf WK + Spectre as much as it's possible valve, **** these heroes :)
Не пиздите на инглише, чисто рашн сендвич
@MM.Ugh Brock Hall
Yup your points make sense. Thanks.
plz buff ET's q radius or turn it into a lvl 15 talent.
Nerf riki pls
y riki...
Nerf more!
Wraith King is still very much OP