Wandering Waters First Impressions – DOTABUFF

The wait is over and we finally got the new, massive update. It is becoming somewhat of a trend, that the game receives something huge at the beginning of the year and we are all for it. The new patch is certainly going to shake up things in some very unpredictable ways, so today we are going to share our first impressions, knowing full well that some of our conclusions might be off the mark and we might miss something important. It is impossible to always be correct with something as complex and deep as Dota and that is why we love this game so much.

I’ve actually gotten a chance to play some games and, more importantly, cast several DreamLeague Season 25 professional matches on the new patch. From the looks of it, even the best of the best are somewhat lost, given the amount of changes. Some old strategies stopped working, some new ideas turned out to be duds and it will take time for the meta to fully mature.

By now most of you have probably read the patch notes, so instead of going over them point-by-point, we’d rather share some ideas we found interesting. Starting with the obvious one — the Map.

The new Map is beautiful, but it is also incredibly scary. The amount of forest patches, elevation changes and cliffs has increased by a huge amount, making the vision game a lot harder. There are more inroads into the jungles, so ganking from unexpected angles is easier. As is keeping out of the enemy’s sights.

We feel like it is a massive buff for heroes that can provide flying vision, or any kind of vision in general. A dedicated scouting hero might not be a necessity, but it is certainly going to be beneficial for the team.

Another interesting thing the new map introduced is an actual distinction between the hard and the safe lane. The addition of downstream movement is, obviously, a farming acceleration tool, but it is also crucial for the laning stage. Supports dying in trades in their safelane can return back to the lane much quicker, meaning they don’t necessarily have to expend their TP scroll, allowing them to react in other lanes.

This isn’t necessarily true for all situations and sometimes getting back to the lane to help out your carry ASAP is going to be the correct play, but in general, we feel like there should be more opportunities for game-changing defensive plays. For when you need to defend your Wisdom Shrine, for example.

Finally, Roshan is back to his summer cave and Tormentor is now a much bigger objective. We feel like for pubs the latter is almost better: games are longer and permanent economy boosts typically have a much stronger impact on the game. We are going to see how the meta shapes up around this “new” objective, but at least it solves the problem of the dominating team getting too far ahead, by controlling both Tormentors, Roshan and Wisdom runes.

Another big change is the damage Universal heroes receive from attributes and this change couldn’t make me happier. The concept of Universal heroes is great and I am glad it is in the game, but they were massively overtuned. This change makes it so that you can have decent attribute gain per level on a Universal hero and not be broken.

It also makes it so that late game Universal heroes with zero DPS items have limited DPS. They are no longer Universally Good: they are adaptable, flexible, can build into what their team needs, but still balanced. Possibly one of the best general changes of this patch, if we are talking balance and viable strategy pool.

Hopefully, this will lead to teams picking heroes for their toolset first and foremost, not for their stat block.

I wasn’t a fan of the original Neutral Item system. The one where we had Huskars with four neutral items closing the game in less than 20 minutes. However, over time, it grew on me and all the recent changes refined and expanded it in meaningful ways. Wandering Waves is no exception.

The addition of “crafting” and Madstones results in an even better player agency. And while the pool of items feels more diluted, hence volatile, we feel like it is almost impossible to get a combination that is absolutely useless for your character. They are also split into Tiers, so it isn’t as chaotic as it might seem at first glance.

Overall, there is a lot to discuss and explore here, with this new system. And there are certainly going to be some problematic combinations for some heroes. For now, my only complaint is a minute 35 Book of the Dead on Chaos Knight. This feels… randomly broken.

This is where we can go on for hours and hours, since there are so many changes to heroes in the patch notes. We won’t — all the broken things will certainly get nerfed and all the weak heroes will get some buffs. Valve is very good at fixing the balance after a massive patch.

In broad terms, though, there are definitely a couple of things to point out. Mage-type characters getting break from the new Khanda is one of those. While the item is incredibly costly, it can be the game-changing silver bullet in the later portions of the game. As is Silver Edge, which also saw a price increase. Dealing with problematic passives is more expensive, but there are more options for it now.

Halberd rework is also kind of fun, as it is now a very good offlane item once again. Switching Abyssal Blade and Halberd build-ups should make both of them more viable, regardless of the nerfs the latter received.

We are not so optimistic about the new Gleipnir, though.The AoE bonus is nice, but we don’t know who the item is for. Perhaps with a 4550 cost it is now more of a late-game support item. Maelstrom only having one progression branch into Mjollnir is also kind of sad — perhaps we will see it getting combined with Crystallis into Revenant’s Brooch somewhere down the line. The latter feels a tad too strong for a 3300 cost.

There is definitely a lot more to explore and discuss with the new patch. There are certainly going to be new builds and playstyles emerging in the upcoming weeks and we will be here to highlight and analyze those for our readers. For now, though, let’s just enjoy the patch and play some Jakiro and Dragon Knight, while they are still free MMR machines.