Dota 2 patch 7.22b goes live

Clinkz

The first hero to hit with the nerf was Clinkz. We also saw a small buff granted to the hero. The ranged agility hero has had his attack base strength stat increased by two. But it did come with a cost. Since the damage, the mana cost of the Searing Arrows has been reduced.

The big blow to the hero is the nerf to the 15 Level talent. Since in 7.22 the damage of the arrows was reduced from +30 to +20. Now, after the 7.22b it has been lowered to +15. We haven’t seen Clinkz in competition for some time and with these nerfs we can guarantee you that: You won’t be seeing him at TI9.

Dark Willow

In the patch, we got nerf to one of the most picked supports of the game, Dark Willow. In the 7.22, the hero received a Scepter upgrade that enabled her to deliver multiple attacks in the Shadow Realm. Moreover, the ability now lasts for the full duration and you get additional damage buff with each attack.

These changes were received quite well by the community. But at the same time, Icefrog and Valve didn’t want things to go out of proportion. So now they have reduced the base attack time of the hero. The developers also reduced the duration of Shadow Realm to three seconds. Lastly, now the 25 Level talent grants +175 Attack Speed bonus instead of +200. So, these changes have seriously nerfed the carry Willow and now we see her getting the return to her old support position.

Necrophos

We believe that Necrophos received the biggest blow in the patch. The Heartstopper Aura of the hero has been changed from Pure to Magical damage. This completely ruins the hero since you can simply counter the Aura with a pipe of insight pick in the late game. We believe that Valve does not want us to see the hero at the TI9 so they simply removed him from the game.

Slark

The last change of the patch was Slark. The hero has received a small nerf with his Essence Shift duration reduced from 120 to 100 seconds. This is not a big blow to the hero since in the 7.22 his base attack speed was buffed while his passive from Shadow Dance was also rescaled. This means that despite the nerf, we will be seeing Slark picked in the upcoming competitions.

Currently, we are in the playoff stage of the ESL One Birmingham. It will be interesting to see how the patch 7.22b will impact on the pro-Meta.