Brewmaster is taking some early-game nerfs including an armor reduction from 4 to 2, effectively reducing his early effective HP by almost 9%, alongside a reduction of Thunder Clap’s slow and increase of its cooldown. Skywrath Mage is having his base agility reduced from 18 to 13, reducing his base armor by .7, giving him the third lowest starting armor in the game.

The rest of the top-pick club will be taking in majority late-game stalls; while Tidehunter’s base movement speed will be reduced by 5 (giving him the same speed as Juggernaught, Omniknight, or Slark) he will also have Ravage damage reduced into the late game (from 200/325/450 to 200/290/380). Not to mention an indirect nerf with the extended cooldown of Refresher Orb (from 185 to 195).

Ogre Magi will see a fairly small damage decrease to Fireblast (from 60/120/180/240 to 55/110/165/220 damage) and a LARGE decrease in its range (from 600 to 475).

Death Prophet’s strength has been reduced by .3 per level (from 2.2 to 1.9); this means a 57 hit point reduction at level 10 and a 114 hit point reduction at level 20. And Faceless Void will have his Chronosphere wait extended at higher levels (from 130/110/90 to 130/15/100) alongside a mechanical change stopping wards (such as Witch Doctor’s ultimate Death Ward) from attacking while inside Chronosphere. Time Walk will also no longer slow attack speed.

Chen can now cast Test of Faith on himself to teleport all of his controlled creeps to his location (with the same delay it normally takes to send a hero to fountain: 6/5/4/3 seconds) and can control an extra unit at most levels (Holy Persuasion max units from 1/1/2/3 to 1/2/3/4). An indirect buff to Chen comes at a change to the Ancient Granite Golem (the big stone creep from the ancient camp) who now increases 15% bonus health to allies (the range of this skill is not clear).

Lina, who has taken only buffs every patch since 6.50, will really take a leap forward this patch: her attack projectile speed will increase from 900 to 1000, Dragon Slave will have have a damage and mana cost increase at all levels (damage from 100/170/230/280 and mana cost from 90/105/125/140 to 200/115/130/145). A similar set of changes will impact Light Strike Array (damage from 90/150/210/280 to 120/160/200/240 and mana cost scaled from 90/100/110/125 to 100/110/120/130) with a stun increase at later levels (from 1.6/1.8/2/2.2 to 1.6/1.9/2.2/2.5)

Despite being the most-played hero this patch, Pudge is relatively ignored in professional play. However, he will be taking a huge early game boost to Meat Hook's range (from 700/900/1100/1300 to 1000/1100/1200/1300).

Bounty Hunter will now get even more gold from track kills (track gold for Bounty Hunter only increased from 150/200/250 to 200/275/350) and Track's cooldown is taking a MAJOR reduction to only 4 seconds (from 10/7/5).

Chaos Knight will have great damage output with Reality Rift taking a large level one increase (from 25/50/75/100 tp 60/80/100/120) and decent mana cost reduction (from 70 to 50). Phantasm illusions will now last much longer (from 34 seconds to 42 seconds). However, due to the popularity of heroes such as Naga Siren and Terrorblade, all illusions will now do 25% less damage to structures.

Io no longer requires turning to perform actions, essentially giving him a perfect turn rate.

Luna took a total nosedive in competitive play after a base armor reduction about a year ago. Now she has Moon Glaive level 4 bounces increased by one (from 5 to 6) and Eclipse beam count increased by one at every level (from 4/7/10 to 5/8/11). The prior change is particularly noteworthy for Luna's ability to late-game carry and siege while the latter is particularly valuable for early-game engagements. Prior to this patch, level one Eclipse wasn't enough to threaten many tanky heroes, but now a solo gank on a Luna is a riskier gambit.

Lone Druid is taking a series of buffs, largely to Battle Cry: a more than 100% damage increase at level 1 (from 20/40/60 to 50/75/100) and even better armor increase (from 2/4/6 to 5/10/15). However, the cooldown for this spell has doubled (from 30 to 60) and duration has been cut by 25% (from 8 seconds to 6 seconds).

Alchemist, who to this day holds many of Dota’s all-time records for carry heroes (including, no suprises, most of the top 100 GPMs in pro dota) will be taking some Greevil’s Greed reworks which would make Gordon Gecko proud. Greevil’s Greed base gold increase from 4/6/8/10 to 6/8/10/12 with extra gold per stack set to a flat 3 (which gives him the highest level 1 gold potential he’s ever had). It comes at the small cost of reducing the max bonus gold per kill at early levels (from 30 to 12/20/28/36), but allowing players to reach and maintain that cap much more effectively. This is especially true since the window between kills is increased from 25 seconds to 30 seconds. Will these changes be a return of the beefy banker in a hard-carry position?

Lifestealer now has the skill "control" once infested in a creep. Control:
- Allows you to take control of the unit you are infesting, including their abilities
- If you take control of a unit, it will maintain its cover, however it will become attackable by your enemy
- Controlled units share Lifestealer's movement speed
- Cannot be used on heroes

Sniper
-Shrapnel no longer does damage to buildings
-Shrapnel now has 3 charges with a 40 second replenish time [?]
-Shrapnel mana cost reduced from 120 to 50
-Shrapnel duration increased from 9 to 10

As mentioned, Queen of Pain can now do 290/390/490 damage with Sonic Wave through magic immunity (and with no reductions from magic resistance. Even though Sonic Wave's damage was technically reduced, if you count the fact that most heroes have 25% magic immunity, Sonic Wave is actually doing more damage now than it was before.

Kunkka's X Marks the Spot will now go through Spell Immunity on allies. In addition, this skill now has an all-levels duration of 4 seconds on enemies and 8 on allies (from 1/2/3/4 seconds on enemies and 2/4/6/8 on allies) but has a reduced cast range at lower levels (from 500/650/800/950 to 350/550/750/1000 units). This skill also now has no mana cost.

Empower from Magnus, Living Armor from Treant Protector and Shadow Word from Warlock will now target Spell Immune allies.

Terrorblade, Drow, Luna, Specter and others could consider this a notable buff. Any heroes who rely on lifesteal due to their high attack damage and low HP pools can use this buff to increase their chase potential, since Purge is an activatable slow. It also gives a nice new line of options for heroes who rely on invisibility, as the purge from Diffusal Blade will still be able to remove the effects of Dust of Appearance. Broodmother is a hero who relies on chasing, invisibility, and lifesteal--this buff seems geared toward many of her niches.

Most notably, Medallion of Courage (with a slightly more expensive recipe from 200 to 325) will give/remove an extra armor (from 6 to 7) and can now be cast on allies to increase their armor from a distance. While already one of the best and most underrated support items in the game, especially for teams with early Roshan potential, expect this item to finally get the recognition it deserves.

Magic Wand will now hold 17 charge instead of 15, increasing HP and Mana regen by 30 (from 225 to 255).

Clarity potions will now restore 150 mana instead of 135--great news for roaming supports and gankers. It also means that you'll get 3.75 mana per second instead of 3.38 mana per second, meaning that laning heroes will need to pull out of the action for a shorter duration to rebuild their mana pools the same amount.

Animal Courier will cost 30 fewer gold (from 150 to 120). An interesting sidenote: this now means that one support will inherently pay less than the other to open a game, as ward prices will remain at 150.

Healing Salve will have its cost reduced by five, from 115 to 110 gold.

The following alt-click pings have been added:

- Passive and Unlearned abilities can be annouced
- Health and Mana bars can be pinged to announce their contents (on self or opponents but not allies)
- Abilities without sufficient mana will now announce how much mana is needed
- Buffs and debuffs on your hero will be announced if alt-clicked
- Items without activation (such as Battlefury or Aegis of Immortal) can now be announced
- A dead enemy's respawn timer can be announced by clicking on their portrait on the top of the screen
- Your respawn timer can be announced by clicking on your hero's portrait on the top of the screen
- The Glyph (Fortify) status can be announced by alt-clicking, and control+alt+clicking it will suggest that your team does not activate it yet
- A rune bottled by an enemy can now be announced by alt-clicking the bottle