Dota 2 Patch 6.87d Buffs, Nerfs, and Changes

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Patch 6.87d Drops the Nerf Hammer on Meta Picks and Armlet

Dota 2 patch 6.87d has been released! The patch was announced and updates began mere minutes after the conclusion of the Dreamleague Finals on Sunday. This patch focuses largely on tuning down heroes that have been having an outsized impact on the game, as well as a certain item that has become ubiquitous in both competitive and public matchmaking games. We break down all the changes for you:

Buffs

…None. Zip. Nada. Nobody got buffed in patch 6.87d. It seems like Icefrog is mostly happy with the state of the game at the moment aside from the nerfs below.

Nerfs

Armlet of Mordiggian

Armlet has been showing up on multiple heroes in seemingly every game since its buffs in patch 6.87. To compensate, 6.87d ramped up Armlet’s health drain, from 40 to 45 HP drained per second. This is a small increase numerically, but it should be enough to discourage building Armlet on every core or carry just because it’s a strong item. Strength heroes with built in regen or sustain like Alchemist, Lifestealer, and Huskar will still be able enjoy Armlet’s cost efficient gains.

Doom

Doom has been tearing up the jungle in competitive games, emerging to lock down enemies with his ultimate. He’ll be ready to fight a little less often, as his ultimate, Doom, has had it’s cooldown increased from 125 to 140 seconds, a 12% increase.

Beastmaster

Another go-to jungle presence, Beastmaster has been starting out in the 4 support position or rotating from the offlane and cleaning things up after damage type changes in 6.87 made his boars able to mow down neutrals with machine gun efficiency. The boar’s damage has been decreased by 5 at all levels to compensate, and summoning the boar or the hawk is now 10 mana more expensive for good measure.

Pheonix

Sun Ray’s cooldown has been increased from 20 to 26 seconds. Less burnage from the consistent 3/4 position hero.

Earth Spirit

More Earth Spirit nerfs roll on through: the slow from Rolling Boulder now scales up in duration, from 1.4 up to its previous duration of 2 seconds. Will the the ES nerfs ever end?

Lion

Lion has been a little too crafty for just a little too long. Two highly effective disables and a whopping nuke of an ultimate make Lion a strong pick in any lineup. His base intelligence has been reduced by 2, which makes him less scary in early laning and ganking.

Bounty Hunter

Track’s self bonus gold (the gold given to Bounty, only) has been reduced at levels one and two of the skill. Bounty is still just too annoying, and snowballs a little too hard.

For full, original patch 6.87d notes, visit Valve’s Dota 2 site.