Valve dropped the Dota 2 7.41d patch, proving once again that even during major competitive tournaments, your favorite digital gladiators are never safe from the balance hammer. The update targets a long list of meta-defining heroes while also giving the game’s couch cushions a thorough shake, altering everything from neutral items to teleportation physics.
The biggest news for cash-strapped support players is a discount on Dagon. Valve shaved 50 gold off the recipe cost, making the burst-damage staff slightly easier to buy when your economy is in the toilet.
On the flip side, Mage Slayer caught a tiny nerf to its bonus damage, dropping from 15 to 12. If you are a fan of pop-up notifications, using Smoke of Deceit now automatically types a message into your allied chat, finally alerting your oblivious teammates that a gank is happening.
Teleporting got weirdly precise too. If you self-cast a Town Portal scroll, your hero will now land slightly closer to the Ancient. More importantly, teleportation animations will now partially track units that can move while channeling, like Phoenix or Storm Spirit, meaning enemies can easily look at your drifting animation and figure out exactly where you are trying to escape.
Hero Balances In Dota 2 Patch 7.41d
In the hero department, Chaos Knight is laughing all the way to the lane. His Phantasm illusion damage got a massive bump in the early and mid-game, letting him hit like a truck much sooner. Ancient Apparition also enjoyed a pleasant update, getting a damage per second increase on Cold Feet and a lower cooldown on Chilling Touch.
The fun had to end somewhere, and Kez took the absolute brunt of the beating. The bird samurai was utterly gutted with cooldown increases and damage reductions across multiple abilities, significantly ruining his ability to look cool in long teamfights. Hoodwink, Invoker, and Ember Spirit were also dragged down a peg, while Snapfire lost her Boomstick interaction and took a hit to her Cookie healing.
Over in the jungle, almost every neutral item received a minor buff, save for Spider Legs, which had its duration reduced. To balance out the jungle love, the Alert and Timeless enchantments received noticeable nerfs to their night vision and attack range bonuses, meaning you can no longer snipe enemies quite as effectively from the comfort of the shadows.