It's that time of year again, a fresh update!

6.87 is here and brings quite a lot with it.

Not only are there 7 new items, but we've also gotten a reworked ranked all pick that includes bans, and a new 'scan' team ability to scout for ganks.

Personally, I think Axe is looking really strong with the pure damage on the Counter Helix. together with the buffed blademail, he seems extremely strong.

I could also see Clinkz being really good in conjunction with the Hurricane Pike + desolator.

With the XP distribution change between melee and ranged creeps, Lich might become really powerful. Denying that ranged creep , means that you're denying 40% of the total XP per wave to the enemy. That seems pretty devestating.

What's your favourite change? Which heroes will be dominant? Who got nerfed to the ground?

Discuss.

Icefrog is a mad genius.

Earthshaker just might be my new favorite hero: https://gfycat.com/ForthrightLimpingBlackfish

Arc Warden is now an interesting utility hero and all the world is better for it.

Also the tome of knowledge seems like a really interesting idea that I'm sure will cause tons of horrible/entertaining arguments in pubs. I love it.

The Blade Mail buff seems very strong and yeah coupled with the Axe buffs he's probably a hero to watch. Heck it's not like he was particularly weak in the last patch anyway.

Abyssal Blade changes seem...interesting? Might actually make it much more relevant on certain heroes compared to the weird limbo the item was in before this I guess.

Seems like a cool patch overall. The changes to Obs wards and the new scan thing seem like good steps to improving the vision options over the whole game, though I'll admit my first reaction to scan was "They built WC3 maphack into the game!!??" but then I read it properly and I calmed down and now it seems like an interesting addition that will probably have it's long ass cooldown wasted by endless numbers of people trying to figure out what to do with it.

Yeah I bet that won't lead to any exploitable glitches at all.

I fell off of Dota when I hit the 1500 hour mark awhile a go due to burnout and favoring other competitive games instead, but I still love reading the crazy patch notes. It's amazing how they manage to keep a game feeling fresh with these types of updates.

The General changes seem to be an attempt to slow down the early game and the item changes seem to be an attempt to speed up the late game a bit.

Like others have said the Blade Mail changes look pretty crazy for Axe. That Earthshaker change though, should make CarryShaker even more fun to play. Although Aghs isn't an ideal for his carry build it would still be fun to try out having to rely less on Shadow Blade. Do people still do CarryShaker? It's been awhile since i played.

a lot of these changes seem crazy, but what I'm happy about the most is that the "meta heroes" didn't get nerfed into the ground like they usually do every patch

Invoker, OD and spec got nerfed for sure, but they are definitely still playable. Which is great because it means you don't have to buff the hero in 5 patches and make him cancer again

@baronsamedi: Earthshaker is mostly played as roaming support or as an offlaner. Crit-shaker is still possible at the lower MMR's , but in competitive play it's all about getting an early blink dagger or roaming around before blink is up. Aghs could definitly be a 2nd big item for earthshaker though.

Here's an interesting interaction with Hurricane Pike. After you use it, you can teleport to base and still get the attacks out. On Enchantress, the synergy is clear :)

@onemanarmyy: smart players would just hind under a tree if they see someone hurricane pike and tp like that, cause you still need vision of the hero to attack them. Thse changes are crazy. The items this time around are late game as opposed to the four starting items last time around. Everything in this update is just crazy. I'm still trying to comprehend it all.

The only real thoughts I have is that a lot of the minor changes, from health to the first bounty rune not having XP, is that there will be less #BIGPLAYS in the first few minutes.

And the XP changes to the ranged creeps are interesting, and those are the only ones I am any good at denying while playing most supports

Tales from the trench: Sven with echo sabre is real good. I had a great earlygame as DP, was at least similar networth to their sven. But a stun + echo sabre + ult killed me off before i could pop my euls. Very strong.

DP feels pretty hard to play against the new blademail. The only way to dodge the damage is by eul-ing at the right time. She's still great earlygame push, but it's just not that easy anymore to be that tanky frontline hero.

Bloodthorne is pretty much made for Clinkz. Orchid and crystalys were already strong items on him. By giving him the path to that lategame item ,it's just too good to ignore.