5 worst ability changes in Dota 2 7.36

The Dota 2 patch 7.36 brought about a wide variety of changes that are making players rethink their playstyle and hero pools. The biggest shift in the game was the addition of innate abilities and the new hero facets that players get to choose during the drafting phase of each game, which further inclines toward their playstyle. Some heroes got great changes, some did not. Below, we take a look at the five worst ability alterations in this patch.

Note: This article is subjective and solely reflects the writer's opinion.

5 Heroes with the worst ability changes in Dota 2 7.36

1) Tinker: Rearm

Looking for Crossword hints & solutions? Check out latest NYT Mini Crossword Answers, LA Times Crossword Answers, and USA Today Crossword Answers

Tinker was once a relentless spammer of spells and items, but he received a radical makeover that has many players perplexed. His new innate ability reads:

"For every four intelligence Tinker has, he gets a 1% item cooldown reduction."

That sounds okay, but it only applies when Tinker has six intelligence-based items, and the reduction even then is so small as to be almost meaningless. For example, this means Blink Dagger’s cooldown will be reduced to three seconds.

But the biggest and worst change is that Rearm no longer resets item cooldowns. This is a huge blow to the core of Tinker’s game and makes his once frantic, tactical playstyle barely recognizable.

As expected from such drastic changes, Tinker’s win rate has fallen to nearly the lowest in the game.

2) Phantom Assassin: Blur

Phantom Assassin in Dota 2 (Image via Valve)

Phantom Assassin (PA) is in a bad place with this patch. Her Blur was part of her game-changing toolbox, giving her evasion, which allowed her to not get hit and stay in battles longer.

She now has a 15% evasion rate (goes up 1.5% per level), meaning it takes very high levels for her evasion to match the old Blur. By then, most opponents will have items with True Strike, which negates evasion.

To make matters worse, PA's facets are generally weak. So this change to Blur has effectively lowered her survival in early rounds and rendered her evasion in late rounds rather useless.

As a result, PA’s stats and win rate are taking a big hit and most people consider that a buff is needed for her to be as powerful as she was.

3) Bristleback: Warpath

The recent nerfs to Bristleback have left many confused. Essentially Warpath is now an innate ability with two paths you can take.

The first path, called Berserk, changes Warpath so it scales off attackspeed instead of damage, giving 20 attackspeed but only 5 damage per stack. The problem here is that Bristleback generally wants to turn its back to the enemy, not attack them head-on.

The second path gives more stacks and armor reduction to Nasal Goo but removes Quill Spray for Nasal Viscous, which doesn’t synergize well with how Bristleback is played.

Overall, the changes completely break the identity and strategy behind Bristleback. There is possibly a new way to play the bristleback with the new Nasal Goo, but it isn’t showing on the win rate currently.

4) Sand King: Sandstorm

Sand King suffered immensely from the 7.36 changes, mostly due to Sandstorm being completely revamped and Epicenter being reworked. The normal effect of Sandstorm has been divided into two parts: one that takes away its invisibility but makes the sand follow Sand King around, and the other that adds invisibility with an increased radius.

Neither of these two effects improves his gameplay, and most players find themselves thinking that both are situational best and useless worst. Moreover, since Caustic Finale is an innate ability, it received a new active skill, Stinger, which does damage and applies slow. This adds to the complexity without a real gain.

Epicenter was also changed to have a longer duration, but each pulse deals half as much damage. This reduced damage over a longer time feels like a huge nerf overall since enemies can easily run away from the area, lessening the total damage dealt per use.

5) Silencer: Last Word

Silencer’s Last Word was completely changed in the Dota patch 7.36. It was an active ability that has now been changed into a passive aura. The old Last Word would silence a single enemy and deal damage to them while the new Last Word passive aura only slows enemies inside its aura area.

This change is very bad for Silencer, as his active ability used to have some strategic significance in the game. It gave the option to silence important spellcasters at the time of crucial team fights.

Old Last Word could be enhanced by Aghanim’s Scepter to cast the spell independently on multiple heroes, potentially the entire team.

Furthermore, the change from an active ability to a passive one also removed the increasing burst potential, as the damage would increase as a Silencer stole intelligence. New Last Word heavily depends on other silence sources since the aura won’t slow an enemy unless they are silenced.

Additionally, the new aura only lasts within 1200 of Silencer's range, so this passive can be easily countered as well.

With Dota 2 patch 7.36, players have seen some heroes drop in popularity and some even completely drop out of the current meta. Most of the received nerfs have visibly made these heroes less picked in their current state. As players continue to adapt to these changes, it remains to be seen if future patches will address these concerns and restore these heroes to their former glory.

If you're interested in more topics on Dota 2, check these out:

Are you stuck on today's Wordle? Our Wordle Solver will help you find the answer.

Edited by Adarsh J Kumar