Dota 2 Patch 7.26a Released, Brings Several Key Changes to Gameplay

Every single boot in the game had its stats changed

Photo via Wykrhm Reddy on Twitter

Majors in Dota 2 are generally followed by a patch fixing heroes and items alike, the ESL LA Online major wasn’t an exception. From the moment VP won the tournament after defeating OG 3-2, fans started demanding an update and especially an update which included the Battle Pass in it. Unfortunately, Icefrog didn’t give us the Battle Pass just yet but he did roll out some changes which tweaked several items, heroes and gameplay mechanics.

One of the biggest changes is probably the XP bonus change for kill streaks which was reduced from 30->100 * Level to 20->90 * Level. This, following the earlier changes in patch 7.26 was probably done to slow down the pace of the game to an extent. This can also potentially change snowballing strats and cores which are reliant on their snowballing potential like Meepo or Broodmother.

The item changes were also massive. Every single boot had their stats changed and in general, every single boot including Spider legs, Force boots and Woodland striders which used to previously provide a percentage increment to movement speed now gives a flat movement speed bonus instead. On the contrary, some items like the Manta style, Drums of endurance, yasha and similar items were changed to give a percentage increment in the movement speed of heroes.

Another notable change is to the Spirit vessel, which now provides AoE debuffs reducing regen, heals and lifesteal in a certain radius of the wielder.

The update also introduced several changes and minor tweaks to heroes. The detailed list of changes as mentioned in the blog post by Valve can be found here.