While our engineers are hard at work updating the full functionality of Dotabuff to the new patch, we have some time to awe at the amount of changes. This is, without a doubt, a patch we have all been waiting for and it is going to take a very long time before it starts making sense. So for now, here are our first, potentially very misguided impressions of the patch 7.33.

The first obvious conclusion to draw is that there is now more economy on the map and more places to farm. Controlling the whole map was already tough in the previous patch, but now it is essentially impossible. A good player should be able to find safe farm, though there are some caveats.

Most notably, the team that controls the pace of the game also controls the Twin Gates. Once you take away an enemy Safelane Tier One and destroy at least one Tier Two Tower, taking control of the area should be of high priority: free teleport across the map next to Roshan Pit is a very powerful tool. There are Outposts right next to the Twin Gates and we believe they are going to be highly contested.

Perhaps defending your Safelane Tier One will be of higher importance. It is a Tower that gives direct access to the Twin Gate and also sits close to the Lotus Pool. Previously, the “Triangle Area” was considered the safest place to farm, but maybe the Safelane will finally become, well, safe?

Between the extra Neutral Camps and the Watchers, staying on the map and progressing with your build should theoretically be easier, but don’t get too carried away with farming. Roshan is even more important than he used to be, as killing him now also turns all Watchers to your side.

While many are enamored by the Tormentors, we feel like the Wisdom Rune is definitely the bigger of the two new map objectives. Getting roughly ~40% of your level six at the seven minute mark is huge, especially considering you can steal the rune from the enemy.

This could be another reason to prioritize defending your Safelane and attacking the enemy Offlane. Though the whole concept of “Deadlane” might be obsolete, considering the global mobility options. This will definitely take time to figure out.

As will Tormentors. This is a rather peculiar new objective that can lead to various interesting gameplay implications. One of which is that cores will now most likely pressure their supports into rushing Aghanim’s Shards so that they can get one for free from the Tormentor.

Taking the Tormentor down is pretty hard, but should be doable at the 20 minute mark with Pipe of Insight, as the damage reflected is magical. Given the guaranteed 10 minute respawn, depending on your draft it could be something to prioritize very heavily. Do make sure to protect it from your enemy, though, as it can easily become a free gold and XP boost in the later portions of the game.

There are definitely some crazy things possible with the Universal heroes, as they are a lot more effective at utilizing stats from combined attribute items. While it prevents them from using items like Butterfly or Satanic as effectively as corresponding attribute heroes, the tradeoff is often worth it. With items, these heroes should scale as well as any other hero, sometimes even better, while also having the benefit of added flexibility.

To compensate for it, however, most of them received very heavy attribute gain nerfs. As such, their effective HP doesn’t progress as well as on most other heroes. On top of it, many of them lost a good chunk of Agility gain, resulting in lower Armor and Attack Speed.

There are definitely going to be weird cases, where a now Universal hero suddenly becomes a viable core. Yet again, though, it will take time to figure out. Io does need a slight tone down, though.

A very welcome change indeed. The new neutral item is still a little bit RNG-reliant, but it is much closer to being a mechanic that adds something meaningful to gameplay, as opposed to being detrimental to the game. So, in a sense, this formerly terrible design is now Neutral, pun intended.

Moreover, our pleas have finally been answered and there is now no Dispel in the neutral items pool. The system is definitely moving in the right direction, but some fine-tuning might be needed.

While for most intents and purposes BKB should stay the same, there are several notable differences.The big one is that it is now possible to damage enemies with magical damage through BKB. That means spell lifesteal keeps working and Revenant’s Brooch is no longer a useless item.

Moreover, Muerta should be a much stronger carry now, but also heroes like Pugna could be making an interesting comeback. Don’t forget that getting damaged also means Blink Dagger is disabled, hence BKB and Blink-in isn’t as guaranteed of a play as it used to be.

It is also possible to waste disables now, which is a fun consequence of the change. Be careful when using control abilities or even some of the stronger nukes on Debuff Immune heroes. That said, Linken’s Sphere is now breakable by any targeted ability, which is a net nerf.

There are many, many, many things to discuss in the new patch. It does feel like a start of a new era for the game, very similar to patch 7.00. We will be keeping a close eye on additional interesting insights and the first meta trends, so keep in touch. There is still a lot to discuss.