7.24
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OK, so the major ended roughly 5 minutes ago, so now everything about DOTA has changed again:
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Biggest changes:
All heroes now have 7 item slots, but one is dedicated to neutral items, and neutral items cannot be used in any other slot.
Outposts are now in the jungle, at the start owned by the team the jungle belong to. Still pop every 10 minutes (but as they start owned one needs to get on making sure one has them at 09:54 to channel).
Shrines are gone.
The lane bounties are back in the triangle.
Everyone now has extra range for killing wards (and tangos/quelling no longer can).
All GPM talents are gone.
70 minute items moved to 60 minutes, but heavily nerfed.
Tons of smaller item and hero balance changes, but the above are those that'll come up in every game.
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The one I care the most about is removing GPM talents. They were the last really artificial-feeling talents, just forced the hero into being a support if it was a decent one.
Spirit Breaker buff is pretty cool, Bulldoze cooldown now scales, and if you take the level 20 talent (as I think you should, usually bash damage is a trap, looks good in e.g. dotabuff stats because if you're already winning hard of course you do cheeky damage) the cooldown is down to 9 seconds, with a buff duration of 8 seconds. So 89% uptime on a pretty damn good skill. Also SB will often hit 20 earlier than a lot of supports, since it tends to be around for every single fight.
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I like this patch. Polishes up 7.23 (less worrying about item slots, outpost plays feel way more significant, hero balance changes feel pretty decent), and the only game we've lost hard was one against a Slardar mid just getting up in peoples faces and wrecking them, which is pretty much the definition of fun DOTA.
