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Sand King Drops To 40% Win Rate In Dota 2 Patch 7.39
Dota 2 patch 7.39 turned the game on it's head and everyone is trying to find their footing. Long forgotten heroes have returned to the limelight, as Venomancer and Omni Knight shine. While others struggle to find their place in the new meta.
We've one through the biggest winners of the patch. Now it's time to look at the ones who suffered the most from Valve's latest update.
The Biggest losers in Dota 2 patch 7.39
Kez
To be frank, it's quite hard to discern if Kez got nerfed or banned just from reading the changelo. Nearly every skill got changed. Echo Slash has a lower cooldown but also less damage. Grappling Claw doesn't have lifesteal but now comes with a scaling slow. And so on and so forth.
Kez has always been an extremely hard hero to play, with two skill sets to juggle. The fact that he lost 5% win rate the day the patch dropped and isn't in Captain's Mode yet means there is a lot about Kez that needs to be fixed soon.
Medusa
While Kez is hard to understand, Medusa's nerfs are very clear. Her spells cost more mana to use, while Mystic Snake provides less mana gain than before.
Medusa is a hero who uses mana for both her spells and survivability. Fact of the matter is she has a lot less mana to work with this patch from her abilites. The Kaya nerf to mana regeneration certainly doesn't help.
The Gorgon queen went from an above average 53% win rate to 48.5%. She remains playable but she is no longer a high damage tank that mows down heroes and buildings alike.
Clockwork
To be frank, Clockwork wasn't nerfed at all. His level 20 talent burning mana is an overall good change for the hero. The extra damage on Rocket Flare was nice but it's compensated by the new talent.
Clockwork's problem is the new facet. Chainmeal is a joke of a choice, yet over 25% of players are picking (and losing) it.
Clockwork has a 53% win rate with Expanded Armature. However, it drops down to 43% in with Chainmeal. But why is that facet so bad?
Firstly, Chainmeal does nothing until you eat a Chain Mail. So you have to be at least 6-slotted to start benefitting from that. And supports rarely get that much farm.
Secondly, Chain Mails aren't cheap. It's a 550 gold investment to get 4 armor and 1% damage. If eating Chain Mails provided...6 armor, then it would be worth stacking the item. At the moment it just saves slots.
Honestly, this facet pisses me off and it has tanked the hero's win rate. Do yourself a favor and skip Crapmeal till it gets heavily buffed.
Morphling
Man did Morphling get gutted. He lost 0.6 strength gain per level, which is 6 strength every 10 levels, that's a lot of durability lost. He also has 0.5 less mana regen. Going from 1.4 to 0.9 is a massive penalty for the water boy.
Just his stat loss is big, but his attribute shift is now 20% slower as well. Oh and his ulti switching ability went from 1 to 2 second cooldown. This makes it much harder to abuse the extra abilities he gains when Morphling switches to enemy heroes.
Overall, this seems a bit overkill. Just the stat loss alone is painful for the hero, but the nerfs to his ultimate make him far less viable in both pubs and competitive games.
Sand King
Now we come to the...well, certainly not king of the patch. The clown? jester? biggest loser? you pick.
On paper, Sand King seemed to get buffed almost. His facets were transferred into Sand Storm and he can now add a blind to the ability as well. All good right?
We are baffled that a 1% decrease in Caustic Finale and a 25 radius reduction in Stinger translates into an 8% win rate loss, but that's how it works.
Whether the hero is very weak or people haven't figured out how to use the new facets is unclear. What we can confirm is that Sand King is currently unplayable and the biggest loser in Dota 2 patch 7.39.
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Featured Image Source: Valve