A full month after the release of the 7.24 patch, Valve has released the 7.24b balance update, which includes nerfs to popular meta heroes Slardar, Snapfire, Nyx Assassin, and Tiny, as well as popular item pickups in Maelstorm and Mjollnir.

Slardar

Slardar vaulted into the meta thanks to his 10 base movement speed buff in the 7.24 patch, alongside a strong skillset with two stuns and a damage amplifier.

7.24b has reduced the damage of his Bash of the Deep passive from 60/115/170/225 to 50/100/150/200 and dialed back the negative armor debuff from his Corrosive Haze ultimate from 10/15/20 to 8/13/18.

Perhaps the biggest change for Slardar is the addition of a 25 mana cost for his Guardian Sprint ability, which will further complicate the mana issues for a hero whose preferred item builds never gave him that much mana.

Snapfire

After being introduced to Captain’s Mode in 7.24, Snapfire immediately became a support hero you have to pick or ban in the first phase of a draft due to how big of an impact she can have even as a Position 5.

Much of Snapfire’s impact lies in her powerful teamfight ultimate, Mortimer’s Kisses, which can deal a huge amount of damage in a big area from extremely long range.

7.24b has significantly reduced its damage output from 200/300/400 to just 160/240/320. On top of that, the stun duration from Snapfire’s Firesnap Cookie ability was also reduced from 1.6/1.9/2.2/2.5 to 1.6/1.8/2/2.2.

Tiny

Tiny continues to be one of the strongest heroes in the game and has been hit by the nerf bat in seven-straight patches. 7.24b has further reduced the cast range of his Toss ability from 1000/1100/1200/1300 to 850/1000/1150/1300, while also scaling back the bonus armor he receives from his Grow ultimate from 10/18/26 to 10/16/22.

Nyx Assassin

Nyx Assassin had the stun duration of his Impale ability reduced from 1.6/2/2.4/2.8 to 1.4/1.8/2.2/2.6. This is a sizeable nerf for the sneaky insectoid hero, as he has become a popular pick as a Position 4 mainly due to his ability to lock down an enemy for five seconds by comboing Impale with Meteor Hammer.

The nerf makes it much harder to pull that combo off and should make Nyx less of a popular pick.

Item nerfs

Alongside nerfing popular meta heroes, 7.24b also dialed back the effectiveness of a number of popular item pickups for carry heroes such as Maelstrom, Mjollnir, Diffusal Blade, and Desolator.

Maelstrom into Mjollnir has long been a popular buildup for carries looking to increase their farm speed while retaining their impact in fights. 7.24b has made it less effective in fights by reducing the bounce distance of its Chain Lightning effect from 900 to 650.

Meanwhile, Diffusal Blade and Desolator have been the items of choice for carries looking to have big midgame power spikes. 7.24b makes these two items just a bit less powerful by reducing the mana Diffusal Blade burns per hit from 50 to 40, and reducing Desolator’s bonus damage from 50 to 60 and reducing its negative armor debuff from 7 to 6.

For the full list of changes, you can check the patch notes here.

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