Dota 2 patch 7.30: Breaking down all 15 reworked hero skills

Valve promised a patch right before The International 10 and they certainly delivered with the latest major update.

On top of adjustments to item changes and hero balancing, 15 hero skills received major reworks.

Some are far more game changing than others. Here are all 15 skill reworks and what they mean for the affected heroes in Dota 2 patch 7.30.

Dota 2 patch 7.30 reworked hero skills

Anti-Mage

Counterspell

Reworked Shard: Counterspell now also passively grants a 900 range offensive aura reducing enemies’ magic damage by 10%. Grants triple the effect to enemies within 300 range

A significant upgrade from Anti-Mage’s old shard — which only buffed his Blink — spellcasters will loathe their games with his newly reworked Counterspell shard.

The magic damage reduction is a flat 10% and 30%, which is huge in the long run against heroes such as Leshrac, Lina, and Storm Spirit who primarily deal magic damage. On top of that, it also reduces pure damage spells.

Dota 2, Axe War Harbinger set — Credit: Valve

Axe

Counter Helix

Reworked Shard: Now causes Counter Helix to apply a 6s stacking debuff that reduces attack damage by 20% and increases Counter Helix chance by 10%

While it’s the end of the carry Axe era in competitive, it’s certainly not the last time we’ll be seeing this hulking red warlord in our pub games.

His shard rework now applies a stacking debuff that reduces all sources of attack damage by 20%, which includes base and bonus attack damage. Even if your carry has a Divine Rapier, Axe will have your carry hitting for absolutely no damage at five stacks of his brand new debuff.

Broodmother

Spinner’s Snare

Reworked Scepter: Vector Targeted. Broodmother creates a 900 width invisible web line that takes 2 seconds to form. Enemy Heroes that cross the web line will make it visible and become rooted after 0.25s of 100% slow.
They will also be visible in fog and receive 100 DPS for 4 seconds. Broodmother’s team is notified in the Minimap whenever someone trips in a Web line.
Multiple Heroes can trip on the same line until the duration expires, but illusions don’t trigger it.
Maximum of 5 Snares can be active and Snares can’t be cast overlapping another
2 Charges — Mana Cost: 100
Cooldown: 20s
Cast Range: 600

Dota 2 patch 7.30 adds a nasty addition to Broodmother’s already annoying kit.

The snares themselves are great for not only trapping unsuspecting heroes, but also provide intel on where everyone is currently on the map. Brood’s new Scepter will be devastating in lineups that aim to control their opponents movements.

Chen

Holy Persuasion

Reworked Shard: Allows Holy Persuasion to target 1/2/3 Ancient creeps based on Hand of God level. (Old Scepter effect)

Hand of God

Reworked Scepter. Hand of God now applies a Strong Dispel

Needing a lot of love from the Frog, Chen is the only hero to receive two reworks with the hope that they may put him more in line with current meta support picks.

Gaining his old Scepter effect as a shard, which is now a strong dispel with Scepter Hand of God, Dota 2 patch 7.30 has Chen looking more enticing as a defensive support hero.

The dispel alone can be game changing, since it applies to your entire team, allowing them to break free from a stun lock early, and even dispel hexes.

The downside to these reworks is that Chen will only gain access to these spells later in the game. Time will tell if Chen can finally relive his glory days as a top support pick.

Gyrocopter

Homing Missile

Reworked Shard: Homing Missile now constantly fires a 700 radius Rocket Barrage, starting 1 second after casting. Rocket Barrage prioritizes the Homing Missile’s target.

Gyrocopter’s latest shard rework is probably one of the strangest ones yet.

Nowadays, Gyrocopter is typically built with physical damage in mind to prepare for the late game. This means that his mid game damage output predominantly comes from his skills.

The shard rework suddenly made Homing Missile a threatening ability, because in the past, heroes could simply kite the missile whilst hitting it. Now with the Barrage damage, teams will need to prioritize destroying the missile, or risk being melted.

Meepo

Divided We Stand

Reworked Shard: Divided we Stand can be cast from any Meepo as long as there’s another Meepo within 300 radius, causing the nearby Meepo to fling you towards a target within 900 range, dealing 100 damage and slowing the target’s movement speed by 50%.
Cooldown 18/16/14s
Mana Cost: 100 (Each Meepo has its own independent cooldown)

At the cost of losing his Poof shard upgrade, Meepo gained an even more annoying skill for players to deal with in Dota 2 patch 7.30.

Pretty much a cheap offensive Blink Dagger, Divided We Stand now allows Meepo to throw his clones at targeted heroes in a huge radius for 100 damage, and a whopping 50% slow.

What the skill doesn’t tell you is that the slow debuff lasts for three seconds, and can be refreshed if another Meepo is thrown at the target.

Keep in mind that this spell can be disjointed with the likes of a Blink Dagger.

Monkey King

Mischief

Reworked Shard: Now reduces Mischief Cooldown to 8s, increases the invulnerability time to 0.5s and disjoints projectiles on transformation. Mischief no longer reduces your move speed below your current one.

Dota 2 patch 7.30 just made Mischief that much stronger.

A mini Phase Shift in the grand scheme of things, Monkey King is going to be as slippery as ever once he gets his hands on a shard in his games.

The invulnerability time and chance to disjoint spells will mean teams can’t simply throw spells at him anymore. We’re especially looking forward to seeing how pros handle the new shard upgraded Mischief.

Naga Siren

Song of the Siren

Reworked Shard: Now makes Song of the Siren heal allies for 5% Max HP per second.

Healing Song of the Siren is back from the brink in Dota 2 patch 7.30.

An Aghanims Scepter upgrade eons ago, this rework probably won’t bring Naga back as a common support hero, but when used situationally, will be a huge pain to deal with, especially during drawn out team fights.

Having the ability to control the flow of the team fight whilst healing 35% of your team’s max HP during a full song is pretty good for only 1,400 gold.

Shadow Fiend

Necromastery

Reworked Shard. Necromastery is now an attack modifier that consumes 1 soul granting your next attack 170% crit with a 3 second cooldown. Additionally, enemies killed grant an extra soul.

Just when you think Shadow Fiend is gone for good, he’s handed even more damage options on a silver platter.

Expect shard to be a core item on Shadow Fiend going forward in Dota 2 patch 7.30 due to the sheer value it gives in the Necromastery upgrade.

A guaranteed 170% critical hit every three seconds tied with Shadow Fiend’s high base damage means a whole lot of pain for the poor soul who ends up being his victim. Best of all, it doesn’t take up an item slot.

Spectre

Dispersion

Reworked Shard: Causes dispersion to fire a Spectral Dagger every 300 damage absorbed in the direction of the last source of damage. Can fire a maximum of one dagger every 7 seconds and only triggers off player based damage within 700 range.

One of the more obscure buffs this patch, Spectre’s shard upgrade is surprisingly good.

Compared to her old Dispersion shard upgrade which spawned a single Haunt illusion, Spectre’s new shard in Dota 2 patch 7.30 is going to cause a lot of issues for teams playing against her.

Dealing with one Spectral Dagger is a pain already, but now that up to three can be on the field of battle at any time, Spectre gains a lot of freedom of movement whilst at the same time hindering where her opponents can run.

Tusk

Ice Shards

Reworked Shard: Enemies within 200 radius of the center of the ice shard suffer from 40% slow and take 60 damage per second. Increases the length of ice shard by 300.

Tusk players are in for a treat with his latest shard rework in Dota 2 patch 7.30.

The Frog dumped Tusks old boring shard which granted him his old Frost Sigil for a big upgrade to his Ice Shards, which better suits Tusk’s in-your-face playstyle. Unless equipped with a natural escape mechanism, most heroes are going to have a lot of trouble escaping a perfectly landed Ice Shard.

Underlord

Fiend’s Gate

Reworked Scepter: Grants a new ability Fiend’s Gate. Cast within 4000 range to create a Portal next to Underlord and a Portal at the target location. Allies can click on either Portal to teleport to the other one after a 2s channel. Portals are indestructible, last 20 seconds, and can only be cast in locations where Wards can be placed.

Players now have even more travel options with the Uberlord himself.

Underlord gained a new spell called Fiend’s Gate when equipped with Aghanims Scepter, which allows him to spawn a portal for himself and his teammates to use.

Though a nifty skill, Underlords in Dota 2 patch 7.30 probably won’t opt for an Aghanims Scepter until after completing his core item build, since the Scepter itself is a very big investment.

As an added bonus, the portals themselves have a rather large capsule size, and can block narrow pathways if placed properly.

Undying

Flesh Golem

Reworked Shard: Now Reduces Flesh Golem Cooldown by 30s and causes Undying to spawn one zombie on each attack.

Even a walking corpse is worthy of some love here and there.

A very niche hero pre-patch, Undying’s shard rework aims to strengthen his main role as an early to mid game monster. The cooldown reduction to Flesh Golem in Dota 2 patch 7.30 allows Undying to fight much more frequently whilst the zombies he spawns on hit will make up for his average damage output.

The downside is his rework does absolutely nothing to fix up his terrible scaling. Is it enough to revive Undying in the competitive scene?

Windranger

Gale Force

Reworked Shard: Now Grants Gale Force. Vector Targeted: Summons a strong wind that pushes all enemies within a 1000 AoE by 250 units per second in the target direction for 3 seconds (Units can still move, attack and cast spells, does not interrupt channeling)
Mana Cost: 150
Cooldown: 40s

As her name implies, Windranger can now control the wind with her latest shard rework in Dota 2 patch 7.30.

Losing her long range insta-kill Powershot in exchange for some massive crowd control in Gale Force, we may see a lot more Windranger in the future.

The scary thing about Gale Force is that the AoE is huge. It also has a lot of potential synergy with other crowd control spells like Black Hole and Pit of Malice, and can be cast from anywhere on the map thanks to its global ground targeting. Targets caught with a Shackleshot, or any disable really, can be blown around by Gale Force too.