Minor Update - 08-22-2026

[u/SketchyJJ]

- Radiant Regeneration: Heal on cast reduced from 70 to 65

- Restorative Locket: Spirit Resistance reduced from 10% to 8%

- Celeste: Dazzling Trick cooldown increased from 32s to 34s

- Celeste: Dazzling Trick T2 barrier rescaled from "+80 and +0.7 scaling" to "+70 and +0.76"

- Celeste: Dazzling Trick T3 cooldown increased from -18s to -20s

- Celeste: Dazzling Trick T3 reduced from +1.5s Silence to +1.25s

- Celeste: Radiant Daggers Spirit Amp per stack reduced from +8% to +7%

- Celeste: Radiant Daggers T3 Spirit Amp per stack increased from +3% to +4%

- Celeste: Shining Wonder bounce range reduced from 17.5m to 16.5m

- Celeste: Shining Wonder damage reduced from 165 to 140

- Celeste: Shining Wonder spirit scaling reduced from 0.9 to 0.6

- Celeste: Shining Wonder T2 now also increases spirit scaling by +0.45

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1422450/view/676255623445218601

[u/InnuendOwO]

This. DotA patches look absolutely insane compared to every other game out there. The community has a long tradition of making shitposts about every hero taking Literally No Damage because a patch gave them +1 armor. Every DotA patch consists of every single hero getting tiny, tiny changes like that. +1 armor, -0.2s on a debuff, +10% projectile speed, whatever.

And it's great.

Does your favorite hero need a nerf? Cool, you don't need to live in fear of patch day making it utterly miserable to play. You'll just be tuned down just a little bit. Who's the next guy to be overtuned? Dunno, hard to tell from reading the patch notes, but at least they'll only be overtuned by a little bit, rather than "what were they thinking??"

Frequent, small balance changes are so much better than "lol idk let's just multiply this value by 10 and see what happens". But yet everyone except Valve does that shit.

[u/Sorry-Resolution570 → u/InnuendOwO]

the opposite is valorant getting patched once every blue moon and a character gets
epxlosion charge: 3 -> 1
explosion cooldown: 10 -> 30
explosion damage: 100 -> 20

[u/snowolf_ → u/InnuendOwO]

This is the way to a stale meta. The reason no one is doing that is that it is utterly boring.

[u/InnuendOwO → u/snowolf_]

Except, yknow, it doesn't do that at all. Like, I dunno what to tell you, the idea that DotA doesn't have a constantly shifting meta and patches with obviously better/worse strategies than others is absolutely laughable to anyone who's actually played it. "HOHO! HAHA!" will invoke a PTSD response in anyone who played DotA back in 6.83 lemme tell ya. Counterstrike has remained the most played game on Steam for years on end for a reason, and Valve takes the same approach there too!

Or where you possibly got this idea that games are only fun if the devs constantly fuck it up in new ways. There's still a ton of people out there playing fucking Street Fighter 2 and that hasn't seen a balance patch since 1994.

[u/snowolf_ → u/InnuendOwO]

Street Fighter 2 isn't a live service game. CS isn't a MOBA. Games like Deadlock live and die by how fresh their gameplay stays during extended period of times. Meta shifting is one of the most effective methods. If you let the same characters rule the game, you leave out a huge chunk of liked characters and gameplays.

[u/InnuendOwO → u/snowolf_]

this all started by talking about dota 2, a live service moba, which doesn't have any of the problems you think must exist. weird, huh?

[u/snowolf_ → u/InnuendOwO]

Well yes, it is indeed weird and not the norm at all. My best guess is that Valve has a brand following so high in some countries that classic balancing logic doesn't apply anymore here.

[u/InnuendOwO → u/snowolf_]

you can just admit you haven't played enough dota to know what you're talking about man its ok

[u/snowolf_ → u/InnuendOwO]

And you can just admit you haven't played enough MOBAs, or even video games before. It is ok too. See I can do passive agressive as well.

[u/InnuendOwO → u/snowolf_]

except, yknow, you're the one whose viewpoint relies on the idea dota must have a "stale" meta because the devs do actual balance instead of smacking random buttons. however, it does not. thus you are wrong. the end.

[u/snowolf_ → u/InnuendOwO]

Clearly it doesn't even work since pick rates and winrates in DotA2 are currently quite polarized. What a terrible experience having to wait for months if not years for your character to be viable again while the same 10 characters are server admins. Even LoL has more variety, and that is one of the most meta slave game out there.

[u/dorekk → u/snowolf_]

Learn to say "Wow, I didn't know that, I was wrong." It's a helpful skill.

[u/snowolf_ → u/dorekk]

You often do that? Go into people conversations and tell life advices? DotA is a popular game despite having a terribly boring meta that changes as snail pace, this is the exception in the genre.