6.88b Analysis - Timbersaw still alive and kicking
Before we talk about 6.88b, it is worth reflecting on the short time where 6.88 dictated the meta. 6.88 in itself wasn’t the huge balance patch we are used to seeing from numbered patches. It didn’t have any changes to the map, nor did it have any changes towards global game mechanics, such as AoE bounty gold/xp, creep equilibrium or tower related interactions. If it hadn’t been for the massive amount of changes--though many could be argued to be minor--6.88 could have easily been 6.87e.
That said, 6.88 did see quite a distinct meta for a short period of time, considering the large amount of games including ESL One and the qualifiers for TI6. As previously discussed, it was 
Terrorblade that dominated the qualifiers and stood out in 6.88. The hero rose to the top and continued the idea of a tanky core being prevalent. That said though, Terrorblade was already on the rise in 6.87d. He may have been a niche pick with only 3 appearances at the Manila Major, but he showed promise even before his buffs in 6.88.
In the short time 6.88b has been around, we’ve already seen a slight trend towards illusion based heroes. A single hero stands at the center of this trend, as 
Shadow Demon becomes a crucial asset. His ability to now create illusions for 14 seconds with a 2 second cooldown allows for reliable sieging power. While it is a buff from 6.88, the popularity of heroes like Terroblade, Luna or Medusa now has given the hero more time to shine.
6.88b is not only about illusion based heroes though, as they are just part of a larger trend. The main focus seems to be towards physical damage based heroes--with Timbersaw remaining as a big exception-- and further emphasis towards team fighting capabilities, which is why heroes such as Faceless Void and Elder Titan stand at the top of most picked category.
Patch Notes
Timbersaw strength gain reduced from 2.1 to 1.8
Prior to this nerf, Timbersaw was amongst the most picked heroes in the pro scene. He works well against tanky cores, while staying tanky himself, especially against physical damage. This nerf is not enough to patch him out of the meta, but a good step into the right direction. A 50% winrate at The Summit also confirms that the hero is in no territory yet where an overnerf would be necessary.
Death Prophet base strength reduced by 1- Spirit Siphon base health drain reduced from 16 to 14
Spirit Siphon was already considerably nerfed in 6.88, decreasing the base health drain from 25 to 16. It is certainly the hero’s strongest asset in the laning stage, especially in a meta that sees melee carries transition into the midlane, such as Timbersaw or Juggernaut. That said, the hero is barely picked these days, likely due to the long cooldown on the ultimate and the inability to reliably deal (physical) damage outside of her ultimate.
- Metamorphosis manacost increased from 50 to 100
- Metamorphosis no longer lingers after reincarnation/death
As the most successful hero in 6.88, Terrorblade was bound to receive nerfs. Some may argue that the 2nd Metamorphosis nerf especially have taken out the hero out of the meta, but at least The Summit 5 has shown that the hero is still alive and kicking. He is not contested as nearly as often as he was during the qualifiers for TI6, but the hero is still very much viable and his average winrate (50% so far) is not because of these nerfs.
- Time Dilation manacost increased from 50 to 75
Faceless Void is still a core part of the meta and was first pick material at The Summit 5. The hero can stand in the offlane, but also transition into the jungle with an Iron Talon if need be. His teamfight control and maneuverability are pretty much unmatched in the meta for an offlaner and a nerf like this won’t push him out of the meta, especially since 4-1-4 is the most common build these days.
- Astral Spirit vision reduced from 450 to 400
A nerf into the right direction, as it doesn’t take away what makes 
Elder Titan strong. And what makes him strong is very much viable at the moment.
Beastmaster Boar XP bounty increased from 59 to 60/70/80/90
Laning against Beastmaster has always been annoying, mostly because of his Boar. Killing it is not always easy for a support without using a spell and the reward always seems not enough, considering how much damage it can cause. Since maxing the Boar/Hawk first is usually the build for Beastmaster, it is quite a considerable nerf. Certainly nothing that would push him out of the meta, but enough to make supports a little bit happier and more willing to pay attention to the Boar.
Riki's Blink Strike damage reduced from 60/80/100/120 to 55/70/85/100
20 damage at level 4 may seem like a lot, but considering that most Riki’s in pro games max either Smoke Screen or Cloak and Dagger first and often times only leave one point in Blink Strike until level 8, it is essentially just a 5 damage nerf, so rather negligible. In pubs it may be more of an issue, considering the dominance of a 1-4-4 build there.
- Lane Creeps now give 20% of XP when denied by neutrals rather than 0% (normal player denies give 50% XP)
Probably one of the more interesting changes in the patch, though it has yet to have the desired impact. The idea is to make the offlane more attractive and lucrative for actual offlaners, who most of the time simply retreat to farm in the jungle with an 
Iron Talon. It is indeed a good step in the right direction, but it probably will need more changes to truly bring back the traditional laning setups.
- Astral Imprisonment damage increased from 75/150/225/300 to 100/175/250/325
- Arcane Orb intelligence duration increased from 60 to 80
While these may be good buffs to the hero in general, [missing hero: outworld-devourer] is still not strong enough in the laning stage and the 6.87 nerfs are still too big for him to be considered now. OG has shown that the hero can work, if you have a line-up to support him--in this case both Drow Ranger and Io. He may see more play if illusion based heroes do become the norm, but for now he's very niche and these buffs won't change that.
- Bloodlust manacost reduced from 75 to 50
Since 6.85, 
Ogre Magi has basically only been buffed. There are many arguments as to why the hero isn’t picked--low mobility, low mana regen and mana pool, needs lots of levels to be strong--Bloodlust as a spell could be rather useful in the current meta. While it is often associated with a single core strat, where you boost the core with Bloodlust and other supporting/boosting abilities, Bloodlust in combination with Multicast allows your entire team to be buffed. In a line-up with the likes of Void, Drow and Medusa, Bloodlust could decide the outcome of a teamfight, though the question remains whether Ogre Magi can be useful even before that.
- Stone Form cooldown reduced from 26 to 20
Visage is in a weird place right now, as the hero is strong, if his abilities work in the meta. Split-pushing however isn’t that big of a factor right now and the hero doesn’t necessarily excel in teamfights. It’s a good buff, but Visage will likely, if at all, remain a niche pick.
Brewmaster Boulder damage increased from 50 to 50/100/150- Brewmaster Dispel Magic damage to illusions and summoned units increased from 500 to 850
In a meta where teamfighting is as relevant as ever, you’d think that Brewmaster would be more relevant. Unfortunately, the high cooldown on his ultimate and his drop-off in the lategame, as well as the inability to farm effectively make the hero quite difficult to draft and play right now. The extra damage towards illusions could in theory help, but the high cool down on his ultimate remains a big issue.
- Press the Attack's attack speed bonus increased from 60/80/100/120 to 65/90/115/140
In pro games, Overwhelming Odds is usually maxed out first, that said on level 4 it is a free, extra 
Gloves of Haste. There are however carry builds that tend to favor Press the Attack where it can have quite the impact.
- Thirst bonus rescaled from 10/20/30/40% to 16/24/32/40%
The ability is more effective early on, which makes a "value point" in it all the more valuable.
- Warlock Golems HP increased from 900/1350/1800 to 1000/1500/2000
Shadow Fiend movement speed increased from 310 to 315- Living Armor cooldown reduced from 32/26/20/14 to 30/24/18/12
- Dismember strength based damage increased from 30/40/50 to 30/45/60%
- Empower cleave AoE increased from 225 to 240
- Stampede slow duration increased from 1.5 to 1.8
- Lightning Bolt ministun increased from 0.1 to 0.2
- Sniper turn rate improved from 0.6 to 0.7
- Sniper night vision increased from 1000 to 1100
- Arcane Curse damage increased from 14/21/28/35 to 14/22/30/38
Meepo agility growth increased from 1.9 to 2.2
These are all small, but negligible buffs. It's unlikely to really affect any of these heroes' viability in the meta, but generally speaking they are all steps into the right direction.
- Sand Storm cooldown reduced from 40/30/20/10 to 34/26/18/10
- Epicenter manacost reduced from 175/250/325 to 150/225/300
Sand King has received direct buffs for a few years now. Phasing in and out of the meta was largely dependant on whether or not his toolset was useful and the extra magic resistance on neutral creeps certainly phased him out. Na’Vi have however brought the hero back in a core position with 3 wins out of 4 games at The Summit 5. Though none of these wins were necessarily results of these buffs. 
Caustic Finale has been buffed for as long as the skill existed basically and with an 
Aghanim's Scepter it works exceptionally well against illusion based heroes. Even without the item, the skill is incredibly strong in lane vs. melee heroes.
If Sand King sees more playtime in the way Na’Vi have run him, it’s not because of these buffs. In fact, GeneraL’s and Dendi’s builds only skill Sand Storm at level 9. That said, these buffs could put Sand King back into the support position, though farming the jungle with just Sand Storm is still quite difficult.
TI Patch?
6.88b addressed a lot of important issues, though it doesn't overract to any of the important issues. There are cases to be made that some heroes could be nerfed/buffed more, but current winrates don't seem to indicate that any hero would justify it. As a result--considering the short amount of time left--this is likely the last balance patch before TI. It was surprising already to see a new balance patch not even a month prior to TI. It seems to be a trend though, as it certainly has happened with Majors before.
This patch may crown a new championship team within a month at Key Arena and it seems to be just as good of a patch as the previous have been. With 96 heroes picked at Manila, how many will Seattle see?
Headline Image: Lumberclaw Set by Puffin [Red Ribbon]
first?
Why PL hasn't been buffed in the last few patches puzzles me, he has had a pretty horrendous win rate since the sniper/troll/lina/storm meta ended
11111
4rd
LULUL
Good article, thanks for the break down. One nit -- in the omnibus small changes section you conclude: "These are all small, but negligent buffs." Think you want "negligible".
ETA, I always wonder why the pros prefer Overwhelming Odds v Press the Attack -- I'm shit tier but find Press the Attach to be way more valuable whilst laning.
Cheers.
@Praise the Sun , He is a niche pick and I believe that he has a good winrate in the pro escene.
while pl is still strong and viable, he falls off relative fast towards late game where there are stronger and tankier carries around. as tanky cores is the meta now, PL dps proved to be too little to get the tanky cores down.
By the way, how are the LC stats when played as support and core in The Summit 5? xd
what nerf did OD receive in 6.87? :/
Those "small, negligible buffs" don't really make a difference, so why implement them at all?
PL has not been picked much coz TB does a better job at
1) pushing
2) fighting
3) farming
I hope we will see more than 100 heroes on TI6 including TECHIES!
Lifestealer needs a debuff imo.
smmbradford856@hotmail.com
SMMB.
Timber's passive is too OP. Should be nerfed at leats in half. Others skills are pretty balanced.
What do you guys think of Morph? I personally think that a buff would be good and something like buffing the Movement-Speed to 300 would be a step in the right direction.
Maybe we will see some more Morphling games soon, since the heros ultimate is very unique and very good, especially against illusion based heroes.
Also OD should be buffed again, he kind of is the Stormspirit of 6.88 ^^. Beeing OP, getting nerved into beeing unplayable and then getting buffs which buff everything that doesn't make him a good hero. They should rather try to balance his abilitys rather than destroying one ability and making another one very good, but the hero himself not effective.
@Landish, Odds is a huge nuke when farming and harassing is why. rarely do you see a pos 1 lc, and in the offlane that nuke can be most of your farm and provides decent harass.
Timber doesn't really need a nerf on his reactive armor because we can still hurt him with magic damage and i think 6.88b patch is good enough
@Dad as a fellow offlaner I agreed with you
Can someone explain to me about safe lane exp? I don't get it
Timber is still horrid to play against
@bakso:
The safelane isn't really the issue. The neutral creeps however are. Before 6.88b, you could pull creeps and if your lane creeps got killed by neutral creeps, the enemies wouldn't get any exp from that. Now however, they get 20% of the exp a normal creepkill would give you.
So simple math: If a creepwave normally gives you 100 exp, they would give 0 before when pulled to neutral camps. Now they give you at least 20 exp. It's not huge by any means, but it can make a difference.
Perhaps one of the reason for ogre magi low pickrate is that the Hero skills are incosistent (RNG based ulti)
Naix still need some nerf specially with his ult cd, at late game he always run away into creeps with that cd so annoying
is this the last update until Ti or there's another one??
Timber? needs that passive nerf, its like when PL was OP (just buy vision and counter him with AOE stuns! But what if WE DONT HAVE AOE STUNS?) Counter Timber with magic? But what if i dont want to pick magic int heroes every game? So Timber force you to pick int heroes 90% of your games. We are not professionals. We want fun and different picks in dota. And Timber is really op now, dont lie guys. My favorite, Brewmaster, is now the biggest shit in game. Late game, Wisp wins him in physical duel. First magic is shit late game, why its not 350 on lvl 4?? And why his critical is only 2x on every lvls WHEN WILL BE FUCKING BUFFED? Timber is mid and offlaner for 60 min, Brewmaster is midlaner for 25 min and offlaner for 15 min. And after that he is useless, only ult is escape thing, no more killing thing. And those 2 heroes were the same fucking thing... 6.82c destroyed panda...
His ability to now create illusions for 14 seconds with a 2 second cooldown allows for reliable sieging power. While it is a buff from 6.88, the popularity of heroes like Terroblade, Luna or Medusa now has given the hero more time to shine.
Typo Terrorblade, not Terroblade
Magic damage heroes underrated Kappa
@dat boi sometimes the smallest buffs/nerfs have caused noticeable winrate changes, ie luna ministun and ms increase
Why nerf earth spirt over 6 times heros that needs nering is jugger spec slark sven way to over powered and unbalanced late game
why wraith king ultimate dont get nerfed?
in late game he cant die