As is often the case with big tournaments, The International 2023 has quite clearly revealed which are the most powerful heroes and strategies in Dota 2. Unsurprisingly, this knowledge then quickly spread to the general playerbase and so the matches for the past few weeks have been filled with Spirit Breakers, Chaos Knights, Kunkkas and similarly annoying heroes.

So in order to sort this problem out and shake up the metagame, at least slightly, Valve has now unleashed Patch 7.34e. While there are a couple of buffs sprinkled throughout, it's important to note that Patch 7.34e is primarily focused on lowering the impact of the best heroes. In other words, don't get too excited about your favorite niche picks becoming more powerful as that's likely going to come with 7.35 somewhere down the line.

As for the actual changes, it should come as little shock to hear that Patch 7.34e has toned down the above mentioned trio, some of their supporting crew like Dazzle and Grimstroke, generally powerful brawlers like Primal Beast and Wraith King, as well as a few other nuisances. Keeping with the theme, the update has also slightly nerfed both Hand of Midas and Heart of Tarrasque - two nearly omnipresent items these days.

While many of these changes will have a noticeable effect on the hero's laning phase and how early they hit their power spikes, as you'll see soon they are by no means crushing nerfs. So if you were hoping to never see Chaos Knight or Spirit Breaker ever again, I'm sorry to say that's just not what Patch 7.34e is about.

Some might find this disappointing given how entrenched the meta has become recently, but I'm actually quite pleased to see Valve take a gentler approach as the end goal should be to have as many viable heroes as possible, rather than a constant rotation of 'goods' and 'bads'. Still, I do hope we get a follow-up patch in the near future as some of the lower tier heroes could definitely do with a bit of sprucing up. Once that happens, I'll make sure to let you know.

Until then you can find the full list of changes for Patch 7.34e, as well as the exact numbers behind them, over at the Dota 2 website. Enjoy the (hopefully) new meta!