Dota 2's massive changes after The International each year has become a highly-anticipated annual event. It's always a fun time seeing what new items, mechanics, heroes, and map changes there will be to spice up the game. Dota 2 players have been quite desperate lately for a new patch for various reasons from overpowered denies to ridiculous carry heroes. Thankfully, Icefrog has graced us with his presence and given us 7.20 update yesterday.

The update has most certainly shaken up the game with myriad changes. As such, I do want to give my impressions on them but I just can't bloat everything into one post. As such, this post will be about changes specifically related to the reworked map.

Initial Rune Battles:

Area around Radiant bottom rune flattened.

• More vision for the Radiant means Dire have fewer methods to invade Radiant’s rune.
• Due to the bottom stairs being gone, pulling will be much less risky since Radiant will be able to see when Dire contests the pull.

Dire bottom rune placed only one high ground level above the river.

• Radiant movement from the side is the same as before but attacking from the river will be much easier now.
• If the Radiant heroes can sneak into the left stairs, they could get a high ground advantage in the rune invade from behind.
• Radiant can see into the Dire rune area from their rune spot now.

Radiant top rune placed only one high ground level above the river with stairs behind it.

• Dire could wrap around from the ancients in the rune invade for the high ground advantage.

Dire top rune placed directly in the river between two stairs.

• Dire can position at the top of the stairs to ambush the Radiant if they choose to invade.
• Neither side can see into each other’s top rune spots due to the distance between them.
• Heroes sitting on top of those stairs can't be snuck up on from any direction.

Overall

The Radiant bottom rune and the Dire top rune are both far harder to invade into. Meanwhile, the Radiant top rune and Dire bottom rune are much more vulnerable than they were before. This is significant because the most common invade spots before were the Radiant bottom rune and the Dire top rune. This should lead to more organic early-game plans compared to before.

By the way, one of the most important factors for me to consider when looking at a Dota 2 map is how Techies does on it. Now, Techies is never going to be the same as he was when Monkey King was first released. At that time, bounty runes gave a massive amount of gold and xp to you which let you just roam and set up mines around the map. Now, playing like that just puts you too far behind in levels. With that said, I do see techies getting a pseudo-buff with this new map. The many new stairs around the map means that there are more places to set up traps for unsuspecting enemies. Maybe give it a try this week while players are still getting to grips with the new map.

Shrine Areas

The Radiant bottom shrine has 2 nearby stairs going down.

• If Radiant is retreating from a fight in the safe lane, reinforcements teleporting to the shrine will not be seen unless wards are set up.

The Dire bottom shrine is largely unchanged besides the ancient camp now being a part of the collective high ground area in that part of the jungle.

• Farming this spot should be much easier than before because you will always have vision of the small camps while hitting ancients.
• Dire will also face more risk while farming there because enemies will see the dire farming sooner.

The Radiant top shrine area is the high ground area on equal footing with the ward spot.

• The shrine used to be in this recession surrounded on all sides by high ground meaning that farming there or teleporting there was incredibly risky.

The Dire top shrine now has more stairs going down from it in the surrounding area.

• The Dire ancients are now next to the shrine making farming stacks there far safer than before.

Overall

The Radiant bottom, Radiant top, and Dire top shrines should be far better for whoever has control over that area. The Dire bottom shrine area is slightly weaker now, but it was already incredibly dominant before, so that’s not saying too much.

Jungle Camps

Radiant Bottom Jungle:

• The two camps next to the bottom lane are more or less the same. The only difference is that there are no stairs around them. Pulling into the lane works the same way that it used to for both the Radiant safe lane and the Dire off lane.
• In the past, farming in this area largely consisted of killing a cycle of two medium camps and a large camp. Now, the three camps close to each other are a large camp, a medium camp, and an ancient camp. The last medium camp is quite far from the other three similar to how the ancients used to be positioned.
• Due to the ancient camp being a part of the farming cycle, stacking that ancient camp will be far less enticing than it used to be.
• The new medium camp is very close to the middle lane. It also only takes one tree being cut to open up the tree line and farm the camp.

Dire Bottom Jungle:

• As mentioned before, this jungle setup is the exact same as before except for some elevation changes.

Radiant Top Jungle:

• The ancient camp is much easier to access without blinks or dashes now because there isn’t a massive wall between them and the normal camps. Similar to the Radiant bottom jungle, this may make ancients stacking less effective than before.
• As mentioned above, farming these camps is far safer now due to elevation.

Dire Top Jungle:

• Although pulling the small camp into the lane behind the Dire tier 1 tower is the same as before, there seems to be no way to connect the pull into the large camp below it. If it is possible, it seems to be incredibly hard to time correctly though.
• This is a massive change as there is almost no way for Dire to reset the wave anymore. Quite frankly, I don't know how the Dire safe lane works anymore. The Radiant safe lane was largely unchanged, so this is just baffling to me. Maybe if the Radiant couldn't pull the large camp, I could understand, but that's not the case here. The Dire safe lane just seems to be unplayable as far as I understand.

• The ancient camp is more centralized similar to the Radiant bottom jungle. Notably, this will make it very difficult for heroes like Templar Assassin to stack the ancients since it’s so far from the mid lane now.
• On the other hand, since both sides of mid now have easy access to a medium camp, heroes like Shadow Fiend that can quickly nuke a wave with be able to push out a wave and farm an extra camp for efficiency.

Overall

The changes to the camps seem to benefit carries with a good amount of movement speed as the safe lane jungles have really awkward farming patterns. The Radiant bottom jungle is able to double stack a medium camp and the ancient camp at the same time while the Dire can still do its traditional triple stack in its bottom jungle. More or less, I think both sides are about fair except for the Dire safelane pull. That large camp needs to be closer to the small camp or someone needs to tell me how else you can connect the pull.

Towers

• The Radiant middle tier 2 tower is now positioned on the right of the lane instead of the left. This has created a path from the Radiant top jungle where the enemy can sneak past behind the tower without being detected.
• Not only do the trees block vision there, but the true sight of the tower doesn't reach there either. Unless there are sentries set up, heroes with invisibility will be able to camp there and dive behind the tower.

• The Radiant bottom tier 2 tower is now closer to the middle than towards the jungle. This gives slightly deeper true sight in the bottom radiant forest.

Trees

This map has been designed with very small patches of trees spread out fairly far apart. Perhaps not much more than the previous map, but it's definitely not anything like the reborn map. I'm not quite sure, but I'm curious about how Treant Protector will be able to navigate around this map. I know that Monkey King can't even use tree dance to cross the bottom river except from the trees next to the lane. I'm also suspecting that Timbersaws are going to be frequently missing their chains in the Radiant bottom shrine area where there are just 1-3 trees clumped here and there.

Of course, with the massive overhaul to the formation of the trees in the jungle, there are surely a million new pockets and juke spots that will be fun to discover. Unfortunately, I'm not quite clairvoyant enough to know about all of them and which ones are actually going to be important. Anyway, this is only the first part of my look through the 7.20 update. Look forward to my take on the rest in the coming days. Let me know what stood out to you about the new map and what other changes you think are the most interesting to you.