Valve is clipping Kez’s wings after a resurgence in win rate following his release.
Valve has deployed a new patch for Dota 2 today, Nov. 12, focusing on balancing new hero Kez. The Kazumi samurai struggled to make a mark early as players were learning how the complex hero worked, but now that they've got a handle on him, the nerfs are hitting hard as can be seen in the Dota 2 patch notes below.
Both of Kez's ultimates, Raptor Dance and Raven's Veil, have had their cooldowns extended by 20% in the late game. While untouched early, the ability spam was proving to be too strong. Falcon Rush was also hit, receiving a boost to attack rate but a hefty drop-off in duration — from seven seconds to three seconds early game and six seconds late game.
The Kazurai Katana passive also had its damage reduced by a percent at all levels, while Grappling Clap and Echo Slash were ignoring evasion making Kez extremely powerful against carries that rely on evasion to survive.
Kez debuted in Dota with last week's Crownfall Act IV patch, setting the record for the lowest win-rate on arrival in recent history. However, the flightless bird has seen a surge over the past few days according to Dotabuff, with the hero climbing out of the 30% bracket and closer to that 50% parity.
It was always expected Kez's win rate would rebound but Valve obviously believes he's recovering a little too quickly. We'll see over the coming week whether the nerfs push him back down the list. Also included in today's patch was several bug fixes, mainly with the new Crownfall minigames.
The patch is now live. We've included the full Dota 2 patch notes below.
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Full Dota 2 Nov. 12 patch notes
Kez
- Kazurai Katana
- Damage per second reduced from 7/8/9/10% to 6/7/8/9%.
- Falcon Rush
- Katana base attack rate increased from 1.3/1.2/1.1/1.0 to 1.4/1.3/1.2/1.1.
- Duration decreased from seven to 3/4/5/6 seconds.
- Raptor Dance
- Increased cooldown from 40/32/24 to 40/35/30.
- Raven's Veil
- Increased cooldown from 40/32/24 to 40/35/30.
- Grappling Claw
- Fixed chain not being broken when linked to a target out of range.
- Shodo Sai
- Fixed some Mark interactions dealing more damage than intended.
- Grappling Claw
- Fixed it ignoring evasion.
- Echo Slash
- Fixed it ignoring evasion.
- Echo Slash
- Fixed it killing couriers.
- Echo Slash
- Fixed it allowing Kez to escape leashes and movement prevention abilities (i.e. Disruptor Kinetic Field).
Bug fixes
- Fixed a client crash with Moon Shard.
- Fixed a server crash involving Ogre Seal Totem and Lone Druid.
- Fixed various issues with Quick Buy.
- Fixed Shen and Dragonus arcana style unlocks not applying to respective cursor icon packs.
- Fixed Juggernaut Primal Prowl style unlock.
- Fixed various crashes with Act IV encounters.
- When winning an Ability Draft game, instead of granting three tokens and two scrap, it now grants three tokens and eight scrap.
- Spleen Sweeper
- Added a scoring section on the main menu to show scoring information.
- Fixed score summary not showing after beating all five stages.
- Fixed last stage not granting a completion bonus of 4,000 points.
- Castle Carnage
- Fixed Tunneler particle missing model and issues with grenade bouncing.
- Fixed phantom terrain blocking some shots.
- Spoon Man
- Fixed an issue where the mouse cursor would stay invisible after a pop-up.
- Spoon Man
- Fixed a crash related to pressing a button before the game is loaded.
- Fixed being able to get stuck inside a block.
- Nest of Thorns
- Fixed an issue where rewards could fail to be granted.
- Nest of Thorns
- Fixed an issue where the gold amount could fail to be saved.
- Fixed Blind Queensguard (Strange Vendor) encounter not working.
- Fixed Act IV sprays not showing up in Chat Wheel.
- Crownfall Map:
- Clicking on the tokens-received gift alert attached to the inventory now opens the associated encounter.
- Fixed an issue where playing or replaying the Kez debut animation could result in a black screen.
- Fixed new Crownfall trophies not showing up.
That's all for now! Check out esports.gg for more Dota 2 news, guides, and coverage!
