Valve dropped the 7.41 Dota 2 patch last night, marking a seismic moment for the MOBA. Amongst over 20,000 words of patch notes was one line that will inevitably completely shift the competitive Dota 2 meta: “Facets removed from the game.”
The game also saw a significant change as Refresher Shard’s Reset Cooldowns no longer refreshes items, a much-used mechanic for refreshing double Black King Bar (BKB) in the end game.
Dota 2 says goodbye to Facets
Facets were introduced alongside Innate Abilities in May 2024’s 7.36 patch, with both mechanics becoming defining aspects of Heroes and their builds.
Facets were hero-specific customization paths that allowed the player to choose certain bonuses, summons, and so on. Every Hero had at least two Facets to choose from before the start of the match.
In theory, Facets allowed the player to choose how they wanted to play; In reality, not all Facets were equal, leading to huge disparities in the pick rates of certain Facets.
While not everyone was a slave to the meta, Facets were a key area of confusion for casual and new players, who simply wanted the answer to what was better.
In this patch, Valve has largely answered that question for the player by integrating several of the Facets into the base kit of heroes. For example, Lina retains Slow Burn, but now as an Innate Ability.
However, not every retained Facet is necessarily the player-favoured one. Valve’s job, after all, is to balance the game. Therefore, Clockwerk sees its Armor Power ability retained, allowing Clockwerk to consume Chainmails to gain +4 armor, instead of the more popular Expanded Armature.
The race is on at ESL One Birmingham
The race will now be on at ESL One Birmingham to work out what is still meta and what has been hurt by the recent patch. No stone was left unturned by the patch, which balanced dozens of abilities and items across heroes.
The news will not be welcome to the high-flying rosters at Birmingham, where Aurora has already assured their place in the playoffs by starting with a 5-1-0 series record, an impressive 11-1 in total games.
In Group A, Yandex and Tundra are expectedly sitting atop the groups, but somewhat more precariously than expected. While both teams are undefeated in the Bo2 series, they have recorded two and three draws, respectively.
But it is only speculation at this point to think who the patch favours or hurts, the only proof will be in the server as we prepare for the March 27-29 arena playoffs at the bp live arena, Birmingham.
Was your favourite hero hurt in the patch? Tell us about it on our community Discord server!
For more MOBA patch news, see our League of Legends 26.7 patch preview.
Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
More from Darragh Harbinson
