Dota Major Brings Fantasy Rosters and a New Balance Patch 7.31c

This evening (May 5th), Valve announced a small balance patch and Fantasy for the upcoming Stockholm Major. The patch, 7.31c, will add a series of changes ahead of the next Major. In just over a week, teams will be competing live from Stockholm to determine latest DPC standings.

Ahead of this Valve has released this patch, along with a series of notes on their official website. Below, we've run down a few of the significant changes to the game.

The fantasy system will operate almost exactly the same as the seasonal fantasy. You'll be able to open packs to get different plays from different teams to make your roster.

Depending on how well they do, you get a certain amount of fantasy points per day. Unlike in the seasonal fantasy, these rosters lock per day, rather than per week, so remember to log in daily to update your roster. You'll gain shards for each 1st, 2nd, and 3rd fantasy level and a Lineage treasure for every 4th level.

How to participate:

The announcement also came with a small new balance patch for the game. Patch 7.31c addresses some of the big problems that many people complained about in the previous patch.

For example, the Harpy Scout creep, which gave massive amounts of vision when taken over with the Helm of the Dominator has had it's vision reduced. The Dark Troll Summoner, has also been nerfed, reduced the uptime on it's skeleton and reducing skeleton armor to 0.

There were also some significant hero nerfs as well. Death Prophet was a major problem and was considered broken my some in the community. This patch severely nerfed her exorcism ability, making it only do 50% damage to buildings. Her Spirit Siphon damage was also rescaled from from 16 to 10/12/14/16. Keeper of the light also had a nerf to how much mana Chakra Magic gave, as well as to the knockback duration of Blinding Light.

Tiny received a massive nerf to his tree based abilities. Valve also reduced his tree grab building damage was reduced 55%/70%/85%/100% to 40%/55%/70%/85%. In addition, his tree attack damage multiplier from his ultimate was also reduced.

For the non-pro players, Primal Beast was given a severe smack down in balance. Opponents can now hear Onslaught through fog of war. His Uproar and Trample abilities both received nerfs to their damage.

Overall, these are some of the significant changes to the game. What's more, they come right before the Major, with only a few weeks for teams to prepare. And if you're looking for more info, you can read the full patch notes here.