6.86e released to address Earth Spirit, Lone Druid

Juno Reyes

Thursday, February 11, 2016
10:53 am

| Shanghai Major

© Valve

Any hero that hovers around the 60% win rate mark in a tournament where it is among the top 5-10 most picked heroes is already disgusting as it is.

And then there’s Earth Spirit or Ebola Spirit as the community likes to call him, who somehow rolled his way to an 82.8% win rate as the MarsTV D2 League finals came to a close last week, despite being the third most-played hero in the tournament. Kaolin was either banned or picked in 71 of the 73 games throughout the event.

With such a glaring imbalance in his win rate, and the Shanghai Major just about a month away, IceFrog was quick to respond. Less than five days after the MDL exposed how abusable the newest ES is, Valve released v6.86e, a small patch that looked to target the two most successful heroes from the recent LAN.

The patch reduces the cast range of Enchant Remnant by a little over 75%, dragging it all the way down to 125 from the previous 600. At first glance, the move is a big blow to the hero’s late-game utility; in a burst/lockdown-heavy meta, the ability to turn an ally being focused into stone to force a soft reset in the middle of a team fight is an invaluable asset. Just ask EHOME’s Kaka, who thwarted Universe’s spectacular Chronospheres in the final, championship-clinching game of the MDL:

However, as BeyondTheSummit’s David ‘GoDz’ Parker had pointed out on Twitter just a few hours ago, the change is not as kneejerk and/or drastic as it appears on the surface, with the nerf only targeting the hero’s Aghanims upgrade, an item which was picked up less than 50% of the ES games.

At his core, Kaolin’s main kit remains untouched, his early game as potent as ever, leaving many wondering whether or not the hero was nerfed hard enough for it to no longer be such an outlier.

Lone Druid, who happens to be the second most successful hero of MDL among the top 5 picks, with 17 wins out of 26 (65.4% win rate) and was also crucial in Alliance’s championship run at Star Ladder i-League StarSeries 13 earlier last January, was the other hero targetted by the patch, with his Savage Roar having it’s cooldown bumped up, allowing for significantly less defensive plays.