7.07 is the first big balance patch since 7.00. Aside from monumental balance changes, Icefrog introduced a couple of terrain changes as well, changing the way we ward, pull, stack and more.
Shrines & Bounty Runes
Base Shrines have been removed and jungle Shrines have changed their location. Shrines are now deeper in their respective jungles parts, forcing teams to fall back further if they want to heal up, which is especially relevant for midplayers.
Bounty Runes have changed their locations as well. They now are closer to the rune spot on the enemy side, meaning that roamers can pick up multiple runes quicker than before.
Ward spots
A few dedicated ward hills have been removed, especially ones close to the river. Those ward spots technically remain, they just provide worse vision than before, i.e. they have been nerfed. The most notable one is this ward spot close to the Roshan pit, which used to provide vision over the adjacent ancient camp and the hard camp, but now it solely provides vision over the Roshan pit entrance. The old ward was too good for the Dire and made contesting Roshan for the Radiant very difficult and generally provided the Dire with a lot of vision, while being difficult for the Radiant to de-ward at times.
These are two other ward spots that have had their dedicated hills removed, but they still provide sufficient vision. The Dire ward has even better vision over the pull camp than before.
Speaking of pulling, the Radiant pull camp can still be blocked with a highground ward, but it does not provide vision over both camps anymore, instead it covers the rune spot.
Before 7.07, the camp could also be blocked with a ward from within the trees. In the new patch, that is not possible anymore, but cutting a tree would allow the ward to be placed–though then it’d be fairly obvious where the ward is.
The biggest change, warding wise, in 7.07 was moving the Dire t1 mid tower to allow heroes to walk into the lane from both sides without being detected, similar to the Radiant side. This allows the placement of a ward to the right, mirroring the ever so popular ward on the Radiant side.
Scouting the jungle
Warding the enemy jungle for vision has changed quite a bit. As terrain moves and camps and Shrines get readjusted, so do ward positions and vision. The Radiant jungle has a few more trees around the Shrine area, making it difficult to find a ward that truly covers it all. Before, supports could randomly place a ward there and would likely cover most terrain, especially pre-7.00, but now finding the right spot is quite important.
Placing the ward here gives optimal vision between the treelines, covering any movement from the camps to the right inside the jungle. It sees rotations from and to the Shrine and also covers both stair cases to the north. It could also be placed higher to get better vision over the right stair case, but that would sacrifice vision over the bottom right path and to the left of the Shrine.
There’s quite a similar ward spot inside the Dire jungle, or rather two. The first one covers a bit of everything, mostly keeping track of rotations between camp, Shrine and top lane. The other one provides more vision around the t2 tower itself, while still providing vision for rotations, without covering the Shrine itself though.
Finally, here are some ward spots you may or may not find useful, though all of these have been possible before, but with the changed terrain their vision has slightly changed.
