Pub Trends
A minor patch released a couple of weeks ago is definitely not enough for a full Tier List of its own, but there is still a variety of new and interesting changes in the public metagame we would like to go over.
Centaur Warrunner
The hero remained untouched in the 6.81-6.81b transition, however his popularity is in a steady decline.
Interestingly, it is only after the 6.81b that this decline has started to manifest itself. To a large extent it could be attributed to the steady decrease in the popularity of the hero in the competitive scene. Additionally, introduction of the new Immortal items to a variety of other heroes probably had an impact on the popularity of other. Though in my opinion the most crucial factor in this case was the fact that people have slowly started to get bored with the hero and since his wow-factor was somewhat nerfed in 6.80, his presence can no longer be justified by his power alone. (Though he still remains a very reliable pick at 54% Win Rate)
Earthshaker
He received a decent amount of buffs with his ultimate now covering a lot more ground and his turn rate improved. The result is a ~1.2% increase in Win Rate and a small boost to popularity.
While the figures alone do not impress the AoE improvement of the ultimate, there is a definite increase in its utility and potential damage output. Personally, I was once surprised by the amount of damage when landing an
Echo Slam near what later appeared to be a heavily stacked stacked neutral camp, that would otherwise be out of range (probably).
Enigma
The hero has seen its ups and downs, however she does make a comeback before every International. This time is more that justified with a variety of buffs introduced to the 
Midnight Pulse.
The result is unsurprising:
The public scene is probably taking a huge advantage with an often underrated spell. It is also a great counter to an increasingly poplar
Tinker, who really likes hiding in the trees with his 
Blink Dagger.
Invoker
There was a variety of small nerfs to the hero but one really stood out - 
Cold Snap. His presence in lane and potential in 1v1 situations has significantly decreased, resulting in a much lower Win Rate in public matchmaking, where, in all honesty, the game often takes a form of a huge amount of 1v1's, rather that a team vs. team.
Juggernaut
In my previous patch analysis of Juggernaut I made two mistakes. I have wrongly assumed that 
Anti-Mage has a BAT of 1.4, when it is in fact 1.45. And I have horribly underestimated the impact of a further BAT decrease for Juggernaut to 1.4 making him THE most fast-hitting hero in the game, except for 
Alchemist with 
Chemical Rage
An almost 2% increase in Win Rate is very significant. To a certain extent it results from the fact that people in Public Matchmaking tend to prolong the games a lot further that they should and it resulted in
Juggernaut rapidly becoming less and less threatening. An improvement to one of the characteristics that scales so well has somewhat lifted the burden from this previously very early-game dependent carry. It still does not justify building a [missing item: battlefury], but a 6-slotted Juggernaut is a force to be reckoned with.
Mirana
I remember the first time I have played Mirana back in the WC3 Dota 1 days. She was just released and quickly got extremely popular with a "hook-like" skillshot that had an immense impact on the game. Since then the game has developed to a point where 
Sacred Arrow has become a lot less of a skillshot and was used either at point blank or with a set up from heroes like 
Bane and 
Shadow Shaman.
This nerf, which was both necessary and relevant, has actually returned some requirement for the Arrow to actually have an impact and therefore has arguably increased the pleasure from landing a long stun on an enemy.
All that with a relatively small impact on the actual Win Rate of the hero:
Omniknight
I refuse to believe that a small buff to the 
Degen Aura has resulted in a 2% increase in Win Rate for the hero:
Being the second most Winning hero in the Public matchmaking, he is still overlooked by most professional teams due to his low-ish lane presence (his melee range does reduce his utility by a lot) and general "greediness" (high level requirements to be effective), and the buff was not unwelcome. But in my opinion it was the influence of SirActionSlacks and his guide to Escaping MMR hell that has increased the Win Rate for this hero. All I can say is Thank You for popularizing the role of support among the pub players.
Phantom Assassin
Phantom Assassin is a rather unreliable hero and while it does not necessarily make her weak, it does tamper with her viability as a 1st position carry, since she can be heavily outclassed (or completely destroy) by the opposition depending not primarily on the skill of a player and his macro choices, but on the luck of the player. It is really hard to change something about this unreliability without making this hero lose her uniqueness, hence a decrease in cooldown for 
Stifling Dagger as well as higher 
Blur chance can be considered really good changes which provide a much smoother early game, a stronger mid-game and a viability as a middle lane hero.
We do not suggest you play Phantom Assassin unless you absolutely know what you are doing, however this new-found meta has proved itself well.
Overall, there was a significant increase in Win Rate of ~2%.
A steady ongoing rise in popularity of the hero only makes this fact more important, since higher popularity typically results in lower Win Rates and not the other way around.
Treant Protector
Losing 54 damage from level 1 
Leech Seed is having a huge impact on the Win Rate of this hero. Considering the high mana cost it is rare that this ability is used more that 3-4 times before level 4, when this ability is usually skill for the second time, according to our statistics.
The amount of aggressiveness in the early stages of the game is what makes this nerf a lot more punishing in the public matchmaking. While he still remains a strong Pub Winner, we suggest players try to utilize him a bit differently, with lower amounts of pro-activeness in the early stage and a more reactive gameplay. This way this nerf would have a much lower impact:
Closing Comments
Smaller patches are bound to have smaller impacts not because the individual buffs and nerfs are on a lower scale compared to the big patches (in fact, some of the changes introduced in 6.81b are quite sizable), but because there is lower effect from the millions of possible interactions between each set of heroes. Therefore, for this article we considered changes of 1-2% to be a lot more significant than they would be if there was a major gameplay change.
Overall, the impact on the public matchmaking is undeniably positive - with the exception of Omniknight, the Win Rate of heroes was slightly pulled towards the "norm" of 50%.
The International 4 promises to be quite interesting and the Pub-stars are probably going to make an appearance, since it is hard to deny the fact that some heroes are currently extremely powerful and could be used as an unexpected pocket strat.
I didn't know Enigma was a she.
think its a typo
Enigma is more like an "it".
In Russian and Ukrainian almost every word ending with an "a" is of a feminine grammatical gender. Hence Pugna and Enigma, and also Spectre are used as feminine gender nouns here. Nevertheless Kunkka is not because he's too brutal and manly. Socks seems to be Ukrainian so it makes sense.
guide to huehuehue PA:
Build Vlads and MoM
build rapier.
tbh it's actually pretty reliable assuming enemy has no disable.
There is a typo in the Engima section in which you spelled popular wrong " It is also a great counter to an increasingly poplar Tinker, who really likes hiding in the trees with his Blink Dagger."
Enigma is a he !
Are you allergic to the word "than?" You keep saying "that" instead of "than."
Other than that great analysis! Glad to see all of these much deserved buffs and nerfs.
Enigma is a "she"?? Ok that'll haunt me in my dreams.
no meepo or tinker?
are your socks really kawaii?
Enigma is not a she.
comments more focused on enigmas gender
What gender are io and puck?
@Mertol I'd guess Puck is feminine and Io is more likely to be neutrine
Edit: according to Heropedia, Puck is neutrine too. And also, Heropedia says Enigma is masculine, so no more discussion :P
Siractionslacks man he is hilarious please try and watch his channel i know u will like it.
I love reading these. Nice work and keep them coming.
If I could make one suggestion, you may want to standardize the scales on your graphs. On some graphs, you have the scale ranging from 42% to 54%, whereas in others you have the scale as large from 45% to 65%. As a result, it can be a little difficult to compare the changes of the win rates between heroes. When looking at the graph, Juggernaut appears to have had a huge spike in win rate compared to Omniknight's minor increase; however only upon further inspection of the graphs can you see that Omni's spike is actually far more drastic than Juggernaut's.
It's just something that you may want to keep in mind when putting together the next post.