Dota 2 recently received a major update where one character in particular was hit the hardest—Tinker. The hero was massively nerfed in the patch, seeing his win rate plummet—and players have now officially bid farewell to the old version of Tinker.
“In Memoriam: Tinker, 2013-2024” is the title of an emotional video posted to Reddit on May 26, showcasing Tinker’s recent nerf and several clips of his old self performing as well as ever. Tinker lost the ability to use Rearm to reset his item cooldowns and will no longer be able to spam item abilities such as Shiva’s Guard, Ethereal Blade, the Blink Dagger, and many others he was so known for and were featured in the video itself. The Dota 2 character did receive a buff earlier today to mitigate his utter downfall after Patch 7.36, but it’s yet to prove effective in fully reviving the hero.
Immediately after the nerf, Tinker’s win rate went down from around 50 to 51 percent to an abysmal 33.6 percent. It fluctuated around that level until today’s buff, which boosted Tinker’s other spells with more damage, a lower mana cost, and reduced cooldowns but didn’t give him back his old ability. As of May 27, Tinker has managed to retake some of his lost win rate and climb up to around 40.5 percent, according to stats site Dotabuff, which is still quite below the targeted 50 percent average for all heroes.
There have been players on both sides of the argument regarding the Tinker nerf. Some celebrate it as a welcome change, claiming that Tinker was an abusive and overpowered hero who, in the right hands, could singlehandedly dominate games and did so for the past decade. Others see it as an unprecedented gutting of a hero’s core and say that today’s buff is Valve’s attempt at slowly scaling up the hero until he feels “balanced.”
Nevertheless, it will likely take some time for Valve to figure out what precisely being “balanced” means in Tinker’s case, and he’ll likely receive more tweaks in the coming weeks.
