Dota 2's patch 6.85 is coming to an end and while its changes might not have been as expansive as those of 6.84, they did bring a noticeable shift in the metagame. This article will have discussions on the current patch and predictions on the new one coming mid-December.

"Safe" Lane: Why hit creeps when you can just run at your enemy carry and kill them over and over again? This patch has not been friendly for hard carries like Spectre or Medusa, not when the likes of Doom and Tusk can dive your tower at Level 3, kill you and then return home unscathed. A change that could be implemented is a gold increase for lane creeps so that carries can get their items faster and have some relevance in teamfights. This may also slow down the pace of pro games where they could focus more on farming than running at each other every two minutes like it was a pub.

Nerf Hammers: Increasing creep gold might be a double-edged sword, because then it would buff Shadow Fiend, a top tier hero for the last 3-4 patches. To balance it out, SF might get reductions to damage per soul and movement speed to stunt his farm rate. The king of the patch however is the Swedish snowball-man Tusk, boasting a pick/ban rate of 99% at the Frankfurt majors. Tusk is most likely going to be nerfed to the ground, but if IceFrog is merciful he'll get a significant cast range nerf on Ice Shards and mana cost increase to all his spells to make him less viable as a support. The other big hero to talk about is Alchemist, the nightmare of everyone's pubs. Although the hero does seem imbalanced, I don't think that he will be getting any significant nerfs. Perhaps a cooldown nerf on his ult or an Acid Spray damage reduction. The Radiance build rarely works in pro games and IceFrog's balancing is always geared towards them.

Heals and Armour Wars: With the rise of strength cores like Tiny, Alch and Doom with their low armour, most support picks in pro matches are those based around armour and sustain, Winter Wyvern and Dazzle being the premier choices. Dazzle single-handedly makes his annoying cousin Huskar look like the most imbalanced hero in the game. Possible nerfs to Wyvern could be her heal amplifying magic damage and Dazzle's Shallow Grave being purgable.

Imbalance Demands It: Earth Spirit might be coming to Captain's Mode, to the disdain of all the pro players. We might be also getting Arc Warden or Pitlord, or maybe even BOTH. Since every patch has its cancer heroes, 6.86 might be Timbersaw's time to shine, with possible INT buffs and his passive getting reworked. Riki might get a ridiculous agility gain and Morphling might as well get a rework at this point. All these are merely predictions however, and there isn't enough space to talk about every prediction I have. So here's to hoping that 6.86 is a different and fun patch to play for all of us.

Shuprovo Arko copes with the soul-crushing amount of studying he has to do by trying to be funny. He writes about movies, video games and music normal people don't listen to. This generic blurb was brought to you by facebook.com/shupro.arko