I am not an active (playing) part of this community and therefore I am not very concerned wether or not you host 6.85ne12a. Yet I'd like to give you some reasons why you should leave 6.83d:
First and foremost there is absolutely noone who maintains, i.e. fixes bugs, 6.83d. There are really horrible ones like Linken's sphere bug, Urn / Napalm abuse, Meepo can buyback without getting the gold penalty. Moreover, as everyone knows, Blizzard's recent patches produced some even worse bugs, some of them cause crashes (ok, maybe not on the patch you are playing on). Two of them are: You can't share to brown, Flamebreak missile is invisible (cause Blizzarrd moved / removed a required texture). And I think there are many more.
Dracol1ch's map contained tons of bugs which are mostly all fixed now and also all known bugs caused by Blizzard (except 1, but Im working on it).
Moreover, solo pub stomping by picking a hero like Meepo, LC, Slark etc. is not that easy anymore in 6.85. These heroes are still strong but they have been balanced nicely by Dracol1ch. There were other op heroes in 6.85 like Invoker, Alchi, Tiny and Bristle, which my community and I balanced very nicely imo and also many others confrimed this. Recently(ne12) I even decided to balance Arc a bit (his clone can't carry divine nor gem anymore) after popular demand. So in 6.85 even in pubgames more teamplay is now required. The current pubstomper heroes imo are Tuskarr and Ursa (only in early/mid game though), but trust me, this can't be compared to Meepo/LC/slark in 6.83.
Dracol1ch did also a great job on the new items which give a greater variety on gameplay and they also emphasize once more the need of teamplay. Here a quick overview for those of you who still struggle with the new items:
-
Glimmer Cape: Amazing team and supporter item. Gives you 45% (!!!) magic resistance and you can make a unit of your choice invisible for 6 seconds.
I had once a lion who constantly died cause of Zeus double ulti(refresher), I told him to buy glimmercape, he was so happy
Also great in conjunction with Blink dagger.
-
Silver Edge: Lothar's is a bad lategame item and easily countered. Silver Edge (Lothar's edgee + sange + recipe) not only gives you windwalk but it also give you the ability to disable passives for a couple of seconds like Void's / Mortred's evasion, Tiny's annyoing stun passive etc. which makes it also viable for lategame.
-
Moonshard: 2 Hyperstones. Gives you an immense attackspeed boost, can be consumed for a permanent (!) attack speed boost. Many use it on tiny, which makes sense ofc. But also any other right click dps hero could carry it in lategame. Especially in pubs I often decide to sell my mask of madness, consume a Moonshard instead and buy a satanic.
-
Octarine Core: This item is amazing, it provides so many possibilities on gameplay strategies. It gives you a reduced cooldown on spells + lifesteal from spell damage that you deal. It's a must on Invoker & Bristle. Naga, Axe, Engima, Jakiro and many other heroes should consider this item (especially in conjunction with Radiance)
-
Enchanted Mango: Gives you +1 regeneration and if you consume it you get instant 150 (dunno if thats the exact value) mana restored. I love this item ! Very nice on heroes in early game who lack of mana and who have important spells for early kills (stun) like leoric, nessaj, earthshaker etc. I highly recommend to get 1-2 mangos in the early game !
-
Guardian Greaves: What an incredible supporter item ! Meka+Manaboots+Recipe. It's a little expenisve but it gives you a nice aura: When allied heroes drop below a certain hp percentage they get + 15 armor and +15 health regen. Meanwhile in Battle.net I see people buying this item quite frequently. Can be used by any supporting hero (Omni) but personally I also sometimes bought it on Axe.
-
Solar Crest and
Lotus Orb aren't bought very often because their value isn't fully recognized yet. I personally like to get Lotus Orb which casts back most single target spells to their casters. You can use that buff like linkens sphere on yourself or on an ally. Sometimes there are really funny moments with this. Once I met a Lucifer who doomed me while I had Lotus Orb activated. He shouted in all chat "wtf, why am I doomed????" I laughed so hard xd. Solar Crest is commonly used on gankers (gives a chosen unit armor if ally or reduces armor + blind if enemy) like LC, Venge or Tuskarr.
I also made some videos for my old community about the new items:
Well, and then there are more heroes who can carry Aghanim's: Leoric (allies still live 7 seconds when they die, so exciting imo), LC (duel lasts until someone dies), Alche(can use it to give someone else improved Ulti), Nerubian Assassin (try it on him, it's so great!) etc ... .
There is so much more to mention:
- Naix can swallow allied heroes. Nice side effect: when they cast a channeling spell (like Rylai / Engima / witchdoctor's ulti) they will still continue casting it while Naix is carrying them around => this is crazy and fun !!!
- the -cam option is amazing, meanwhile people complain on 6.83 or 6.78 when they notice they can use -cam
- one right click on rune is enough to store it in bottle, even if the bottle has some charges left => I got so used to it, I am cursing whenever I play in 6.83d
- one click buy for items, you can buy a luxury item just by buying the recipe and double clicking on it
.... etc etc.
6.83d was a good map back in its days. But like any other piece of software it lacks of maintenance (bugged) and urgently needed balance changes. 99% of the players in Bnet prefer playing 6.85ne, especially with the new -skin option. If you don't like the new models you can continue now playing on the old ones. I am also glad that the FBG community is growing which even streams some of its games and some of them even report me bugs.
This will ensure that 6.85 has still a bright future, attract more players, no matter if you are a pub gamer (where you can play -em games) or if you are a (semi-) pro while 6.83 is actually dead (and should stay dead
)