Valve hit the nerf hammer on the overpowered effect of Aghanim's Shard to Earthshaker after TNC Predator pulled out the broken ES-Morphling combo against Boom Esports in the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC)-Southeast Asia upper division last week.
In the latest Dota 7.28c patch released on Saturday morning, February 20 (Manila time), the Aftershock (ES' passive third skill) replication on Fissure (first skill) caused by the Shard now only stuns for half the duration.
This means a reduction of the stun duration from 0.6/0.9/1.2/1.5 seconds to 0.3/0.45/0.6/0.75 seconds.
Previously, an Earthshaker equipped with Shard and a Morphling armed with both the Aghanim's Scepter and Shard can deliver an almost unlimited stun disable.
Just take a look at this nasty combo by TNC:
That was TNC used to produce a thrilling comeback from a 34K gold deficit and a 6-29 kill score disadvantage in Game 1 of its series against Indonesian team Boom last February 10.
Filipino 11K MMR carry Kim "Gabbi" Santos was using the Morphling while his partner-in-crime 10K MMR position-4 support Timothy "Tims" Randrup was playing Earthshaker.
After that amazing win for TNC and a demoralizing defeat for Boom, the Filipino powerhouse squad easily cruised to a 42-9 romp in Game 2 that lasted for only 35 minutes.
Will we ever see another insane Earthshaker-Morphling combo with Aghanim's Shard again?