Tidehunter's win rate increased by 10% in patch 7.40 — the hero's new talent is broken

Tidehunter's win rate skyrocketed from 50.05% to 59.37% in just one week since the release of patch 7.40. The level 20 talent that activates Anchor Smash when Blubber triggers, which replaced the level 25 Anchor Smash activation from attacks, has a critical bug when interacting with Blade Mail.

Bristleback previously had a similar bug: the hero would infinitely cast “quills” (until the game crashed or everyone around him died) if the damage taken from Blade Mail exceeded the Quill Spray activation threshold. Tidehunter behaves the same way: if he takes more than 450 damage from Blade Mail while having the level 20 talent, he will instantly kill everything within the radius of Anchor Smash (including buildings, if you have talent at level 25). A hit into Blade Mail triggers Blubber and Anchor Smash, which then deals reflected damage again — this loop repeats until the Blade Mail holder dies.

Having Satanic on Tidehunter is crucial — without it, the Leviathan himself will die when the bug triggers (over the past week, Satanic was purchased on Tidehunter in 78% of matches). Even without accounting for the bug, Satanic in combination with the new talent makes Tidehunter an incredibly strong counterpick against melee carries. The hero is nearly immortal as long as there is an enemy nearby that allows him to heal from Satanic via the passive activation of Anchor Smash.

At a high MMR (7000-8500), Tidehunter was played in 6250 matches over the past week: 5,377 of them were on the offlane with a 54% win rate, and 257 games were as a carry, where the win rate reached 62%.

Earlier, Cyberscore presented a meta report highlighting the highest win rate heroes for all roles in Patch 7.40.