“Winners” and “Losers” in Patch 7.41: Win Rate Changes

It has been over a day since the release of patch 7.41, and hero win rates in the new meta have changed significantly. In this analysis, we’ll summarize the results and highlight the best heroes for each role, as well as those whose win rates have plummeted since the update’s release.

As expected, Lifestealer has become the strongest carry — the hero received no nerfs in the patch, only a series of significant buffs. Due to the removal of the ability to reset Black King Bar’s cooldown using Refresher Orb on other characters, “Ghoul” also stands out for having Rage as a second BKB.

The most effective midlaner is Leshrac. The character’s previously popular facet — Misanthropy — prevented him from destroying buildings with Diabolic Edict, but increased the frequency of explosions. In the latest patch, the facet’s buff was integrated into the ability, with no restriction on damage to structures. The updated Bloodstone also looks great on the hero; in addition to ability lifesteal, it now increases magic damage taken by enemies by 12%.

The best offlaner is Doom. Among the character’s buffs, the health regeneration upon activating Scorched Earth stands out, which is already 7 HP per second at level 1. Additionally, the developers decided to play up the character’s demonic nature by rounding most numerical values in his stats to 6, 66, or 666 — a series of these micro-buffs has also positively impacted the character’s win rate.

Among the fourth-position heroes, Spirit Breaker stands out. Aghanim’s Shard now provides a weakened version of the old Aghanim’s Scepter buff. And with the new Aghanim, the hero can wreak incredible havoc in battle, stunning multiple enemies at once while dealing increased damage and having an extended knockback range. Endless stuns combine with the hero’s new innate ability, which increases his movement speed for every bash.

The top support in the fifth position right now is Shadow Shaman. His innate ability now scales with level, and the new Aghanim’s Shard grants the hero a mini-version of his ultimate, which has undoubtedly had a positive impact on his win rate.

Patch 7.41 had the most negative impact on Tinker — the Defense Matrix ability has been removed (which most players are very happy about), and few have mastered his new turrets yet — the hero’s win rate has dropped by 10%.

Templar Assassin also started losing 10% more often; she received a new innate ability but lost her facets buffs, which a series of buffs failed to compensate for. Additionally, the Level 15 talent became an upgrade from Aghanim’s Shard, and the Shard itself became part of Aghanim’s Scepter, which may also have negatively impacted the win rate.

Timbersaw’s win rate dropped by 7%. Only the hero’s innate ability was reworked, but none of his facets were integrated into his abilities or talents. Other heroes who lost around 5% of their win rate also lost facets buffs or received a series of stat nerfs.

You can find detailed information about all the changes in Patch 7.41 on the game’s official website or in the Dota 2 client.

As CyberScore previously reported, Sikle discovered a critical bug involving Invoker and Tormenator in Patch 7.41.