The rich get richer and the poor get poorer as patch 7.04 compounds the buffs and nerfs 7.03 doled out just a week before. 18 out of the 21 changes in 7.04 double down on the direction of buffs and nerfs to 7.03. The changes come as a counter balance to the heroes established at the Kiev Major, where the popularity, or lack thereof, of picks/bans tipped the scales of the meta.
Centaur Warrunner was the rampant hero of the tournament—the second most banned and the most picked and banned combined—and he was rewarded with a double nerf: first to his Aghanim’s Scepter Ultimate in 7.03, then to his standard ultimate in 7.04. With more than two weeks since 7.03, and a week into 7.04, the impact of these changes have reverberated throughout Dota’s pubs. Here are the heroes with the greatest changes in their win rates.
Winners
Arc Warden
There’s nowhere to go but up for Arc Warden, who had the 3rd lowest win rate at 38.62% in patch 7.02, narrowly above Io and Broodmother. At this moment, the hero’s win rate has the largest increase out of all heroes between 7.02 and 7.04, at 4.37%. That puts the hero from 3rd worst to 10th on the win rate charts. Started from the bottom and now still there.
The worry about Arc Warden is that it’s one of Dota’s newest heroes that no one plays, in both pubs and pro games. It was picked twice at the Kiev Major, and is the 8th least popular hero in pubs. Arc Warden received across the board buffs, from strength gain and early skill scaling to a level 25 Talent boost to Spark Wraith damage, but the hero is still quite aways from being part of any meta. Valve here seems to be tentative with new heroes upsetting the balance of the professional meta, as they’ve heavily nerfed them before their release into Captain’s Mode. This is the same case with Monkey King.
Visage
Visage had a win rate change of 3.17% in patch 7.04. The trend here with the top 3 heroes is that they’re underplayed (Visage is the 2nd least picked hero, 112th in popularity, from 7.02 to 7.04) and that they’re subpar, so they’re in dire need of some changes. Visage was not buffed twice in 7.04, but rather received a significant buff to his familiars in 7.03, which essentially raised their HP by 33% at level 1 and 10% at level 2.
His buff to his level 10 talent, increasing his xp gain from 25% to 30%, has resulted in a 3.1% win rate advantage. Despite this, pub players are overwhelming still opting for +90 gold/min, which is in line with what OG’s Fly, who’s currently 7-0 with Visage at DAC, also prefers to skill.
Lina
Lina takes 3rd place with the greatest win rate change, from 7.02 to 7.04, at 3.07%. She’s beginning to rubber band a bit, considering her extensive nerfs when she was one of the most dominant mids in the game. Again, we’re seeing how Talents opens up Valve to direct changes to heroes at different points of the game, when before they were limited to base stats and skill scaling.
Each of the buffs to Lina’s talents have favored her win rate, from our recent ability build stats. Reducing respawn rate usually doesn’t amount to such a large win rate difference, but there aren’t many heroes who can get a -30s reduction at level 10. She also received a new Talent at lvl 25, +40/4% Fiery Soul Per Stack, which by far outweighs its counterpart, with a 5% win rate advantage.
A large reason for her rising popularity in pro games though (26 picks, 73% winrate) is the respawn talent. As a core hero, those 30 seconds become incredibly valuable in the midgame and lategame. Lina will spent practically no time dead, allowing her to farm more consistently and allowing her to be a bigger threat to enemy heroes. Together with a Bloodstone, it becomes less and less valuable for enemies to kill her in a teamfight, as she’ll be back pretty quickly.
Losers
Lone Druid
Lone Druid has been such a thorn in the meta that we’ve written a post on how to deal with him. He bottoms out in the win rate change at -4.81%, nearly 3 times greater than our 3rd place loser, Centaur Warrunner.
The base damage reduction (-4) certainly threatens his early game dominance, but it’s the change to Rabid, reducing the cooldown by 15s, is what has hampered his strength, in any build. Not only does the reduction erase the 100% uptime of Rabid, it empowers the heroes who can counter Lone Druid by dispelling it. It doesn’t help that both Dragon Lance and Helm of the Dominator were also nerfed, either.
Slardar
We’ve written about Slardar in the past, and his strength in the meta, and now his time has come. Like Lone Druid, he only needed to be nerfed once. Prior to this he was a staple of the meta, with the 3rd most combined pick/ban rate at the Kiev Major.
He got hit with nearly a 16% reduction in the stun duration of Slithereen Crush, and that was enough to tank his win rate by -2.55%. He has also slipped at the ongoing DAC tournament, where he has slipped from 3rd most picked banned at the Kiev Major, to 10th overall, though this may also be explained by the introduction of Monkey King into Captain’s Mode, who’s currently the most picked hero at DAC.
Centaur Warrunner
The beginning of the end for Centaur
Centaur comes in at 3rd place in the loss chart, with a -1.61% change in win rate from 7.02 to 7.04. Out of the three heroes here, he was the only one who was significantly hit by both patches 7.03 and 7.04, with nerfs to his ultimate. Stampede was nerfed twice, and he received a base armor reduction of 1. The change hasn’t translated to his pick rate in both the pub and professional level, where he is still the 3rd most picked/banned hero at DAC. In spite of the nerfs, Centaur Warrunner remains in the meta, in contrast to his aforementioned counterparts (Lone Druid has only been picked once at DAC so far). The Stampede nerfs affect the damage reduction, but do nothing to hamstring the utility the skill presents. He’s likely to remain in the meta, as the Kiev Major approaches.
