The Biggest Losers Of Dota 2 Patch 7.41a

Dota 2 patch 7.41a has been out for a few days and the impact on the meta has been immediate. Some of the strongest heroes were brought down a notch,  while a very select few were given some much needed love.

In this article we will go through the biggest losers of the latest update. We will also discuss if these heroes are still worth picking, or if you should spend your time practicing someone else.

The Five Biggest Losers Of Dota 2 Patch 7.41a

Wraith King

After less than a full patch in the limelight, hell less than a week, Wraith King gets several small but overall substantial nerfs.

For his base stats, Wraith King attacks slightly slower, and with his already low intelligence gain took a hit. The hero struggled to use all his spells and items before and losing 0.2 int gain adds up. 

Both his level 15 talents were nerfed, so the stun lasts slightly shorter and his durability doesn't scale as well. Again, it's not a big nerf but it adds up with all the rest.

And finally his skeletons last a few seconds less than before, making them slightly less efficent at pushing lanes and farming. Despite the nerfs he recieved, Wraith King remains an easy to use and build hero that is tanky with solid damage. His 54% winrate means that for now at least, he is still worth a spot in a core player's repertoire.

Largo

While he didn't recieve any changes in Dota 2 patch 7.41a, Largo is still recovering from the beating he took in the previous update. He gets less bonuses from Hotfeet Hustle, nearly a level lost from that ability. His most popular talents also got nerfed, and he gets less mana regeneration from Kaya.

The hero doesn't get a big power spike from Aghanim's Scepter either. Before it was one of his big timings along with the Black King Bar, but that doesn't really apply anymore.

Largo went from a 53% win rate hero to 48%. He might still be viable for specialist, but for now most players are better off picking more stable heroes.

Lifestealer

Poor Naix. He got a similar treatment as Wraith King. After months of being out of the meta, patch 7.41 gave him some much needed love. But since he isn't Pango or Beastmaster, IceFrog couldn't allow that to last, could he?

He lost 3 base damage, but that's still 7 more than 7.40. Rage is now one level behind in move speed bonuses compared to before. Ghoul Frenzy provides 4 attack speed per level, not 5. Which is still substantial to be fair. And heroes now provie a static 10 health per death, rather than scaling to 25.

Are any of these nerfs huge? not really. But it's death by a thousand cuts. Lifestealer hits and moves slightly slower, deals slightly less damage, and gains a tiny bit less health from hero kills. It's not much but it adds up to losing nearly 6% in his win rate.

But the hero remains viable as a tempo core. A fast Radiance while infesting an Ancient can do incredible work, and can be pulled off by 12 minuts. So while he is riskier to use now, he is still pickable.

Leshrac

Leshrac only got two lines of changes but they were quite heavy hitting. The first is a loss of 0.3 strength per level. While Leshrac is an intelligence hero, he deals all his damage at close range. Which means he is likely to take a few hits in every engagement. Being a little less durable ads up quickly to a couple of extra deaths per game.

Originally Edict was buffed in 7.41. Dealing damage to both heroes and buildings over 8 seconds. IceFrog hasn't touched the duration, but did reduce the damage by 10-11%. 

Leshrac is viable but right now feels a little too risky to pick up. He deals less damage and he certainly can't take a punch as well as he used to.

Tinker

Despite being buffed in 7.41a, Tinker remains the biggest loser of the patch. And it all comes down to one thing and one thing only.

Defense Matrix is gone.

The spell gave Tinker a way to Blink while assaulted, a free dispell, and could be used on allies. It was a crazy powerful ability that led to the hero terrorizing pro play in the la Tinkerst few weeks of 7.40.

IceFrog removed Tinker's most broken ability, and while he actually gained a better rearm and a couple of other buffs, it nowhere near compensates for the defensive loss the hero took.

With a 42% win rate, we highly highly recommend keeping your distance from Tinker until he gets some love from IceFrog in the next update.

READ MORE: The Best 3 Hard Supports Of Dota 2 Patch 7.41a

Featured Image Source: Valve