The Biggest Losers Of Dota 2 Patch 7.41c

Dota 2 patch 7.41c brought a large amount of nerfs to the most offensive heroes in the meta. The patch is preparing the game for the next round of tournaments and hopefully to reduce the incredibly oppressive Lone Druid meta.

In this article, we will go through the biggest losers of Dota 2 patch 7.41c and discuss which remain viable and which should be avoided for now.

Five Biggest Losers of Dota 2 Patch 7.41c

Alchemist 

Starting our list is the resident PVE hero of Dota 2. Alchemist lost nearly 3% in his win rate, dropping from 51% to 48.15% this patch. 

The hero doesn't accelerate quite as fast as before. Each gifted Aghanim's Sceper now only boosts his gold income by 3 gold per creep, rather than 6. That 3 gold adds up when you're killing hundreds of creeps per game. And most alchemists give more than one Aghanim's Sceptre per game.

Another big hit to the hero is the reduced health regeneration at lower levels of Chemical Rage. Every kill on Alchemist sets him back significantly, especially the early-game pickoffs. Those are now easier than ever to get. 

Despite the nerfs, the hero is borderline viable in all pub levels. It's just slightly harder to get the full benefit of the hero right now.

Beastmaster

Beastmaster got hit by quite a few hard-hitting nerfs. Let's start with the smallest and work our way up.

One less starting strength isn't much, but it does mean he is slightly less durable throughout the whole game. The hero's harassing power was also reduced, as his boars deal 20% less damage at level 1 now. 

The biggest nerf is the hit to his Aghanim upgrade. The hero's biggest power spike is a little less...spiky right now. It does 12.5% less damage and has a smaller AoE. This makes it harder to hit multiple targets, and you'll still lifesteal less than before. 

With his multiple nerfs, especially to his laning stage and power spike, we recommend leaving Beastmaster alone in pubs right now. Hero is just a bit too weak to grind MMR safely with.

Queen of Pain

Two points of agility loss isn't a big deal for Queen of Pain, but it is a tiny amount of attack speed and armour the hero will miss. That pales in comparison to the butchering Shadow Strike got.

While actually buffed at lower levels, Shadow Strike went from a 4-second to 5-second cooldown when maxed, an increase of 25%. And it has a significantly smaller AoE with Aghanim's Sceptre. Since a common build is to rush Aghanim's Sceptre and spam Shadow Strike in fights, you now deal less damage doing so and to fewer targets as well. 

The hero wasn't winning much in pubs before and dropped down to 46% in Dota 2 patch 7.41c. We recommend skipping her for now and picking safer bets for the midlane.

Lone Druid

While he received a pretty substantial amount of nerfs, Lone Druid remains surprisingly playable. Much to our dismay.

That's because despite seven lines of nerfs, only one truly matters for Lone Druid. His bear doesn't get the -25-second cooldown reduction to being summoned. The talent was a huge reason the hero felt unstoppable, as killing the bear didn't matter. You'd get another Spirit Bear right after that.

With a longer cooldown, Lone Druid needs to be more careful with how aggressively he uses the Spirit Bear. But that's really it. The other nerfs don't matter much. 

Even though he lost a 4.5% win rate, Lone Druid remains a viable core pick. Which speaks to how insanely busted the hero was (and remains). So feel free to pick him for more free MMR.

Batrider

We touched on this in our review of the Dota 2 patch 7.41c, but we didn't expect this much of a loss for Batrider. The hero lost over 7% to his win rate, decimating his performance in pubs.

For a hero who is built around being mobile, losing 10 movement speed is a massive hit to the hero. You need to be fast to keep enemies in Firefly, drag them away with Lasso, and escape enemies. All of these are harder to do when you lose TEN movement speed.

And that's not the only nerf the hero received. Lasso lost 37.5% of its damage at level one, making it harder to snowball. Firefly deals 20% less damage at all levels. Sure, both of these spells benefit a lot from sticky napalm to deal damage, but a nerf is a nerf, and those are big damage losses.

To sum up, avoid Batrider right now. He is still fast but not enough, and his damage loss hurts him immensely. Stick to Tiny if you want to displace enemies around the map.

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Featured Image Source: Valve