We take a closer look at the abilities, talents, and potential in general of Dota 2’s latest hero, Muerta.
It has been a while since Dota 2 has been embraced with a new carry, and the latest hero added to the ranks fills that void. Muerta was introduced to the game after the Lima Major ended along with Dota 2 patch 7.32e. The 124th hero in Dota 2 is an intelligence hero, and will most likely be played as a right clicker. Let’s take a closer look at her skills and talents to see how Death’s second in command can be put to the best use in the game.
Muerta’s History
Muerta is literally the Spanish word for ‘dead’. Muerta is an undead hero, and joins the ranks of other undead heroes like Pugna, Undying, and Wraith King. Here’s what her history tells us about her-
There are as many stories about Muerta as there are graves in the Carrion Fields of Gorm. Some tell their children ghost stories of a young peasant girl returned from the dead to punish the bandits who killed her family. Others, drunk in dark taverns, slur conspiracy theories about kidnappings and phantom guilds of killers.
One constant bleeds through every tale: of a woman so consumed by hate for those who killed her that she refused to die. And of Death, so impressed by whatever hate-filled engine that drove this woman that he gave her Mercy and Grace — twin ethereal pistols — and made her his second in command. Now she hunts down wayward souls whose last grains have tumbled from their hourglass, and drags them kicking and screaming to their eternal reward.
Muerta’s Attributes and Stats
Muerta is an intelligence hero. Her strength gain is not the best, but her agility and intelligence gains are quite strong. For both those gains, she is in the top 20% heroes for the respective attribute. High intelligence gives her good damage, and agility is always good for a right clicker.
The ‘Roles’ tab describes her as a full fledged carry, a reasonable nuker and a disabler as well. It’s been a while since Dota 2 has had a new carry, and when we take a closer look at her abilities, it will be evident what makes her a good carry. Something that Muerta lacks – which the last four heroes added to the game had – is an escape ability.
Muerta has a starting armor of 2.7, which is quite decent for a ranged hero. Average damage of 52, attack range of 575, and a projectile speed of 3000 makes her a decent hero to farm with in the laning stage. The fast projectile speed is quite helpful in last hitting. Base attack time (BAT) and vision (day and night) are the same as most heroes in the game.
Muerta’s Abilities
Let’s take a look at Muerta’s four abilities in detail.
Dead Shot
Dead Shot is a vector targeted ability, which first fires a bullet at the primary target, with the ricochet direction depending on the vector direction. If a direction for the ricochet is not chosen, the bullet will travel in straight like past the primary target if it is a hero. If it is a tree, it will go in a random direction. If targeted at a tree, the tree will fall down, so Monkey King better watch out! The fear only impacts the targets affected by the ricochet, so it isn’t a reliable disable. But in the right situation, it can lead to fearing multiple heroes. All affected units take 300 magic damage and are slowed.
Dead Shot is a good nuke and a way to disrupt a fight. It can help in stopping channeling heroes as well. But one of the best uses of the skill is while farming. The 300 nuke damage is great in farming stacks, and with a cooldown of 10 seconds at level 4, should be the skill that is maxed out first.
The Calling
A hero in the center of the circle will neither be silenced nor take any damage and will be affected just by the movement and attack slow. Only a hero hit by one of the revenants will be silenced and be hit by the 180 magic damage. The good thing is, like Dark Willow’s Bramble Maze, you can see the initial location of the revenants, so you can place the circle of The Calling in such a way that it silences and damages at least one hero right away.
The duration of the skill is 10 seconds, so placed well, this can be extremely decisive in fights. One of the best places for it is the Roshan pit. Other than that, it can be extremely useful while going high ground or for defending high ground.
Gunslinger
Gun Slinger is the skill that makes her a strong right clicker. And it is not just for team fights – this skill is extremely beneficial in farming as well. However, in a one on one situation, this skill is completely useless. In that scenario, Muerta pretty much becomes a hero with three abilities.
When the second shot hits, all attack modifiers like Desolator and Skadi proc on the secondary target as well. With the Mjolnir passive (Chain Lightening), it's slightly different. If Chain Lightening procs on one target, it won’t on the other one. That is because it has a 0.2 second cooldown, and when it procs on one target, it goes on cooldown. It’s the same for the Skull Basher stun as well, but that is an item that won’t be bought by Muerta too frequently.
Pierce the Veil
Pierce the Veil makes Muerta an anti-carry, giving her the ability to go toe to toe with hard hitting right click carries. The transformation is undispellable, so Muerta cannot be brought back to the physical form. For 8 seconds, she cannot be targeted by physical damage. In that time if she activates her BKB, Muerta gains immunity to magic damage while maintaining the physical damage immunity! She can still take pure damage, but that isn’t the most common source of damage in the game. When Pierce the Veil is active, magic damage amplification increases her right click damage.
The easy way to resist Muerta in her transformed form is by using BKB. With BKB active, Muerta’s right clicks still hit the target, but no damage is dealt. However, any debuffs like Desolator and Skadi that pierce magic immunity are still applied.
This is a very unique skill, as the typical way to evade right clicks using a Ghost Scepter is totally useless here. Supports don’t tend to go for a BKB, so they will end up being fodder for Muerta. Also, her transformed form is not an ethereal form – she does not take additional magic damage like in Pugna’s Decrepify or Necrophos’s Ghost Shroud.
Muerta’s Talent Tree
The first thing that strikes the eye when looking at Muerta’s talent tree is Dead Shot being present at levels 10, 15 and 20. At level 20, Dead Shot can have a long range with 400 damage and two charges. The +25 Damage at level 15 is a carry talent, but other than that, most of them are up for debate. At level 25, the +20% Gunslinger chance seems extremely lucrative, taking the chance up to 70%. But at the same time, the +25% Magic Resistance can give her 50% magic resistance, and she already has physical immunity available to her, which makes her a pseudo tank. Some interesting decisions to be made in the talent tree, which will only be evident with experience.
Role
At first glance, Muerta is a right click carry. She isn’t the hardest hitting carry out there, but she is probably the most unique one and does have the potential to do a lot of damage. But other than position 1 or position 2, Muerta also has the skills to be a position 4 hero. By maxing out Dead Shot and The Calling and getting all talents related to those skills, she can be a pesky support. That does make Gunslinger a void skill, but if Sven can work as a support, why can’t Muerta?!
Items
For a carry Muerta, the items that make sense right off the bat include-
· Power Treads
· Mjolnir (for the attack speed and the magic damage)
· Glepnir (for locking down enemies and following up with Dead Shot)
· Yasha and Kaya (one of the few heroes it can be used on)
· Revenant’s Broach (additional magic damage amplification when Pierce the Veil is on cooldown, or there isn’t a necessity to use it)
· Bloodstone (with so much magic damage and especially magic damage right clicks, Bloodstone can provide insane heal during the duration of Pierce the Veil)
These are not the typical items you would build on a right click carry, but Muerta’s design makes them viable on her.
Jury’s still out on a position 4 Muerta, but it would include items like Arcane Boots or Guardian Greaves, Aether Lens and the likes.
Even though the patch as a whole was a disappointing, Muerta is definitely a unique hero as compared to other carries and it will take time for players to master her and unveil her true potential. As the days go by and more light is shed on the the skill and item builds of Death’s second in command, GosuGamers will have more in depth analysis on Dota 2’s newest hero.
