A week after the release of Dota 2 patch 7.34e, we look at the heroes that have benefited the most from the patch.
A week ago, the post TI12 patch, Dota 2 patch 7.34e, was released. The patch did not have any major changes like a lot of people from the Dota 2 community would have expected, but as we’ve seen before, small changes can lead to big shifts in the list of heroes that are doing well or not so well.
The first couple of days are always a bit wonky after a new patch with massive shifts taking place in win rates and pick rates. But with a week behind Dota 2 patch 7.34e and the dust settled, we can get an idea of which heroes are the benefactors of the balance patch. Remember, benefactors can be of two types – ones who are benefitting from small buffs and ones who were already strong but weren’t nerfed. So we’ll take a look at which heroes have seen the biggest upswing in win rate in pubs, while at the same time keeping an eye out for which heroes have high win rates. All data has been taken from STRATZ.
Major Movers
The seven heroes with the biggest positive swings in win rate are shown below. Lycan is a clear outlier, with a 4% increase in win rate.
(taken from STRATZ)
Lycan got a buff to his base agility and agility gain. He was a strong hero not too long ago, and was only left behind at TI12 because of the plethora of nerfs to Universal heroes. This is a good hero to play in pubs right now.
Now there have been more than a few voices saying we have returned to the zoo meta due to Lycan’s surge along with the slight buff to Helm of the Overlord (Vladimir’s Aura armor increased from 3 to 4), but it can be a bit deceptive. Even though Chen has seen a reasonable increase in his win rate, his overall win rate continues to be below 50%. So while zoo heroes might be a bit more viable than they were before Dota 2 patch 7.34e, they definitely haven’t taken over the meta.
Highest Win Rates
At the end of the day, it always comes down to which heroes are doing well in terms of win rates, irrespective of which direction the win rate has moved in. Prime examples of that are Witch Doctor and Spectre – even though both have gone down slightly in win rate, their absolute win rate is over 55%, which is quite insane! Spectre got a slight tap on the wrist (decrease in 1 armor). With other meta heroes like Bristleback and Chaos Knight getting more stringent nerfs, Spectre has become more dominant.
(taken from STRATZ)
A weird hero that is indicative of the divide between the pub and professional meta is Slardar. The Slithereen Guard was not picked a single time at TI12, but he has been doing really well in pubs of late. And without any nerf being thrown his way because of his plight in Seattle, Slardar has just gotten emboldened in pubs with the other strong heroes taking a hit. Even though he is mostly played in the offlane role, he can be played in any of the three core roles.
Other than Slardar, and maybe Abaddon, none of the high win rate heroes are massive movers. They are just heroes with either slight buffs or not enough nerfs that are staying put where they were.
Dota 2 patch 7.34e wasn’t a hype patch with a lot of buffs to heroes, so the majority of the movement won’t be in win rate increase. The massive changes are on the other end of the list, with certain heroes really having their win rate cut down. In a few days, we will look at which ones saw the biggest reductions in win rate. Till then, you know which heroes you have to pick to win!
