New patches always bring interesting new heroes into the meta, and 7.41 is no exception. The changes didn’t result in any hero becoming overpowered; instead, we have a rather well-balanced top end with many heroes becoming viable, but not necessarily too strong. Today, we are going to have a look at these heroes and discuss how and why they became so good.

Doom

Doom is one of the biggest winners of the patch, though it is worth noting that the hero is still below a 50% win rate in average brackets. However, even after the nerfs in 7.41a, he works incredibly well in Divine and above.

The reason for it is simple: there were many direct buffs to the hero, making him both tankier and stronger in lane. The hero still requires a good understanding of the game to play well and can’t freely initiate into any target — a Doom player has to pick and choose their battles. That said, outside of Doom usage, his playstyle is quite straightforward.

Use Doom, turn on BKB, and run at people. That is, essentially, it. Most itemisation on the hero revolves around these simple concepts. Phase Boots into Drums and Blink Dagger is the usual progression for the hero, with an occasional BKB pre-Blink, when playing into lots of instant crowd control.

There is also an interesting alternative with Boots of Bearing, which can be a good option when dealing with multiple sources of slow. Though we strongly suggest defaulting to Phase Boots in most of your games for the Armor alone.

Outside of it, there isn’t really a lot to discuss: find a stun creep to ear, initiate into the enemy core spellcaster, use Doom, and run at people. When the enemy gets Linkens, either get a Purge Satyr or buy a Force Staff to pop it and continue doing the same.

Techies

The hero received a lot of very powerful buffs in the patch, and one of the most annoying innates in the game. M.A.D. post-mortem Bomb makes lane kills against Techies very punishing, while also providing some natural scaling. Given how many items now give Mana and HP, it is easy to force a very trade-heavy playstyle on your opponent.

The Taser changes also make him a much better lane partner. Previously, it could become an extra 300 damage nuke with the Shard, but the new version is strictly utility. It is still incredibly useful to protect the Mines and sometimes even protect the M.A.D. Bomb.

One big change is that Techies is no longer stunned during flight, meaning he can use his items and abilities during the approach of Blast Off! This means at least one mine is guaranteed to connect if the stun connects, and it is also possible to surround an enemy with nukes and disarm them very quickly.

Playing against good Techies is downright scary in the new patch. It is a hero impossible to play against without a BKB and a hero that can dominate the lane with high-risk, high-reward plays.

If you are quick enough, using Force Staff should still disable the Blast Off! stun if used mid-flight. Otherwise, getting Magic Resistance and Glimmer is a must. Perhaps going Blade Mail is also a viable option — the reflected damage from Mines will now hurt Techies.

Lifestealer

Lifestealer was actually the first hero on this list before the letter patch, but has since been toned down slightly. Still, an incredibly powerful character who now has one of the scariest laning stages. He is stat-overtuned.

At the same time, his kit isn’t that different from what it was. The hero has an innate powerful Attack Speed steroid, some decent scaling anti-tank Damage, a slow, and a built-in BKB. As long as he keeps parity in terms of farm, he has everything a carry needs in his kit.

For that reason, very few people deviate from the regular Radiance build. It is just too good as an all-around DPS acceleration item. It is usually followed by SnY, which is later disassembled into Manta Style and Abyssal.

Gore Storm Facet is now also a part of his Shard functionality, and from what we’ve seen, most pub players skip this completely. Personally, I believe it is a small tempo hit for a lot of value: with Radiance and Shard, you can already participate in early teamfights, dealing a lot of AoE damage, while stacking your Max HP.

The hero’s economy doesn’t exist in a vacuum — if purchasing a 1400 gold item and taking a tempo hit results in you opening up a kill threat on an enemy carry, indirectly limiting their farm space, it can be very much worth it. Especially if you have pushing supports on your team.

Otherwise, the usual progression of Aghanims into Abyssal is what you can go for. There is little to no deviation from an established build on the hero. Though I will again point out that Feast adds damage directly to the auto-attack and as such can fully benefit from Critical Strikes, from both Revenant’s Broach and Daedalus. Just something worth considering when itemising against extra tanky targets.

Closing thoughts

The new patch resulted in an expected and necessary meta shake-up and also laid the groundwork for future updates, it seems. With the ruleset simplification, Dota is now in a very good spot for potential newcomers, so maybe try to bring some of your friends into the game: getting into Dota hasn’t been easier for over a decade.

We will keep an eye on future developments as well. It seems that a lot of support heroes were nerfed, but it doesn’t really get reflected in their win rate, so perhaps it was a patch that universally nerfed most things in the game and got rid of some of the power creep.

We shall see how this patch and its meta will develop. For now, though, stay tuned for more meta-analyses and breakdowns, and also share your thoughts, opinions, and perhaps even grievances in the comment section below.