Big Hero Buffs In Dota 2 Patch 7.37

Dota 2 patch 7.37 buffed in significant ways dozens of heroes, creating an instant and radical change in the game’s meta.

This article analyzes some of the most important buffs and how they improved the popularity and win rate of certain heroes.

Viper’s Upgrades

Viper’s new innate ability imbues his basic attacks with physical damage based on the hero’s level and the percentage of his target’s missing HP. The amount is 0.25 + 0.05 per level.

In other words, when Viper is level 10, he will deal 0.3 extra damage per missing percentage point of his target’s HP. If the target lacks 70% HP the bonus damage for each attack will be 21.

This change may not seem that huge but it actually improved Viper’s win rate by more than 6%.

Kunkka’s Upgrades

Kunkka’s minimum damage was increased by 4. But that’s not the big buff. That buff has to do with his Torrent, which now has a radius of 250 instead of 225 and a mana cost of 90 instead of 100. More importantly, it has to do with his new innate ability, Admiral’s Rum, which gives him +10% movement speed and 20% damage delay. The effects last for 10s.

This buff activates whenever Kunkka’s HP would fall below 65%. Its cooldown is 60s, which means that the hero benefits from great buffs in almost every fight.

Bristleback’s Upgrades

Bristleback’s base damage was increased by 6, which is a lot in the laning phase. Warpath is no longer an innate ability. Instead, the hero received a new and unique innate ability called Prickly, which gives him 10% bonus damage and debuff duration against heroes that are right behind him. Chasing a Bristleback has never been harder.

On top of these changes, this hero also received a new facet called Seeing Red. Warpath can be activated to grant 50% bonus attack damage and 50% bonus movement speed per stack, but at the cost of most of your vision. The hero can only see in a 90 degree cone in front of him. The effects last for 4s – 6s and the cooldown of the ability is 45s.

Needless to say, good players will only activate this ability when they know for sure that they can deal a lot of damage to a building or an enemy hero over the next 5s.

Queen of Pain’s Upgrades

Her base strength was increased by 2, which is a lot. The return damage of Bondage also received a 5% buff. The mana cost of Shadow Strike is now just 100 at level 1 instead of 125, and 130 at level 4 instead of 140. The level 10 and 15 talents were swapped and received minor buffs.

Riki’s Upgrades

Riki’s Exterminator facet improves his Tricks of the Trade by 4.5x instead of 4x when attacking non-hero units. This will significantly improve Riki’s farming speed.

Smoke Screen now has a 17s cooldown at level 1 instead of 20s. This is more significant than it looks and has already improved the hero’s win rate by 3.5%.

Ember Spirit’s Upgrades

Ember Spirit’s new innate ability, Immolation, causes him to deal 10 – 40 damage per second in a 175 radius at all times. This ability scales with Fire Remnant and you can further improve it with Aghanim’s Shard, which increases its damage by 10 and its radius by 175.

Header: Valve