Is Butterfly worth buying in Dota 2 patch 7.34?

Butterfly used to be an incredibly good item in Dota 2. But after a number of nerfs and the introduction of various other changes, it became too easy for players to counter this item. Naturally, its popularity declined.

Imagine playing chess and knowing very well that a particular move in a certain position can be perfectly countered by another, with little that you can do to stop your opponents from making that move. That’s how it feels to buy Butterfly in Dota 2. The item isn’t necessarily terrible, but the existence of Monkey King Bar makes it much weaker.

Why Butterfly isn’t a more popular item

Much of the Butterfly’s strength comes in the form of the evasion it provides to the hero: +35%. That’s -35% physical damage for anyone who’s trying to right-click you without having True Strike. But with an MKB, which gives the bearer 80% accuracy, 80% of your evasion is essentially gone.

This means that you just spent around 5000 gold to get +60 damage and +65 attack speed, which you could have gotten much cheaper.

Butterfly on PA (it’s fine though) https://t.co/qUa2dlJi3m #dota2 pic.twitter.com/71Cf0ZeLez

— Reddit Dota 2 (@redditdota2) June 16, 2020

Another reason why Butterfly isn’t an attractive choice is that the function it performs is performed much better by other items, such as Satanic. Let’s say that the main benefit that you’re aspiring to get is survivability. Instead of +35% evasion, which can be countered by your enemies, Satanic gives you +145% lifesteal for 6 seconds.

That amount of lifesteal, on a hero that deals 500 DPS or more, will heal you back to full HP almost immediately. This essentially means that you have two lives and potentially three if the fight goes on for long enough. So instead of being 35% more resistant to physical damage, you can become 200% or 300% more resistant to all damage.

Of course, Satanic won’t give you attack speed and some of the other stats offered by Butterfly, but it will give you others. For example, +25 strength or 500 HP, as well as +25 damage and +30% lifesteal (passive).

Depending on what you need to excel, this could be an amazing or at least a decent item. And the best thing about it is that it can’t be easily countered, unless your enemies can stun you for a long duration.

Butterfly clearly needs some buffs to make it more practical. Otherwise, it will only be bought against mages that don’t buy MKB.

Header: Valve