OP Dota 2 heroes are still OP despite the 7.34b nerfs

Dota 2 patch 7.34 introduced a lot of changes that made some of the game’s heroes completely overpowered. In half a dozen cases, their win rate went up by 5-10%. This was immediately abused by the entire community and IceFrog was forced to launch patch 7.34b less than a week later.

However, despite the many necessary nerfs introduced by this update, the heroes that have dominated Dota 2 since the start of the new big patch continue to do so.

Sand King

SK’s win rate dropped by around 3% after the update but he still has a win rate of 55%, which is the 3^rd best overall. This hero is picked in 10% of all pubs, so you’re likely to encounter him quite often. If he’s playing for the opposite team, you’ll need a lot of sentry wards, silences, and AoE stuns to guarantee that he doesn’t destroy your lineup.

In the laning phase, Sand King can be very disruptive if you have a melee carry with regen problems. It’s much better to use a ranged carry against this hero, or at least some combination of heroes that will give you the ability to tank a lot of damage. A Dazzle or an Oracle could help a lot in the support role.

Witch Doctor

Despite the big nerfs to his ultimate and base damage, Witch Doctor has become the highest win rate hero in the game (56.25%). His pick rate is almost 25%, which means that you’ll be playing against WD more often than you’d like.

Countering him requires you to have good stuns and silences, ideally AoE silences. If you pick too many melee heroes against him, you may find yourself stunned repeatedly and then killed with Death Ward and Maledict.

Witch Doctor is weak against heroes like Slark, Morphling, Phantom Lancer, and Templar Assassin. One thing to keep in mind is that all of his damage is magical and pure. So no amount of armor will save you. Evasion is also weak against him because his ultimate has 50% bonus accuracy.

Riki

Riki’s current win rate is above 55% and his pick rate is 12%. This incredibly annoying hero will destroy your team in low MMR brackets as soon as he has his Diffusal Blade. It’s better to ban him if you don’t want to take the chance of playing against him.

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