The popularity of Crystal Maiden in Dota 2 patch 7.32c

Crystal Maiden used to be a dead hero. For a while, every Dota 2 patch seemed to target her with a major nerf. So at the professional level, nobody was picking CM. And to the degree to which some teams chose to do that, they were mostly losing their games.

By after Dota 2 patch 7.30 and its subsequent patches, Crystal Maiden started to become viable again. This hero has reached the peak of popularity at The International 11, where, in the playoffs, CM was picked no less than 19 times. So far, she has been the most picked hero of this stage and the win rate is decent: 52.6%.

The strengths of Crystal Maiden

Crystal Maiden excels at many things. First of all, she’s one of the few heroes that don’t have mana problems. On top of that, her attribute increase is decent (+2 / +1.6 / +2.9).

The only thing that’s a real issue is her movement speed. At 280 MS, Crystal Maiden is one of the slowest heroes in the game. But you can compensate for that with a simple Wind Lace.

Crystal Maiden’s Crystal Nova deals an enormous amount of move speed and attack speed slow. At level 4, it reduces MS by 50% and AS by 75 for 5 seconds. And you can cast it every 8 seconds. Its radius is 550 with the level 10 talent, which means that in the early game, if CM survives the first 5-10 seconds of the team fight, she will have a huge impact.

Thanks to Frostbite, Crystal Maiden can root and damage enemies for 3 seconds. The damage is negligible, but the root duration is huge. The spell can be cast every 6 seconds, which makes melee carrys despise this support hero.

Because of Arcane Aura, CM’s allies receive a huge mana regeneration boost no matter where they are located on the map. The bonus gets even bigger if they are located within a 1200 radius.

Crystal Maiden’s ultimate is one of the most powerful AoE spells in the game. It’s really hard to fully utilize because its duration is 10s and the hero usually gets killed during this time, unless the enemies decide to run away.

Freezing Field slows movement speed by 40% and attack speed by 60. The damage per explosion is 250 at level 3 and the AoE is 195-785. The slow radius is even bigger: 810. While using her ultimate, Crystal Maiden gets +20 armor. Against melee carry heroes that don’t have any good way to stun you, your effectiveness will be very high.

Header: Valve Corporation