Patch 7.13: A Pre-Post-Mortem Analysis

It’s been almost two weeks since Icefrog and company released the quietly-drastic patch 7.13 into the Dota 2 client... which means the patch is already almost over! Two weeks ago, we saw changes to the map and towers, making early-game dominance a little bit weaker.

This patch also brought a mild overhaul to the attribute perk system, giving all perks to all heroes and amping up their primary attributes. With this in effect for 12 days, it’s time to ask: did item-hoarding carries really come out on top after this, or was that a just a cheap tactic to make weak heroes seem stronger?

This all means we’re back with another Pre-Post-Mortem Patch Analysis! If you think several heroes are dominating your pubs out of nowhere, this is the right place to check. Here, we take a look at the heroes that are suddenly doing better or are continuing their steady climb down.

If you want to know how last patch went down and see who’s missing this week, check out the 7.12 Pre-Post-Mortem Patch Analysis!

And we know it’s right there in the next section, but no, it’s not you.

Riki is actually still plaguing your matches.

Sorry.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Winrates are as of Wednesday, April 24 and are subject to change before the actual 7.14 patch drops.]

Highest win rates

1. Riki — 57.38%
2. Zeus — 57.10%
3. Spectre — 57.03%
4. Underlord — 55.73%
5. Chaos Knight — 55.10%
6. Vengeful Spirit — 54.92%
7. Wraith King — 54.89%
8. Visage — 54.63%
9. Axe — 54.55%
10. Centaur Warrunner — 54.14%

From the last patch, we can see that Riki’s sudden boost of power has given pub players a boost of confidence that lasted through two whole patches, plus a 26.75% pick rate that likely makes pub matches nightmares for opponents. Meanwhile, Zeus is still on his streak of godliness, with a 16.85% pick rate, and Wraith King got some love as well.

New on this list is Axe, who was seven places lower last week — but was the jump really that drastic? We’ll see in our win rate change analysis...

Win rate changes

Format: Hero — Winrate change (Current winrate percentage, % change between patches)

The Winners

1. Terrorblade — +1.81 (52.72, +3.56%)
2. Axe — +1.74 (54.55, +3.29%)
3. Io — +1.73 (41.47, +4.35%)
4. Outworld Devourer — +1.16 (53.25, +2.23%)
5. Drow Ranger — +1.16 (53.25, 2.23%)
6. Pudge — +1.10 (53.13, +2.11%)
7. Magnus — +1.03 (46.90, +2.25%)
8. Lion — +0.95 (49.45, +1.96%)
9. Anti-Mage — +0.91 (48.64, +1.91%)
10. Tidehunter — +0.86 (51.92, +1.68%)

...the answer was: Yes, Axe did see a massive win rate spike. It actually spiked the day this patch came out, according to Dotabuff, and it’s stayed high since then:

It could be because Axe is already a relatively popular pub pick, and the Strength bonus makes him a little more survivable in the early game. Before each point of Strength added 20 health; now Strength heroes are given 22.5 per point. And in a game in which every slice of HP counts on a hero that dives creeps early, that can go a long way.

But Axe is only second in change, where Terrorblade had the most terrifying jump in winrate, with perhaps a two-fold reason for his increased winrate and popularity. For one, of course, there’s the attribute bonus perk. While he’s a difficult hero to play, his late game has always been a sight to see, and the attribute bonuses for Agility heroes — 2 instead of 0.17 armor and 1.25 attack speed instead of 1 — mean he’s bigger and meaner.

Even before 7.13, he’s been a popular pick in esports matches, with a whopping 72.73% winrate in ¹⁄₃ of games at the recent StarLadder ImbaTV Invitational Minor. It seems pub players are trying to match their skills, and it’s showing, as his pick rate has been crawling up to hit the average hero pick rate as of the time of writing. Time to pull out the Timbersaw.

The Losers

1. Chen — -3.08 (44.63, -6.46%)
2. Nature’s Prophet — -2.43 (40.61, -5.65%)
3. Windranger — -2.26 (45.53, -4.73%)
4. Lone Druid — -2.22 (38.09 -5.51%)
5. Lycan — -1.90 (49.12, -3.72%)
6. Oracle — -1.65 (45.03, -3.53%)
7. Weaver — -1.51 (45.83, -3.19%)
8. Enchantress — -1.39 (45.67, -2.95%)
9. Visage, Bristleback, Huskar — -1.29 (respectively: 54.62/51.76/46.79, -2.43%/-2.31%/-2.64%)

Chen’s been on a bit of a swing for a few patches, and it looks like this patch did him in. Nature’s Prophet has been hanging out down in the bottom ranks for a while too, along with the likes of Io and Lone Druid.

It looks like, for Nature’s Prophet and tower-focused heroes like Lycan and Windranger, the early-game destruction bonuses aren’t really giving them the boost they need to take games. Creep gold going down probably doesn’t help their case, either, especially for NP and Lycan as they push lanes late-game.

This is a column under development — feel free to leave feedback about what you liked or didn’t like, or what you’d like to see or not in the future.