DOTA 2: 5 Heroes to be nerfed most in the next patch

The Dota world has seen a lot of overpowered heroes, items and unique interactions throughout the various patches starting decades back to the current patch of 7.21. Patch 7.21 came out on 29th January this year.

There have been three minor patches since then, although it is believed without much dispute that some heroes right now are too overpowered. I will try to highlight one hero per position that will likely get the nerf-bat in the upcoming patch. Without further ado, let's begin, shall we?

Drow Ranger

Without a slither of doubt, the most broken hero in this game at the moment is Drow Ranger. It doesn't matter if she loses her lane or not, she retreats to the jungle after or slightly before her level 6.

Give her 10-15 minutes of uninterrupted farming. Lo and behold, you have the most stacked hard-hitting carry ready to fight or destroy structures.

Drow sported a 51.85% win rate at the MDL Disneyland Paris Major. Although her win rate is not that high, we have to remember that she was consistently picked in the first phase, occasionally even as the first pick.

Medusa

Although Medusa has been the target of the nerf-bat for a couple of successive patches, she still is a force to reckon with against a team that knows how to play with her as a composition.

The level 15 Mystic Snake Mana steal talent is, according to most players of the game, game-changing. With that talent, Medusa steals 50% of every target's mana which the snake hits.

This talent has made the state of the meta such that her traditional counterpicks like Anti-Mage don't effectively work against her anymore.

Medusa had 73.33% win rate in 15 picks in the MDL Disneyland Paris Major. She is one of the prime targets of the nerfhammer among the mid heroes.

Dark Seer

The "+1 sec Vacuum cooldown increase" has been a meme for quite a few years in the DOTA 2 community. Yet we might see another nerf on the quintessential offlane hero.

His ability to cut waves from level 1 and to farm up Helm of the Dominator at a very early timing has become the bane of existence for the enemy team's safelaners.

Although his traditional counter, Oracle has been a somewhat popular pick in the current meta, Dark Seer is yet mostly unaffected by it, since most teams picked Dark Seer and Oracle together when they got second pick. Dark Seer sported a 65% winrate in 20 picks in the MDL Disneyland Paris Major.

Sand King

What happened with Sand King over the last few patches, can be summed up as the phenomenon called "Power creep".

He received buffs in the last couple of patches and after the long phase when he was mostly untouched in the pro scene, he suddenly became the most picked hero of the tournament in MDL Disneyland Paris Major (38 picks, same as Nature's Prophet).

The flexibility to be played in both position 3 and 4 has been the key aspect behind the popularity of the hero. Although more successful in position 3, Sand King has been a staple pick for any team that needs stun, nuke, initiation and waveclear from their position 3 or 4.

Abaddon

This hero had a very weird popularity curve in this patch. At the start of the major, only Notail (Team OG) and Puppey (Team Secret) were playing it. But once the other teams in the major witnessed the unique strength of the hero, he became the flavor of the meta hero.

Abaddon's Mist coil is too good of a spell at level 1 and not only he can use it to harass enemies and heal teammates, but also he can use it rather reliably to deny himself, which is a very efficient way to come back to the lane with full health and mana only to rinse and repeat.

The hard dispel in his Aphotic shield is the cherry on the top. In the MDL Disneyland Paris Major, we witnessed a 57.14% winrate across 28 Abaddon picks.

Other than these four heroes, I would also like to mention a few heroes who are contenders of the nerf-bat: Earthshaker, Nature's Prophet, Enigma, Nyx Assassin, Doom, Morphling, Razor, Batrider, Shadow Shaman.

The 7.22 patch is scheduled to come out after the qualifiers for the Major and Minor are over. As they are over on 21st May, 22nd May is the most plausible date of the patch coming out.