Dota 2: Best Heroes in Patch 7.38

A new map, with new strategies to explore and newly balanced heroes. Dota 2 received the Wandering Waters update, better known as Patch 7.38, and a lot has changed. You can check out the main changes here.

The metagame before the new patch was dominated by heroes like Dragon Knight and Bloodseeker, both of whom were nerfed in this new scenario. Which heroes are trending now? Who are the best carries at the moment? Which support should you pick in matches or ban at any cost?

I spent the last few weeks diving into the new Dota, testing several heroes and builds, analyzing the data available on Dota2ProTracker and other sources with a good database of matches with MMR above 8000 and in this article, we present the best heroes for each position currently in patch 7.38.

Carry - Nature’s Prophet

Nature’s Prophet is now a universal hero, thanks to the new patch, and has received some changes that have made him more efficient in combat. Prophet has always been very strong, but the last patch made him stand out more as a pusher, thanks to the Ironwood Treant facet. He now has a greater damage capacity and his abilities allow him to move easily around the map, whether to eliminate an enemy, quickly enter combat or take down towers. He’s a hero who makes good use of items such as Hurricane Pike, Revenant’s Brooch and Bloodthorn.

With a current winrate of 54% as a Hard Carry, Nature has been one of the main picks for this role and has shown strong results.

Mid - Invoker

One of the most complex and difficult picks to play has once again been highlighted in this new Metagame. Invoker is now an intelligence hero and has received several buffs, modified abilities and new facets. He’s a hero who can disable an entire team and perform a rampage with ease.

Perhaps the difficulty of mastering this hero can keep him at a level that doesn’t become harmful to the game to the point of needing a nerf, but he’s certainly an excellent option to play as a midlaner and has achieved excellent results in this role. With the recent change in the item Gleipnir, which stopped being a Carry item to become a support/disable item perfect for mages like Invoker, we’ll certainly see more of this hero in the game.

Offlane - Tidehunter

There's not much to say about Tidehunter. He's the hero with one of the best abilities in Dota 2, very resistant, able to connect damage with ease, reduces enemies' armor and movement speed, benefits greatly from essential items in the game today and his gameplay is not that complex.

Among the main changes for the hero in the new patch, we can highlight the buff to his passive ability, Kraken Shell, which can be activated to grant Tide even greater resistance against physical attacks.

Support - Bounty Hunter

Bounty Hunter is the perfect hero for those who love to ambush enemies, preferably supports, and love heroes with good mobility, damage and an excellent escape. In the new patch, Hunter now steals more gold with the Cutpurse facet and his ultimate now has a greater damage amplification.

The best part of playing Hunter is being able to track the position of enemies, ward with greater ease, performing the support role excellently while being perfectly capable of annihilating enemies with his damage while farming double gold.

Hard Support - Shadow Shaman

One of the best supports in the game is now even better. Shaman has received a passive ability through the Chicken Fingers facet that allows him to turn an enemy into a chicken with his attack every 15 seconds for 1 second. Combine this with Hex, the skill that does the same for up to three seconds, and use Shackles to completely disable any enemy. In addition, Shackles can now be upgraded with Aghanim’s Scepter to be used on both allies and enemies, causing the target unit to deal magic damage to nearby enemies and allies under the effect of this ability won’t be disabled.

Shaman is a hero who can completely nullify the enemy carry, can take down towers, deals a good amount of magic damage and combines very well with a good variety of picks, making him a great choice in the current meta.

There’s still a lot to be explored in this new patch and players are still adapting to the new map and current gameplay, but I believe that the heroes on this list are strong options in the current metagame, be it in ranked or casual matches. So, if you’re going to play, choose wisely and if your choice isn’t one of them, don't forget to ban them if you can.

I finish here another article. Leave your questions, suggestions, criticisms and/or compliments in the comments. Thanks for reading and see you next time.