Undying in 7.41f: pricier Decay and subtle survivability tweaks

Hi! Today Undying has given me another reason to write about him: in patch 7.41f, his base stats were adjusted and the mana cost of Decay was nudged up a bit. At first glance, these changes don’t look dramatic, but for a hero who lives off tempo, trades, and constant pressure in fights, I wouldn’t write off even small tweaks like these.

Role and abilities

Undying is a Strength melee hero with a simple difficulty rating and a very clear idea: he breaks lanes, makes fights awkward, and steadily drains opponents of space and resources. His roles are marked as Support, as well as Nuker, Disabler, and Durable. I think that mix is exactly what makes him so annoying: he doesn’t need a complex economy to start causing problems early on.

• Decay deals area damage and transfers part of the target’s Strength to the caster. With Aghanim’s Scepter, it steals more Strength.
• Soul Rip drains the life force of nearby units around the target: it heals an ally or damages an enemy. It can also heal Tombstone.
• Tombstone places a gravestone that summons zombies near each enemy in the area. The zombies slow their targets on attack, and when a victim is low on health they speed up. Aghanim’s Shard allows the spell to be cast on an allied hero to hide them inside the tombstone; the ally can also enter it with a right-click.
• Ceaseless Dirge is an innate ability: after death, the hero instantly respawns at the fountain. At the start of the game, it is on cooldown, and that cooldown cannot be reset.
• Flesh Golem transforms the hero into a terrifying flesh golem: he gains a percentage-based Strength bonus, moves faster, and his attacks slow, increase the damage the target takes, and summon zombies from Tombstone.

Looking at the kit as a whole, what stands out to me most is the Tombstone and Flesh Golem combo. That’s what makes Undying a hero who doesn’t need to land every button perfectly for a fight to still become sticky and miserable for the enemy. And Ceaseless Dirge adds a very strange, almost stubborn kind of survivability: even death doesn’t quite work the same way for him as it does for everyone else.

Changes in the latest patches

Below I’ve collected the changes by version, from newest to oldest. You can see that the developers didn’t overhaul the hero, but instead made careful adjustments to comfort and base numbers.

• 7.41f: base health regeneration reduced by 0.25; Decay now costs 110 mana instead of 100.
• 7.41e: base movement speed reduced from 300 to 295; Flesh Golem bonus movement speed increased from 20 to 25.
• 7.41d: base mana regeneration increased by 0.25.
• 7.41: base Agility increased from 10 to 13; base armor reduced by 1; attacks in Flesh Golem now summon zombies from the current level of Tombstone.

To me, the picture here is interesting: the hero was slightly tweaked in both directions. He lost a bit of base durability and had his movement slowed down, but then was partially compensated through Flesh Golem. The main nerf in 7.41f, though, is Decay: the spell around which early trading is often built now costs more. I’d expect that to be felt more in drawn-out skirmishes and in situations where Undying wants to pressure the lane almost nonstop.

Statistics

According to OpenDota, over the last 7 days Undying had 597,728 public games. His win rate is 49.8%, which puts him at 61st out of 127 heroes by win rate and 20th by number of games. To me, that looks like a pretty steady position: the hero clearly isn’t falling apart, but he also doesn’t look like something that’s consistently pushing the meta upward.

• Herald — 50.4%
• Guardian — 50.4%
• Crusader — 50.5%
• Archon — 50.2%
• Legend — 49.6%
• Ancient — 49.3%
• Divine — 48.5%

From these numbers, it seems to me that Undying feels better in lower-tempo brackets and starts losing some efficiency as you go higher. That doesn’t seem surprising: the hero relies heavily on timing, positioning, and how willing your team is to play around Tombstone and prolonged trades. In professional matches, the picture is more cautious: according to OpenDota over the latest period, he had 17 picks, 4 wins, which is 23.5%, and 9 bans. I wouldn’t rush to draw conclusions from a single number, but the win rate itself does look weak.

Items and matchups

Looking at pro matches, the hero’s build revolves pretty predictably around mobility, survivability, and tools for the first initiation. That makes sense to me: Undying rarely wants to just stand around and wait; it’s better for him to force an uncomfortable fight himself.

• In the early game, players most often pick up Iron Branch, Enchanted Mango, Observer and Sentry Wards, Blood Grenade, Tango, Gauntlets of Strength.
• In the early game, you most often see Boots of Speed, Soul Ring, Chainmail, Phase Boots, Bracer, Arcane Boots.
• In the mid game, Aghanim’s Shard, Blink Dagger, Point Booster, Vitality Booster, Soul Booster, Arcane Boots most often appear.
• In the late game, players most often buy Blink Dagger, Black King Bar, Glimmer Cape, Force Staff, Aghanim’s Scepter, Soul Booster.

The item list shows that Blink Dagger remains very important — both in the mid game and later on. I’d say that nicely underlines the hero’s core identity: he doesn’t just want to exist in a fight, he wants to be the first one creating an uncomfortable point of pressure. Glimmer Cape, Force Staff, and Black King Bar also look like fairly expected ways to survive long enough for Tombstone and Flesh Golem to start turning the fight in Undying’s favor.

The matchups are interesting too. He looks best against Medusa — 72.4% wins in 29 games, against Night Stalker — 64.9% in 37 games, and against Tinker — 62.5% in 24 games. His worst matchups are Naga Siren — 29.2% in 24 games, Monkey King — 30.2% in 43 games, and Lone Druid — 30.3% in 33 games. Judging from these numbers, Undying especially likes targets that hate long fights under constant pressure, and looks noticeably worse against heroes that control space better or can play around his direct strength.

Conclusion

After 7.41f, Undying gives me the impression of a hero that wasn’t turned upside down, but was carefully trimmed for comfort. Decay got more expensive, base health regeneration dipped, and movement speed had already been reduced slightly earlier. At the same time, the hero’s core remains intact: he’s still built around Tombstone, resource trading, and a heavy, sticky fight. According to OpenDota, he looks perfectly playable, but not like some especially dominant pick. I think it will be interesting to see whether the more expensive Decay becomes noticeable in regular pubs, or whether the hero simply keeps living off his familiar set of strengths.

Source: official Dota 2 and OpenDota data.

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