Io in patch 7.41f: weaker Spirits and still a combo hero

Hi! Today I’m looking at Io in patch 7.41f, and the first thing that stands out is that the hero is still built around one idea: he makes an ally stronger, faster, and more dangerous, while playing the role of a very flexible link for the whole team. After the latest changes, Io once again looks like a hero you have to judge not just by numbers, but by how comfortably he fits the pace of the game.

Role and abilities

Io is a universal ranged hero with a complexity rating of 3 out of 3. According to the official role breakdown, he is primarily a Support, with Escape and Nuker also listed. To me, that captures his nature well: he doesn’t so much lead the fight himself as turn another hero into a more convenient and dangerous tool for the team.

The official hero description really comes down to one idea: Io bonds with allies to empower them. And his whole kit is built around that.

• Tether links Io to an allied unit, increases both units’ movement speed, shares part of health and mana regeneration, and slows an enemy if they touch the tether.
• Spirits summons spirits around Io that explode on contact with enemies; with Aghanim’s Scepter, the mechanic becomes continuous, and the spirits gain extra behavior when colliding.
• Overcharge boosts attack speed, spell amplification, and health regeneration, and the tethered ally also receives those bonuses.
• Spirits In and Spirits Out control the spirits’ distance from the hero.
• Relocate teleports Io and the tethered ally to any point on the map, then returns them back; double-tapping sends them to their fountain.
• Equilibrium is the innate ability: the closer health is to full, the higher the damage; the closer it is to zero, the stronger the health regeneration and healing amplification.

I think it’s this exact set of abilities that makes Io so unusual: he has almost no independent “shine” without a partner, but with the right hero he can dramatically raise the value of fights, movement, and prolonged trades.

Changes in the latest patches

If we go from newest to oldest, in 7.41f Io received only one change, but for the hero it doesn’t look minor.

• 7.41f: the level 15 talent with bonus Spirits damage was reduced from 50% to 40%.

Earlier, in 7.41c, the developers touched two important things at once: they nerfed the health and mana share through Tether, and they made the orbit distance of Spirits persist between casts. To me, this already feels like more than a cosmetic tweak — it’s a move toward a more careful, less greedy Io.

• 7.41c: health and mana shared through Tether reduced from 60/80/100/120% to 55/75/95/115%.
• 7.41c: the orbit distance of Spirits now persists between casts.

Before that, in 7.41a, the newly added Equilibrium was toned down and a very noticeable level 25 talent was nerfed.

• 7.41a: maximum damage amplification and healing amplification from Equilibrium reduced from 5% + 0.5% per level to 4% + 0.4% per level.
• 7.41a: the level 25 talent with attack damage shared with the Tether target was reduced from 75% to 50%.

The biggest layer of the update came in 7.41, when the old innate Wellspring was removed and replaced with Equilibrium. At the same time, Overcharge began granting bonuses to both Io and the tethered ally, and the talents were adjusted as well.

• 7.41: Wellspring removed from the game.
• 7.41: Equilibrium became the new innate ability.
• 7.41: Overcharge now grants the owner and tethered ally +35/60/85/110 attack speed and +8/10/12/14% spell amplification.
• 7.41: level 10 talent for strength increased from 7 to 8.
• 7.41: level 25 talent reducing Relocate cast time was strengthened from 1.5 to 2 seconds.

In my opinion, this whole chain of changes shows a pretty clear direction: Io is meant to stay a strong team hero, but not one that can too easily snowball an ally through tethering and utility.

Statistics

According to OpenDota, over the last 7 days Io has been played in 163,029 public matches, with a win rate of 50.0%. That puts him 55th out of 127 heroes by win rate and 95th by number of games. For a hero with such a distinctive team mechanic, those numbers look, honestly, pretty even: not bad, but also not like he’s standing out much from the field right now.

Looking at ranks, Io’s picture gradually improves as the bracket goes up:

• Herald — 49.3%
• Guardian — 49.2%
• Crusader — 49.0%
• Archon — 49.8%
• Legend — 50.1%
• Ancient — 51.0%
• Divine — 51.6%

That seems important to me: the higher the skill level, the better a hero like this is revealed, since he depends on understanding timings, positioning, and choosing the right partner.

In professional matches, according to OpenDota for the latest period, Io has 11 picks, 7 wins, which is 63.6%, and 20 bans. With such a sample size, I wouldn’t draw any huge conclusions, but the interest in the hero on the competitive stage is still noticeable.

Items and matchups

In professional matches, Io’s most popular item builds show pretty well what he usually tries to become as the game goes on.

• Starting items: Iron Branch, Gauntlets of Strength, Tango, Magic Stick, Sage’s Mask, Faerie Fire.
• Early game: Helm of Iron Will, Soul Ring, Helm of the Dominator, Staff of Wizardry, Null Talisman, Bottle.
• Mid game: Ogre Axe, Mithril Hammer, Blade of Alacrity, Aghanim’s Scepter, Point Booster, Staff of Wizardry.
• Late game: Reaver, Hyperstone, Mjollnir, Satanic, Demon Edge, Shiva’s Guard.

In my opinion, this especially shows that Io in pro games is not just about support trinkets: he can work his way into very heavy and expensive items if the game turns into a long one.

As for matchups in pro games, the picture looks like this:

• best against Shadow Demon — 25 games, 80.0% win rate;
• best against Spirit Breaker — 32 games, 78.1% win rate;
• best against Templar Assassin — 26 games, 73.1% win rate;
• worst against Largo — 23 games, 34.8% win rate;
• worst against Necrophos — 25 games, 36.0% win rate;
• worst against Troll Warlord — 22 games, 36.4% win rate.

And here, looking at the numbers, Io doesn’t feel like a hero who is currently living off some single overpowered patch. Rather, he remains a very situational tool: strong where the team knows how to use tethering, relocation, and ally amplification. In pubs and in pro games, that’s usually what decides it, and the fresh 7.41f, to my mind, simply shaved off a slightly too comfortable part of his damage through Spirits.

Conclusion

Io in 7.41f looks like a hero without any loud revolution, but with a clear and fairly stable identity. He’s being nerfed carefully, piece by piece, and that’s easy to see in the latest patches: first they trimmed the resource sharing through Tether, then they smoothed out Equilibrium, and now they’ve also weakened the Spirits talent. I think the hero can still bring a lot of value, but only if you’re ready to play around a partner and not expect Io to solve everything on his own.

Source: official Dota 2 and OpenDota data.

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