Ursa in 7.41f: Maul buffed and his tempo revisited

Hello! Today I’m looking at Ursa in patch 7.41f, because heroes like this are especially noticeable when their core mechanic gets a careful tweak. Ursa is a melee carry with a simple idea at first glance: he tears through a target with a series of attacks and quickly turns a fight into a hunt for one victim. But he has another side too — he can absolutely stay alive in a fight longer than people expect, if he uses his buttons at the right time.

Role and abilities

According to the official description, Ursa is a hero who deals more and more damage with every attack. For me, that immediately defines his style: he is not about long, measured firefights, but about building pressure on a single target. His role is carry, along with a small set of utility functions — Disabler and Durable. His difficulty is listed as 1 out of 3, so getting into him really does not look hard, but in practice it still matters when you start the fight and how you keep your tempo.

Looking at his abilities as a whole, Ursa’s kit feels very cohesive:

• Earthshock — slows nearby enemies and helps keep a target within attack range.
• Overpower — increases the speed of several next attacks and grants slow resistance.
• Fury Swipes — makes each consecutive attack hit harder and harder.
• Maul — an innate ability that increases attack damage based on the hero’s current health.
• Enrage — sends the hero into a frenzy, grants status resistance and damage resistance, and removes all debuffs; with Aghanim’s Scepter, this ability also has a shorter cooldown and can be used even while disabled.

To me, the Overpower and Fury Swipes combo remains the heart of the hero: one helps you quickly get the number of hits you need, and the other turns those hits into a real problem for any isolated enemy. Maul, meanwhile, makes Ursa a little more interesting in terms of pacing and fight flow: now he has one more reason not to lose damage if he keeps his health in good shape.

Changes in recent patches

In 7.41f, Ursa received only one official change, and it affects Maul:

• 7.41f — damage from health increased from 1.25% to 1.75%.

On paper, this looks like a small but pretty clear adjustment. I think it slightly nudges the hero toward a smoother start and a better feel in fights, especially if Ursa does not manage to immediately turn the battle in his favor. This does not seem like the kind of change that radically alters his game, but numbers like these on innate mechanics are often more noticeable than they first appear.

Statistics

According to OpenDota, over the last 7 days Ursa appeared in 294,061 public games. His win rate is 48.9%. Out of 127 heroes, that is 81st by win rate and 52nd by number of games.

Looking by rank, the picture gradually improves as skill level rises:

• Herald — 44.6%
• Guardian — 45.6%
• Crusader — 48.0%
• Archon — 48.8%
• Legend — 49.5%
• Ancient — 50.2%
• Divine — 50.9%

By my feeling, this is a very typical Ursa picture: in lower ranks, the hero does not always get the free tempo he needs, while in higher ranks his strengths start to show more clearly — the ability to punish mistakes quickly, pressure isolated targets, and choose better moments to jump in. By the numbers, he does not look like a completely comfortable hero for everyone, but he is not a failure either.

In professional matches, according to OpenDota, Ursa had 28 picks, 12 wins, and 46 bans, which comes out to a win rate of 42.9%. I would not overstate the raw number here: the small sample and high ban rate usually mean the hero is interesting as a situational tool rather than a stable, universal pick. But it is precisely in cases like this that small patches like 7.41f test whether the hero is ready to return to a more visible role.

Items and counters

Popular items in professional matches show that Ursa remains a hero with a very recognizable set of priorities: he wants early damage and farming components, tempo-boosting items, and tools that help him survive enemy burst in return.

OpenDota’s game stages look like this:

• Start: Iron Branch, Tango, Quelling Blade, Magic Stick, Faerie Fire, Circlet.
• Early game: Boots of Speed, Chainmail, Ring of Health, Phase Boots, Void Stone, Perseverance.
• Mid game: Broadsword, Mithril Hammer, Battle Fury, Blink Dagger, Ogre Axe, Perseverance.
• Late game: Sange, Abyssal Blade, Skull Basher, Black King Bar, Eaglesong, Demon Edge.

To me, it is clear here that in pro games Ursa is not limited to the simple idea of “jump in and tear someone apart.” He often builds in a way that lets him keep his farming tempo, reach the target, and not fall apart under control. The presence of Battle Fury, Blink Dagger, Skull Basher, Abyssal Blade and Black King Bar is especially telling: this is a very straightforward item set for a hero who either needs to reach the right target or make sure it cannot get away.

As for troublesome opponents in professional matches, OpenDota’s data with 20+ games looks like this:

• Best against: Underlord — 148 games, 63.5% win rate; Phantom Lancer — 37 games, 62.2% win rate; Death Prophet — 33 games, 60.6% win rate.
• Worst against: Mirana — 40 games, 30.0% win rate; Naga Siren — 34 games, 32.4% win rate; Treant Protector — 64 games, 32.8% win rate.

I’d say these matchups nicely highlight Ursa’s nature: he is better where he can confidently force direct contact and quickly finish a target, and worse where the opponent can break his rhythm, stop him from reaching the target, or drag the fight into an unfavorable shape.

My takeaway

After the Maul change, Ursa in 7.41f does not look like a hero that has been reinvented, and in my opinion, that is exactly his normal story. He is still the same straightforward, aggressive melee carry who wants to speed up fights, catch isolated targets, and punish every extra step forward. But a small buff to his innate ability can make him a little nicer to execute and a little less dependent on a perfect initiation.

By the stats, the hero does not look overwhelmingly strong right now: his pub win rate is below 50%, and in professional games he still has not proven himself as a stable choice. But I think that is exactly why he is interesting to watch after micro-updates like this one: Ursa is quite sensitive to fine tuning, and a single small number can sometimes shift his feel more than the patch notes make it seem.

Source: official Dota 2 and OpenDota data.

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