Doom in 7.41f: How the Patch Changed Him and What the Stats Say

Hi. Today I took a look at Doom in the fresh context of patch 7.41f, and this is one of those cases where the hero still feels familiar, but the small tweaks noticeably change how he plays. Doom has always been about one very unpleasant thing: taking one enemy out of the fight and forcing the rest of the team to deal with it. Right now I’m especially interested in how he feels in pubs after the 7.41–7.41f patch chain, and what OpenDota statistics are telling us.

Role and abilities

Doom is a Strength, melee hero with a difficulty rating of 2 out of 3. In terms of roles, he is closest to a universal initiator and hard disabler, but the list also includes Carry, Nuker, and Durable. I’ve always thought he’s a good example of a hero that doesn’t come down to one button: he can survive a long trade, start a fight, and pretty brutally punish a key target.

• Devour lets him consume an enemy or neutral creep and gain its abilities; if cast with alternate use, the abilities are not copied.
• Scorched Earth creates a fiery trail around the hero that speeds him up and restores health while dealing damage to enemies.
• Infernal Blade adds a stun and damage, and with the recent changes it became slightly stronger in base damage and max health damage.
• Doom places a curse on the target: it dispels positive effects, deals periodic damage, and prevents spellcasting and health regeneration; with Aghanim’s Scepter, it can be cast on yourself to affect enemies around you.
• Lvl ? Pain is the innate ability, tied to attacks on enemy heroes and the subsequent burst of area damage.

Changes in recent patches

Looking from newest to oldest, Doom was adjusted fairly carefully across this update series, but along several important lines at once: mobility, survivability, damage, and the convenience of using Devour. My impression is that the hero wasn’t meant to be turned upside down, but rather trimmed around the edges so his strengths wouldn’t snowball too easily.

• 7.41e: attack range reduced from 200 to 175; Infernal Blade received more base damage and changed max health damage.
• 7.41d: intelligence gain increased from 1.9 to 2.1; the radius bonus from Aghanim’s Shard for Devour reduced from 20% to 15%.
• 7.41c: additional health regeneration from Scorched Earth reduced from 7/8/9/10 to 6.66.
• 7.41b: Scorched Earth damage reduced from 20/35/50/65 to 20/30/40/50; Doom damage per second reduced from 25/45/66 to 22/44/66; talents at levels 10, 15, and 20 were also reworked.
• 7.41a: base armor reduced by 1; Lvl ? Pain had its share of total damage under the curse reduced from 15% to 10%.
• 7.41: Lvl ? Pain was significantly changed; Devour began working differently on normal and alternate cast, got a shorter cooldown and an Aghanim’s Shard upgrade; Scorched Earth got more radius and health regeneration; Infernal Blade got a longer stun; Doom was buffed in damage per second and its interaction with Aghanim’s Scepter was changed.

To me, the main thing here isn’t one big Doom victory over balance, but a gradual narrowing of his comfort zone. He still has plenty of nasty tools, but some of that “free” value no longer feels as generous as it did when the big 7.41 changes arrived.

Statistics

According to OpenDota, over the last 7 days Doom has been played in 225,205 public matches, with a win rate of 47.9%. That puts him at 97th out of 127 heroes by win rate and 66th by number of games. To me, that’s very middle-of-the-road: the hero is definitely not collapsing, but he also doesn’t look like something that will carry a draft on its own.

• Herald — 48.6%
• Guardian — 46.3%
• Crusader — 46.2%
• Archon — 47.0%
• Legend — 47.5%
• Ancient — 48.7%
• Divine — 50.4%

Across rank brackets, the picture is interesting: Doom performs better in higher ranks, and in Divine he already crosses 50%. That usually tells me the hero shines more where players are cleaner with positioning, timings, and understanding exactly who needs to be shut down first.

In professional matches, according to OpenDota, Doom has 58 picks, 28 wins, and 144 bans. He gets banned noticeably more often than he gets picked, and that’s probably a fair compliment to the hero: even if his win rate isn’t through the roof, opponents clearly don’t want to play against his ultimate and his pace.

Items and matchups

Among the popular items in professional matches, Doom is fairly consistent: he starts with simple stats and consumables, then moves into armor, movement speed, and useful utility slots, and in the late game he picks up tools for survivability and initiation. I like that his build is very grounded overall: the hero doesn’t ask for anything exotic, he mainly wants to be brought to the point where he can go in first and lock down a target.

• Start: Iron Branch, Gauntlets of Strength, Tango, Circlet, Magic Stick, Quelling Blade.
• Early game: Chainmail, Boots of Speed, Phase Boots, Bracer, Soul Ring, Drum of Endurance.
• Mid game: Blink Dagger, Ogre Axe, Aghanim’s Shard, Mithril Hammer, Drum of Endurance, Black King Bar.
• Late game: Shiva’s Guard, Black King Bar, Aghanim’s Scepter, Reaver, Soul Booster, Boots of Travel.

The matchup picture in pro games is also pretty telling. Doom looks especially good against heroes that need to keep their tempo, survive off regeneration, or spend a long time casting spells. But against some more coordinated or highly mobile opponents, he feels noticeably worse.

• Best against: Lifestealer — 71.0% win rate; Weaver — 70.0%; Death Prophet — 69.6%.
• Worst against: Phantom Assassin — 28.6% win rate; Enigma — 30.0%; Pugna — 36.0%.

My conclusion

I think Doom in 7.41f is still the same hero people respect not for beautiful mechanical complexity, but for the simple and unpleasant logic of playing against him: one key hero stops playing Dota for a while. But by the numbers, he doesn’t look like a hero who can easily take over a game by himself. He’s more of a solid draft choice when you need to punish a specific target and deny them their fight plan. In pubs, as usual, a lot will come down to how willing the team is to play around one very hard ultimate and avoid turning the map into a chaotic trade of blows with no purpose. And here Doom, in my opinion, is still strong — just not as shamelessly strong as his fans might want.

Source: official Dota 2 and OpenDota data.

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