Techies in 7.41f: how patches kept changing the explosive hero

Hi! Today I’m looking at Techies in 7.41f, and this is one of those cases where the hero still feels like pressure, chaos, and explosions at just the right moment, even if the latest patches tweaked his numbers. What interests me most is how he looks now after a string of changes: some things were taken away, some were added, and the stats still don’t look bad.

Role and abilities

Techies is an универсальный ranged hero with a difficulty rating of 2 out of 3. Officially, his role is listed as Nuker and Disabler, and that lines up well with how he actually works: he doesn’t so much brawl head-on as force awkward trades, slow down the enemy’s tempo, and threaten burst damage out of nowhere.

• Sticky Bomb — a sticky bomb that is thrown into an area and, if it lands near an enemy hero, attaches to them and slows their movement.
• Reactive Tazer — a charge on an ally that increases movement speed, and any attack on the target punishes the attacker with damage, disarm, and a basic dispel; at the end of the duration, the charge explodes and disarms enemies around it.
• Blast Off! — a leap into the middle of enemies with a powerful explosion that deals huge damage and stuns; the hero himself takes damage equal to a fraction of his current health, but cannot die from it.
• M.A.D. — an innate ability that increases mana regeneration based on maximum mana; with Aghanim’s Shard, it gains an active component with a blasting barrel, and passively amplifies damage based on maximum mana.
• Minefield Sign — appears with Aghanim’s Scepter and disappears over time.
• Proximity Mines — plants a mine whose invisibility cannot be revealed.

Changes in the latest patches

Techies has had a pretty dense history of changes over the last few versions. Looking from the newest to the oldest, you can see that the hero gradually lost some of his pressure through control and damage, but at the same time gained a more noticeable connection to mana.

• 7.41d — the disarm duration on Reactive Tazer was reduced from 2.4/2.7/3/3.3 to 2.25/2.5/2.75/3 seconds; the magic resistance reduction duration on Proximity Mines was cut from 5 to 4 seconds.
• 7.41c — base mana regeneration was reduced by 0.5, intelligence gain was reduced from 3 to 2.7, and damage gain per level was reduced from 3.3 to 3.2; at the same time, M.A.D. was improved in terms of regeneration from maximum mana, and the explosion radius of Reactive Tazer was reduced from 450 to 400.
• 7.41b — the level 10 magic resistance talent was nerfed from 20% to 15%, and the level 15 damage talent for Blast Off! was reduced from 200 to 175.
• 7.41a — Proximity Mines were heavily toned down: damage, edge damage at the activation area, and minimum damage; the level 10 talent that reduced the cooldown of Proximity Mines was also nerfed.
• 7.41 — M.A.D. was completely reworked, adding an innate passive with mana regen and a separate active component through Aghanim’s Shard; Reactive Tazer no longer required Aghanim’s Shard to be cast on allies and gained increased cast range; Blast Off! was changed in terms of the order in which damage is taken and the hero’s state while in flight; Proximity Mines became a source of damage from the owner; Minefield Sign was moved to Aghanim’s Scepter; talents were also reworked.

In my opinion, patch 7.41 had the biggest impact on the hero’s identity: Techies is now more tied to mana and careful play around his tools, rather than just the old mine-based pattern. The following patches then trimmed the most comfortable parts in specific places: less duration here, less damage there, weaker talents somewhere else.

Statistics

According to OpenDota, over the last 7 days Techies played 556,126 public games, with a win rate of 51.0%. That puts him in 35th place out of 127 heroes by win rate and 21st by number of games. For a hero with this kind of style, that looks perfectly workable to me: not a rare niche pick, but a stable part of the pool.

• Herald — 51.0% win rate.
• Guardian — 51.4% win rate.
• Crusader — 51.2% win rate.
• Archon — 51.3% win rate.
• Legend — 51.0% win rate.
• Ancient — 50.7% win rate.
• Divine — 50.3% win rate.

In professional matches, according to OpenDota, Techies had 76 picks, 43 wins for a 56.6% win rate, and 168 bans. The picture is more interesting here: in the competitive scene, he isn’t being ignored, which means his toolkit still makes teams account for him in the draft stage.

Items and matchups

Across game stages in professional matches, these are the most common items:

• start — Iron Branch, Tango, Observer and Sentry Wards, Faerie Fire, Blood Grenade, Sentry Ward;
• early game — Boots of Speed, Tranquil Boots, Soul Ring, Arcane Boots, Urn of Shadows;
• mid game — Arcane Boots, Vitality Booster, Pavise, Consecrated Wraps, Solar Crest, Staff of Wizardry;
• late game — Force Staff, Mystic Staff, Scythe of Vyse, Consecrated Wraps, Solar Crest, Glimmer Cape.

The matchup data in professional games is also pretty revealing. I think Techies especially likes heroes that struggle with sustained pressure and explosive trades, but against heroes with strong protection or a sudden jump, he can have a much harder time.

• best against — Chaos Knight: 35 games, 65.7% win rate; Outworld Destroyer: 37 games, 64.9% win rate; Razor: 43 games, 62.8% win rate.
• worst against — Oracle: 25 games, 36.0% win rate; Monkey King: 58 games, 36.2% win rate; Phoenix: 69 games, 36.2% win rate.

Conclusion

Techies in 7.41f gives me the impression of a hero who wasn’t radically changed in the latest patch, but who has already gone through an important series of adjustments. Some of his control and damage were cut, but his stats remain workable and his presence in professional matches is still noticeable. By the numbers, he doesn’t look overloaded, but it’s definitely too early to write him off. I’d be watching to see how his mines, Reactive Tazer, and the new logic around M.A.D. feel in real games.

Source: official Dota 2 data and OpenDota.

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