Elder Titan in 7.41f: armor from speed, stronger Echo Stomp, and stats

Hi! Today I’m looking at Elder Titan in 7.41f — a hero who still leans on his usual strengths: coming in from the flank, breaking formations, and punishing tight positioning in a very unpleasant way. After the series of changes in 7.41, I’m especially curious how he feels now: in terms of abilities, he’s still a very straightforward but hard-hitting initiator who needs to approach a fight correctly.

Role and abilities

Elder Titan is a strength melee hero with a complexity rating of 2 out of 3. His official roles are Nuker, Disabler, Durable, and Initiator, which fits very well with how he feels in game: he doesn’t just start fights, he also makes it hard for the enemy to stand their ground in them.

In short, his kit looks like this:

• Echo Stomp — a channeled ability where the hero and his spirit shake the ground, deal damage, and put enemies to sleep; the hero deals physical damage, while the spirit deals magical damage.
• Astral Spirit — releases an astral spirit that passes through enemies, deals damage to them, and returns to the hero with bonus damage and movement speed for each enemy hit.
• Natural Order — reduces enemies’ base armor and magic resistance; the hero reduces armor, while the spirit from Astral Spirit reduces magic resistance.
• Momentum — innate passive: Elder Titan’s armor increases with bonus movement speed.
• Earth Splitter — splits the ground in a chosen direction, then after a delay the fissure collapses, slowing enemies and dealing damage based on their maximum health; part of the damage is physical, part is magical.

In my opinion, it’s the Astral Spirit + Natural Order combo that makes the hero so annoying: he doesn’t look like a classic “press one button and everything happens” hero, but if you let him enter the fight properly, he quickly turns the enemy front line into a very vulnerable target. It works especially well against tanky heroes and against teams that like to clump up tightly.

Changes in the latest patches

The picture here is pretty interesting: in 7.41, the hero didn’t just get number tweaks — his new innate ability was also noticeably reworked. To me, that matters; changes like this affect a hero’s style much more than another tiny damage buff.

• 7.41e: Momentum was buffed — armor from bonus movement speed increased from 5% + 0.5% per level to 7% + 0.5% per level. Also, using Astral Spirit sub-abilities that return and reposition the spirit no longer breaks the owner’s invisibility.
• 7.41d: Natural Order had its radius increased from 350 to 375, and Earth Splitter got a stronger movement slow: from 30/40/50% to 40/45/50%.
• 7.41c: Echo Stomp got more base damage — from 60/100/140/180 to 65/110/155/200. And movement from Aghanim’s Shard can no longer be used while rooted.
• 7.41b: Momentum was buffed again — armor from bonus movement speed increased from 3.6% + 0.4% per level to 5% + 0.5% per level.
• 7.41: the innate Tip The Scales was removed and replaced with Momentum. Armor now depends on bonus movement speed, counting all movement speed above the base value of 305. If speed drops below base, armor does not decrease. Also, Astral Spirit no longer grants armor on rejoin, but it still grants movement speed, and through that, armor from the innate. Earth Splitter got its cooldown reduced from 100 to 100/95/90 seconds. Talents were changed too: at level 10, the “+25 attack speed” talent was replaced with bonus damage for Echo Stomp awaken, at level 15, instead of Astral Spirit hero damage, 20% bonus movement speed now becomes attack speed, and at level 20, instead of “+350 damage for Echo Stomp awaken,” he got “+30 Astral Spirit hero damage.”

Looking at this chain of changes, the hero is clearly being pushed more and more toward speed and careful play around the spirit. I like that: this kind of design usually leaves room for clever entries and good timing, instead of just a dumb jump-in.

Statistics

According to OpenDota, Elder Titan was played 46,054 times in public matches over the last 7 days. His win rate is 49.2%. By this metric, he sits in 70th place out of 127 heroes, and by number of games, he is in 126th place.

By rank, the picture looks like this:

• Herald — 46.8%
• Guardian — 47.8%
• Crusader — 47.7%
• Archon — 49.1%
• Legend — 51.9%
• Ancient — 51.8%
• Divine — 53.3%

By the numbers, the hero doesn’t look overpowered, but he can’t exactly be called a failure either. What catches my eye is something else: the higher the rank, the better his win rate, and that looks a lot like a hero who needs not just to be picked, but also to be built properly around timing and the way he enters fights.

Items and matchups

In professional matches, OpenDota’s stage-by-stage data shows these items most often on Elder Titan:

• early: Iron Branch, Tango, Blood Grenade, Observer and Sentry Wards, Sentry Ward, Smoke of Deceit
• early game: Boots of Speed, Tranquil Boots, Chainmail, Phase Boots, Bracer, Morbid Mask
• mid game: Staff of Wizardry, Ogre Axe, Drum of Endurance, Point Booster, Pavise, Broadsword
• late game: Force Staff, Solar Crest, Aghanim’s Scepter, Demon Edge, Crystalys, Eul’s Scepter of Divinity

These lists show that the hero likes not only raw survivability and mobility, but also items that help him reach a good moment to jump in or amplify his impact in a fight. Force Staff, Solar Crest, and Aghanim’s Scepter make especially good sense: all of them fit a hero who wants not just to land his spells, but to create a genuinely awkward situation for the enemy.

And if you judge by Elder Titan’s nature alone, he usually cares about enemies who can be punished for tight formations and for relying on armor and magic resistance. Natural Order in that sense is always that nasty button that makes the enemy start feeling a lot less durable than they wanted to be.

Conclusion

It seems to me that Elder Titan now looks like a very honest but demanding hero: without a precise entry he promises nothing, but with proper positioning he can bring initiation, control, and a huge drop in enemy defenses. Patch 7.41 clearly pushed him toward speed and more flexible play around Momentum, and the fresh changes in 7.41e and earlier only reinforced that direction. By the numbers, he doesn’t look super popular, but he does feel noticeably better in higher ranks, and for a hero like this that’s perfectly solid. I’d expect him to keep showing up in pubs as a hero that plays especially well for people who like not just starting fights, but doing it smartly and from the flank.

Source: official Dota 2 data and OpenDota.

Discuss on the forum (no replies yet — be the first)