Primal Beast in 7.41f: how the hero is holding up after the tweaks

Hi! Today I’m looking at Primal Beast in 7.41f — a hero that still feels like a very straightforward initiator, but no longer seems quite as overwhelming as it did right after the big changes in 7.41. I think heroes like this make it especially easy to see how small tweaks gradually change the usual pace of the game.

Role and abilities

Primal Beast is a Strength, melee hero with a difficulty rating of 1 out of 3. In terms of roles, it’s listed as a Disabler, Durable, and Initiator, which fits how the hero is built very well: jump in first, break up the fight, and keep a target in place.

• Onslaught — charges the hero in the chosen direction, pushing back both allies and enemies, and when colliding with opponents it deals damage and stuns them.
• Trample — lets the hero stomp through everything in its path; while the ability is active, the hero cannot attack.
• Uproar — grants armor, attack damage, and an area slow, with the effects scaling based on the number of stacks. With Aghanim’s Scepter, the ability also starts dealing projectile damage and applying Break.
• Rock Throw — the Aghanim’s Shard ability: throws a rock at a target point, stunning and dealing damage, then shattering into fragments. Each enemy hit grants a stack of Uproar.
• Pulverize — a channeling ability where the hero grabs the target and slams it into the ground several times, dealing area damage and briefly stunning. With each slam, the damage increases until the ability ends.
• Colossal — innate ability. Right now it slightly increases the hero’s size with each bonus gain, and also provides base slow resistance and boosts ability radii along with health.

What really defines the hero’s current identity is Colossal: it makes him not just “big and scary,” but also scale better with health. That feels important to me, because the hero now depends less on a single successful jump — there’s a clearer link between survivability and how comfortably he can use his kit.

Changes in recent patches

Looking from the newest patch back, the picture looks like this:

• 7.41c — Trample‘s damage radius was reduced from 230 to 200.
• 7.41b — Pulverize‘s cooldown was increased from 40/35/30 to 45/40/35 seconds; the level 10 bonus damage talent was reduced from 30 to 25.
• 7.41a — Colossal now slightly increases the hero’s size with each bonus gain.
• 7.41 — Colossal was heavily changed; the hero gained 10% base slow resistance, and for every 100 maximum health, +0.5% to ability radii and +1% slow resistance. Pulverize also lost some slam radius, dropping from 600 to 575. The level 25 talent also changed: instead of protecting Trample from slows and roots, Colossal‘s bonuses are now doubled during Trample.

I like that these changes don’t completely break the hero, but instead nudge him toward cleaner play. At the same time, it’s clear the developers don’t want him to win too easily off a single fight entry and button-mashing alone.

Statistics

According to OpenDota, in public matches over the last 7 days, Primal Beast has 140,418 games and a 49.5% win rate. That puts him 63rd out of 127 heroes by win rate and 101st by number of games.

• Herald — 51.1%
• Guardian — 48.6%
• Crusader — 49.3%
• Archon — 49.4%
• Legend — 48.7%
• Ancient — 49.9%
• Divine — 51.7%

In pro matches, OpenDota paints a very cautious picture: 7 picks, 3 wins, which is 42.9%, and 0 bans. Based on those numbers, I wouldn’t call the hero a stable draft choice, but he doesn’t look completely forgotten either.

Items and matchups

Professional matches show that Primal Beast is often built as a hero who wants to speed up the fight entry, survive the first exchange, and then finish the target off.

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

In the professional matchup sample, he has a few very comfortable opponents, but some rough ones show up too.

• Best against: Tinker — 27 games, 74.1% win rate; Ancient Apparition — 29 games, 69.0% win rate; Death Prophet — 26 games, 65.4% win rate.
• Worst against: Sniper — 28 games, 28.6% win rate; Largo — 55 games, 34.5% win rate; Bane — 23 games, 34.8% win rate.

Looking only at the item builds and these matchups, I get the impression that Primal Beast still feels best where he can force a close-range fight and quickly close the gap. Against heroes that can keep him at a distance or break the pace, though, he still seems to struggle.

Conclusion

Primal Beast in 7.41f looks like a hero that was trimmed a little in the most convenient places, but not stripped of his identity. He’s still an initiator who wants to jump into the fight first, catch a target, and force the engagement through strength rather than trickery. On the numbers, he doesn’t look obviously overpowered or terrible: his win rate is around the middle, he sees a lot of play in pubs, and he still isn’t a frequent pro draft choice. I think this is exactly the kind of case where the hero remains interesting, but demands more precision than it first appears. We’ll see whether he gets an even more comfortable build or role in the next patches.

Source: official Dota 2 data and OpenDota.

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