Drow Ranger in Patch 7.41f: How the Hero Weathered a String of Changes

Hi! Today I’m looking at Drow Ranger in patch 7.41f, because over the last few updates she’s picked up several notable changes all at once. The hero still looks like a classic agility carry from range, but in practice she’s being pushed toward more careful play around positioning and the timing of Multishot and Glacier.

Role and abilities

Drow Ranger is an agility-based hero with ranged attack type and a difficulty rating of 1 out of 3. In terms of roles, she’s marked as a Carry, and can also cover Disabler and Pusher duties. In short, her official identity is very straightforward: she slows enemies with icy arrows, then suffocates them with a stream of attacks and area pressure.

• Frost Arrows — the main tool for lane pressure and teamfights; with Aghanim’s Scepter, the ability gains an additional chilling effect that increases damage and worsens the target’s health regeneration.
• Gust — a wave that knocks enemies back, prevents them from casting abilities, and reveals invisibility; the closer the enemy is, the farther they get pushed.
• Multishot — a channeled ability that fires several waves of arrows; while active, you can use items and move slowly.
• Glacier — an Aghanim’s Shard ability that creates an icy hill with bonus attack range and a special interaction with vision and high-ground damage.
• Precision Aura — an innate ability that grants extra agility based on level and current agility value.
• Marksmanship — a passive damage source that gives attacks a chance to fire an arrow that ignores the enemy’s base armor.

To me, the whole point of Drow Ranger still comes down to not ruining your own distance. If she stands in the right place, her abilities add up to a very nasty package for enemies: slows, cast interruptions, AoE damage, and a strong passive for finishing targets.

Changes in recent patches

I’m starting from the newest changes and working backward, because that makes it easier to see how the hero’s tempo and comfort have been adjusted over time.

• 7.41e: Multishot got a higher mana cost, its cast range changed, and the share of base damage was reduced.
• 7.41c: Frost Arrows got higher bonus damage, and Gust had its mana cost reduced.
• 7.41b: base agility and level 1 damage were increased, the enemy-hero disable radius on Marksmanship was reduced, and Glacier no longer protected the passive from being disabled by nearby enemies; the level 25 talent for Multishot was also strengthened.
• 7.41: base damage and level 1 damage were reduced, Precision Aura no longer improves with Marksmanship, the base agility bonus on Precision Aura was changed, Frost Arrows with Aghanim’s Scepter also started reducing healing received, Gust became more dependent on distance to the target, Multishot gained the ability to use items and move, and Glacier stopped increasing the number of arrows and giving attacks no-miss, but instead added bonus damage against enemies below the hill.

I get a pretty clear impression here: the hero wasn’t so much reinvented as squeezed between buffs and limitations. Some parts got better in terms of comfort, while other overly convenient aspects were toned down. In the end, Drow Ranger looks less like a hero who just presses buttons and more like one where maintaining distance and not losing your damage window really matters.

Statistics

According to OpenDota over the last 7 days in public matches, Drow Ranger was picked in 527,162 games. Her win rate was 46.4%, which puts her at 112th out of 127 heroes by win rate and 20th by number of games.

• Herald — 46.6%
• Guardian — 47.3%
• Crusader — 47.0%
• Archon — 46.5%
• Legend — 45.7%
• Ancient — 45.3%
• Divine — 45.0%

Looking at the numbers, the hero doesn’t seem especially strong in pubs. At the same time, the spread across ranks doesn’t suggest that Drow Ranger suddenly becomes more comfortable in higher brackets: the higher the rank, the slightly lower the win rate. I think that points to a hero that demands careful play and punishes positioning mistakes heavily.

In professional matches, according to OpenDota, she had 1 pick, 0 wins, and 4 bans. So in the current period, teams are more likely to keep her on their radar than actually bring her out.

Items and matchups

According to OpenDota, in professional matches Drow Ranger most often builds the following by stage of the game:

• early: Iron Branch, Faerie Fire, Circlet, Tango, Magic Wand, Magic Stick
• early game: Boots of Speed, Power Treads, Falcon Blade, Blade of Alacrity, Wraith Band, Dragon Lance
• mid game: Blade of Alacrity, Yasha, Dragon Lance, Staff of Wizardry, Diadem, Manta Style
• late game: Black King Bar, Demon Edge, Eaglesong, Butterfly, Crystalys, Shadow Blade

The matchup data in professional games is interesting too: Drow Ranger performs better against Sand King, Witch Doctor, and Pudge, while she has a harder time against Earth Spirit, Alchemist, and Nature’s Prophet. I’d say that makes sense for a hero who depends heavily on space to attack and on how comfortably she can keep her distance.

Conclusion

Right now, Drow Ranger gives me the impression of a hero who’s being carefully polished, but not allowed to run wild. Her comfort was adjusted, her damage was increased in some places, and her restrictions were brought back in others, so in the end she doesn’t look like an obvious patch favorite, but rather like a functional carry that demands good positioning. On paper she doesn’t look especially strong in pubs, but in the right hands and with a solid understanding of spacing, she can still be extremely annoying.

Source: official Dota 2 data and OpenDota.

Discuss on the forum (1 reply)