Dota 2: The biggest winners of the 7.31 update

The 7.31 update has greatly changed the Dota 2 metagame, with some of the biggest changes including a new hero in Primal Beast as well as a massive rework for Techies.

New Aghanim's Shard and Aghanim's Scepter upgrades have been added to the game too.

Now that it has been two weeks since 7.31 was released, players have had enough time to settle on a new metagame and figure out which heroes benefited the most from the new update.

With that in mind, here's our list of heroes that were the biggest winners of Dota 2's 7.31 update:

Undying

On paper, Undying was buffed through Soul Rip and his Aghanim's Shard. Soul Rip now only requires 10 units to do its maximum amount of healing and damage at all levels, has a lower mana cost and cooldown, and provides 10 more heal/damage at max level. That's a lot of small buffs for one of Undying's most important abilities, but is it enough to explain why he has been so good in 7.31?

It turns out Undying also received another hidden buff, this time to his signature Tombstone ability. In previous patches, Tombstone zombies did piercing damage, which is reduced by 50% when attacking heroes.

When Dota 2 patch 7.31b dropped, the Tombstone zombies were changed, and now deal basic damage, effectively doubling their damage against heroes. Zombies used to deal 22-24 damage to heroes and now deal 33-36, a solid 50% increase overall.

While that patch scaled down zombie damage significantly, Undying still deals more damage than before, making one of the strongest early game heroes in Dota 2 that much stronger.

Chen

Chen received several small buffs in 7.31, with Holy Persuasion providing 15 more movement speed at max level, while Hand of God was changed to give less burst healing while giving allies bonus health regeneration for 10 seconds.

Those are nice buffs, but they're not exactly game changing. What was actually the biggest buff to Chen was that 7.31 made neutral creeps stronger and scale later into the game.

Chen’s biggest strength was taking creeps early in the game with Holy Persuasion and using them to take over the enemy map. Since neutral creeps didn't scale before, Chen's creeps would slowly lose strength as enemy heroes scaled later into the game.

With 7.31 allowing neutral creeps to scale later into the game, Chen’s biggest weakness has now been significantly mitigated.

Along with multiple new aura creeps, Chen is now a swiss army knife that is able to provide flying vision with the Harpy creep, a bonus gold per minute aura with the Kobold, and a break from the Vhoul if his team needs it, among others.

Keeper of the Light

Unlike most other heroes on this list, Keeper of the Light got stronger because the numbers for most of his spells were buffed.

The most noteworthy of those changes was to Illuminate, arguably the hero’s most important spell. It now charges faster due to losing its 0.3 cast point, hits more enemies with an additional 25 radius, and provides an additional 450 vision at max level — perhaps the biggest buff of all.

Vision wins games in Dota 2, and Keeper of the Light just received an enormous amount of free vision. But that’s not all.

Spirit Form's cooldown has been reduced by five seconds while Blinding Light now pushes people over 0.8 seconds, doubling its disable time.

All those buffs add up to make Keeper of the Light one of the best support picks in 7.31.

Meepo

Meepo gained a lot of stats in the latest patch.

The hero had often relied on buying multiple stat items to boost his survivability in the game, a problem that is alleviated with the extra 0.5 strength and agility gain, along with 0.3 intelligence gain.

Not only has Meepo received a buff to his stat gains, but the hero also received free magic resistance from his ultimate.

It’s only 15% at max level, but every bit helps Meepo. With a big buff to his stats and multiple spells, it's looking like a good time to be a Meepo spammer once again.

Tiny

Tiny is the biggest winner in 7.31 — and it’s not even close. There are a lot of changes for Tiny so let’s break them down spell by spell.

Avalanche now stuns enemies for 0.3 seconds instead of just 0.2 seconds. This means Avalance can now stun enemies for its 1.4-second duration and not give them a chance to use Black King Bar or any other defensive mechanism.

It’s a big buff for the spell, although it comes at the cost of dealing less damage to Tossed enemies.

Toss no longer deals 30% bonus damage to the tossed unit, but receives a bonus 100/200/300 extra damage per Grow level. At level 18, Tiny can now deal 600 area-of-effect damage whenever he uses Toss.

One of Tiny’s weaknesses was his reliance on using Trees to deal damage and farm. Tree Grab only lasted for five hits, at which point Tiny would need another tree.

The spell also had a 10-second cooldown which meant Tiny spent a significant portion of the game without a Tree, at least until he bought an Aghanim's Shard.

Lucky for Tiny, Aghanim's Shard can now be purchased much earlier at 15 minutes in the game, giving him permanent uptime for Tree Grab. This allows him to farm faster than all other carries and deal incredible damage to enemy heroes.

Tiny’s many buffs have led him to become the most contested hero in the recently-concluded GAMERS GALAXY: Dota 2 Invitational Series Dubai 2022 and arguably the best heroes of 7.31.

Otomo is a long-time gaming enthusiast and caster. He has been playing games since he was 10 and is the biggest Dota 2 fan.

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