How Did Medusa Become The #1 Hero in Dota 2?

Right after the release of Dota 2 patch 7.33, everyone became convinced that Medusa would never get picked again. There were simply too many heroes that excelled at burning mana or at killing low HP opponents. So for a few days, the Dota 2 community pressed F to pay respect to this wonderful creature.

But after the start of ESL One Berlin Major, it quickly became apparent that Medusa was not only viable. She was likely the best carry hero that you can possibly pick in Dota 2 patch 7.33 and 7.33b. The buffs that she received are simply phenomenal.

Medusa’s Success And Strengths

Medusa’s current win rate at the community level is nearly 59%. That’s absolutely enormous and clearly suggests that the hero needs to be nerfed as soon as possible. Her KDA ratio is also huge: 5.01. This means that she has five times more kills and assists than deaths, which again, is by far the highest of any Dota 2 hero.

At the professional level, Medusa is even more successful. Her group stage win rate was 78% and she was played 18 times! That’s more than enough games to conclude that her toolkit is completely broken. And it’s not hard to guess why.

Medusa has excellent defensive and offensive capabilities, which means that she is a complete hero. Few other heroes can match her in damage output or tankiness.

When it comes to damage, she’s probably the fastest farmer in the game thanks to her Split Shot ability. Apart from the standard damage that you deal to your main target, you attack four other targets and deal 85% damage to each.

A basic calculation should tell you that Medusa deals an additional 340% damage compared to most carry heroes when farming neutral creeps or fighting the entire enemy team. That’s an unfair advantage, to say the least.

Valve Corporation

Defensively, this hero is just as broken. Despite her low HP caused by the fact that she now gets 0 strength per level as a result of becoming a Universal hero, her mana pool is quite large and every point in mana will absorb 4 damage That’s 4 damage from any source.

If the enemy team uses a lot of magical damage, Medusa doesn’t care. If it uses physical damage, it’s all the same to her. When playing this hero, you don’t care at all about armor because that only buffs your HP.

Instead, you care only about how many mana points you have. Because each mana point is practically the equivalent of 1 HP with 50 armor on top. Or 1 HP with 75% magic resistance on top.

If these numbers seem absurd, it’s because they are. But that’s how Medusa works these days. Needless to say, everyone expects IceFrog to heavily nerf her immediately after the Berlin Major. Teams like Gaimin Gladiators have abused her toolkit with great results.

Header: Valve Corporation