Dota 2 patch 7.41f: Treant Protector falls from 84% to 4% of pro drafts

Valve released Dota 2 gameplay patch 7.41f on Tuesday, September 15. It is a letter patch, but it went straight for the heroes pros could not stop banning.

The Steam announcement went up at 18:44 UTC, linked the official notes and added 11 bug fixes. It is the first gameplay patch since 7.41e on July 30, so the first one after The International 2026.

The notes touch 35 heroes, 16 items and one neutral enchantment. The full list lives on dota2freaks.com. Here are the changes that matter, and what two weeks of pro drafts and public games say so far.

Why did Treant Protector disappear from pro drafts after 7.41f?

Valve cut Treant's Intelligence, Leech Seed healing and Living Armor in 7.41f, and pros stopped drafting him: his contest rate fell from 84.3% to 3.6%.

Treant was the most contested hero in OpenDota's pro data before this patch. In 839 drafted pro matches between the 7.41e and 7.41f releases, he was banned 665 times and picked 42 times, with a 32-10 record.

Valve cut him from several sides: base Intelligence drops from 20 to 17, and Leech Seed now costs 35 mana while its damage-to-healing ratio goes from a flat 20% to 10/15/20/25%. Living Armor's minimum damage block halves from 20 to 10, and the invisibility linger from Nature's Guise falls from 2s to 1s.

In 140 drafted pro matches since the patch, Treant has two picks and three bans. He won both games, but teams have all but stopped spending bans on him.

How hard was Shadow Fiend nerfed in 7.41f?

Every soul is now worth less at every level: Necromastery and Shadowraze lose damage per soul, and Shadow Fiend's pro contest rate fell from 70.2% to 13.6%.

Necromastery now gives 1 damage per soul plus 0.8 for every six hero levels, down from 1.35 plus 0.15 per level. Shadowraze's bonus damage per soul drops from 3 to 2, and the level 15 Presence armor-reduction talent goes from 2 to 1.5.

Since the patch, the nine pro games he was picked in ended 1-8. In OpenDota's recent public-match stats he sits at a 42.89% win rate over 539,131 games, last of all 127 heroes.

Lina and Keeper of the Light cool off

Lina's base Intelligence drops from 30 to 28, and Fiery Soul now gives 7/14/21/28 attack speed per stack instead of 8/16/24/32, for 16 seconds instead of 18. Keeper of the Light's base attack speed falls from 100 to 90, Chakra Magic's cooldown reduction shrinks by half a second at every level, and Spirit Form's Illuminate heal goes from 70% to 60%.

Both were contested in roughly 70% of pro drafts before the patch. Lina is now at 45.7% with a 9-15 record, Keeper of the Light at 38.6%.

Were Bounty Hunter and Enigma nerfed in 7.41f?

Yes, both lost power in 7.41f, yet pros now contest them more: Bounty Hunter went from 40.0% to 80.7% of drafts and Enigma from 27.2% to 72.9%, mostly through bans.

Bounty Hunter's Track now pays him 80/160/240 bonus gold instead of 130/225/320, and allies get 40/80/120 instead of 50/90/130. The same Steam post also fixed his Big Game Hunter, which had not been granting any bonus gold.

Enigma's Eidolons lose attack range at the first three levels (380/420/460/500, from 425/450/475/500), and the Aghanim's Scepter Black Hole pulls at 150 speed instead of 175. Most of the extra attention comes from bans: 98 for Bounty Hunter and 89 for Enigma.

Items: less lifesteal, pricier cores

• Satanic: lifesteal down from 30% to 25% (creeps 18% to 15%).
• Mask of Madness: lifesteal down from 24% to 22%.
• Octarine Core: recipe up from 200 to 400 gold, total now 5100.
• Dragon Lance: now 2000 gold instead of 1900, which pushes Hurricane Pike to 4550.
• Mjollnir and Shiva's Guard: Static Charge lasts 12s instead of 15s, Arctic Blast deals 225 damage instead of 260.
• Heaven's Halberd goes the other way at 3300 gold instead of 3400, and Battle Fury chops trees every 3s instead of 4s.
• Greedy (neutral enchantment): the attack damage penalty rises from 30/60 to 35/70.

The buffs worth a look

Ursa's Maul now converts 1.75% of his health into damage instead of 1.25%, and Anti-Mage's Mana Break deals 65% of the mana it burns as damage, up from 60%. Mars gets 1 extra base armor, Warlock's base attack speed rises from 90 to 95, and Chen, Batrider and Disruptor get small stat bumps. Of the heroes that got only buffs, Ursa is the one pros drafted most: 11 picks and 12 bans since the patch, with a 6-5 record.

How we counted

Pro numbers come from the OpenDota Explorer: 839 drafted matches between the 7.41e and 7.41f releases, including The International 2026, against 140 since September 15, mostly PGL Wallachia Season 9 and the first days of BLAST Slam VIII. Public-match figures are OpenDota's hero stats, fetched September 30 at 14:45 UTC. Two weeks is an early read, not a verdict.