Guide to Muerta in Patch 7.32e: a master of death with a meagre arsenal

On March 7, a new hero, Muerta, was added to Dota 2. To celebrate the one-month anniversary of the new inhabitant of the battlefield of the ancients, we suggest reading the guide on Muerta in Dota 2, which we compiled based on personal experience playing for the character, but not only.

As mentioned above, this guide is based on personal experience with the character, but we also looked at how the professionals play it. All the same, an MMR of around 10,000 is far more attractive than a 4,500 MMR.

Reading the guide won't guarantee a 100% boost, but it will help you broaden your pool by adding a very distinctive and enjoyable versatile hero that can play almost any role.

Characteristics of Muerta, the master of death in Dota 2

• Attack Type: Ranged
• Difficulty: Easy
• Muerta's basic attributes at 1st level: Health - 580; Mana - 363; 19 Strength (+2.0 per level); 22 Dexterity (+3.0 per level); 24 Intelligence (+3.0 per level).
• Muerta's basic characteristics at 1st level are attack speed 48-55, attack duration 1.6 seconds, range 575, projectile speed 1.800, guard rate 2.7, movement speed 295, rate of character turn 0.7 and overview 1800 day/ 800 night.

Muerta's abilities and upgrades in patch 7.32e

[Q] - Dead Shot.

Launches a ghostly bullet at an enemy unit or tree. Upon reaching the target, the bullet deals damage and slows, then ricochets off in the chosen direction.

• Type of Damage: Magical.
• Ability: Targeted
• Damage: 75/150/225/300
• Fear Slow: 1.3/1.5/1.8/2.0
• Deceleration: 100%
• Duration: 0.5 seconds
• Mana cost: 100/120/140/160
• Reload: 16/14/12/10

[W] - The Calling.

Muerta calls upon 4 spirits that circle around a chosen area. Enemies within the area are slowed to move and attack. The wraith deals damage and silence to the target unit when touched.

• Type of Damage: Magical.
• Skill Type: Targeted Area
• Damage: 45/95/135/180
• Time of Effect: 10
• Slowdown: 30%
• Attack slow: 30/40/50/60
• Silence duration: 2/2.5/3/3.5
• Mana cost: 150/175/200/225
• Reload: 30

[E] - Gunslinger

When attacking, Muerta has a chance to fire a random shot. This ability has attack modifiers (critical damage, slows, armor minus, etc.).

Type of ability: Passive.

• Chance: 20/30/40/50%.

[R] - Pierce The Veil

When used with the Ultimax ability, Muerta's attacks are magical, allowing her to attack ethereal units but not to deal damage to characters with magic immunity.

• Duration: 6/7/8
• Transformation Time: 0.3
• Additional damage from auto-attacks: 50/75/100
• Mana cost: 150/250/350
• Reload: 75/60/45
• Type of Intelligence: Normal

Muerta's progression is shown in the screenshot below. We can add that the choice of skills depends on the situation, so if you can safely take a few on Gunslinger [E], you are well advised to do so.

Why Patch 7.32e with Muerta

Easy to pick off creeps. Muerta easily finishes off creeps thanks to its long range (575) and hit-and-run speed (1800).

Can be quickly farmed. His passive Gunslinger [E] ability allows Muerta to quickly farm laneways and forest areas, and its modifier effects also make for faster gold retrieval.

Highly effective duelist early in the game. Once Muerta reaches level 6, he has a chance to gain 100% protection against physical damage every 75 seconds and add 50 damage to himself, which, combined with his Gunslinger [E] passive ability and characteristics, allows him to outmaneuver any enemies that focus on physical damage (Drow Ranger, Naga Siren, Ursa, Slark, Sven, and so on).

Strong Line: Muerta has good characteristics at Long Cog levels and Dead Shot [Q] and The Calling [W] control abilities, allowing her to trade off against opponents on the line

Muerta's Weaknesses or Why She Should Not Be Picked

Limited lane stats: Muerta's abilities have a high cooldown as a base; using Dead Shot [Q] and The Calling [W] on a lane wastes most of her mana, making her vulnerable to frequent skirmishes.

Poor control effectiveness: due to the long cooldown time and high cooldowns, coupled with the short duration of fear from Dead Shot [Q] and silence from The Calling [W], again, hinder laning without fear.

Low effectiveness when switching to late game -game: When enemy characters get BKB, Muerta's ultimacy becomes useless for duels and PvP with core roles.

Which Role to Take Muerta in Patch 7.32e

At the beginning of this guide, we said Muerta was a very versatile character. Muerta can be used at pretty much any position, but her playability will vary, so make sure you get the right choice when you need it.

Muerta is best on the one position. Given the advantages of a very nice auto-attack and the ability to 'vacuum' creeps, this makes her a fairly reactive carry with fast key items, but questionable effectiveness in PvP with other carry when they get BKB.

For similar reasons, the hero can be kicked to the hard line. She's still a quick farm and strains the enemy bark with her infrequent use of control abilities.

Control Skills allow Muerta to be used at the stance of ѕurrogt. Fear of Dead Shot [Q] can be used to ward off enemies with Banner Swordsmen, and can also be used to set up kills. However, the problem with the cost of spells and their cooldown is that Muerta is not very popular, so it's better to use it in the first or second position, where its farm speed with the Gunslinger [E] passive ability is maxed out.

Knowing this, we can choose the most effective Muerta build in Dota 2 patch.

What to Buy on Muerta in Patch 7.32e

After the release of patch 7.32e, Muerta didn't look good. Valve even had to make a mini-update in which the hero's stats were raised and a few boosts were applied.

The boosts were enough to give the character a new life and new builds. Now Muerta has a single build for maximum playability.

The key artifact for Muerta, ignoring basic items like Power Treads and Magic Wand, is Maelstorm. With Maelstorm, the Gunslinger [E] will farm many times faster and gain other items for the build, and it can be upgraded to Gleipnir later, which will give her some control.

With the release of Muerta's minipatch they also started collecting Mask of Madness. It also helps speed up farming, as its use does not override Gunslinger [E] and works well in ultimates, given that large cooldowns of base abilities are not conducive to their frequent use in fights.

The next milestone for Muerta is after the Maelstorm and MoM stunner BKB. This item will allow for total invulnerability when using Pierce The Veil [R].

In the late game, the best choice is ѕtunet Daedalus, a bluegrass with ultimacy and passive. All of Muerta's damage is converted to magic by his Ulta, meaning critical hits will be tangible.

How to beat Muerta in Patch 7.32e

If you've decided to take Muerta in the first position, decided on your ability levels and how to assemble your items, it's time to learn how to play as a new character.

We could write a mountain of text about moving around the map, forest farming and other aspects of playing as Muerta, but it's better to see it for yourself. A good example of playing as a new Dota 2 hero is given by Team Spirit Yatoro.

At the time of writing the guide, which is a month after the character's release, Muerta's win rate is 52% with a pickrate of 15%. Obviously, the character can win, which he consistently does, but new options for using Muerta are likely to emerge in the future.

The main challenge for the character is the professional stage. Perhaps Valve will add Muerta to the pool of available characters in Captains Mode with the release of the next major patch, which they have promised to release as early as this month.