Winter Wyvern
Like many great poets, Auroth just wants time to write, but the Winter Wyvern's life is full of interruptions. The epics of the Eldwurms have a long and colorful history, but some fear that the remaining dragon scholars are not as prolific as they once were, with few lines added to the Eldwurm Eddas since the last age of greatness. Auroth laments: "We forget that there is more to life than triumph and dominion over enemies. We must also live our lives in the pursuit of creative expression." She embarks on research expeditions, collecting books for inspiration. But all this research can be terribly distracting, and she spends less time writing than she should. Although she knows she should be lurking in her lair, adding to the Eddas, she finds herself engaged in epic battles against powerful enemies. She loots castles, raids ancient libraries ... and if she happens to heap glory on herself in the process, she tells herself that it's merely a side effect of her research. The fact is, while her skill and power on the battlefield are legendary, her scholarly travails have thus far hardly been the stuff of literary acclaim. But she is not content to stand as a protagonist of heroic lore. She wishes also to create it.
Base STR
22 +2.5
Base AGI
16 +1.7
Base INT
26 +3.6
Move Speed
285
Attack Range
450
Base Armor
1
Attack DMG
16–23
Projectile
700
Innate Abilities
Eldwurm's Edda
Grants Winter Wyvern the item Eldwurm's Edda, which can be consumed to increase the current and maximum level of a basic ability by one and Winter Wyvern's base intelligence by 25% of its current value at the time of consumption.
Abilities
Arctic Burn
Cooldown
26 / 24 / 22 / 20s
Mana
100
Winter Wyvern soars upon an arctic wind, granting her unobstructed movement and allowing her to exhale a blistering chill into each attack. While soaring, her attacks travel further and faster, and slow enemies with a magical freeze that strips them of 4 / 6 / 8 / 10%% of their current health each second.
FLIGHT DURATION:
7 / 8 / 9 / 10
BONUS ATTACK RANGE:
250 / 275 / 300 / 325
HEALTH BURN:
4 / 6 / 8 / 10%
BURN DURATION:
3
MOVEMENT SLOW:
15 / 20 / 25 / 30%
MANA PER SECOND:
0
MOVEMENT SPEED:
0%
- This ability does not affect Roshan.
- Reduces Winter Wyvern's attack point to 0.1.
- The damage and slow from Arctic Burn can be dispelled.
The same organ where some dragons stoke their inner flame is, in Auroth, a crucible of unimaginable cold. From deep within her frosty gullet, an exhalation sends enemies into burning agony.
Splinter Blast
Cooldown
6s
Mana
105 / 115 / 125 / 135
Launches a ball of brittle ice toward a unit. The ice shatters on impact, leaving the primary target completely unaffected, while hurling damaging splinters into nearby enemies in a 500 base radius. Enemies struck by these splinters are slowed by 28 / 32 / 36 / 40%%.
SHATTER RADIUS:
500
MOVEMENT SLOW:
28 / 32 / 36 / 40%
SLOW DURATION:
4
DAMAGE:
80 / 160 / 240 / 320
- The primary projectile moves at 1200 movement speed.
- The primary projectile cannot be disjointed and cannot be targeted towards Winter Wyvern herself.
Produced slowly by specialized vesicles in her frozen gullet, Winter Wyvern blast shards of ice at her enemies.
Cold Embrace
Cooldown
24 / 21 / 18 / 15s
Mana
50 / 60 / 70 / 80
Encases an ally in an icy cocoon, freezing them solid while healing a base amount as well as a percentage of their maximum health each second. The cocoon blocks all physical damage.
DURATION:
4
BASE HEAL PER SECOND:
40 / 45 / 50 / 55
MAX HP HEAL PER SECOND:
2.3 / 3 / 3.8 / 4.5%
BONUS ATTACK DAMAGE:
0%
DAMAGE BUFF DURATION:
0
From winter's heart comes a cold, healing embrace. The ice slows the blood and allows the spell to better work its curative magic.
Winter's Curse
Cooldown
100 / 90 / 80s
Mana
150 / 200 / 250
Winter Wyvern dispells then freezes an enemy in place while striking those nearby with a maddening curse which causes them to attack their frozen ally with increased attack speed. The frozen ally and those cursed to attack their ally are immune to all damage from their enemies with the exception of damage from Winter Wyvern or her controlled units.
RADIUS:
525
DAMAGE REDUCTION:
100%
ATTACK SPEED:
50 / 65 / 80
MINIMUM DURATION:
2
MAXIMUM DURATION:
6
BONUS DURATION PER HERO:
1.5
BONUS DURATION PER CREEP:
0.5
- If the target dies to its allies, Winter Wyvern will receive credit for the kill.
- Will only pierce the spell immunity of the primary target, not the target's surrounding allies.
The oldest of the bookwurm's spells, this curse lends truth to the old saw: sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my enemy still.
Talents
Aghanim's Scepter
Arctic Burn
Causes Arctic Burn to be a toggle ability, draining mana every second when active. Increases Winter Wyvern's movement speed.
Aghanim's Shard
Cold Embrace
Reduces cooldown by 0 seconds. Allied units gain bonus attack damage when emerging from the icy cocoon.
Hero Performance
Median across all public matches · OpenDotaForm
50%
Win rate in recent matches
Performance
51%
KDA ratio (kills + assists / deaths)
Laning
13%
Last hits per minute over full game
Farm
43%
Average gold per minute
Fighting
16%
Average kills + assists per match
Experience
61%
Average XP per minute
Strategy
When to Pick Winter Wyvern?
Let me be completely honest with you about Winter Wyvern, because she deserves honesty more than most heroes — and the reason people have forgotten about her right now is not that she became weak. It is that the current meta is too fast and too aggressive for most players to correctly time the one ability that defines whether she wins or loses games. She sits at a 50.41% win rate on patch 7.41b at high MMR, and the highest win rate build on D2PT is running 59.5%—which tells you that the ceiling is real but the floor is painful, and the gap between a good Winter Wyvern and an average one is wider than almost any other support in the game right now.
Here is what makes her special, and I want you to actually understand this mechanically before you queue with her. Winter's Curse forces every enemy within the radius to attack their OWN teammate at 50/65/80 bonus attack speed, while the cursed hero is frozen, fully dispelled, and immune to all damage—except from Winter Wyvern herself and her controlled units. Read that again. The enemy team becomes their own execution squad. Their carry is forced to auto-attack their support. Their offlaner is forced to auto-attack their mid. And every point of that damage goes into the frozen hero—who cannot be saved by the enemy team because THEY are doing the killing. This is not a stunt. This is not a disability. This is a game philosophy—you use the enemy's own strength against them, and the stronger their team, the faster they kill their own hero. It is one of the most psychologically brutal ultimates in Dota 2 when it lands correctly, and in pub Dota, where the enemy team has a farmed Sven or a Spectre or a Lifestealer all grouped up—Winter's Curse on a support standing next to a fed carry creates a situation where the enemy team wipes themselves in five seconds without you doing anything except standing there.
The new 7.41 item, Eldwurm's Edda, is something players are sleeping on completely. After ten minutes she starts the game with an item that, when consumed, pushes one basic ability to level five — beyond the normal four-level cap — and grants her 25% of her base intelligence on top. This means you can have a level five Cold Embrace that heals for absurd amounts, or a level five Splinter Blast that is hitting for damage numbers a support hero has no business producing. The highest win rate build takes Cold Embrace level five—which at level five heals for numbers that border on a Guardian Greaves active every four seconds on a core hero. That is a healing output that legitimately makes your carry unkillable in sustained fights if you are paying attention.
Pick her into lineups with strong physical right-clickers that clump together—Sven, Wraith King, Lifestealer, Luna, and any carry that does massive attack-based damage in a small area. Winter's Curse turns those carries from the enemy's win condition into your win condition. She pairs beautifully with Invoker—Winter's Curse on an enemy carry while Invoker drops a Cold Snap or Chaos Meteor into the cluster of heroes being taunted is a wipe that requires almost no coordination beyond "cast both ultimates at the same time." She works brilliantly alongside any hero that benefits from a sustained magic burst landing on a stationary, dispelled target—Leshrac, Queen of Pain, and Shadow Fiend's Requiem of Souls—because the target cannot move while the curse is active and takes everything full force.
Avoid picking her into lineups where the enemy can simply negate or sidestep the entire point of Winter's curse. Omniknight's Guardian Angel is the most direct counter in the game—it grants physical immunity to the entire team, which means the heroes being taunted by Winter's Curse do ZERO damage to the frozen target because they are physically immune. The curse does nothing. The fight is completely lost. Lotus Orb reflects Winter's Curse back onto Winter Wyvern herself, and suddenly it is your own teammates attacking you. Anti-Mage's Counterspell can reflect it as well. And Pugna's Nether Ward punishes the most fundamental thing about Winter Wyvern — she is a support who casts CONSTANTLY, and Nether Ward means every spell costs her HP on top of mana. She becomes a liability against Pugna the moment the ward goes down.
Tips & common mistakes
- Winter's Curse should almost ALWAYS be cast on the enemy hero with the highest attack damage, not the lowest HP target. This is the single most common mistake at average MMR on this hero. The entire value of the ability comes from the enemy team's OWN attack damage being used against their frozen hero. If you cast it on a support standing next to a fed Sven, Sven will auto-attack his own support for 800 damage a hit at bonus attack speed. That support dies in two seconds. If you cast it on Sven himself, the supports next to him are auto-attacking for 80 damage a hit and accomplishing almost nothing. Cast on the LOW DAMAGE heroes standing near the HIGH DAMAGE heroes—let the big numbers do the work.
- · Cold Embrace grants complete physical damage immunity and heals for 40/45/50/55 HP per second at base levels, now with the option to push it to level five through Eldwurm's Edda. This ability does NOT prevent magic damage. If you cast it on your carry during an Enigma Black Hole, they are healed from physical hits but still take the full midnight pulse magic damage. Most pub Winter Wyverns panic-cast cold. Embark on an ally in any dangerous situation without thinking about whether the incoming damage is physical or magical. Know what damage type is killing your carry and only use Cold Embrace against physical damage threats.
- · Splinter Blast does NOT damage the primary target. Zero. The ice ball hits the primary target, shatters, and every shard hits everyone AROUND the primary target except for the target itself. This means in a 1v1 lane, if you cast Splinter Blast directly at the enemy offlaner, it accomplishes absolutely nothing. The correct usage in lane is to cast it on a CREEP standing near the enemy hero—the ball hits the creep, shatters, and the shards slow and damage the enemy hero who is standing beside it. This one mechanical understanding separates every experienced Winter Wyvern player from players picking her up for the first time.
- · Arctic Burn's damage is percentage-based — 4/6/8/10% of the CURRENT health of the target per second. This means it is significantly more effective against high-HP targets in the early game than against low-HP heroes who are already half dead. In the lane, use Arctic Burn to harass the tanky offlaner at full health — the damage per second is most punishing when they are at 100% HP. Do not use it to chase a hero who is already at 20% HP; the percentage damage is almost meaningless at that point, and you are better served letting a slow kill them or finishing with Splinter Blast.
- · The Aghanim's Shard upgrade makes Cold Embrace release a Splinter Blast centered on the embraced ally when the embrace ends. This means you can cast cold. Embrace an allied hero who is surrounded by enemies, wait out the duration, and when the cocoon breaks, every enemy standing around them takes a full Splinter Blast worth of damage and slows simultaneously—without you even needing to aim it. This is one of the strongest defensive plays available to any support in the game, and most players have no idea it exists. Build Shard before Blink Dagger if the enemy team has strong initiation that dives on your carry repeatedly.
- · Position yourself FAR from the fight before casting Winter's Curse. You are the safest support in the game at maximum range — Winter's Curse has a cast range long enough that you should NEVER be within blink initiation range of the enemy when you use it. Most pub Winter Wyverns stand inside the fight, use the curse, and immediately get chain-stunned before they can follow up with Arctic Burn into the cluster. Cast from the treeline. Cast from high ground. Cast from the 1200 range. The spell works at full effectiveness from any distance, so there is no reason to ever be in melee range of anyone when you use it.
Summary
Winter Wyvern is not forgotten because she became bad. She is forgotten because she requires a level of game-reading and ability timing that most players are simply not comfortable with, and the current meta's aggressive tempo punishes passive, reactive supports who wait for the right moment. But here is the thing—she is sitting at a 50.41% overall win rate on patch 7.41b, and the highest win rate build is running at 59.5% at high MMR.
That gap tells you everything about what she is: a hero with a massive skill ceiling being played by people who understand her and a massive skill floor being dragged down by people who do not. The new Eldwurm's Edda innate pushing one ability to level five is a buff nobody is talking about, and Cold Embrace at level five is a healing number that makes your carry feel unkillable in sustained fights.
Pick her into enemy teams with strong physical carries that group together; always cast Winter's Curse on the low-damage heroes standing next to the high-damage ones; aim Splinter Blast at creeps, not heroes; and position yourself at the absolute edge of cast range before your ultimate goes out.
When it all clicks — when Winter's Curse lands perfectly and you watch a farmed Sven kill his own Crystal Maiden in three hits while standing there being fully taunted — there are very few moments in Dota 2 that feel more satisfying than that.
Popular Items
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Early Game
Core
Late Game
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