Witch Doctor

He is good and situational right now, and that is actually the most honest description of Witch Doctor in the current meta that anyone could give. He is sitting comfortably in the top five position, supporting 5 builds on patch 7.41b according to D2PT data, with the highest win rate build running at 53%. He is NOT the most broken support in the game. He is NOT getting picked or banned in the first phase of every draft. But he is reliable; he is consistent; and—here is the thing that most players completely underestimate—his Death Ward combined with Maledict is still one of the highest raw damage outputs available to any support in Dota 2 at any level of item development. You do not need six slots on Witch Doctor. You do not need Aghanim's Scepter to be relevant. Two levels of Maledict and a Death Ward can kill a hero at fifteen minutes without any items at all if it goes uninterrupted for even four seconds.

Let me explain what Maledict actually does because most players treat it like a DoT spell and are using it completely wrong. Maledict deals damage over time AND deals burst damage at fixed intervals that scales based on how much HP the target has LOST since the debuff was applied. It bursts at the 4th, 8th, and 12th seconds—and each burst deals damage proportional to how much health they dropped during that window. This means Maledict is almost completely useless on a hero who is standing still at full HP healing themselves—and absolutely catastrophic on a hero who is taking any other source of damage while the debuff is active. The combo is Maledict INTO damage, not damage first and then Maledict as a cleanup. Land the debuff, then let your carry, your other support, your own Paralyzing Cask, and your Death Ward—all of it—hit the target while the debuff is ticking. Every point of damage taken amplifies the burst. A carry who has taken 400 damage under a level four Maledict takes a burst tick that alone can kill a squishy support. This is why Spirit Vessel is one of the best items on him—the percentage-based damage from the vessel triggers Maledict's burst scaling in a way that feels completely unfair against high-HP targets.

The 7.41 changes gave Witch Doctor's Death Ward increased attack range—meaning he can channel further away from the fight before the ward starts shooting, which directly reduces the chance of getting interrupted before the channel ends. The level 20 talent where Maledict bursts deal 75% of their damage in an 800 AoE around the primary target is picked by 80.2% of high MMR players right now, and for good reason—it turns every Maledict burst tick into a mini-Black Hole explosion that hits every enemy standing near the primary target simultaneously. This changes the ability from a single-target DoT into an AoE execution tool in five-man fights, and it is why the "Maledict first, Death Ward second" combo feels so much stronger in teamfights than anything Witch Doctor could produce two patches ago.

Pick him into enemy lineups with summons and illusions—Chen, Lone Druid, Lycan, Broodmother, and Phantom Lancer. Paralyzing Cask bounces between the hero AND their controlled units, stunning them repeatedly for the entire bounce duration. A cask thrown at Lone Druid hits the Druid, bounces to the bear, bounces back to the Druid, and bounces to the bear again—the Lone Druid is stunned for effectively the entire duration of the spell with minimal chance of doing anything. Lycan and his wolves? Same story. Chen and his converted creep army? You are stunning Chen for four seconds solid while his creep army is also getting bounced into oblivion. He pairs brilliantly with Enigma — Black Hole into Maledict into Death Ward is the cleanest setup in the game because Black Hole holds everything in place for the full duration of your channel, every burst tick hits every hero frozen in the Hole simultaneously at level 20, and the entire enemy team dies before the ultimate ends. Magnus's Reverse Polarity has the same effect. Any hero that creates forced clustering from which enemies cannot escape turns Witch Doctor's Maledict from a single-target DoT into a team wipe.

What makes him situational rather than universally dominant right now is that the counter list is real and directly tied to how the meta is being played. Silencer's Global Silence goes through BKB and cancels Death Ward mid-channel—no counterplay, no response, just silence and the channel stops. Rubick can steal Death Ward the instant it starts channeling, and a Rubick with stolen Death Ward pointed at your team from across the map is one of the most demoralizing reversals available in the game. Vengeful Spirit has two separate abilities that interrupt Death Ward even through BKB, which is the other BKB-piercing interrupt alongside Global Silence that specifically ruins Witch Doctor. Tidehunter's Ravage is the most common pub counter—the moment Witch Doctor channels Death Ward, Ravage goes out, and the channel is cancelled after one second. Always wait for Ravage before you cast. Always. This is not optional advice — it is the difference between a fight-winning Death Ward and a completely wasted cooldown.