How Bristleback and Templar Assassin perform as teammates in Dota 2 7.41e, from ranked matches.
In Dota 2 7.41e, Bristleback and Templar Assassin win 46.69% of ranked matches when playing on the same team, over 529 matches.
Expecting two physical cores to run over the game often misses the point of what these heroes actually need. Bristleback excels in long, drawn-out brawls where he can stack Quill Sprays and wear the entire enemy team down. Templar Assassin is the opposite; she wants to find a single high-priority target and delete it instantly with a Meld strike. Their fight timings are completely at odds. Bristleback doesn't provide the hard lockdown needed for Templar Assassin to land her full combo, and his chaotic brawling doesn't create the clean pickoff opportunities she's looking for.
In practice, this means your team fights can feel disjointed. Templar Assassin might successfully burst a support, but then she becomes the main focus. A hero like Bristleback can draw aggro, but he has no way to peel for her or stop enemies from turning on her once her Refraction charges are gone. The enemy team can often make a simple choice: kite the slow-ramping Bristleback while they collapse on the glass cannon. This forces your team into a split identity where one core wants to brawl forever and the other needs quick, surgical strikes, leaving neither one fully enabled.
How this pairing performs across skill brackets — the duo's team win rate in recent ranked matches, split by average match rank. Ranks with too few recent matches are omitted. These rows use the last 30 days of quality-filtered ranked matches, all patches in that span combined — a wider window than the patch-scoped count above, so the per-rank match totals can exceed it.
| Rank | Team win rate | Matches |
|---|---|---|
| Herald & Guardian | 45.57% | 384 |
| Crusader & Archon | 46.52% | 632 |
| Legend & Ancient | 40.57% | 318 |
This duo's team win rate in each recent balance patch — whether the pairing is trending up or down. Patches without enough matches are omitted.
| Patch | Team win rate | Change | Matches |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7.41e | 46.69% | ▲ +0.5pp | 529 |
| 7.41d | 46.21% | ▼ -1.1pp | 52,692 |
| 7.41c | 47.32% | ▼ -0.2pp | 26,232 |
| 7.41b | 47.47% | — | 34,457 |
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Data updated Aug 11, 2026.