How Shadow Fiend and Witch Doctor perform as teammates in Dota 2 7.41e, from ranked matches.
In Dota 2 7.41e, Shadow Fiend and Witch Doctor win 49.27% of ranked matches when playing on the same team, over 33,134 matches.
Setting up a full Shadowraze combo off Witch Doctor's abilities can be inconsistent. Paralyzing Cask offers a brief initial stun, but its bounces are too unpredictable for Shadow Fiend to reliably land multiple razes on a key target. While Maledict provides a great damage amplifier, the real challenge is coordinating their ultimates. Requiem of Souls often requires Shadow Fiend to be in the middle of the enemy team, whereas Death Ward demands Witch Doctor stay stationary on the edge of the fight. These conflicting positioning needs mean they rarely combine their biggest spells for a single devastating blow.
Their laning phase is often their strongest point, where Maledict and a few razes can easily force an opponent out. As the game progresses, their objectives can pull them apart, with Shadow Fiend needing to secure farm and Witch Doctor looking for gank opportunities. In teamfights, the pair feels more like two independent sources of high damage rather than a focused duo. Their success doesn't come from a clean setup and follow-up, but rather from forcing the enemy to split their attention between two very different, very dangerous ultimate abilities.
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 | 53.02% | 2,003 |
| Crusader & Archon | 50.00% | 5,538 |
| Legend & Ancient | 49.87% | 4,169 |
| Divine & Immortal | 46.96% | 1,184 |
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 | 49.27% | ▼ -0.1pp | 33,134 |
| 7.41d | 49.36% | ▼ -0.0pp | 342,536 |
| 7.41c | 49.40% | ▲ +1.6pp | 141,172 |
| 7.41b | 47.77% | — | 131,629 |
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Data updated Aug 17, 2026.