Chen's New Penitence and Divine Favor Combo Overpowers Early Game Laning

The reworked Chen now functions as an unstoppable lane dominator rather than the niche global-pressure jungler he was designed to be. With the new Penitence applying a slow that ramps up to 40% while also reducing incoming damage reduction by a flat 5%, and Divine Favor now providing both heal-over-time and bonus movement speed at level one, Chen can zone out enemy offlaners with almost no risk. His creep conversion remains on the same cooldown, meaning he can still pull a large jungle creep into lane for an extra body, but the real problem is the numbers. At level two, Chen can apply Penitence, send his converted alpha wolf to attack, and chase down almost any hero in the game while taking zero effective damage because Divine Favor's healing outpaces early right-clicks. Professional offlaners like 33 and Collapse have described the matchup as "unplayable" in scrims, noting that even heroes with strong escape tools such as Puck or Slardar cannot kite Chen's new combo because the slow duration exceeds the cooldown. As a result, the laning stage becomes a foregone conclusion: Chen secures a double kill by the five-minute mark, rotates to the mid lane with his creeps, and forces the enemy core out of experience range. The current design encourages a playstyle that requires no mechanical skill beyond walking at the enemy, which is the opposite of the high-skill, map-think hero Chen was always meant to be.

Pro Players Call for Urgent Balance Patch as Chen Perma-Picks Dominate Scrims

Within days of the 7.38 rework release, professional teams have started reporting a jaw-dropping 100% pick/ban rate for Chen across organized scrims and regional qualifiers. Several tier-one captains, including Team Liquid's Insania and Tundra's Saksa, have publicly voiced their frustration on social media, stating that the hero decides games before the draft even ends. Saksa pointed out that Chen's new ability to grant his entire team a 15% damage amplification debuff on a single target with a six-second cooldown effectively turns every teamfight into a 5v4 with a permanent "break" effect. This makes heroes like Bristleback and Timbersaw nearly useless, since their inherent tankiness is neutralized without any itemization counterplay. Pros are demanding an immediate hotfix—not a gradual balance patch—because the current state is unplayable in competitive integrity terms. The proposed changes vary, but the common thread is a call to increase Penitence's cooldown from six to twelve seconds, remove the damage amplification from Divine Favor, or revert Chen's base damage from 29-35 to 24-30. Without one of these hotfixes, the upcoming major is expected to devolve into a farcical sequence where every team either bans Chen or drafts him and wins through a single strategy that has no counter. The urgency is compounded by the fact that ranked matchmaking has also been flooded with Chen players who are exploiting the rework for free MMR, creating a toxic ladder environment where players feel forced to play a hero they find boring just to remain competitive.

The Domino Effect: How Chen's Rework Distorts Draft Priorities Across the Board

Chen's overpowered rework does not exist in a vacuum—it sends shockwaves through the entire drafting meta. Because Chen is a first-phase lock or ban, teams are forced to allocate their first two ban slots to him, which frees up other previously contested heroes like Batrider and Enchantress. This creates a bizarre drafting landscape where the second and third power picks become far more important than they should be, but only because the elephant in the room is consuming all the attention. Furthermore, Chen's dominance suppresses entire categories of heroes. Any hero that relies on sustained status resistance, such as Juggernaut or Faceless Void in the carry role, becomes dangerously vulnerable against a Chen lineup because his new Penitence reduces status resistance by a percentage that stacks with other debuffs. Meanwhile, heroes that cannot pressure Chen in the first ten minutes—which is nearly all melee supports—are rendered irrelevant. The professional meta has quickly devolved into a small pool of Chen, Chen counters (mostly ranged nukers like Lina and Mirana), and heroes that happen to be not completely destroyed by Chen's presence. This is the opposite of the diverse, strategic meta that Valve and the community have worked to cultivate. Moreover, the jungle role itself has been redefined: Chen can now clear neutral camps at level one with his creeps faster than any other hero, allowing him to hit level six at three and a half minutes while also ganking sidelanes. This tempo advantage forces enemy supports to stay near their cores, which in turn makes the map smaller and the game faster. But this new speed is not skillful—it is merely an artifact of overtuned numbers that will likely be patched away. The long-term damage to the competitive scene, however, will remain if this rework stays for weeks.

Community Win Rate Spike and Competitive Outcry Signal a Broken Hero Design

Beyond the pro scene, the public ranked ladder has become a laboratory for Chen's absurd stats. According to community statistics aggregators like Dotabuff, Chen's win rate has spiked from a pre-rework 47.9% to an alarming 58.3% in the Immortal bracket over a sample size of more than 12,000 matches. What makes this even more telling is that the hero's pick rate has quadrupled, yet the win rate has not evened out—a clear sign that the hero is not just strong, but profoundly out of line. People are reporting that even first-time Chen players can win lane against experienced offlaners, and that the hero's healing ability at level 20, which now applies a dispel every 2.5 seconds, makes most disable-based lineups useless. The community outcry has reached a fever pitch on Reddit and Twitter, with top voted threads titled "Delete Chen" and "Hotfix now, patch later." Notably, the Chinese Dota community has also voiced displeasure, which is rare for heroes that are considered "soft" in the Eastern meta. The consensus is that the rework fundamentally misunderstands the fantasy of Chen: originally a charismatic leader who commands nature's beasts and coordinates global movements, he has been reduced to a stat-check brawler whose basic ability deals absurd damage relative to its cost. The most concerning part is that the rework has also introduced a new mechanic where Chen's converted creeps inherit his attack speed bonuses from Divine Favor, allowing an ancient thunderhunter to attack every 0.3 seconds and melt towers by the 15-minute mark. This pushes a 15-minute timing that feels reminiscent of the dreaded "deathball" metas of the past, which were universally despised by players and spectators alike. Unless Valve issues a hotfix within the next 48 hours, the professional circuit will have to consider a temporary ban, but even a tournament-level ban cannot fix the broken ladder experience for everyday players. The demand is clear, the data is alarming, and the only question is whether Valve will respond fast enough to save this patch from being remembered as one of the worst balance failures in Dota history.