Opinion: Nature’s Prophet Treant Talent Has Got to Go

DreamLeague Season 26 and its first group stage are nearly complete, and we’ve seen a pretty balanced set out of outcomes across the board so far. The usual suspects are doing their thing for the most part, but some of the teams that I initially wrote off in my power rankings are doing quite a bit better than expected.

One thing that has stood out in terms of the metagame though is Nature’s Prophet — particularly in Team Liquid’s game against Shopify Rebellion earlier today. Losing to one of their signature picks is bad enough (even knowing that Michael “miCKe” Vu isn’t with them right now), but to lose to NP the way that they did had to hurt extra.

To me, this was yet another indication of Valve’s poor design decisions with regards to this hero as of late.

The Lord of the Rats

For those of you that have been following professional Dota 2 since the early 2010s, you’ll be begrudgingly familiar with the term “rat Dota”. It refers to a style of play that emphasizes map mobility, split pushing, and general elusiveness in order to take objectives without ever engaging in teamfights. Alliance brought this strategy to the forefront of the scene back in 2013, and crushed everyone at The International with Henrik “AdmiralBulldog” Ahnberg playing almost nothing but Nature’s Prophet in this style.

As the heading suggests, Nature’s Prophet is the best hero at playing rat Dota. Teleportation (W) being on a measly 20 second cooldown at level 4 allows him to be anywhere on the map almost any time he wants. Combined with Nature’s Call (E) and its corresponding facet Ironwood Treant, Teleportation helps Nature’s Prophet be an irritating threat on the map, constantly pushing waves with his summon without even having to put himself in danger.

Even you, as a likely regular ranked matchmaking player, have probably encountered an annoying Nature’s Prophet more than a handful of times before. Catching a good NP player with his pants down is often much easier said than done — and even if you do, good luck beating him if he’s farmed. Nature’s Prophet happens to be a pretty good carry despite not having much built-in scaling, thanks to his great base attack time (BAT) and attack speed growth.

All Well and Good…

Now, I’m all for a good game of chasing the rat every now and then. Different strategies need to be viable in Dota 2 in order to allow a healthy amount of skill expression, and Nature’s Prophet split pushing shenanigans is a part of that. It’s a classic strategy through and through, which actually predates Alliance’s title at TI3; to my fellow Southeast Asians, especially my fellow Filipinos, you probably know what I’m talking about.

Greater Treant MVP 🏅 pic.twitter.com/Sr85A8Hq1w

— Shopify Rebellion (@ShopifyRebels) May 21, 2025

Naturally (pun intended), every playstyle also has to have counterplay. For example, the old four-protect-one strat, which involves picking a hypercarry like Medusa or Anti-Mage, is beaten by constantly taking fights. Since hypercarries are unable to fight in the early to mid game without items, their team is at an inherent disadvantage since every teamfight until the late game will basically be 4v5. This is how balance works in a multi-layered strategy game like Dota 2.

Rat Dota, meanwhile, is balanced by its own weakness: it’s risky. Teleporting to a lane by himself leaves Nature’s Prophet on an island, with his team likely to be on the other side of the map. If his opponents anticipate where he’s going to teleport, they can jump him as three to five heroes and kill him instantly before he’s able to fight back or escape. Again, easier said than done against an NP that knows what they’re doing, but this is the most reliable way to deal with split pushing in general.

…But Not Balanced Enough

The thing is, facets have completely negated this weakness. I mentioned Ironwood Treant earlier, and it’s the crux of NP’s ratting in 2025. With the treant talent at level 25, NP can simply mow down towers and barracks without ever having to risk his own life. Yes, the Ironwood Treant is just that strong when he hits level 25, in the sense that it can raze buildings to the ground by itself.

I mean, just look at these stats on the treant itself:

Multiply the health and damage by three at level 25, and NP’s basically got a second hero that he can just throw at buildings without worry. Bringing this thing down normally, which is to say using spells and regular attacks, is not easy at all, because having to go through 4,050 HP on a creep is just not a reasonable thing to ask of anyone.

Yes, it is possible to deal with this using Hand of Midas or Dagon, which both kill the targeted creep instantly upon use. But it’s still not nearly enough, because you’re still only dealing with the treant and not Nature’s Prophet himself. He is very much content with forcing your supports to TP back to base just to prevent the treant from busting the door down, because he can just wait another 30 seconds for the Nature’s Call cooldown to expire and do it again anyway.

The low committal design of this facet and talent is not fun to play against, and not fun to play with as Nature’s Prophet. All you have to do is sit inside the treeline after teleporting there, and send a giga treant marching towards your opponents’ base without a care in the world. If a teamfight breaks out, you still have Wrath of Nature (R) to contribute with. And like I said before, NP himself is not a bad damage dealer, so you can just join the fight with Teleportation while your unkillable creep continues pushing.

It would be a lot better if this facet was changed for something a lot more engaging. It’s either they get rid of the facet, or get rid of the level 25 talent. One or the other is fine. Both at the same time is just stupid.

And I’m sure Team Liquid would agree with me. After all, they have the best Nature’s Prophet player in the world on their team, so they should know just how effective and infuriating NP is right now.