We report a novel anti-resonant hollow-core fiber (ARF) with a heptagonal core surrounded by connected cladding tubes, which is employed as a laser beam mode shaper. Cladding nodes are formed between each pair of adjacent cladding tubes, which efficiently enhances the mode coupling, thus significantly suppressing higher-order modes (HOMs) within a short fiber length. Numerical investigation and simulation for variations in node’s curvature are conducted, through which an optimized structure of cladding nodes is obtained. Experiments results demonstrate that for a one-meter long ARF based mode shaper, output beam quality M2 is enabled near-diffraction-limit beam quality as 1.03. The ARF presents maximum average transmission power of 600 mW, achieving a total coupling efficiency of approximately 85%. Moreover, it is maintained for one hour without inducing any damage, while maintaining beam quality. These results highlight great potential of the mode shaper in applications such as laser surgery, precision welding and laser writing.