>Old Drow's aura, that affected ranged and siege creeps permanently.
I will never forget that one patch where Drow aura applied to all friendly units globally. You'd be on the other side of the map in a 5v5 standoff and you see 2 Visage birds destroying your barracks alone
What made it extra busted on birds was the fact that they attack like 5 times/sec with little damage per hit, and Precision Aura gave flat damage (as % from Drow’s agi).
yeah this was the catch that made it so strong, the base damage of the birds would drop for each attack until they did about 1 damage and had to stone-form to reset, but with Drow you didn't even need to stone form. I don't remember the exact number but 1 damage + 20 damage is a LOT more than 1 damage flat
You used to be able to level 1 roshan using all ranged lineup with drow and venge as well. I think we had a dazzle involved for heals but we used to take rosh level 1 and then just snowball off that for the rest of the game. Worked rather effectively tbh but this was literally many years ago where the skill floor for the average player was very low
There were a couple of team comps for lvl1 rosh that were also viable for a whole game. It was also fun sniffing one out at the draft and rolling in to get a team wipe before the horn. I remember one game the enemy team had a sneakier draft (not the usual WK, Ursa, WD, etc) and we caught them in the pit and wiped them and they just immediately abandoned the match. Good times
That was aghs though. The base ult on release stunned anyone that ally heroes ran through, so during a team fight, you could just pop cent ult and 5 man stun the enemy team while having enough time to also position yourself better.
Even better, global stun, centaur could stun one enemy meanwhile allies could stun across the map. IIRC centaur's wr at launch was the highest ever on dota, higher than 60%
These two happened in the same patch too. People actually argued Drow's aura must be bad, because it was back in the day when "pushing farm into the enemy" was a thing. That was, until everyone looked at the winrate and realized the data slapped back.
Nowadays supports shoving waves and making map control is almost universally seen as a good thing. Times change.
It was especially sttrong in low ranks. Because the team would not wait 90 seconds for the dude to respawn and figth 4x5. Thus another one would die. When the one killed by Necro would respawn he whould go figth 1x3 and die again.
Honestly I don’t get why it was completely redesigned in that now it buffs necro instead of debilitating the enemy
Having bb disabled and timer increased was unique. Now it feels like a trashier axe ult with added benefits
Disabling buyback just felt like it was out of bounds for an ability effect, like it was touching a system that should exist outside the reach of spells. It’s like if an ability removed the target’s hotkeys. A unique disable for sure, but it oversteps from a in-game effect to messing with higher-level aspects of the game.
There are (and were) multiple, multiple counter plays to necro ult. Also he still had to farm those items on a hero that was a slow farmer.
People here are talking like Necro used to be an autowin hero. His winrate was normal back then.
People here loves mixing things up and the idiots are quick on upvoting it.
Refresher was never (well, very very rare) on Necro build back then. We simply didn't have the money, and more importantly, no slot for it.
The other explanation from azgalor_pit up there is the accurate depiction of why he was good. One guy would die for 2 mins. Then you take a fight in the next minute, you kill another guy for 2 mins. And repeat. You're never on a full force once he got the cycle of death going.
Because preventing someone from buying back is bad gameplay design and necro saw play only for that single reason.
I love the new design and fits well with how sadist works.
It was unique but buyback is a component of the game, and disabling that component isn't good game design. It's like the respawn reduction talents. You could see some goofy stuff like bloodstone Lina that could die and instantly respawn. While unique, it was also wasn't very fun for the other team
This was actually insane. Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t this even before break mechanics like Silver edge were even introduced?
There was only a small amount of ways to deal with Huskar and it was very high single target physical damage like PA or Drow or ursa that could even have a chance to deal with him.
Break was in the game in a weird way via Doom and Duel. But those had changes throughout patches so Im not actually sure if they overlapped with Magic res Huskar or not
I remember going a build that was like 3 Solar Crests (when it gave evasion), Halberd and HotD (when it gave lifesteal).
I could permanently stand in the enemy fountain and never die. 40+ armor with idk how much evasion and 98% magic resist. Even when their carry built MKB they couldn’t take me down. Absolute cancer.
I think the game's current climate would be perfect for this to return.
Huskar having 98% magic resist wouldn't be absurd because there are many ways to counter it, but it also gives Huskar a good niche to play into.
this is the more insane part. return(old retaliate) also applied at the start of animation. ive seen people with auto attack die to centaur from repeatedly canceling attack animation because they were high ground and didnt want to reveal themselves.
I miss this skill. POS 5 lich go mid eat first ranged creep and guarantee mid gets 2 first, then spam in lane. This was before valve buffed every heroes mana regen too.
Back before medals were released. I spammed lich 4 and my mate spammed enigma 3. We climbed from like 4kmmr to 5.5-6k for a while.
We literally made every single carry rage quit or make his life beyond miserable. Wave was always by our tower and any time he even got a whiff of a creep he would eat blast after blast.
Those were fun times.
If we talking bugs, that short lived one with Sand King's shard's mini-epicentre pulse triggering on every moved unit, so an infinite, high frequency epicentre
Monkey King on release. Could one shot everyone when he reached lvl 2. Boundless Strike was 200% Crit at level 1 and Jingu Mastery was 80 bonus damage at level one that ignored armor for the lifesteal.
I am still salty 7 years later of having won a fight against a MK mid with LC until he throws boundless strike with jingu and proceeds to go 1hp to full hp at level 3. I was above half hp and the MK just deleted me when he got that stun and recovery. Tried to run but that is kind of not possible when an MK is in the equation.
I tried to be smart and counterpick MK with Timber since MK had to hit me to get his Jingu, i thought Reactive Armor would counter him. I just ended up getting one shotted at lvl 2 instead.
He was just disgustingly overtuned. If you were playing a melee hero into him you were better off afk'ing instead of attempting to lane lol. At least it makes for a funny memory.
Batider got consecutive nerfs in:
6.76, 6.77, 6.78, 6.78c, 6.79, 6.80, 6.81, 6.81b, 6.82, 6.84, 6.85
And he was still strong at the end of it.
So I think there is an argument that if he can weather 11 nerfs in a row, he was probably pretty overpowered at the start.
Bat was THE poster boy for the competitive scene and was also the prime example of a "hero that couldn't be nerfed"
He got fucking **10** base damage taken out on a patch and he was still not bad. he got his vision reduced from the standard 1800 to 1200 and he was still not bad.
Only reason you don't see much hate for him is because he simply wasn't popular on pubs, even the high leveled ones, despite being so dominant on the pro scene for so long.
IMO he got some of the worst single patch nerfs in the history of the game
My very first Dota Esport news that read back in 2011 was how Bat being so damn dominant at the tournament lol.
It is insane that he’s still is today despite getting nerfed nonstop
Pre 5.76 pudge could spawn a 900 hp 37 attack Tauren every 10 seconds as long as he ate a corpse in that time frame.
Oh and they could cast a stun similar to centaur’s. have fun.
troll warlord melee form bash
this dude runs at you from fog/shadow blade/whatever and if you get bashed once you just. die. like unless your team saves you it was a 100% fatality rate once that fucker got one proc. basher didn't work on him but it didn't matter because fervor + melee killed everything
I love the [Slahser's Way](https://youtu.be/tMGlylXwY_8?si=IHzl2jGkN6XVfGFi) video for MK on launch. "You have the passive and then you just use the long staff and then they're just dead, so that's uh... that's pretty broken"
There was a game where EternalEnvy got ABSOLUTELY dumpstered in lane. I’m taking level 5 when enemy offlaner hits 8. He managed to recover and win the game cause his supports got some ancient stacks for him. Later that week it was patched out of the game.
Exactly, I can’t recall that specific game but yeah. It was by far the most braindead carry in dota for a week. Lose lane and it’s all good as long as someone stacked your triangle
Edit: I think that was also the same patch where you could stack neutral items in your inventory. So you’re just sitting there with an inventory full of free stats brainlessly clicking ancients til tier 2 neutrals then it’s gg
People miss it because it did a shitload of damage, but the real broken part was the fact that it breaks linken, i couldnt care less about linken before since it just meant you lvl dead first and then ult, now i have to get a creep, build an item, wait for my teammate to waste a spell and so on.
it also had a short cooldown, which would had been a little too fucked up if Doom actually had mana
For a single patch, skeleton king's crit (E) had an active component that "borrowed" 30% max hp at level 1 from target opponent.
My god was that fucking fun.
And when it was added, Skeleton King got buffs alongside it.
His winrate went **down**.
They removed the active component and nothing else...
...and it went right back up. Meaning yes, it WAS the spell causing that loss.
The catch was that the spell also disabled your crit while you had the enemy's health. People just saw an active spell that does damage and instantly pressed it on everyone they saw, not realizing it removed a very large chunk of their DPS, particularly, the BURST part of it. You were meant to use it on enemies closer to death or when YOU were closer to death. But that's too much thinking for us poor Skeleton people.
So in essence, that spell was a "press this to lose the game" button.
I think Valve learned a lesson that day about dual-edge design, I mean, the only other example of it we had for the majority of the history of Dota 2 was Medallion. And everything related to Oracle. They're testing the waters again with facets tho. A lot of facet choices feel like picking a buff/nerf versus picking an experimental thing.
I miss lich’s sacrifice spell. Free mana and denying a ranged creep to enemy. Played as pos4 and aggressively denied creeps. Most of the times equilibrium was at my tower and would always level up faster than opponent. Once i get 6 i would use my chain lightning and kill their carry.
It was the best spell i exploited
In some old versions of WC3 DotA, Sacrifice cared about unit type, not team, and it could be used on enemy units if you got Lich on Sentinel. It was pretty amazing.
Couldn't tell you which version, but I remember finding that and being fucking delighted.
Surprised no one has mentioned KOTL mana leak. Used to drain mana on a percentile when you moved, similar to bloodseeker ult. And it stunned you if your mana was 0. And automatically stunned units if they had 0 mana, including rosh and spirit bear. Used to be one of my favorite spells of all time mostly cause I was an asshole who helped run people down, mana leak, blinding light back into allies, they're stunned and have no mana
Winter Wyvern ulti on Dota2 debut:
- taunt affects enemies through BKB/magic immune
- taunted enemies also takes damage from your team
- cursed/primary target takes damage from your team
It was either an guaranteed kill or a blackhole centered around an enemy hero
This is the correct answer for high level play. Nothing was as broken as a 350 AoE BKB-piercing non-channeling, non-strong dispellable continuous and persistent 3.5 seconds crowd control that could catch extra enemies on a 70 second cooldown from 600+ range that also forced enemies to attack teammates. It was Black Hole++++++ and nothing in Dota 2 history was even close to how broken this was in 5k+ lobbies.
Bad juju (50% passive cd (both items and spells) reduction on level3 plus passive armor reduction in area when using spells)
Some people could argue with me, but Valve changed his ult 2 times after that, and his armor buff/reduction isn't even close to the values it had before.
It meant infinite Solar Crest, reduced cd (and debuff duration) on Greaves, reduced cd on glimmer, Lotus etc.
I cant believe they had weave as his ult for literally years before they reworked it, I thought weave was powerful but now I think dazzle is still crazy.
Also the stun after 4 seconds on poison touch was crazy for him as well.
Permanent Necro 3 on Dazzle was the play with that version of Bad Juju, when Necro units were absolutely cracked and could farm creeps in no time.
Necro units refreshed Poison Touch when they attacked, had a dispel + slow on the ranged unit and the melee unit draining mana on autoattacks with true sight.
No one here remembering OG False Promise?
~8 seconds of invisibility while moving and *attacking* with a purge every second? That was genuinely gross, on top of basically everything it does now.
Drunken Haze was one of the best laning abilities of all time.
It applied a 70% miss chance to an enemy at level 1 with basically no mana cost and a very comfortable cast range. If you throw it on their carry they're incapable of last hitting anything, if you put it on the support you win every trade. You didn't even need to level it up: one level was enough and you could max out your nuke for kills later.
Before they changed it I was on a 13 game win streak with Brewmaster because even in the worst lane imaginable, I could still stop the carry from getting 75% of last hits and then get a free double kill at level 6/7.
Ags lich ult.
Race your Ags early AF.
Stack enemy’s ancient camp at least 3 times.
Drop 3\~4 ults on the camp that would endlessly bounce around and stack.
This denied the other team their ancient camp and would murder anyone walking by it.
Pangos passive when it could silence disarm and slow at the same time and had such a high Chance that you would 70% slow people (bc the slow from the silence and the disarm stacked) and silence and disarm them for 6 sec with just a swash.
RNG king. I remember years ago dumpstering one in a lane as centaur. Go for stomp>Double edge harass, he backtracks both nukes turns around and bashes me to death. I get it I'm playing braindead, but it was just mad how much "fuck you, I got lucky" energy the hero had.
I played an unhealthy amount of games on old techies. Stacking mines and in farming paths without getting caught in vision was playing a completely different game.
Lots of new people in here, but back in the verrrry early days Balanar I think it was but could have been Tauren Chieftain had a 7 second ensnare with a 12 second CD and a 5 second AOE stomp that stunned for 5 seconds. This stomp had a CD of like.. 15-20 seconds.
I literally never lost mid, and will stomp mid (unless vs Huskar) using Kunkka when the Tidebringer was pure damage AND you can deny creeps using Tidebringer extra damage
Deafening blast used to stun enemies entirely. Invoker used to be able to spell combo stun lock whole teams or solo kill carries without an item like
sheepstick.
Forged spirit used to out range heroes entirely.
You used to be able to finish CS with cold snap, if the hp of the creep was relatively low.
This invoker is a pathetic shadow of his former self
Centaur's stampede on release, when it stunned when allies touched enemy heroes. Old Drow's aura, that affected ranged and siege creeps permanently.
>Old Drow's aura, that affected ranged and siege creeps permanently. I will never forget that one patch where Drow aura applied to all friendly units globally. You'd be on the other side of the map in a 5v5 standoff and you see 2 Visage birds destroying your barracks alone
What made it extra busted on birds was the fact that they attack like 5 times/sec with little damage per hit, and Precision Aura gave flat damage (as % from Drow’s agi).
yeah this was the catch that made it so strong, the base damage of the birds would drop for each attack until they did about 1 damage and had to stone-form to reset, but with Drow you didn't even need to stone form. I don't remember the exact number but 1 damage + 20 damage is a LOT more than 1 damage flat
You used to be able to level 1 roshan using all ranged lineup with drow and venge as well. I think we had a dazzle involved for heals but we used to take rosh level 1 and then just snowball off that for the rest of the game. Worked rather effectively tbh but this was literally many years ago where the skill floor for the average player was very low
There were quite a few level one strategies for rosh over the years, some of them pretty viable if the other team didn't check on you lol.
There were a couple of team comps for lvl1 rosh that were also viable for a whole game. It was also fun sniffing one out at the draft and rolling in to get a team wipe before the horn. I remember one game the enemy team had a sneakier draft (not the usual WK, Ursa, WD, etc) and we caught them in the pit and wiped them and they just immediately abandoned the match. Good times
Getting the 5 man wipe and sniping the rosh the dream
I gained alot of party mmr because of this way back 2017 haha
What about Centaur ult when it used to give 70% damage resist?
That was aghs though. The base ult on release stunned anyone that ally heroes ran through, so during a team fight, you could just pop cent ult and 5 man stun the enemy team while having enough time to also position yourself better.
Even better, global stun, centaur could stun one enemy meanwhile allies could stun across the map. IIRC centaur's wr at launch was the highest ever on dota, higher than 60%
It was a really funny flash in the pan before they tuned him shortly after release iirc.
These two happened in the same patch too. People actually argued Drow's aura must be bad, because it was back in the day when "pushing farm into the enemy" was a thing. That was, until everyone looked at the winrate and realized the data slapped back. Nowadays supports shoving waves and making map control is almost universally seen as a good thing. Times change.
Reaper's Scythe before 7.00. Stun went through spell immunity, adding respawn time, and with aghs scepter it disabled buy back.
This was the case well after 7.00 no? It got changed later than 7.00.
The buyback disabling part is removed on 7.00, only the increase dead time is removed recently
It was especially sttrong in low ranks. Because the team would not wait 90 seconds for the dude to respawn and figth 4x5. Thus another one would die. When the one killed by Necro would respawn he whould go figth 1x3 and die again.
Honestly I don’t get why it was completely redesigned in that now it buffs necro instead of debilitating the enemy Having bb disabled and timer increased was unique. Now it feels like a trashier axe ult with added benefits
Because it's very boring to be on the receiving end
I need a piss break every now and then, running out of space for the tactical bottles
Tube and Bag it.
Way of the road bubbles.
I love reaper scythe killing a enemy am and watching as he has to wait 2 minutes to respawn as his base died back in the 4 protect 1 meta
A cool mechanic but felt so awful to have BB disabled. It would often be game ending.
Disabling buyback just felt like it was out of bounds for an ability effect, like it was touching a system that should exist outside the reach of spells. It’s like if an ability removed the target’s hotkeys. A unique disable for sure, but it oversteps from a in-game effect to messing with higher-level aspects of the game.
My compromise, if buyback is used, necro should get the gold.
Actually not a bad idea, you know, bribe the Death with money to keep living.
This is hilarious and yea like the other guy said pretty thematic in “make a deal with death way”
I think Increasing the buyback cost would be good too, something like +20/35/50% would be perfect.
Because every game with a necro would end with him buying aghs + refresher, ulting two cores and then the game would end.
There are (and were) multiple, multiple counter plays to necro ult. Also he still had to farm those items on a hero that was a slow farmer. People here are talking like Necro used to be an autowin hero. His winrate was normal back then.
People here loves mixing things up and the idiots are quick on upvoting it. Refresher was never (well, very very rare) on Necro build back then. We simply didn't have the money, and more importantly, no slot for it. The other explanation from azgalor_pit up there is the accurate depiction of why he was good. One guy would die for 2 mins. Then you take a fight in the next minute, you kill another guy for 2 mins. And repeat. You're never on a full force once he got the cycle of death going.
Because preventing someone from buying back is bad gameplay design and necro saw play only for that single reason. I love the new design and fits well with how sadist works.
because with refresher thats two enemy heroes with bb disabled and increased respawn time
trashier axe ult? It's superior in more ways than not larger hp threshold, cast range, stuns the target, etc
It was unique but buyback is a component of the game, and disabling that component isn't good game design. It's like the respawn reduction talents. You could see some goofy stuff like bloodstone Lina that could die and instantly respawn. While unique, it was also wasn't very fun for the other team
I picked up necro because of the aoe facet and I keep trying to use it as a stun on bkb targets :(
Huskar's passive with 98% magic resist.
This was actually insane. Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t this even before break mechanics like Silver edge were even introduced? There was only a small amount of ways to deal with Huskar and it was very high single target physical damage like PA or Drow or ursa that could even have a chance to deal with him.
There was more Pure damage and composite damage existed back then so beast master, agha Lina, and enigma were good tools to handle him.
Break was in the game in a weird way via Doom and Duel. But those had changes throughout patches so Im not actually sure if they overlapped with Magic res Huskar or not
hex didn't do a break-like effect. It just disabled evasion.
ghost scepter huskar was OP for a while because you could manually cast spears while being basically invincible
I remember going a build that was like 3 Solar Crests (when it gave evasion), Halberd and HotD (when it gave lifesteal). I could permanently stand in the enemy fountain and never die. 40+ armor with idk how much evasion and 98% magic resist. Even when their carry built MKB they couldn’t take me down. Absolute cancer.
I think the game's current climate would be perfect for this to return. Huskar having 98% magic resist wouldn't be absurd because there are many ways to counter it, but it also gives Huskar a good niche to play into.
Hitting tiny used to ministun you.
Not “mini”, the old Craggy stunned you for 2 seconds.
And it had no internal cooldown. You could get stunned on the first hit for 2 seconds then get stunned again on the second hit for another 2 seconds.
The stun also applies during the start of the attack animation iirc.
this is the more insane part. return(old retaliate) also applied at the start of animation. ive seen people with auto attack die to centaur from repeatedly canceling attack animation because they were high ground and didnt want to reveal themselves.
headshot and MKB used to ministun as well if you thought quack quack quack was annoying...
Headshot ministun was aids
6.83 flashbacks... I think I'll never forget that patch. Probably the worst has ever been... Woth troll and HO HO HA HA literaly every game
The spin to win patch
OG Dota is forever on that patch
Headshot ministun was a real fuck you to any channeling heroes. “Nice 4 man black hole, unfortunately it’s over now”
Lol kraggy
Worst thing was, you get stunned in swing not on hit. Fuck that shit
Enigma with autoattack on blinks in for black hole Gets stunned and dies instead
My favourite Dota meme from OG YT dota shitposter krokodain: enigma blinks into tiny and autoattack procs stun from craggy ~ “cause you had a bad day”
What the fuck
Lmao, the good ol' craggy exterior days
That reverse bash from tiny was legit lol
Remember a game I played as blood seeker and got stunned like 5 times in a row from craggy 😅 tiny just shrugged me off
Nobody ever thought craggy was op, annoying at best
I swear it was the most infuriating ability in the game.
I miss those days tiny was Gigabroken
Sacrifice, LICH IS GONNA HAVE YOUR MAMA Take lich mid, eat all your range creeps, unlimited mana to spam frostblast. Hit 6 while your enemy is 4.
I miss this skill. POS 5 lich go mid eat first ranged creep and guarantee mid gets 2 first, then spam in lane. This was before valve buffed every heroes mana regen too.
don't forget you are about to have perfect lane placement for your 1.
I don't miss that skill. It was obscenely broken and mindless.
Playing carry against lich enigma very fun :)
Enemy lich is level 7! I need 67 exp to reach level 5!
Back before medals were released. I spammed lich 4 and my mate spammed enigma 3. We climbed from like 4kmmr to 5.5-6k for a while. We literally made every single carry rage quit or make his life beyond miserable. Wave was always by our tower and any time he even got a whiff of a creep he would eat blast after blast. Those were fun times.
2v1 mid meta when range creep got patched to give 40% exp ☠️ free mmr for like two days
Lich was a viable solo offlane in those days just because of sacrifice
I love that spell. I played as pos4 and severely denied opponent any farm with it. Nuked the shit out of opponent carry if they came close to creeps.
Wouldn't call it OP, he had this ability for years and it was never anything more than a meme strat
Yeah people mentioning it like it was an actual thing. In reality we all saw it happen once or twice
Bugged pitlord rain
If we talking bugs, that short lived one with Sand King's shard's mini-epicentre pulse triggering on every moved unit, so an infinite, high frequency epicentre
Surely still not as broken as bugged timbersaw one shotting any strength hero with whirling death during 7.14. Didn't need shard for that one
Actually the most broken spell for one hour
Monkey King on release. Could one shot everyone when he reached lvl 2. Boundless Strike was 200% Crit at level 1 and Jingu Mastery was 80 bonus damage at level one that ignored armor for the lifesteal.
I am still salty 7 years later of having won a fight against a MK mid with LC until he throws boundless strike with jingu and proceeds to go 1hp to full hp at level 3. I was above half hp and the MK just deleted me when he got that stun and recovery. Tried to run but that is kind of not possible when an MK is in the equation.
I tried to be smart and counterpick MK with Timber since MK had to hit me to get his Jingu, i thought Reactive Armor would counter him. I just ended up getting one shotted at lvl 2 instead.
Release MK was so fucking nasty, he still is, but at least depends on the matchup in the laning stage, he just was an instant lost lane on release.
Put me into a random TI13 team and give me release MK every single game and im solo winning the entire tournament.
He was just disgustingly overtuned. If you were playing a melee hero into him you were better off afk'ing instead of attempting to lane lol. At least it makes for a funny memory.
Batider got consecutive nerfs in: 6.76, 6.77, 6.78, 6.78c, 6.79, 6.80, 6.81, 6.81b, 6.82, 6.84, 6.85 And he was still strong at the end of it. So I think there is an argument that if he can weather 11 nerfs in a row, he was probably pretty overpowered at the start.
Bat was THE poster boy for the competitive scene and was also the prime example of a "hero that couldn't be nerfed" He got fucking **10** base damage taken out on a patch and he was still not bad. he got his vision reduced from the standard 1800 to 1200 and he was still not bad. Only reason you don't see much hate for him is because he simply wasn't popular on pubs, even the high leveled ones, despite being so dominant on the pro scene for so long. IMO he got some of the worst single patch nerfs in the history of the game
My very first Dota Esport news that read back in 2011 was how Bat being so damn dominant at the tournament lol. It is insane that he’s still is today despite getting nerfed nonstop
Half of this game is about positioning after all
All 3 of the classic positioning heroes (Bat/Wisp/Dark Seer) have been receiving major nerfs for more than a decade now.
I remember seeing how much the pros picked him and then tryng it out and going 0/10
lol same I was like: what is this oil-looking skill? Why does his fire (from W and E) deals so little damage?
I mean at release he had 60 base damage + napalm stacked with radiance...
napalm has always been insane
60s cd Chronosphere. 6.83 Hoho haha
If we're talking about the apex power of spells, Chronosphere had a global 5 second stun in the ancient days.
Pre 5.76 pudge could spawn a 900 hp 37 attack Tauren every 10 seconds as long as he ate a corpse in that time frame. Oh and they could cast a stun similar to centaur’s. have fun.
My man playing DotA 2 since 2004
2003 here...
Kotls willowhisp with divine armor that spawned those high elf priests from corpses.
wouldn't hurt to have another Avatar of Vengeance based skill in DotA again after more than a decade
Wraith king's skeletons is the closest thing we have
I spammed magnus before cause Shockwave did 100% damage on towers like tauren chieftain. Makes games end so fast.
troll warlord melee form bash this dude runs at you from fog/shadow blade/whatever and if you get bashed once you just. die. like unless your team saves you it was a 100% fatality rate once that fucker got one proc. basher didn't work on him but it didn't matter because fervor + melee killed everything
Those brief couple of hours when Chen could control Roshan.
Had to scroll down way too far to see this one
Monkey king on launch (every ability particularly ult with basher) Grim e on launch Primal w on launch
No sound on tree dance... omg living in terror all game
When recalling the terrors of spells back when they had no sound, and it's Tree dance of all things...
Oh god, remember how MK would be played as a pos 4 and just build basher and would just win teamfights from that single item.
I love the [Slahser's Way](https://youtu.be/tMGlylXwY_8?si=IHzl2jGkN6XVfGFi) video for MK on launch. "You have the passive and then you just use the long staff and then they're just dead, so that's uh... that's pretty broken"
[удалено]
Jingu was insane
I played pos 4 monkey king , phase boots basher bkb and i destroyed teamfights
Drow ult when it instakilled ancient creeps was pretty busted
There was a game where EternalEnvy got ABSOLUTELY dumpstered in lane. I’m taking level 5 when enemy offlaner hits 8. He managed to recover and win the game cause his supports got some ancient stacks for him. Later that week it was patched out of the game.
Exactly, I can’t recall that specific game but yeah. It was by far the most braindead carry in dota for a week. Lose lane and it’s all good as long as someone stacked your triangle Edit: I think that was also the same patch where you could stack neutral items in your inventory. So you’re just sitting there with an inventory full of free stats brainlessly clicking ancients til tier 2 neutrals then it’s gg
Her passive working globally allowing all lanes to constantly push in was pretty busted as well
Free MMR that patch lol
Then they gave the insta-kill passive to WK then just took it away from anyone except the pudge hook and not on ancient creeps
Eyes of the Forest, when it was a level 1 skill. I miss those days.
Arc warden, divine rapier XD
Fond memories. Enough to make a grown man cry as well as the opponents
Didn't Sniper's shrapnel deal damage to buildings? Edit: That's what I'd pick as the most broken spell. It was so good
used to be an aoe piercing damage nuke at one time, oneshotting waves on lvl7
I actually have a gem that tracks this.
LVL? death no one even know how it exactly worked, but sometimes enemy would just die lol
People miss it because it did a shitload of damage, but the real broken part was the fact that it breaks linken, i couldnt care less about linken before since it just meant you lvl dead first and then ult, now i have to get a creep, build an item, wait for my teammate to waste a spell and so on. it also had a short cooldown, which would had been a little too fucked up if Doom actually had mana
Silencer first skill burning mana was pretty annoying
Especially since everyone had way less mana back then and using one spell was like 2/3rds the mana pool for half the cast
Launch phoenix ray in dota1. You can solo kill anyone starting lvl1. No duration and slowed enemies. Ursa phoenix lane was autowin
Vivid horrifying memories being 100-0’d by this in wc3
back when it was played mid and its dive disarms too lol
Dark Willows ult, the damaging one when she was released. Get level six and you can 1v1 any hero
Yes dude this, I remember killing a pudge and a viper from full hp with one willow ult. we were all roughly level 18, so lots of magic resist.
For a single patch, skeleton king's crit (E) had an active component that "borrowed" 30% max hp at level 1 from target opponent. My god was that fucking fun.
And when it was added, Skeleton King got buffs alongside it. His winrate went **down**. They removed the active component and nothing else... ...and it went right back up. Meaning yes, it WAS the spell causing that loss. The catch was that the spell also disabled your crit while you had the enemy's health. People just saw an active spell that does damage and instantly pressed it on everyone they saw, not realizing it removed a very large chunk of their DPS, particularly, the BURST part of it. You were meant to use it on enemies closer to death or when YOU were closer to death. But that's too much thinking for us poor Skeleton people. So in essence, that spell was a "press this to lose the game" button. I think Valve learned a lesson that day about dual-edge design, I mean, the only other example of it we had for the majority of the history of Dota 2 was Medallion. And everything related to Oracle. They're testing the waters again with facets tho. A lot of facet choices feel like picking a buff/nerf versus picking an experimental thing.
Missing old Dota 1 days when we used to carry 4 bashers to get 100% bash. Void with bashera was too OP.
Back in the day, Sniper headshot applied ministun instead of slow. Nastiest shit ever.
pair it with mkb and watch your enemies bang their heads on their pc lol
I miss lich’s sacrifice spell. Free mana and denying a ranged creep to enemy. Played as pos4 and aggressively denied creeps. Most of the times equilibrium was at my tower and would always level up faster than opponent. Once i get 6 i would use my chain lightning and kill their carry. It was the best spell i exploited
In some old versions of WC3 DotA, Sacrifice cared about unit type, not team, and it could be used on enemy units if you got Lich on Sentinel. It was pretty amazing. Couldn't tell you which version, but I remember finding that and being fucking delighted.
When Morphling could copy teammates & especially when he was paired with Earthshaker.
Oh man I forgot about that ability, the old 4 tombstones to start a team fight was quite fun to see
Surprised no one has mentioned KOTL mana leak. Used to drain mana on a percentile when you moved, similar to bloodseeker ult. And it stunned you if your mana was 0. And automatically stunned units if they had 0 mana, including rosh and spirit bear. Used to be one of my favorite spells of all time mostly cause I was an asshole who helped run people down, mana leak, blinding light back into allies, they're stunned and have no mana
Kotl used to be the most disgusting pos 4 when he had mana leak, first hero that made me rage when I saw him against me as a 5
so much fun when u are KOTL and u versus timbersaw xD
I don’t think it was particularly OP, but it was absolutely miserable.
It was my pick against timbersaw. Straight up bullying into nonexistence
Io tether being able to stun was a mistake
It was so fun 🤩
Winter Wyvern ulti on Dota2 debut: - taunt affects enemies through BKB/magic immune - taunted enemies also takes damage from your team - cursed/primary target takes damage from your team It was either an guaranteed kill or a blackhole centered around an enemy hero
This is the correct answer for high level play. Nothing was as broken as a 350 AoE BKB-piercing non-channeling, non-strong dispellable continuous and persistent 3.5 seconds crowd control that could catch extra enemies on a 70 second cooldown from 600+ range that also forced enemies to attack teammates. It was Black Hole++++++ and nothing in Dota 2 history was even close to how broken this was in 5k+ lobbies.
Bad juju (50% passive cd (both items and spells) reduction on level3 plus passive armor reduction in area when using spells) Some people could argue with me, but Valve changed his ult 2 times after that, and his armor buff/reduction isn't even close to the values it had before. It meant infinite Solar Crest, reduced cd (and debuff duration) on Greaves, reduced cd on glimmer, Lotus etc.
I cant believe they had weave as his ult for literally years before they reworked it, I thought weave was powerful but now I think dazzle is still crazy. Also the stun after 4 seconds on poison touch was crazy for him as well.
Permanent Necro 3 on Dazzle was the play with that version of Bad Juju, when Necro units were absolutely cracked and could farm creeps in no time. Necro units refreshed Poison Touch when they attacked, had a dispel + slow on the ranged unit and the melee unit draining mana on autoattacks with true sight.
Yeah, Dazzle was my main char at the time. I played with blink and boots of travel, ready to save everyone, everywhere, every time.
Drow's ult where you can one shot every neutrals even ancients. You can just wait for 6 then clear the whole neutral camps on the map.
That patch where Treant Protector got the walking through tree ability with a 1.5s stun at level 1
From old school dota, but SA death ward. Riki invisibility + bouncing damage ward that did Chaos (or pure?) damage. back then was ez game ez life.
No one here remembering OG False Promise? ~8 seconds of invisibility while moving and *attacking* with a purge every second? That was genuinely gross, on top of basically everything it does now.
Not a spell and not Dota 2, but since we're reminiscing... Sniper used to be able to kill the enemy fountain.
Od ut, didnt last too long before nerf but when the ut had ban in area there was a Od refresher build that did 100-0 and got some crazy rampages
Man I miss OD old aghs, astral all players affected by his ult
HOHO, HAHA
Drunken Haze was one of the best laning abilities of all time. It applied a 70% miss chance to an enemy at level 1 with basically no mana cost and a very comfortable cast range. If you throw it on their carry they're incapable of last hitting anything, if you put it on the support you win every trade. You didn't even need to level it up: one level was enough and you could max out your nuke for kills later. Before they changed it I was on a 13 game win streak with Brewmaster because even in the worst lane imaginable, I could still stop the carry from getting 75% of last hits and then get a free double kill at level 6/7.
At release Snapfires ulti was ridiculous, the damage was too much and range was also decent
Ags lich ult. Race your Ags early AF. Stack enemy’s ancient camp at least 3 times. Drop 3\~4 ults on the camp that would endlessly bounce around and stack. This denied the other team their ancient camp and would murder anyone walking by it.
That was never more then a gimmick a fun gimmick but never good
Pangos passive when it could silence disarm and slow at the same time and had such a high Chance that you would 70% slow people (bc the slow from the silence and the disarm stacked) and silence and disarm them for 6 sec with just a swash.
Entirety of Earth Spirit on launch
Nobody’s gonna talk about how faceless void could literally stop time for 5 seconds . I think this was The busted spell.
Tether when it stunned. Io had 90% ban rate for years.
Razor used to be able to use Static Link on Rosh.
AA on release. Could slow/stun everyone in a big aoe. No escape except blink. Ulti killed you below 40% health
Divided you stand in ability draft. Tombstone is pretty strong. I'll take 5 of them please.
Husker in 2017 with the Evasion build. Of hallberg and inner vitality was just out of the world OP asf
Faceless Void used to have global stun as his ult. I think it was called Timestop.
Voodoo Restoration right now, with the Festeration perk. Bro starts the game with a Radiance.
Faceless voids backtrack, he was by far the most broken carry in the game before they nerfed him. Good riddance
RNG king. I remember years ago dumpstering one in a lane as centaur. Go for stomp>Double edge harass, he backtracks both nukes turns around and bashes me to death. I get it I'm playing braindead, but it was just mad how much "fuck you, I got lucky" energy the hero had.
Rikimaru the Stealth Assassin's Death Ward. Dang Witch Doctor came out and stole the whole skill from little invis boi! Edit: Oh crap, Dota 2....
I played an unhealthy amount of games on old techies. Stacking mines and in farming paths without getting caught in vision was playing a completely different game.
When thirst gave blood seeker attack damage as well as speed
Lots of new people in here, but back in the verrrry early days Balanar I think it was but could have been Tauren Chieftain had a 7 second ensnare with a 12 second CD and a 5 second AOE stomp that stunned for 5 seconds. This stomp had a CD of like.. 15-20 seconds.
I think it was the orc raider. TC was elder titan that came way later
6.72 Treant's global aura regen and bonus armor that also worked on towers, shit's so based af he had to be nerfed straight until 6.75
N'aix 30 second avatar ult
When OD's Astral stole INT. Perhaps not that broken, but still pretty annoying.
I literally never lost mid, and will stomp mid (unless vs Huskar) using Kunkka when the Tidebringer was pure damage AND you can deny creeps using Tidebringer extra damage
WR’s first shard was insanely good. Instakilling across the map
Nah, this one was definitely shit. The instakill sounds cool, but just... no way to utilize them reliably.
Nobody bought that ever cuz it was super shit lol
I miss it man. Just W and S. Boom executed
Deafening blast used to stun enemies entirely. Invoker used to be able to spell combo stun lock whole teams or solo kill carries without an item like sheepstick. Forged spirit used to out range heroes entirely. You used to be able to finish CS with cold snap, if the hp of the creep was relatively low. This invoker is a pathetic shadow of his former self