Dota 2 Balance - Revisiting "OP" Designs
The International 2017 saw a continuation of the trend set in 2016, with more heroes picked or banned (109) than ever before at a Valve event. What speaks to a rather balanced meta and gameplay is the product of years of hard work. Icefrog and his team of beta testers have put in years of work to get the game to where it is today, but not without creating slightly “overpowered” abilities and heroes here or there. Some of these abilities seem, in theory, rather “broken” in hindsight, that it is quite hilarious to think about the fact that they used to be in the game not too long ago. The following abilities, if implemented today, would likely be considered way too strong and some would likely warrant instant bans in both pub and pro play.
Winter's Curse
Winter Wyvern can feel a bit clunky at times, but generally speaking she’s a strong defensive support with offensive capabilities. She did fairly well at TI7 (55% win rate in 20 games)--even if EG had significantly less success with her--and is a solid meta pick right now. Winter’s Curse is a good ability, but by no means “op”, but it definitely used to be.
Right now, Winter’s Curse freezes an enemy (through magic immunity) and forces nearby opponents to hit their own teammate with an increased attack speed. Those opponents remain immune to any damage from outside, making it a hit or miss ultimate at times, especially when stacked with other abilities.
The spell is in a good place, but when the hero was first introduced, Winter’s Curse was anything but balanced. Before 6.85, the ultimate would also force magic immune heroes to attack their own teammate while also being vulnerable to attacks, potentially rendering multiple Black King Bars useless with a single spell, without putting the caster in harm’s way, like a Blackhole would.
Flaming Lasso
There’s a case to be made that Flaming Lasso, in theory, is still an “op” ability. It’s the ability that will never truly phase 
Batrider out of the meta, as its principle is just too good. Dragging an opponent out of position with such reliability is just too good to pass up on.
That is why Lasso is mentioned here however, as it used to be even better. Prior to 6.77, Lasso allowed Batrider to attack the caught targets still, making it much simpler for Batrider to get solo kills.
Vacuum
There’s somewhat of a running joke in the Dota 2 community, that any leaked balance patch seems believable as long as it includes a nerf to Vacuum’s cooldown. Much like Flaming Lasso, Vacuum is a rather unique spell that will always make 
Dark Seer an interesting option, no matter the meta. It seems like a somewhat balanced spell and rarely has been at the center of public outrage, but in hindsight it might’ve been just too good.
Currently, Vacuum has a 32 second cooldown, which seems reasonable. It used to be 16 seconds however. More so than that, it had a much longer cast range at some point (800) and dealt significantly more damage (240 at lvl4 instead of now 160). There was even a time, though that was back in Warcraft III days, where it would affect magic immune targets. A much more “recent” change occurred in 2012, when Icefrog removed the interaction with invulnerable targets, a mechanic that made Dark Seer a very popular combo partner to Naga Siren, as he could vacuum targets affected by Song of the Siren.
Geomagnetic Grip
Loading screen by bounchfx
Talents in Dota 2 are an excellent way of balancing a hero throughout multiple stages of the game. Certain abilities and mechanics are enabled once heroes hit level 20 or 25, making them strong without giving them too much strength in the early game.
Earth Spirit is one of the heroes that has an ability improving talent, though that talent used to be part of his original spell. Ever since his introduction to Dota 2, Earth Spirit has been part of the pro meta as a highly contested roamer. Geomagnetic Grip was too good however to be unleashed onto the competitive scene and it was nerfed just as the hero was introduced into Captain’s Mode in 6.86. The ability no longer allowed the user to pull allied heroes, only with an 
Aghanim's Scepter, but even that felt too strong, considering that Agh’s was already the go to item pickup anyway and the Enchant Remnant ability was already a good upgrade in itself. Now, Earth Spirit needs level 25 in order to be able to pull allied heroes, a significant nerf in comparison to how the spell used to work.
Track
Bounty Hunter has become a much more important hero over the past few years, establishing himself as a fearsome roamer. While his invisibility and burst damage are strong factors for his success, they are all just part of the package, a package that is made much more attractive with Track. Track is a strong comeback ability and an even stronger “getting ahead further” spell. Aside from providing bonus gold and movement speed however, the ability used to also apply vision around the target and even applied minus armor, on top of higher values for both bonus gold and movement speed.
Over the past few years, vision has become a much more important aspect of the game and the recent tweaks in 7.06f show that vision remains an important factor, with three nerfs dedicated to vision providing abilities alone.
No Hero is Born Perfect
There are many more examples of abilities that used to be much stronger and that would today be considered overpowered, especially abilities of heroes that originated in early Warcraft III DotA:Allstars days. That doesn’t mean though, that today’s heroes are perfectly balanced. Monkey King and his abilities could’ve been featured here as well and Underlord also needed adjustments before he was ready for competitive play. As two heroes await on the horizon, one can only imagine what potentially powerful abilities they bring to the table.
I'm not sure OP is the right word, but whatever.
They certainly are some unique, high impact and trademark skills.
first :D
The Sniper ministun on headshot and Spectre's dispersion when her illusions had the ability were probably also some of the most OP abilities in the game.
fuck bh
Woah, cool topic.
no hero is born perfect?
nobody is perfect,i am nobody, i am perfect. - Sven
I dont even know what to say actually... LOL
The other way is much more interesting in my opinion. If you look at pre 6.60 Sven you'll shudder.
-Stun is single target, less damage but better cooldown. Bad version of current WK stun
-War Cry was an aura that'd give 5 armor at max level, no MS
-Cleave had like half the reach and half the power (max 40%)
-God Strength gave only 100%/125%/150% damage and was PURGABLE(!!!)
While you could say, that in a way most heroes simply do become stronger with time, this is probably one of the more insane cases.
The MK perma bash with his Wukong Command in late game.
Phoenix Sun Ray slows enemies
Bloodseeker Rapture initial 100/200/300 pure damage
Sniper headshot mini bash
Rikimaru blink ulti
Necrophos 1.2 aghs upgrade damage
Oracle False Promise grants invisibilty during its duration
Mirana quad starfall aghs upgrade
Remember when Dotabuff tried to say that we needed more time to decide whether or not Monkey King was overpowered?
https://www.dotabuff.com/blog/2016-12-21-one-week-with-patch-700
Everyone with at least one eye could see he was OP as fuck. "TBD" my ass.
Let's not even talk about Arc Warden
slardar ulti providing aoe vision? that was pretty cool
Enchantress' Impetus was once her Q
Can someone explain this, btw? Unless I'm misreading it, isn't this still possible?
^attacking means right clicking in this case; before 6.77 lasso didn't disarm Batrider.
@ Anomalina It's no longer possible. Batrider is disarmed when lassoing someone, but he could still use spells and items, which essentially means if batrider lassos a bkb target without any allies around, the target could just blink away when the lasso ends :P
Ah, ok.. thanks! I didn't imagine that scenario, makes sense! And here I was wondering why Batrider's right clicks even matter..
bh for the win lol.
thanks guys!
@Kiru and @ayase nice comments.
Sniper's ministun was horrible to lane against. But his 3 charge no CD shrapnel was so so bad, since it landed instantly or almost instantly. Now it has a... 1.x second delay and it gives you a chance at least to guess where he's dropped it and to try to get out of its radius!
earth spirit's ult is still op... with or without aghs
99% magic resistance Huskar
No mention of Injoker, Necrophos, Lich, Axe, PA?
Remember IO chaos knight? good times
Arc Warden. The entire hero during his initial release. biggest lol ever
@KeepAwake HOHO HAHA
ORACLE ULT USED TO BE SO OP, WITH ONLY LIKE 20 SEC CD
6 times bounty alche xD
right now remembering while slark ss just has 20 sec cd and arc's tempest double could bring rapier as well
and yeah, while phoenix was introduced (dota 1) the sun ray was really OP AF, it slow enemies up to 80% and dealing PURE DAMAGE without SKILL DURATION and COOLDOWN (which means u can use it anytime and as long as u need to kill the enemy) we can even suicide using it lmao
Naix with only one active ability, which was a 20 sec built in BKB?
Terrorblade diving a tower and 2 heroes@lvl 7 with his non-channeling 80 hps life drain?
Remember when Riki had WD's ult...
let's see..
riki's deathward
invoker's 31 spell rampage
GAMBLER
medusa chain lightning+splitshot
FV global stun
Conjurer
OLD SILENCER
Void Demon
old pudge
morphling's ulti could change primary stat
Tombstone used to be overpowered and undy was a really good 2015 TI stomper.
I missed that tombstone !
You forgot to include the change of the geomantic grip where in the first introduce of the hero, the geo grip do stun instead of silence and boulder smash do silence instead. Prior to that, I really like spamming es since it is so "OP" like the article topic is. But then in some patch it change to geo grip do silence. It make him less popular for a while in meta
80 sec instant nigthtime which pause during gametime with 120s cd
and that was when nighttime and daytime is 6 mins each
lets count if ns use it during 1st second of nighttime
he could make full 19 FUCKING MINUTES NIGHTTIME XD
How to win when there are no op heroes? Everyone's winrate is below 55%, while those in mobile legends and heroes evolved have insane 70+ winrate.
don't forget about void's backtrack which gave right click AND spell evasion lol
deafening blast need to mention
The one broken thing I like is TI3 Chen and Io. Chen the key to snowball and Io the god of split push. OD and NP were OP but what unstoppable were Chen and Io. Then post TI4 the meta changed dramatically and suddenly single lockdown heroes like Storm Spirit and Tuskarr stole the spotlight.
what about faceless void's old evade? It used to have its own mechanics and allow faceless void to evade actual spells such as laguna blade. It was the only evade that truesight didn't work on, so even buying a mkb wouldn't work. That was the reason faceless void used to be one of the hardest carry, with that evade he can go ham with 5 heroes and come out ahead with some luck and a good chrono.
sniper used to have ministun
One the other hand, I remember back in the day when you could see when a Spirit Breaker had charged at you, so you'd just turtle back to tower and prepare before he even made it.
Also all those dead-weight passives like Death Prophet's and Necrophos' that were later integrated into another one of their skills.