If they nerfed the living hell out of skywrath and some other heroes that stun consistently then we wouldn't have to go for bkb every round.

It would be interesting if BKB didn't give immunity from magic damage. Hood and pipe of insight would be better than now

Yeah, I loathe BKB. I hate literally having to buy a $4k item in order to play the game at all, and it limits the creativity of builds dramatically + feels like a shit purchase on, as you said, many heroes besides making many heroes completely irrelevant. I see literally supports buying BKB and I honestly can't even blame them. But its frustrating because without mana, without spells, heroes that don't do damage by attack-moving are totally irrelevant. I'd say BKB is my least favorite item in Dota 2 and this article is a balm to my soul.

It's nice to see finally people joining what i'm saying for more than 5 years.
Nerf those fucking overpowered spell and then bkb will stop getting op/mandatory.

We used to have an era were 2k hp heroes were considered tanky, and reaching 3k hp by minute 50 was quite rare outside of centaure and spectre with multiple tarasque and you HAD to use a lot of right click to finish them, spells were just not enough.

Now we have heroes with 4k hp at 30 min getting sliced like butter by spells ...

And that's not even considering the insane duration of spell; often offering (between cdr and spell duration from talent/item) permanent disable by a single hero;
As a dota extreme example, if all our heroes were like anti mage / pa / riki, bkb would be the weakest of all item, and wouldn't need a nerf at all. The strength of bkb rely on how overpowered spells are.

If you were to take a similar stupidity from nature, spells and bkb would just look like the arm race between newts and snakes; newts getting more poisonous so snake needs to become more resistant; to the point that if you are out of that arm race, you'll get utterly demolished. (newts' poisons are spells, snakes' immunity is bkb).

the reason why bkb is so strong now compared to perpahps a couple patches ago is the nerf to status resistance. if they just buffed status resistance and included it in other items bkb goes back to more of an even item. no need to nerf bkb.

As a mainly 5 main (4 sometimes) I've been feeling this way for a while. The 20 minute bkbs have gotten pretty old.

As a 5 just finishing items like glimmer or force and then getting bodied by 1-2 cores with fresh BKB pre 20 minutes sucks. A lot of the times I'm not even of position, but the bkb let's them play out of position to kill me.

It really sucks, I think next patch making it 8-5 seconds would help, but we need some other options as well. The bkb "meta" sucks because it isn't even a meta, it's a requirment.

1. No good status resist item except 4k sange upgrade which the same as bkb.
2. Too many cc strat like shadow shaman, DK, etc. Cant even start a fight without getting cc-ed to death.

The magic resistance items should be made cheaper. Hood is very competitively priced, but upgrading to Pipe is a huge drag on the item development. Pipe is basically the same price as a BKB. Maybe just prop up the BKB price and make team magic resistance cheaper, by cutting Pipe recipe cost to basically have teams go for resistance over immunity... Changes to the BKB stat wise could be another way, but I don't think there are any heroes that buy BKB for the stats, 10 str is only 200 hp on two thirds of the hero. It could be that the 200 hp saves you at some point, but that immunity is really nice and saves you way more than the stats.

BKB has been an issue for a very long time! This is nothing new, core BKB timing has been key for contributor for team fighting forever in the pro tier games.

Dota evolved a lot around casters since the introduction of new talents tree which made them super scale into the late game , in turn this made bkb a requirement. The fact that the item conceptually was not changed does not surprise me one bit. You have to tweak and nerf a lot of heroes (id say around 90% of the hero pool + some changes to the other 10%) before you touch the item itself.

You need bikibi you need bikibi you need bikibi!

Make bkb 6 or 5 seconds flat, buff status res and improve pipe costs or buildup. Dota without bkb, isn't dota. But dota with only bkb isn't either. Definitely needs a change.

just a fun fact, at one point bkb could be sold to get back a full 10 seconds..

you cant get back 10 seconds now even after selling

Game is power creeped to hell. BKB is not that strong. What is strong is spells and magic damage. You have one oppurtunity to use BKB well in a fight.

My idea for BKB, which I honestly thought valve would have implemented by now:

Instead of an item, BKB is now an inherent skill for every hero (kinda like the neutral item slot) - it starts at 1 second duration on minute 5, and ramps up every few minutes to reach maximum potential of 6 seconds.

Of course you might need to balance a lot of spells accordingly if implemented, but I think it makes sense.

yea, some imune magic, is best, when you go against mage

Limit purchase of 1 BKB per team.

Are you fucking crazy?
BKB should be buffed IMHO. Game is full of heavy make damage nukes and disables.

Are you fucking crazy?
BKB should be buffed IMHO. Game is full of heavy make damage nukes and disables.

Anyone that thinks BKB should be removed or nerfed should be ignored. It's an integral part of the balance of the game. DotA is a game of hard CC. Playing around BKB timings, playing around BKB cooldowns, etc. is all part of the game. If you don't like it, you are free to go play League of Legends, a game literally designed from the very start to be DotA without hard lockdown/BKB.

People suggesting things like BKB as an inherent skill, or 1 BKB per team... I am glad you are nowhere near Valve and do not have any influence over the development of this game. BKB is not "overpowered" - as a very concept that makes no sense. It's like saying that the AWP or the AK-47 are overpowered. It's like saying that the Queen is overpowered in Chess. It's not meant to be "balanced" because it's not a game variety element, it's a core game mechanic. It's like saying "stuns are overpowered". Stuns are stuns, they're a part of the identity of the game. BKB is the same. It's part of the identity of the game.

And I'm sorry but anyone who thinks BKB is overpowered as a concept is just... not fit for DotA. Now maybe the numbers are too good on it, maybe it's too cheap, maybe the components aren't quite right (I think they're iconic and should stay personally - it's been those items for such a long time it would be just bizarre to change it), maybe the way it loses charges isn't quite right - maybe it should go down to 6 seconds from 10 seconds by losing 1.5s each charge, maybe it should go down from 10s to 2s but be rebuyable to 10s like it used to be, etc. Those are the sorts of discussions that are worth having.

But people saying it should be completely reworked, removed, turned into an inherent spell, etc. are just crazy.

I have an idea. Make BKB similar to blink dagger. Cannot be activated in 3 seconds if takes player damage.