There’s something a miss with combo breakers.

Blademail, bloodstone and Aeon Disk are all in a weird place right now. These defensive “showstoppers” that can be activated to deter attackers.

Blademail is mostly ignored, Bloodstone is totally ignored – except being totally broken on one hero, and Aeon Disk is only really used in this weird active way now.

I attribute this to one of the most unique, yet sorta crazy, mechanics in Dota. BKB. It’s power is just completely unparalleled and such a necessary item, because without it disables are just too strong. You would have to rework status resist (which was tried and failed) or rework all right-click cores. In the pro scene, choosing to take a fight or not is often based on this singular item (or baiting it out) because without it many heroes don’t actually work.

So, these active defensive items are probably getting reworked next patch, but how best to achieve that? Considering the impact, or lack thereof, they have. It’s very tricky to make combo-breakers too strong but if they are too weak, players opt for reduction items instead (hood, wraith pact, vanguard).

Personally, it would be really interesting to see these active defensive items made a little weaker but a little cheaper, then perhaps giving them an upgrade option that is quite strong but expensive – like the Euls treatment.

For example, and don’t take this too seriously; what if cheaper Blademail and cheaper bloodstone combine into a new aeon disk that works like abandons ulti, but just for 1 second? Would that just be busted? It’s a fine line between for these kind of items, and an inherent design struggle for Dota.

What do y’all think is gonna happen to these items?