Is Khanda broken in Dota 2 patch 7.35b?

Dota 2 has hundreds of items. Some are cheap, others are very expensive. Some are intended for carry players, others for supports. But among these items, some feel a bit broken. Or, at least, they cause numerous players to complain.

In Dota 2 patch 7.35, IceFrog introduced a new item named Khanda. It’s made from a Crystalys, a Phylactery, and a 600 gold recipe. The total cost is 5000 but the benefits seem incredibly strong on certain heroes, such as Morphling and Queen of Pain.

What makes Khanda a strong item

Khanda can be built in the first 15-20 minutes and the power spike it provides is enormous. The item offers its owner +200 HP, +200 mana, +8 all attributes, +50 damage, a 30% chance to critical strike with +60% bonus damage, and also provides Empower Spell, a passive ability that imbues your next spell with 100 bonus damage, +75% attack damage, and 50% movement speed slow for 1.5s.

This ability regenerates every 6s, so it’s ideal if you have a 6s spell that you can spam in fights. Another thing to keep in mind is that the spell needs to be a targeted ability. This is why heroes like Lina don’t really benefit from buying Khanda. Both her Q and W are AoE spells. But Morphling has his Adaptive Strike, which gains tremendous damage from the item.

Naturally, this ability deals 85 + 2.5 * agility damage. So after the first 15-20 minutes, it ends up dealing 300 – 400 damage. But when you combine it with Khanda, it can easily deal 600 – 800 damage. Combined with the 300 damage from Waveform, plus some basic attacks, and a support hero disappears from the map within seconds.

On a hero like Tinker, this item is terrifying. As you probably know, Tinker can refresh his abilities. This means that he can use his Laser quite often in team fights. And since it’s a targeted spell, Khanda’s passive is applied to it.

This item seems to be the perfect choice for hybrid heroes. That is, for heroes that are neither pure physical damage dealers nor pure magic damage dealers. To take full advantage of the item, you need a hero that deals lots of right-click damage and has one low-cooldown ability that can benefit from Khanda’s passive.

Such heroes are perfect Khanda buyers because the item is a bit like Eye of Skadi. It gives you a lot of stats and other great bonuses on top of them.

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