Sorry to rant, but people are just stuck in the DotA mindset, unfortunately. Yes, Blood Chalice is extremely strong. Yes, it's used on almost every hero. But is it broken?
As a designer, I don't find it broken. I find it to be severely overpowered, direly in need of a nerf, but within the context of DotA and HoN, it is not at all overpowered. It's definitely overused, though--which is what we're going to be addressing with the upcoming nerf (25>35s cd). Eventually, we may nerf it further.
I think a good example of an item that is outright broken and overused, but has seen very little change, is Magic Stick/Wand in DotA. The item has become ubiquitous to such an extent that in 9/10 competitive DotA games, every single hero will have a Magic Wand by the end of the game. The very core of the item is downright broken; why, in a competitive game, is one of the most cheapest and efficient item one that discourages aggression and reactionary play? In DotA, no one questions the design decisions behind this item. The Magic Bottle is another item with no downsides that should have sparked debate, but does not. At S2, we have debates around this item, and similar items, like Blood Chalice, regularly. We knew that, just like how Magic Wand metagame'd out heroes like Zeus and Bristleback in DotA, Blood Chalice would metagame in those same heroes.
But why is it that Blood Chalice is imbalanced, when those other items are not? Was it wrong for us to design an item that would reach the iconic level of Magic Wand and Bottle? That was actually our original intention--to do exactly just that. I feel that it would be healthy for the game if, eventually, Magic Wand, Bottle, and Blood Chalice all reached a level where they are great, powerful conditional buys, not ubiquitous buys. Either way, now that we've introduced the item in the current state, we have to be careful to make incremental nerfs, lest we upset the competitive community.
I respect Riot Games and the LoL crew immensely for being able to see past the basic gameplay faults in DotA and build a new game out of the best parts of the genre and push it forward, to be honest. I think all of S2 Games internally has a great deal of respect for them, and I hope they feel the same about us (shoutout to Pendragon_). But all of the "problems" that the Blood Chalice has introduced: needing to go to the fountain less, less reliance on consumables, evening the playing field for melee/ranged heroes (due to the fact that melee heroes tend to not have very high mana pools)... are actually positive in a game-design sense, even if they upset the current stable metagame.
So to me, Blood Chalice is a huge success. And I personally hope we'll be able to put out items that affect the game that much in the near future.
