Abaddon Guide


Items

Starting items:

  • Tango and Healing Salve are important in order to keep Abaddon from being harassed out of the lane, particularly as he is a melee hero.
  • Clarity fuels Abaddon`s powerful spells, giving him the mana to make or break engagements through manipulating the HP and damage taken by his allies.
  • Iron Branch are cheap and give Abaddon additional attributes. They can be built into a Magic Wand or Mekansm components, or simply sold for more inventory space.
  • Animal Courier is expected as support Abaddon is less item-dependent than others.

Early game:

Core items:

Gameplay

Playstyle
Abaddon   Hero   Strategy   Counters   Equipment   Gear   Responses   Sounds   Lore   Old Abilities   Changelogs   Known Bugs     Abaddon 23 + 2.6 17 + 1.5 21 + dota2 is versatile hero who specializes in absorbing damage and shielding his teammates. Unlike other supports, Abaddon`s Borrowed Time allows him to be in the middle of the fight, converting heavy attacks back into health. His Mist Coil Aphotic Shield makes it frustratingly hard for enemies to bring down his allies, and their low cooldowns can turn fights around at crucial moments. Curse of Avernus slows foes hit by your sword, giving them a hard time running from you and your allies (since you can hit them with no worries while your ultimate   Hero   Strategy   Counters   Equipment   Gear   Responses   Sounds   Lore   Old Abilities   Changelogs   Known Bugs     Abaddon 23 + 2.6 17 + 1.5 21 + dota2 is off cooldown), at the same time increasing your allies attack speed and movement speed if they also hit the enemy. Although Abaddon   Hero   Strategy   Counters   Equipment   Gear   Responses   Sounds   Lore   Old Abilities   Changelogs   Known Bugs     Abaddon 23 + 2.6 17 + 1.5 21 + dota2 `s common build seldom allows him to do enough damage to kill enemies alone, he can still provide cheap nuke damage while played as support, and under favorable circumstances, he can also be played as a semi-carry.
Pros Cons
  • Low mobility.
  • Low starting armor.
  • Long cast animations.
  • Mana dependent.

Videos

Info

Hero Strategy Counters Play “Many hands make light work.” This article is badly written or needs more information. Please help the community by updating it. Read this formatting guide first.   Hero   Strategy   Counters   Equipment   Equipment   Hero   Strategy   Counters   Equipment   Gear   Responses   Sounds   Lore   Old Abilities   Changelogs   Known Bugs     v • d • e Abaddon Equipment (collapse sets)Sets Anointed Armor of Ruination Arsenal dota2 Gear   Hero   Strategy   Counters   Equipment   Gear   Responses   Sounds   Lore   Old Abilities   Changelogs   Known Bugs     This is a list of cosmetic items that reflects dota2 Responses   Hero   Strategy   Counters   Equipment   Gear   Responses   Sounds   Lore   Old Abilities   Changelogs   Known Bugs     v • d • e  Voice responses Hero responses Abaddon Alchemist Ancient Apparition Anti-Mage Sounds   Hero   Strategy   Counters   Equipment   Gear   Responses   Sounds   Lore   Old Abilities   Changelogs   Known Bugs     v • d • e  Dota 2 Sounds Hero Sounds Abaddon Alchemist Ancient Apparition Lore   Hero   Strategy   Counters   Equipment   Gear   Responses   Sounds   Lore   Old Abilities   Changelogs   Known Bugs     Abaddon, the Lord of Avernus The Font of Avernus Old Abilities   Hero   Strategy   Counters   Equipment   Gear   Responses   Sounds   Lore   Old Abilities   Changelogs   Known Bugs     Mark of the Abyss (6.24 - 6.33) WR AbilityTarget dota2 Changelogs   Hero   Strategy   Counters   Equipment   Gear   Responses   Sounds   Lore   Old Abilities   Changelogs   Known Bugs     Contents 1 Version history 2 Patch history Version history dota2 Known Bugs   Hero   Strategy   Counters   Equipment   Gear   Responses   Sounds   Lore   Old Abilities   Changelogs   Known Bugs     Contents 1 General 2 Mist Coil 3 Aphotic Shield

Generic/Support Abaddon

Generic/Support Abaddon
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  • Abaddon is most commonly played as a support whose main purpose is to protect its carry from a hard disable with Aphotic Shield and heal him regularly with Mist Coils. In this way, it is sometimes unwise to rush in the middle of a battle despite your ultimate, because you lose your usefulness if you get disabled or silenced. In such situations, Curse of Avernus can be rather useless during teamfights as you won`t attack enemies much. Don`t skip it entirely as it will help push towers at the very least.

Carry/Aggressive Abaddon

Carry/Aggressive Abaddon
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  • Maxing Mist Coil early can catch your opponents off guard. Though extra levels in it do not come with the extra benefit of cooldown reduction, the DPS it provides compared to Aphotic Shield is still better, since its cd is already so low. Maxing Mist Coil will also help you self-trigger your shield thanks to the increased self-damage, and its cast range is decent. At long last, although extra levels in shield are nice, it becomes useless if there is nothing to detonate it to harm your opponent. All-in-all, it should be near-impossible for a lone enemy to get near you without taking heavy damage when maxing Mist Coil.

Talents

Hero Talents
+300 Aphotic Shield Health 25 +25 Strength attribute symbol.png Strength
15% Cooldown Reduction 20 +25 Movement Speed
+5 Armor 15 +200 Mana
+20% XP Gain 10 +25 Damage
Notes:
  • The armor and attack damage are added as bonus armor and bonus attack damage, and therefore do not benefit illusions.
  • Upgrading mana increases maximum mana capacity and keeps the current mana percentage.
  • Cooldown reduction affects abilities and items. Stacks multiplicatively with Octarine Core and additively with Arcane Rune.
  • The capacity bonus to Aphotic Shield also affects its area damage.

General

  • Abaddon is renowned for his multipurpose spells capable of manipulating how much damage the enemy is able to deal to his team, and turn it against them. In this way, Abaddon is not only able to protect and heal his teammates, but also possesses offensive potential capable of dealing damage to enemies as well.
  • Abaddon`s versatile skill set allows him to be played as either a carry or a support, depending on what his team needs. He is able to gear his skill build towards protecting teammates and shielding them from harm, or for more offensive purposes to give himself more damage output.
  • Beware that Abaddon has very long cast animations for Mist Coil and Aphotic Shield, requiring roughly 50% more time to cast his spells than most other heroes. Positioning and planning ahead are crucial for allowing Abaddon to get his spells off in time.
  • One of Abaddon`s early weaknesses is his poor agility, resulting in low base armor (and thus vulnerability to physical damage despite being a strength hero) and poor attack speed (hampering his carry potential). Rectifying his armor weakness is crucial in order to make him effective in any role he plays, though improving his attack speed is dependent on if he is playing as a carry.
  • Depending on if he is being built as a support or carry, Abaddon has differing itemization priorities and skill builds.
    • Abaddon is generally played as a safe lane support due to the vast survivability his skills provide for his team. His role in the safe lane is to control lane equilibrium through pulling creep waves, as his ability to harass the enemy off-laner is hampered by being a melee hero. He also stacks jungle camps for his carry to farm later, and acts as a babysitter capable of protecting his lane against enemy aggression with his powerful survivability spells. As a support he focuses on building mana items to allow him to continue casting his spells, and @@@#@@@HP(hp.com)###@### regen items to fuel the cost of Mist Coil, then utility items to give his team an advantage in fights. His skill build aims towards maxing out Aphotic Shield and Mist Coil first in order to maximize his early nuking power while also protecting his teammates.
    • As a carry, Abaddon must gear towards tankiness and damage output, forcing the enemy to treat him as a threat so that he can take advantage of his ultimate. A carry Abaddon is geared less towards casting but more towards damage output, prioritizing Mist Coil for nuking power and Curse of Avernus for attack speed. Unlike most carries that try to directly attack and kill the enemy, Abaddon`s carry potential lies in forcing the enemy to engage him and wasting their nukes and disables on him, and then negating that damage with his ultimate.

Mist Coil

  • Mist Coil`s low cooldown allows it to be used multiple times in an engagement at all points of the game. It can be used as a heal in one cast, a damage nuke in another, and even cast to break Linken`s Sphere on an enemy or Roshan.
  • Beware of overtaxing yourself when using this spell repeatedly. While its low mana cost and short cooldown allows Abaddon to almost always have this spell at the ready, getting too low in HPTechnology company can prevent him from being effective in fights due to the danger of dying to enemy focus without Borrowed Time, or being forced to use his ultimate too early.
  • The health cost of Mist Coil is dealt as Pure damage, which allows it to interact with Abaddon`s other spells.
    • Because it is treated as damage by game mechanics, Mist Coil`s damage is affected by both Aphotic Shield and Borrowed Time. Casting Mist Coil during an active Aphotic Shield prevents Abaddon from taking damage while simultaneously adding to its damage threshold, and can either proc Borrowed Time passively when falling below 400 HPTechnology company or heal Abaddon if it is already active.
    • The self-damage from Mist Coil is also lethal, which allows Abaddon to commit suicide with the spell. Deliberately used in this manner, Abaddon can deny himself in the face of attacking enemies, preventing them from profiting from his death.
  • During pushes, Abaddon can cast Mist Coil and/or Aphotic Shield on a currently tanking lane creep, to boost their survivability.
  • Use Mist Coil to secure last-hits at range.

Aphotic Shield

  • Casting Aphotic Shield on an ally applies a strong dispel on them, removing stuns as well as all otherwise purgeable debuffs. This makes the spell extremely strong against long-duration disables such as Sacred Arrow, Fiend`s Grip, Chaos Bolt and so on, as the disable can be immediately broken and the target allowed to act.
  • Aphotic Shield can be used as a farming and pushing spell, due to its area damage. Placing the shield on the leading creep in an attacking wave shields it from damage for a short time, and then inflicts area damage on the enemy creep wave once it bursts. Similarly, casting it on Abaddon while farming neutral camps allows him to deal nuke damage after shielding himself from their attacks.
  • Abaddon`s Aphotic Shield can be used to harass enemy farm. By placing the shield on an allied creep with low hp, enemy heroes will be denied the last hit, otherwise suffer shield damage in the process. This allows easy creep denying after the shield bursts. Abaddon can also deny the creep himself to make the shield burst if the enemy hero doesn`t do so. This can harass melee heroes and ranged heroes to a certain extent, making it a lot harder for them to farm.
  • Used as a counter-gank spell, Aphotic Shield has the power to completely turn situations around. Shielding a teammate who is being ganked stops them from taking damage (and can be further augmented by healing them with Mist Coil), forcing the enemy to commit additional time and attacks, and then turning that damage against them, effectively causing a double shift in HP of the shield`s listed value. The damage from a bursting shield can potentially damage an enemy enough to bring them within kill range.
  • In the same vein, Aphotic Shield is a powerful tower-diving spell for finishing off weak enemies. Placing Aphotic Shield on an ally prevents them from taking damage from tower hits for a short time, and the shield bursting deals nuke damage to the enemy, usually enough to finish them off. As well, tower-diving allies do not need to stop to perform cast or attack animations in order for the shield to burst, allowing them to easily chase within range of the detonation.
  • Unlike most other sources of damage negation, Aphotic Shield blocks any damage that is taken (after reductions. This means that magic resistance and armor can increase Aphotic Shield`s potency, as none of the shield`s power is wasted on damage that is reduced by resistances (e.g., a 200 magic damage nuke on a target with 25% magic resistance deals 150 damage to the shield).
  • Casting Aphotic Shield upon the same target before its duration has ended automatically detonates the shield before reapplying another. Combining this tactic with its massive radius can help to increase your DPS in a teamfight or finish off enemies during a chase.

Curse of Avernus

  • In practical terms, the short debuff duration of Curse of Avernus means that Abaddon must constantly focus on attacking an enemy in order to inflict them with the slow for more than a short period of time. Additionally, allies must coordinate with Abaddon in order to ensure that they can maintain the speed buffs through focusing on affected enemies, as the buff duration is only marginally longer than the debuff.
  • During the laning phase, Curse of Avernus can be a useful spell to get at least one level in, as the movement speed shift can allow Abaddon and his allies to gain a speed advantage over gank targets. This can also be used defensively, inflicting a ganking enemy with the debuff to prevent them from easily chasing allies.
  • Curse of Avernus can be a useful spell for farming, as it reduces neutral creeps` attack speed while boosting that of Abaddon, increasing his damage output while simultaneously reducing theirs to mitigate any damage dealt to Abaddon`s HP pool.
  • In concert to the above, Abaddon can push creep waves surprisingly well through judicious use of Curse of Avernus. Inflicting the debuff on enemy creeps reduces their damage output while also boosting that of allied creeps, causing the creep wave to push towards the enemy base without needing to expend mana. The curse can also be inflicted on enemy buildings, particularly their towers, cutting down their attack interval while also increasing that of all creeps attacking them, accelerating the tower`s destruction.
  • Abaddon benefits from building items that provide additional slows, as they stack linearly with that applied by Curse of Avernus. Further reducing the enemy`s movement and attack speed can give Abaddon and his team a powerful mobility advantage.
  • Remember that while Curse of Avernus`s debuff can be purged, it can also be applied through spell immunity. This allows Abaddon to inhibit the enemy`s attempts to re-position and attack even if they activate spell immunity, which can give his team a crucial edge in fights.

Borrowed Time

  • Borrowed Time is a good way to make the enemy to waste time and spells on Abaddon, as he can simply heal back up and force them to engage him all over again when their abilities are on cooldown. This is best exploited if Abaddon is already at full health, as the enemy then needs to expend resources to bring him to low health first, before proccing Borrowed Time.
  • Abaddon can tower-dive quite effectively in the early game combined with Borrowed Time, as he can simply ignore tower and creep damage in his pursuit, and then finish the foe off with his other spells. Remember that Mist Coil`s self-damage is treated as a heal during Borrowed Time, allowing Abaddon to use it as a self-heal and nuke with only mana as its cost.
  • During Borrowed Time, Aphotic Shield does not proc any damage shielding, as any incoming damage is treated as a heal after reductions. Casting Aphotic Shield during Borrowed Time not only removes debuffs from Abaddon, but also leaves him with a fresh shield once it ends.
  • If the enemy attempts to avoid attacking Abaddon during Borrowed Time in an effort to prevent him from healing, Abaddon can force the issue by taking advantage of enemy area nukes and attracting the attention of the enemy`s towers and creeps. Spells such as Macropyre, Midnight Pulse and Mar. of the Machines can deal area damage outside of the casting hero`s control, and can be used as sources of healing during Borrowed Time.
  • Abaddon retains the ability to cast Borrowed Time through any disables excluding Silence and Hex. This allows Abaddon to snap himself out of most enemy disables, including targeted channels like Dismember and Fiend`s Grip and directly engage the enemy or cast his spells (for instance, to heal an ally with Mist Coil or protect them with Aphotic Shield). Be that as it may, beware of persisting area disables such as Ice Path and Chronosphere, which can immediately disable Abaddon again after casting.
  • Beware that since the damage instance that procs Borrowed Time is not healed up, it is possible for Abaddon to die if an attack brings him from above 400 HP to death in a single instance, as Borrowed Time does not passively proc. In order to circumvent this, Borrowed Time can be manually cast before reaching the threshold, and with good timing can bait the enemy into healing Abaddon.
  • With Aghanim`s Scepter, Abaddon gains the ability to shield all nearby allies from harm during Borrowed Time, by giving them a damage resistance buff that redirects half of all damage they would otherwise take to Abaddon during his ultimate. Used at the right time, it can give teammates much more survivability by doubling their effective HP against all damage types for the duration of Borrowed Time, while forcing the enemy to heal Abaddon himself.