DOTA 2 - Abaddon

Introduction

“What harms you, heals me.”

Abaddon is a melee strength hero. He is most commonly played as a support hero, but with the capability to transition into a semi-carry in the late game.

He has a heal, a slow, and an ultimate which heals himself as he takes damage for a short duration, but his most vital ability is Aphotic Shield, which allows Abaddon to shield himself or an allied hero, purging most debuffs and stuns and absorbing damage before exploding back in the faces of enemy units.

Abaddon's complete character profile can be found here.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Absolutely amazing defensive support
• He can purge debuffs and even stuns/disables(!)
• Has a heal and a nuke
• Has a passive slow
• Deceptively tanky
• Ultimate generally makes enemies reluctant to focus you
• Can deny himself
• Scales amazingly well for a support – can even transition into a semi-carry role
• Really frustrating to play against – you don’t want to focus him but you can’t ignore his impact either

Cons

• Melee attack range
• Nukes trail off significantly during the mid and late game
• Does have some mana issues, especially if he goes Mekanism
• There are a handful of hard counters to Borrowed Time
• Fairly slow cast animation
• Requires good timing in the heat of battle
• No stun or lockdown
• You must have good game knowledge to support effectively (you need to know when to cast Aphotic Shield and what abilities and stuns it dispels)

Item Build

Abaddon is usually picked as a 4th or 5th position support hero, and indeed that is by far my preferred way of running him. As such you should purchase the Courier and/or Observer Wards at the start. Ideally support duties will be split between yourself and a second support hero (in which case you need only purchase one of those, otherwise you’ll have to buy both yourself).

A typical starting build for support Abaddon would be:

- A set of Tangos, a Healing Salve, Courier and/or Observer Wards, 3x Iron Branches, Clarity.

This gives you plenty of regen, covers your team’s initial support needs, and gets you started on your eventual Magic Wand.

Early Game

Make sure the Courier is upgraded into a Flying Courier at the 3 minute mark, and ensure that Observer Wards are always off cooldown.

Get Boots of Speed up and running as quickly as possible, and also finish off your Magic Wand.

Core Items

Keep ensuring Observer Wards are bought whenever they’re off cooldown, and in the meantime work towards your Arcane Boots. Between the need to spam Mist Coil and Aphotic Shield, as well as the eventual need to be able to use the active on Mekanism, they really are the best option for upgraded boots.

The downside of such a build is that it may delay your Mekanism by too much; if you’re struggling for farm you could rush the Mekanism, or get some early Tranquil Boots, although I really do try to avoid doing either of these; they are less than ideal.

Which brings me on to Mekanism. An absolutely fantastic item on any support, especially a ‘healing’ support like Abaddon. Mekanism is absolutely necessary for your team with its burst AoE heal and armour but be sure to check with your team to see if anyone else intends to build one before you get started on it. If someone else does intend to build it then you can move straight onto a luxury item pick-up.

Luxury Items

Drums of Endurance – Great all-round stats to help tank you up, cost-efficient, easy to build into, and gives your entire team bonus attack speed and move speed auras.

Vladmir’s Offering – Your entire team will benefit from the bonus damage, mana regeneration, and armour auras. It’s doubly good if any of your team’s core heroes are melee DPS’ers thanks to the lifesteal aura. And, of course, being melee yourself you get a lot out of it too.

Necronomicon – Great if you’re part of a pushing line-up or your team is struggling to break the base. Also a great item for teamfights and for countering any invis enemy heroes. Good for some decent stat gain as well.

Heaven’s Halberd – I love picking this up on non-traditional supports or strength supports like Alchemist or Sven, and of course Abaddon. At this stage of the game you’re actually becoming difficult to deal with yourself and transitioning into a semi-carry, so a Heaven’s Halberd (which doubles up as both a good carry item and a support item) is an ideal pick-up. It will make you even harder to take down and also gives you the ability to disarm enemies for 3-4.5 seconds.

Assault Cuirass – To be honest you’re going to struggle to complete an item like AC in all but the longest of long games. If the game really goes the distance it’s a perfect utility item, providing important auras for your team and freeing up slots for your cores to opt for items better tailored to themselves. At this point you can transition into more of a DPS’er role, which is one of the advantages of support heroes that are traditionally core heroes.

Scythe of Vyse – As a support hero, the likelihood of you being able to afford a Scythe during all but the longest of games (or largest of stomps) is minimal, but if you can afford it then definitely get it! 3.5 seconds of disable for your team is absolutely enormous, and that’s on top of the stats it provides, which will fully end any mana issues you may still have.

Situational Items

Sentry Wards, Dust of Appearance, Gem of True Sight – all-important detection. You’ll need at least one of these in your inventory if the enemy line-up features an invis hero. Sentry Wards will also allow you to deward rune spots, and Gem will give you superior vision going into the mid and late game.

Smoke of Deceit – If you roam with another support in the early stages of the game a Smoke will allow you to do so more quickly and without being spotted by enemy wards. Smoke will also come in handy in the post-laning phase if your team wants to gank as 5.

Ghost Scepter – If the enemy carry tears through you like a warm knife through butter than save up for a Ghost Scepter. You'll buy yourself 4 seconds in which to do something or even just distract them during a teamfight for a full 4 seconds (that's 4 seconds the more important heroes on your team have to punish the enemy team).

Skull Basher – Skull Basher into Abyssal Blade is a great choice if you want to transition into more of a semi-carry role. Abaddon’s key weakness really is that he lacks disable and this is one of the best ways to acquire that, doubly so since he’s a strength hero and so benefits fully from the stat gain.

Aghanim's Scepter - Some solid stats and a decent buff to your ultimate - it increases the duration by 2 seconds and redirects 35% of all damage dealt to nearby allied heroes in a 900 unit radius to Abaddon when active. This amounts to an effective increase in allied health of 53.85%, but is of course only useful during your ultimate's active duration, so you will often have to manually trigger it to get the most out of the Aghanim's buff.

Crimson Guard - It's a good item for tanking up with, if that's what you're in need of, whilst also allowing you to provide some added utility to your team thanks to the armor buff and damage block active. Don't purchase it if someone else on your team has one though - the actives do not stack.

Skill Build

Mist Coil is Abaddon’s offensive nuke and allied healing ability. It is maxed second when playing Abaddon as a support. As an offensive nuke it deals 100/150/200/250 magic damage to any enemy unit, at the cost of 75/100/125/150 of damage taken by Abaddon. As a heal it allows you to heal allied units by 100/150/200/250 health, but again at the cost of damage taken by Abaddon.

It is maxed second in order to get the most out of Mist Coil early on; later on in the game its impact as a nuke falls off dramatically, and its effectiveness as a heal is somewhat muted by everyone’s increased health pools. It is nonetheless a great and versatile ability in the early and mid game.

Aphotic Shield is always skilled and maxed first. This allows Abaddon to place a shield around an allied unit or himself. The shield removes negative buffs and stuns, absorbs 110/140/170/200 damage, and explodes in a 675 unit radius, causing damage equal to the amount absorbed.

Aphotic Shield makes for a great AoE nuke, as well as something of a meat shield for allied heroes who tend to get stuck into the fray during engagements, but the main reason it is an absolutely phenomenal defensive support ability is thanks to the way it removes negative buffs from allied units and, crucially, most stuns. An allied hero hit with a lengthy stun? Just cast Aphotic Shield on them it they’ll be straight back into the action.

Curse of Avernus is a passive ability which slows enemy units that Abaddon attacks for 2.5 seconds. Curse of Avernus also increases the attack speed and movement speed of allied units who attack the same enemy.

Although it is always maxed last, it is sometimes skilled once early on in order to make Abaddon a decent lane harasser. If your lane opponent can be zoned out with right clicks then Curse can be taken at level 2 or 4 and, when used in conjunction with Aphotic Shield, will allow you to force most solo laners out of experience range.

Borrowed Time is Abaddon’s ultimate and it is always skilled (so levels 6, 11 and 16). Borrowed time also removes negative debuffs, although this time only from Abaddon himself, but also means that any damage Abaddon takes for the duration of the ultimate (4/5/6 seconds respectively) will heal him, instead of harm him.

With a fairly short cooldown duration of 60/50/40 seconds this life-saver of an ability will be at your disposal in most engagements once you hit level 6. Although it can be self-activated, it will actually passively activate if you drop below 400 health.

This alone dissuades most people from focussing Abaddon in teamfights, and although there are a handful of counters to Borrowed Time it is nonetheless a fantastic tank ability that allows Abaddon to continue aiding allies with his other skills during teamfights.

Gameplay Tips

Mist Coil can be used to deny yourself, in much the same way that Pudge can kill himself with Rot. If you’re destined to die anyway, throw out a Mist Coil at the last second on any nearby enemy or ally – with good timing and a bit of luck you can kill yourself and thus deny the enemy team gold and experience.

The self damage from Mist Coil will be absorbed by Aphotic Shield. This actually gives Abaddon decent burst early on – Aphotic Shield cast prior to fighting, followed by a Mist Coil on an enemy, will quickly help make the Shield burst, causing AoE magic damage.

Although Aphotic Shield will absorb and return up to 200 damage, and it has a fairly low cooldown of 6 seconds at level 4, it will often be advisable to hold off on using it before major engagements, just so that you can have instant access to its stun removal feature.

Between Mist Coil and Aphotic Shield you can keep an allied hero alive much longer than they have any right to – 200 damage absorb and 250 healing makes for a potent defensive support combo throughout the early and mid games. The low cooldown of both abilities will allow you to get off multiple casts in more extended engagements as well.

Aphotic Shield lasts significantly longer than the ability’s cooldown. If you use it on someone who already has a Shield the original Shield will burst and be replaced, dealing the max AoE damage regardless of the amount absorbed. Only do this, however, if you’re fairly certain you won’t need to use Aphotic Shield to purge a stun within the next few seconds.

You need to be aware of the counters to Borrowed Time so that you are not caught off-guard by them: Axe’s Culling Blade and Ancient Apparition’s Ice Blast both ignore Borrowed Time, making them fairly hard counters to Abaddon. Doom’s Doom will also not trigger Borrowed Time. Finally, any abilities which deal more than 400 damage in a single instance can kill Abaddon without triggering Borrowed Time.

You can use Mist Coil after Borrowed Time has been triggered to actually heal yourself; be sure to throw it out when your ultimate is triggered.

Last updated - patch 6.83.