General DiscussionHow to play Abaddon, by siveZ.

Introduction: Abaddon the Lord of Avernus is a melee strength hero known as a powerful support due to his short cooldown nukes and saving abilities. He is not demanding to items, but depends on level to reveal his nuking/saving potential. Usually played as a lane support and can also act as a durable to tank damage output from enemy.

Pros: low-cooldown and mana cost nukes/saving abilities, durable, attack orb that helps to focus an enemy hero, independence of expensive items.

Cons: mana and health regen dependent, no disables, low mobility.

Abiliites:

Mist Coil - nuke that can be used to heal allies or damage enemies. It has a high use range of 800, low manacost and cooldown. It also damages yourself though. Cannot be used on yourself or magic immune units.

Self-damage is pure, it is not reduced by your magic resistance. You can suicide with this damage.

Enemy damage is magical, it is reduced by magic resistance.

Aphotic Shield - shield that absorbs your allies damage. When destroyed, deals magical AoE damage. It has a medium use range of 500. Removes most of debuffs from target on use, including stuns.

Any non-HP removal damage counts as absorbed damage, including self-damage from Mist Coil. Damage is calculated after all reductions.

Will detonate and replace any existing Aphotic Shield already surrounding a target. Bursts for max damage regardless of damage amount absorbed.

Aphotic Shield bursts at the end of duration is if it has not absorbed enough damage.

Can be purged by enemy, still bursts though. Cannot be used on magic immune allies, but is not removed if magic immunity was gained after shield usage.

Curse of Avernus - attack orb that slows enemy unit. Friendly units attacking slowed one gain bonus attack and movement speed.

Affects magic immune targets. It is not a unique attack modifier (FKA orb effect) and stacks with other unique attack modifiers.

Borrowed Time - when activated, Abaddon dodges all projectiles currently flying at him and removes most debuffs. Also any non-HP removal damage you take will heal instead of damaging you. If ability is not on cooldown it will passively activate when your HP drop below a threshold of 400.

If Abaddon is doomed before he hits the HP threshold, Borrowed Time will not activate.

Culling Blade and Ice Blast will kill Abaddon if he fits the health threshold, even with Borrowed Time activated. Ice Blast also prevents you from healing, but you will not take any damage either for Borrowed Time's duration.

While rare, it is possible for Abaddon to die if he has not yet reached the damage threshold for activation, and hit by an attack with a damage exceeding or equaling his current health pool. Thus if Abaddon has 401 health left, and an attack does 401 or more damage, he will die without auto-activation of the spell. Some examples include Lina’s and Lion’s ultimate, Queen of Pain’s Sonic Wave and Necrophos’ Reaper’s Scythe.

Skill Builds:

I prefer to max his primary nuke, Mist Coil. It scales well with level, increasing enemy and self-damage which is surpsingly good when you want to deny yourself. It doesn’t increase in manacost, though. I don’t like to invest any points into Curse of Avernus untill you max both nukes.

Lane support Abaddon skill build is:

[color=#00FFFF]2-1-1-2-1-4-1-2-2-3-4-3-3-3-stats-4-stats[/color]

Choosing between Mist Coild and Aphotic Shield is a matter of taste. If you play against a big amount of disables, you need to use Shield more often to dispel debuffs. Shield reduces cooldown with level, so I advice to max it in this case.

You can invest 1 point into Curse of Avernus to make chasing easier.

Semi-carry Abaddon skill build is:

[color=#00FFFF]3-1-3-2-3-4-3-1-2-1-4-2-1-2-stats-4-stats[/color]

Carry Abaddon relies on his autoattack, so you should max his only attack orb and steroid - Curse of Avernus. Put other points balanced between his two nukes.

Roles: Abaddon’s primary role is lane support. He can babysit his carry and stay in lane to get level.
His additional role is to tank damage because of his Borrowed Time ultimate that provides him second life.

He is occasionally played as a carry. Abaddon is not very powerful at this since he doesn’t have any measurable steroids to make him strong with DPS items. On the other hand he can deal high overall damage in fights thanks to his durability. His midgame presence in this role is very high because, unlike traditional carries, he has two spammable nukes.

Item choice: these are depending on your opinion and role since Abaddon himself doesn’t require a big net worth to become useful. I’ll discuss his main role, as always, the lane support item build.

His [color=#FFA500]boots of choice[/color] are, IMO, Arcane Boots, of course. They increase your mana pool and regen to use your nukes more often which dramatically increase your usefulness.

Other viable option include Phase Boots to avoid being blocked to reach target so you can put Curse of Avernus on enemy.

His [color=#FFA500]main items[/color] are [color=#008000]Urn of Shadows[/color] and [color=#008000]Mekansm[/color]. First one is required to heal yourself or to damage enemy, it also gives you some mana regen and strength to increase your tankiness. Mekansm is just a must-have purchase for every support, it is not discussed.

That’s all Abaddon needs to show his best. Other items are situational and these are mostly regen items, auras or some carry items.

Pipe of Insight - useful situational item against strong AoE nukers like Sand King, Lich, Queen of Pain etc. It’s health regen is very useful to use Mist Coild more often.

Shiva’s Guard - it’s attack speed reduce aura is very handful against carries, and Arctic Blast allows you to chase enemy. IMO the most important thing about Shiva is intelligence growth which gives you a lot of mana at the cost of only 4700 gold.

Heart of Tarrasque - extremely expensive and valuable item. Attempt to buy it if you’re primary durable hero in your team.

Assault Cuirass - alternative to Shiva’s Guard, provides a lot of armor and a decent armor aura.

Scythe of Vyse - a lot of MP and it’s regeneration, one of the best disables in Dota, very high price. Think twice before building it - you can fail or game can end before you finish it because of price.

Heaven’s Halberd - DISARM! On the other hand it’s an arguable item because misses will do bad for you when Borrowed Time is activated. It works good against carries with powerful auto-attack.

Sange and Yasha - another good derivative from Sange. It’s a good choice for semicarry Abaddon or if game is going bad and you need cheap items. It doesn’t have any notable features, though.

Vladmir’s Offering - one of the most built items on Abaddon. Works well on any build and role - great aura if you have melee carry.

Eye of Skadi - situational item for both support and carry Abaddon builds. Additional slow can make enemy carry a really bad time. All stats boost makes him better in all aspects - more armor, more HP and MP to be even more durable. Skadi stacks with Curse of Avernus.

Laning, Mid and Late game play styles:

Your laning phase concentrates on gaining experience and watching over your carry. You strongly need a level untill midgame to show your best. Your main items are very cheap so don’t worry about gold - if you’re good, you will get some items.

Mid game is all about Abaddon - nukers got their level and carries still didn’t get their items, so you can dominate this phase. With Abaddon saving capabilities you can be very offensive. Do not use your Aphotic Shield untill your mate is attacked or disabled - dispelling stuns is very important.

Late game - the fall of Lord’s presence, you should shift from dealing damage to provide auras to your allies and tank as much as possible with your Borrowed Time. Your play style is still agressive thanks to your ultimate ability.

Problems: these are your inability to catch/disable enemies, regen to spam nukes, and heroes that can kill you before Borrowed Time activation. Heroes with mana drain can also become a huge trouble. Typical examples include Anti-Mage with Mana Break, Doom, Lina/Lion with their ultimates that can kill you before Borrowed Time activation.

Thanks for your attention and opinions. And I'm sorry for mistakes - English is not my native language.