Ability Draft

'Create a Custom Hero via 4-Round Draft. You Can Choose Up to 3 Regular Abilities and 1 Ultimate.'

Ability Draft is an official core game mode that vastly differentiates from all other game modes, with practically infinite possibilities and unique matches.

Each player is given a random hero with no abilities. The pool of abilities consists of the abilities of these random heroes, plus  additional random heroes' abilities. Players then take turns drafting the 3 regular abilities and 1 ultimate ability they want.

Drafting

 * Players have their player slots shuffled within their teams. In hosted lobbies, this can be toggled off.
 * An initial -second planning phase begins, during which the teams can see which heroes everyone got and which abilities are available. Players can use the chatbox or voice chat to plan out their picks.
 * The picking phase begins afterward. The pick order consists of 2 phases that repeat twice, and every player gets to pick 4 times.


 * always gets to pick first.
 * Each player has seconds to pick an ability on their turn.
 * The picked ability is granted to the drafting player, then removed from the pool.
 * If the player does not pick an ability within seconds, a random ability from the remaining pool will be assigned.
 * If the player picks an ability, the pick time still has to elapse before the next player's turn starts.
 * This means each phase takes a total of seconds.


 * After each phase, there is a -second break before the next phase starts.


 * Overall, there are picking phases and breaks, resulting in a drafting duration of  seconds.
 * After the picking phase, there is a -second waiting period before the -second strategy phase begins.
 * At all times, the players can communicate with their teams via the chatbox or voice chat.


 * In total, the drafting takes seconds, or 6 minutes and 35 seconds.

Available Heroes
All heroes are currently available in Ability Draft.

Invoker
When Invoker is in the hero pool, 3 of his adapted abilities are chosen randomly. Invoker does not add ultimate abilities to the draft pool. These Ability Draft versions work like the original, but are modified to follow the default 4-level system.

Although Invoker gains the traits of, and  as passive/innate buffs, he neither gains the passive attributes given by the abilities, nor is able to cast these abilities. These buffs level up alternatingly and automatically according to Invoker's level.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; width:100%;" ! class="header" colspan="4" | Quas Wex Exort Buff
 * colspan="2" | Buff
 * style="width:40%;" | Bonus
 * style="width:40%;" | Unlock Level
 * }
 * }
 * }

Ability Pool
The pool of abilities consists of the abilities of random heroes, plus  additional random heroes' abilities as extras. These extra heroes themselves do not appear in the match. This results in a total of regular abilities and  ultimate abilities for drafting.

However, some heroes do not have all of their abilities available in the pool, some abilities are restricted from the game mode for varying reasons.

If a hero with an unavailable ability appears in the pool, a replacement ability from another random hero is added in. Only one hero that requires a replacement ability can be within the pool of heroes.

Ctrl to highlight available and  upgrades while drafting abilities.

Adaptations
Due to the very chaotic nature of Ability Draft, several abilities and heroes have received some changes to work within the game mode.

Generic Talents
Generic talents (i.e. plain stats bonuses) are unchanged. Talents that affect specific abilities which have not been drafted by that hero are replaced by an instant  boost.

Unique Talents
Hero specific talents that are not bound to any ability, will be still available regardless of the abilities are drafted by that hero.

Bash Sources
In Ability Draft, multiple sources of bash fully stack, and they proc independently from each other sources. Heroes with abilities that uses the bash mechanic are allowed to purchase items that provide bash (e.g. and ) and also proc bash from drafted abilities.

Abilities Requiring Multiple Slots
To prevent Hotkey conflicts, non-ultimate abilities are limited to 1 ability slot at max, while ultimate abilities can use up to 3 ability slots. This means a hero cannot have more than 7 ability slots occupied at a time. To accommodate for this, abilities that require multiple slots have been adapted to fit this scheme.

Unlockable Abilities
The following ultimate abilities grant the drafting player additional abilities upon acquiring or.

Ability Dependencies
Sometimes ability synergies require multiple abilities to be present at the same time on the same hero for its effect. The following abilities have ability effects that require or rely on other abilities and should be drafted with consideration.

Console Commands
The following console commands can be used while on the dashboard to create custom settings for private Ability Draft lobbies.

Note that all these commands are considered cheats and therefore only work on local lobbies.

Examples
The following console commands result in what is shown in the image.

This sets the hero pool to, , , , on the Radiant side, , , , ,  on the Dire side, and ,  as extra heroes.

Techies and Riki are not assigned to any player, but have their abilities included in the pool. Invoker does not have an ultimate ability in the pool, so was randomly added as a replacement.

These commands allow for easy testing of combinations and interactions, without relying on luck to get the right abilities one wants to test.