Abaddon

Abaddon the Lord of Avernus is a melee strength Hero known as one of the most versatile characters in Dota due to his rather low mana dependence, short spell cooldowns and a large number of viable item choices. His ability to help sustain his allies and himself plus his strong tower diving capacity give him solid lane presence. Many of his abilities offer a large sum of utility, which makes him a strong support Hero. Mist Coil serves as both a single target nuke and heal that helps shift the sustainability of both allied and enemy heroes in a lane at his will, though sacrificing a portion of his own health. Aphotic Shield holds as one of the most useful abilities in the game, able to shield a target from some damage while also able to reflect said damage to a huge area. The most important aspect is how it is able to dispel many status effects such as slows and stuns. His other abilities allow him to become a mix between a semi-carry and tank. Abaddon's passive, Curse of Avernus, allows his attacks to not only slow down his enemy, but also increase the attack and movement speed of any ally attacking the same target. With his ultimate, Borrowed Time, Abaddon is able to shift all non-HP removal damage he receives into health. When not on cooldown, Borrowed Time may activate passively when his health falls under a certain threshold, even under the most dire situations. Due to his powerful spells and versatility, Abaddon is an excellent addition to any team.

Gameplay
Able to transform enemy attacks into self-healing, Abaddon can survive almost any assault. Shielding allies and launching his double-edged coil at a friend or foe, he is always ready to ride into the thick of battle.

Tips

 * 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.
 * Most generally, Abaddon is 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 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.
 * is a versatile targeted spell that allows Abaddon to heal a teammate or damage an enemy, at the cost of mana and HP.
 * Mist Coil allows Abaddon to heal teammates if they get low on HP, and can be an unexpected surprise if the enemy attempts to gank an ally. Healing a teammate during an enemy gank forces the enemy to commit further time, nukes and attacks in order to get a kill, which can cause them to overextend and open themselves up to a counter-gank.
 * 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 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 HP 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 HP 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. It can also be cast as a farming nuke to secure last-hits at range.
 * places a shield over any friendly unit, removing debuffs from them while also shielding them from a set amount of damage that is then turned against the enemy when the shield bursts.
 * Aphotic Shield is a very powerful protective spell, as it completely shields allies from damage while it is active, and then turns into an area damage nuke upon expiring. This way it effectively allows you to use the enemy's damage against them.
 * 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, , 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.
 * allows Abaddon to inflict a movement and attack speed slow debuff on any enemies he attacks, while providing a movement and attack speed buff to all allies who target that enemy.
 * 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.
 * , Abaddon's ultimate, converts all incoming damage into healing of the same amount, allowing him to recover tremendous amounts of HP when near death.
 * 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, and  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 and  and directly engage the enemy or cast his spells (for instance, to heal an ally with Mist Coil or protect them with Aphotic Shield). However, beware of persisting area disables such as  and, 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.
 * Due to his great flexibility, Abaddon benefits from building a wide variety of items depending on his build.
 * is a useful item to mitigate any harass Abaddon takes in the laning stage, particularly if he is being built as a carry.
 * allows Abaddon to apply a slow with his attacks, and stacks alongside Curse of Avernus. It can be a good item to build for an aggressive posture, in order to inflict a stronger slow on gank targets.
 * is a useful utility support item that synergizes with Abaddon's ability to protect and heal his team. The increased strength gives Abaddon more HP and base damage and the mana regen helps keep his mana pool filled. Urn charges can be used to heal teammates or damage enemies alongside Mist Coil, and can be used on Abaddon himself to recoup Mist Coil's HP cost.
 * is a strong support item that allows Abaddon to replenish his teammates' mana as well as his own. Given the strong defensive power of Aphotic Shield, having the mana to cast it whenever it is needed can greatly benefit Abaddon's team.
 * helps give a carry Abaddon more combat presence. The increased attack speed allows Abaddon to utilize his physical attacks more, and attribute switching can reduce the mana cost of Aphotic Shield, reduce the HP cost of Mist Coil, and give Abaddon more HP and base damage as needed.
 * is a cheap lifesteal item that can give Abaddon tremendous attack speed in order to increase his damage output as a carry. The lifesteal allows Abaddon to maintain his HP while farming, and recover the HP cost of casting Mist Coil. Using the active in combat allows Abaddon to utilize his physical attacks to deal damage, while at the same time boosting his movement speed to better allow him to take advantage of Curse of Avernus. The increased damage vulnerability can be ignored in favor of Borrowed Time, which prevents the enemy from using it against him.
 * can be a powerful semi-carry item that fills in several of Abaddon's deficiencies. The bonus armor increases his tankiness, the bonus intelligence gives him more mana for casting spells, and the bonus damage increases his damage output for fighting and farming. The active can allow Abaddon to use his HP pool offensively during fights, discouraging the enemy from focusing him down when he does not have Borrowed Time activated.
 * is a strong utility support item that helps Abaddon to get his spells off and protect his teammates further. The increased intelligence and HP regen give Abaddon a bigger mana pool and helps sustain his casting of Mist Coil, and re-positioning himself allows him to get within range to use his spells to protect his allies. As well, the active can also be used to help push escaping allies to safety if enemies are pursuing.
 * greatly increases Abaddon's mobility, allowing him to engage the enemy more effectively during teamfights, position himself for casting his spells on his teammates, and chase enemies down as needed. Both Aphotic Shield and Borrowed Time can be used to prevent Blink Dagger's on-damage cooldown from proccing, allowing Abaddon to use it to blink whenever needed.
 * is a useful mid-game carry item to build. While the HP cost of the active cannot be converted into healing by Borrowed Time, Armlet provides many powerful carry bonuses, and Borrowed Time can still be activated once Abaddon's HP is low in order to quickly recover HP through enemy damage.
 * increases Abaddon's support potential tremendously and is relatively cheap to build. The bonus intelligence and mana regen greatly improve Abaddon's ability to cast his spells to protect his team, and the bonus movement speed gives him better positioning ability as well as allowing him to get within range to use Curse of Avernus against enemies more easily. The active allows Abaddon to instantly disable an enemy from range, or can be used on himself to remove silences that may be preventing him from casting his spells or manually activating Borrowed Time.
 * gives Abaddon greatly increased support potential while also making him more tanky. The huge intelligence boost greatly improves his ability to cast spells, while the bonus HP makes him harder to bring down in fights, as well as increasing the potency of Borrowed Time. The active allows Abaddon to greatly slow an enemy's movement speed from long range, allowing him to get within range to inflict them with Curse of Avernus to further debilitate their mobility.
 * is a powerful utility item that benefits Abaddon both as a carry and a support. The damage block, increased HP and bonus armor make Abaddon much harder to bring down with physical damage, and the active gives all nearby allies enhanced damage block and armor, increasing their resistance to physical damage for a short duration.
 * gives Abaddon increased tankiness and a strong active that helps him carry in teamfights. The increased strength and bonus evasion give Abaddon much more survivability against physical attacks, and the active allows him to disarm an enemy carry during a fight, preventing them from effectively contributing.
 * can be a necessary purchase on a carry Abaddon if the enemy has a large number of disables. While Abaddon can remove debuffs from himself with Aphotic Shield and Borrowed Time, spell immunity allows him to act continuously without the fear of being chain-disabled and rendered unable to participate in fights at all. The bonus strength and attack damage also increase his HP and damage output, giving him more carry potential.
 * can be a very powerful utility support item that further allows Abaddon to keep his teammates alive. The item gives Abaddon increased armor for tankiness and mana and HP regen for self-sustain, allowing him to always be ready to participate in fights. Using the active on himself or a teammate discourages the enemy from casting single-target spells on them, as they can be turned back against the enemy; if Abaddon is not the target of the Echo Shell, he can also remove any disables placed on the targeted ally with Aphotic Shield, effectively using the enemy's disables against themselves with no effect on Abaddon's team.
 * greatly increases Abaddon's attack speed, giving him much more physical damage output, and increases his situational awareness at night. It can also be consumed in the late game to give Abaddon a permanent attack speed bonus and free up an inventory slot for other items.
 * is a strong item to build on Abaddon whether he is a support or carry. It greatly increases his armor and intelligence, increasing his tankiness and greatly improving his mana pool. The passive aura greatly reduces enemy attack speed, which can be stacked alongside Curse of Avernus, and the active ability allows him to inflict a damage nuke and slow enemy movement speed as well.
 * gives Abaddon offensive potential and a powerful active, increasing his carry potential. The item's attributes give him a great status bonus, attack speed and physical damage output, while the active can give him both initiation and escape ability, something he otherwise lacks. The active allows Abaddon to apply a break to an enemy during initiation at the same time as Curse of Avernus, negating their passives and reducing their overall damage output while simultaneously dealing backstab damage and applying Curse of Avernus to them.
 * is a very powerful carry item to build on Abaddon. It gives him stats across the board, improving his HP, mana, base damage, and attack speed, as well as giving him a powerful Unique Attack Modifier that can greatly slow any attacked enemy alongside Curse of Avernus.
 * can give a carry Abaddon much more teamfight presence. The greatly enhanced attack speed allows Abaddon to utilize his physical attacks more, and allows him to proc Chain Lighting to inflict magic damage to multiple enemies in a fight. The Static Charge active can enhance Abaddon's tankiness, discouraging enemies from attacking him while it is active and allowing him to deal even more area magic damage.
 * is mainly strong on agility hard carries due to their high physical damage output and small HP pools, but can be very strong on carry Abaddon as well if he has built up enough physical damage output. The lifesteal and armor greatly increase his tankiness, alongside the bonus strength, which gives him HP and more damage to utilize the lifesteal. The active can be treated as a pocket version of Borrowed Time, allowing Abaddon to bring his HP back up to full in a matter of seconds using his damage output, drastically increasing his tankiness and forcing the enemy to work down his HP a third time.
 * allows carry Abaddon to become a major threat to enemies with his physical attacks once he has built up enough attack speed. The item provides him with bonus damage, more strength, more HP, HP regen, a passive bash for engaging enemies, passive damage block and an active hard-disable that pierces spell immunity.

Trivia

 * Abaddon's title, Lord of Avernus, is a reference to the famous crater in Italy, which was, in ancient times, believed to be the entrance to the underworld.
 * In DotA, Abaddon's third ability was originally called "Frostmourne." It was changed in transition to Dota 2 due to copyright reasons, since Frostmourne exists as a famed weapon in the Warcraft universe. When using Curse of Avernus, Abaddon says 'The mistblade bites', which is similar to Arthas's Quote: 'Frostmourne hungers'. Similarly, his first ability was originally named "Death Coil", but was likely changed to differentiate it from the ability used by death knights in the Warcraft universe; one of his responses when using Mist Coil references the original name.
 * In the Christian Bible, is the name of an angel who rises from the Abyss and commands an army of locusts. Abaddon in Hebrew means "Doom", which is ironic, given that Abaddon's skill set is focused on keeping his team alive.