Alt+Tab guide

After his Death Coil/Aphotic Shield tweak, Abaddon fits into the current metagame more then ever before. Being able to endure great amounts of pain while protecting his teammates and dishing out considerable damage if not taken care of in time, he is a logical choice and a solid pick in public and league games alike.

This guide is pretty much aimed at organized gaming, but I'll itemize a few things for casual players as well, though to a lesser extent.

Note: Whenever you encounter an icon (hero, skill or item) just click on it to open its original subpage.

Table of contents

Basic hero informations
Pros & cons
Skill overview and spell combos
Skill builds
Item builds
Foes & allies
Replays

1. Basic hero informations

Abaddon, Lord of Avernus

STR 23 + 2.7
AGI 17 + 1.5
INT 21 + 2

Table of contents

2. Pros & cons

[+]Durable
[+]Multi-lateral skills
[+]Can aid teammates (heal+damage block)
[+]Slows enemies, additionally hastens allies
[+]Stats gain fits his role
[+]Fairly effective even without items
[+]Nice starting damage and armor, comfortable animation for lasthitting

[-]Useless ultimate unless Abaddon is being targeted
[-]Somewhat low AGI+AGI gain
[-]Melee

Table of contents

3. Skill overview and spell combos

Death Coil

Aphotic Shield

Frostmourne

Borrowed Time

Additional information, spell combinations

Table of contents

4. Skill builds

List of a few builds, but remember these are not carved in stone, and you should always adapt to the flow of the game.

I. Standard build

A classic approach, focusing on using both Aphotic Shield and Death Coil to nuke, heal, or force your enemies to stay back, robbing them from the needed farm.

II. Direct DPS build

A more agressive build, skipping Aphotic Shield (getting only at the first level to save some asses from getting raped) to get Frostmourne and Stats instead as soon as possible.
Only effective if you have a superior lane, or the enemy team got totally outpicked. I still suggest getting Borrowed Time whenever possible, if not for tanking enemies, then tanking their towers for more early/early-mid game advantage.

III. No need to mourn

This build focuses on not engaging the enemy in melee combat, or so rarely it doesn't worth to level Frostmourne at all. If your team picks all ranged heroes with nukes and disables, they won't really need it. In this case, your role is nothing else but to protect them from any harm - by tanking and by keeping them alive with all you have. All you have to do is keep buying team survivability items to take care of everyone in your team. Anyway, this is quite an experimental build, as it heavily relies on your teammates' skills, and depends on enemy picks and of course, on their skill level.

Table of contents

5. Item builds

Abaddon in competitive games is mostly played as a support tank. Here is an item build of my choice that fits this role.

Starting items

Core items

Magic Wand
(509g)

I'd say it's an overrated item, buy it saved my ass far too many times to do so. A great item for only 509 gold. More bang for your buck then any other item can offer, fo sho'!

Boots of Speed
(500g)

Best thing since sliced bread (and Magic Wand). A must, for 500 gold.

Scroll of Town Portal
(135g)

Standard item, always keep one in your inventory or at a crow flying just to you. Not having one may cost you the game. /srs bsns

Observer Ward
(200g)

Sentry Ward
(200g)

Keep buying them. Keep using them. How? Use Lycan's [Warding]The Eye of The Wolf - DotA Guides.

Sobi Mask
(325g)

A basic item, which in fact, doesn't offer much on its own. But three important items can be built from it with the addition of other low-tier stuff.

Based on the team, strategy and lane partner I would only get one of these.
I'm not saying you must pick one and can't have more, but your inventory is going to be full really quick, leaving less room for TP scrolls and Sentry/Obs. Wards. Personally I'd get Basilius, having both mana and health restoration for my team (as I usually go for Mekasm as my first extension) is solid.

Ring of Basilius
(500g)

Get it if you're laning partner is a spammer of relies heavily on mana and could profit from the manareg early on due to his high INT (e.g. sidelane Pugna) or planning to build Vladmir's Offering.

Soul Ring
(800g)

Get it if you want more active items and spam. Works well Death Coil spam. Yet be careful in order to stay alive and be safe from incoming ganks. Aphotic Shield on you with only 150 HP left means you are not likely to make it to your nearest tower if you get jumped on.
Note that Soul Ring uses 'HP removal' (like Huskar's Burning Spears), so it won't trigger Aphotic Shield, nor will it heal during Borrowed Time. [if someone knows otherwise, feel free to correct me and include mechcraft as well, please]

Urn of Shadows
(875g)

This item can work wonders, especially if you manage to gather a lot of kills/assists or just standing on the corner watching. You can heal your whole team when you move together (e.g. from one lane to another, pushing another tower etc. - given your team raked in enough kills, of course) before you get Mekasm. In fact, this item becomes less effective after you build Mekasm, so judge wisely if you want to build this instead of the others.

Extension items

Luxury items

Abaddon in pub games is usually seen as a carry hero. This is basically a list of items which fit him most of the times. Choose from them based on the needs of your team and enemy picks.

Abaddon can use a few epic builds as well, if all hell has broken loose.

Table of contents

6. Foes & allies

Foes

Since Abaddon is a tank, getting focused by spells/disables is not the worst what can happen as long as you remain useful to your team in other ways too.

Early game there are bunch of heroes who can screw your entire mid-late game, and that can lead to failure when it comes to tanking and supporting.
Silencers, disablers and mana burners are the biggest threat early game as they can use their skills from afar.

Allies

Everyone who can make use of your slow, but especially disablers and stunners in general.
By the way, brosquading with these guys makes you really hard:

Table of contents

Replays

DIV League public all pick game. I managed to die/miss kills a few times in the beginning [playing ill ftw!], but I raked in quite some kills later and we eventually won.

Table of contents

*Corrected Soul Ring usage