Why Abaddon is so successful in Dota 2 patch 7.33c

Dota 2 patch 7.33 transformed Abaddon into a Universal hero. This made him surprisingly powerful and he’s now in the top five on Dotabuff. In terms of pick rate, less than 6% of matches feature Abaddon. But in terms of win rate, players who pick this hero win 54.2% of the time.

For many years, Abaddon was played as a support. Occasionally, people played him offlane. But nowadays, a lot of people play Abaddon carry and they succeed with him more often than you’d expect.

On paper, Abaddon doesn’t look like a good carry. His farm is slow and he doesn’t have much AoE damage. If anything, he’s the perfect tank because of his Aphotic Shield and his ultimate, Borrowed Time. With an Aghanim’s Scepter, Borrowed Time lasts for 7-9s, which is an enormous amount.

Let’s not forget that while Borrowed Time is active Abaddon is literally invincible. Other heroes have powerful ultimates that reduce incoming damage. In Abaddon’s case, the incoming damage actually heals you. This means that if you have enough damage, you can simply cast your ult and then hit enemy buildings for nine seconds, which is insane.

Abaddon’s strengths and playstyle

If you choose the right level 10 talent, which gives you +15% Curse of Avernus movement slow, and then buy Aghanim’s Shard as well, your passive becomes a deadly ability that will cause any enemy hero to lose half of his mobility while fighting against you. This means that disengaging becomes a real issue.

When you’re Abaddon, enemies cannot run away from you. They can blink away, go invisible or find some other method of escaping your attacks. But they cannot run using the standard method because they’re too slow. This means that Radiance is an excellent choice.

On top of increasing your DPS, it also makes you a lot more survivable. The longer the fight goes, the easier it is to be victorious. Abaddon loves long fights and Radiance gives you an even bigger advantage during such fights.

One thing that’s very important when playing Abaddon is movement speed. The goal is to be able to just run at people. If you need to, buy yourself a Blink Dagger and then jump on a support hero. The effect will be devastating, especially if they can’t stun you for more than a few seconds.

Header: Valve Corporation