As promised in my previous DotA article, here is a guide to show you how I love playing (and owning) using these heroes. Now, I know that there are many other ways to play these heroes, so please post a comment and let us know how you use them. Let's start off with my favourite strength based hero, shall we? ...

Abaddon – The Lord of Avernus

Primary attribute: Strength
Primary role: Defense/Support

Introduction:

This death knight Abbadon, is a valuable addition to the ranks of any team. His powers form the perfect balance between attack and defense, making him a very versatile hero to play. Apart from his badass looks, he has some incredibly all-rounded spells, with which he can either, slay his foes or rescue a comrade from the jaws of certain death. The thing I love about this hero is that he’ like a wall, and if played correctly, he will never crumble.

Let’s start off with discussing the strength and weakness of the hero, shall we?

The Good:
The hero has a good amount of Intelligence growth and base int,
Spells cost very little mana,
Can be a big help in team battles

The Bad:
No Disabling/Stunning spell
Crappy Movement speed

Here’s a brief description of how his spells work and what you can do with them:

Aphotic Shield (Mana Cost- 100 Mana for all lvls/ Cooldown -23 Sec.)

Description: Summons dark energies around an ally unit, creating a shield that absorbs a set amount of damage before expiring. When the shield is destroyed it will deal damage equal to the amount it absorbed to an area around it. Removes certain types of negative. buffs on cast. Lasts 20 seconds. The damage ranges from 125 at lvl 1 to 275 at lvl 4.

This is a great harassment spell (I’ll explain more below). Couple this spell up with Death Coil, and your hero can provide some of the best support to your team. As the description says, this spell absorbs damage, so you can cast it on yourself or your ally, depending on who’s taking the most damage, and to increase further boost their survivability you can heal them with your Death Coil.

Death Coil (Mana Cost- 75 Mana for all levels/ Cooldown - 15 Sec.)

Description: A coil of death that can damage an enemy unit or heal a friendly unit at the cost of his own life. The damage to yourself is half of the damage done to your foe or health healed to an ally, starting with 100-50 hit points (HP) at level 1 to 250-125 HP at lvl 4.

This is an awesome support spell as well as a viable nuke in some situations. Early on in the game, I recommend giving this spell secondary importance and getting it to max level after you’ve maxed out Aphotic Shield up. Since the spell damages you too, you can even use it when you’re sure that you’re going to die by the hands on the enemy to save yourself some gold (you lose more gold if an enemy player kills you).

Frostmourne (Mana Cost – N/A / Cooldown – N/A)

Abbadon strikes an enemy with Frostmourne's chilling power on each attack, causing all units who attack the slowed enemy to gain movement speed, along with faster attack speed, for a limited time. At lvl1 frostmourne increases 10% attack speed, and slows your enemy by 05%., and at lvl4 the skill increases attack speed by 40%, while slowing enemies by 20%.

I suggest taking one level of this skill early on to give you a little advantage to your hero over heroes that running away from you. In the latter half of the game, this skill will make you a hero killer.

Borrowed Time (Mana Cost – N/A / Cooldown – 60 Sec.)

When activated, most negative buffs will be removed and you will no longer take damage for the duration of the ability. If the ability is not in cooldown, it will passively activate when your hitpoints drop below 400. As you level up the skill, the time the invulnerability lasts increases from 3 seconds at lvl1 to 5 seconds at lvl3.

This skill will save your ass more times than you can imagine. With a very low cooldown this skills works amazingly well to save you from spells that cause high amounts of damage.

Gameplay:

Firstly, in order to play Abbadon well, you must understand how all his skills work in perfect synchrony with each other. Take Borrowed time and Aphotic shield for instance: these spells help you tank most towers at low levels too; just cast the shield when the tower begins to attack you and wait for it to detonate, then use borrowed time and run back to safety. This maneuver shall not be done if you see any heroes missing, and suspect that they'll try to gank you, as in such cases you'd be better off using those powers defensively.

When you start the game, depending on how much cash you have, the best items to get for him are a Ring of Regeneration and Boots of Speed. If you have some spare cash buy a Clarity potion to regenerate your mana, or a Sobi mask for the same purpose. Now what you’ve bought your items, get to your lane and start dominating it. Here is the basic skill progression you need to take up while playing:

Level 1 - Aphotic Shield lvl 1
Level 2 - Frostmourne lvl 1
Level 3 - Death Coil lvl 1
Level 4 - Aphotic Shield lvl 2
Level 5 - Death Coil lvl 2
Level 6 - Borrowed Time
Level 7 - Aphotic Shield lvl 3
Level 8 - Death Coil lvl 3
Level 9 - Aphotic Shield lvl 4
Level 10 - Death Coil lvl 4
Level 11 – Frostmorne lvl 2

Max out Frostmorne first, and then take stat points.

Early Game [lvl1 – lvl6] -
Items you should buy:

Your primary goal in this stage of the game is to gain lvls and harass the hero in your lane, and that is the reason you need to max out Aphotic Shield early on. The best lanes for you are the top and bottom lanes. The way you use the shield is, when you see one of your creeps on low health, and you know that your enemy heroes will try to get the last shot on him, slap the shield on him and watch the hero take damage. In case he’s on low health and you have more than 175 mana (which is enough for one shield + one coil), you can chase him, whack him with frostmourne, and when you’re near his tower put the shield on yourself and death coil him. Coupled with the death coil dmg and that of your shield, he’ll be dead. This is a very reckless move and requires some practice. If you’ve not played the hero a lot, I’d suggest you play a little defensive until you get your timing perfect. After you have enough money, I suggest that you buy a Void Stone first and then a Ring of Health, so that you can persevere in your lane with a huge amount of regeneration, and in going so gain huge amounts of Experience (Exp). Also, complete your Power Treads as soon as you can.

Mid Game [lvl6 – 15]
Items you should buy:

Mid game is where this hero really shines. With your Shield maxed out and the crazily useful Borrowed Time, you can really start chasing heroes and killing them. At this point you should stop using the shield on creeps, since it makes a lot more sense using it on yourself/allies in team battles. If your opposing team has a lot of high damaging spells, I suggest that you go ahead and make yourself a Mekanism to further increase your hero’s utility as a healer. If you feel like increasing your damage output you can make a Battle Fury, since you already have your perseverance.

Your role in this stage of the game is to assist team mates whenever possible. If you see any ally battling your foes, head there as soon as possible and heal/shield him when required. Your teammates will begin to love you for this and you’ll definitely go on your enemy’s hit-list.

Late Game [lvl15 – lvl25]
Items you should buy:

At this stage of the game, Abbadon is a monster. The items you should pick-up are HP boosting items such as a Messerschmitts Reaver. You can build this into a Satanic or a Heart of Tarrasque. Contrary to popular belief, the Life Steal from Satanic stacks with the Frostmourne effect, and that is why I recommend this item.

Your role in this stage is that of a tank, a healer and a hero killer, which is pretty much an all-rounder. You can tank towers, slow heroes down, heal allies, clear waves of creeps in no time and pretty much do everything. Use this well and your team will have a very strong player on their side, who can make them win the game single-handedly (provided they don’t screw up too bad).

Optional Item(s):