Position 5 Abaddon Build Guide

Abaddon is one of those heroes in Dota 2 that players hate going up against. While it isn’t favored as much in the pro scene, a good Abaddon player can take over the game all by himself in ranked matchmaking. Whether you’re playing him as a Core or a Support, fighting around the hero in team fights is quite tricky.

While Abaddon’s spells and abilities are simple enough to understand, mastering the hero requires clear knowledge of his item builds and upgrade order. As a Position 5 support, it’s also important to know what you must do during team fights to help your team. In this guide, we’ll give you a complete overview of the hero, how his abilities work, and how you should play him in your Dota 2 games.

Dota 2 Abaddon Hero Overview

Abaddon is a melee Universal hero in Dota 2 with a versatile toolkit that lets him play either as a support or a core. While most players in the Archon to Ancient range choose to play the hero as the Hard Carry or Offlaner, in the High MMR range, Abaddon is played almost exclusively as the Position 5 support. His ability to keep his allies healthy during team fights is extremely frustrating for the enemy team to deal with.

Like most heroes in Dota 2, Abaddon has four main abilities. Here’s how they work:

Break can disable Borrowed time from activating automatically. But you can still activate the ability even when stunned.

Picking up Aghanim’s Scepter and Aghanim’s Shard item on Abaddon also upgrades his abilities:

• Aghanim’s Scepter: Increases duration of Borrowed Time. While Borrowed Time is active, anytime an ally takes more than 550 damage within 900 range of Abaddon, an individual Mist Coil will automatically fire toward that ally, healing them.
• Aghanim’s Shard: Causes Mist Coil to deal attack damage and apply effects from items and abilities.

Abaddon’s Innate Ability, Withering Mist, applies a debuff on enemies when he damages them. The debuff reduces the target’s HP regeneration, healing, lifesteal, and spell lifesteal if under 40% HP. On top of that, the Crownfall event update also gave the hero two Facets that you can choose from before the match begins:

• The Quickening: Units dying near Abaddon lowers the cooldown of his abilities.
• Mephitic Shroud: Aphotic Shield absorbs more damage and reflects damage when received instead of exploding at the end.

Dota 2 Abaddon Pos 5 Build Guide

When you’re playing Abaddon as the Position 5, your main goal is to keep your cores alive. Sure, with the right items, Abaddon can dish out an insane amount of damage, but you won’t get a lot of farm when you’re playing as the Hard Support. Since warding and dewarding the map is also your responsibility as the support, building items to buff up your damage output isn’t really an option.

Thankfully, as a Saving Support, Abaddon is one of the best heroes in Dota 2. The combo of Mist Coil and Aphotic Shield ability can keep your carry healthy even when the enemy team focuses all their spells on your ally. With the right items, you can increase your healing and overall effectiveness as the Pos 5 of the team.

Here’s a complete breakdown of how the build works:

Ability Order & Talent Build

As Position 5 Abaddon, the second Facet, Mephitic Shield, is almost always the right choice. This Facet beefs up your Aphotic Shield ability, allowing it to tank more damage. It’s almost like having a low cooldown Blademail in your inventory from minute one that you can also use on your allies.

You’ll want to start with a value point into Aphotic Shield at level 1. This allows you to dispel your ally if your opponent tries to make a move and harass the enemy Offlane with its damage reflection.

You’ll want to put the next two levels into Mist Coil so that you can heal your ally in the lane. It also doubles as a nuke that you can use to secure kills when chasing down your opponent. Put another point into Aphotic Shield, then pick up your ultimate at level 6.

Casting Mist Coil when Borrowed Time is active will also heal Abaddon.

After that, max out Mist Coil, followed by Aphotic Shield, and start putting points into your Passive when you’ve got no other options. As for your Talents, go with the one that affects your Aphotic Shield and Mist Coil ability.

Item Progression

When playing as the support, Abaddon really doesn’t need too many items to become useful. You will mostly rely on your spells to heal and save your allies in team fights. If you manage to secure a couple of kills for the team and deward some of your opponent’s Observer Wards, you’ll want to go with items that further increase your effectiveness as a support.

Here’s our recommended item build for Position 5 Abaddon

Abaddon starts with two tangoes, a set of Ironwood Branches, a Blood Grenade, and one Sentry Ward for the laning stage. This gives you enough sustain to trade hits with the opponent Offlane and Position 4 support hero. The Sentry Ward can be used to block the opponent’s pull camp, and the Blood Grenade can help secure an early kill if the enemy duo steps out of position.

For your first major item pickup, you’ll almost always want to build the Ring of Basilius. Abaddon’s spells generally cost little Mana to cast. With the passive mana regen and armor from the Ring of Basilius, you can get on top of the enemy heroes to ensure your core gets to farm safely.

After that, pick up the Boots of Speed and Magic Wand. You can go with either Arcane Boots next or Tranquil Boots, depending on what you want to build towards in the late game. In most cases, Arcane Boots is the better choice on Abaddon.

As Position 5 of the team, the best item on Abaddon is Solar Crest. It lets you apply the Shine buff on your ally, granting them bonus armor, attack speed, movement speed, and a physical damage barrier. This item is non-negotiable when you’re playing Abaddon support.

Holy Locket is another excellent item that can boost the healing from your abilities. It amplifies any healing you provide by 25%, which, combined with your low-cooldown Mist Coil will allow you to keep your entire team healthy during fights.

The last Core Item you’ll want to target as Abaddon is Aghanim’s Scepter. Sure, it’s an expensive item to build for support, but the upgrade to your Borrowed Time ability makes it impossible for the enemy team to take fights without killing you first.

There are a few situational items that are always worth picking up on a Position 5 support. Items like Force Staff, Blink Dagger, or Glimmer Cape will help you kite your opponents or get into better positions.

You can also consider going for the Aether Lens to cast your spells from further away. If the game goes late, and you’ve got plenty of Gold saved up, consider upgrading your Boots. Arcane Boots can be upgraded to Guardian Greaves to provide additional healing, while Tranquil Boots can be upgraded to Boots of Bearing for better catch and escape.

Eul’s Scepter of Divinity can also be a fantastic item choice if the enemy team has too many Silence.

Position 5 Abaddon’s biggest strength is his arsenal of powerful healing abilities. With Mist Coil, you’ll be able to keep your ally’s health topped off, while Aphotic Shield lets you dispel any debuff or stuns that your opponent uses to lock them down. With our recommended items and spell order, it’ll be tough for your opponent to take down your cores when you’re sitting behind them. Let us know how this build worked out for you in your next Dota 2 game.