This is my first guide ever. Comments, suggestions, modifications and criticism to my english are welcome.
Accursed
Accursed has a badass theme, a badass sword, and simply looks badass. Basing themselves on this, players often use Accursed as a damage hero, abusing his protective skills and his self-buff to act as a chaser while still being a tough hero to kill. Yes, it’s a very viable way to use the hero, and it is sure useful on a team.
However, we’re going to head another way. We’re going SUPPORT. No running into battles to cut your enemies in two, no kamikaze, no brute force. Sounds boring, but his skills just synergize so well that you’ll be able to support your team, deal damage and move around the battlefield with ease, all at the same time.
Nothing else to say; let’s move on: this guide will try to cover several subjects:
- Your role on your team as a support Accursed.
- Your pros and cons.
- Your play style as a support.
- When to, and went to not.
Etc.
Skill Overlook and usage
Cauterize
Cauterize has a static 6 (!) second cooldown and a static 75 (!) mana cost, it deals 100/150/200/250 magic damage to an enemy, but, if cast on an ally, it will heal them for the same amount; however it also deals 50/75/100/125 damage to yourself.
Because of your high HP and high regeneration (as your main attribute is strength, your HP and regen will be quite high), that self damage must be used (and abused) to effectively deal 450 magic damage to a single target by destroying your Fire Shield and releasing the absorbed 200 magic damage plus the damage from Cauterize; you can also heal an ally and, at the same time, break the shield and deal damage in a certain radius. Cauterize is a powerful nuke if used in a smart way: pay attention to your allies and your enemies for a chance to cast Cauterize in the most effective way as possible.
Fire Shield
Accursed’s signature move. Fire shield can be cast both on friend or foe, and because of that it becomes quite versatile. With a cooldown of 18/15/12/9 and a duration of 15 seconds, Fire Shield removes debuffs and absorbs damage; upon reaching 110/140/170/200 damage, it explodes and deals that same amount of damage in a 700 radius.
Fact: Cast a Fire Shield on your ally and Cauterize him, and he’ll be safe for quite a while. Fire Shield can get you out of a lot of tricky situations, and can be used both as a life saver and an AoE nuke; combined with Cauterize, Accursed can deal up to 700 magic damage every 12 seconds. It’s mana efficient and has a ridiculous cooldown of 9 seconds, allowing you to use it multiple times on a fight and even have two Fire Shields up on different units at a time because of its relatively long duration.
Sear
Accursed players that prefer to take the role of a DPS hero will choose Sear over Cauterize. Sear is a passive skill that, when you hit an enemy once, lowers the movespeed of that unit and gives and you and allies around a buff that increases attack speed by 10%/20%/30%/40% and a static 10% movement speed bonus
As a support Accursed, we’ll obviously go for Cauterize over Sear for it fits our purpose better; however, Sear should be assigned once when you reach level 4. Why? The movement speed bonus. It is a huge buff for something as silly as hitting an enemy (this includes enemy creeps and neutrals) and, during a team fight, you’ll be constantly hitting enemies while you cast Cauterize and Fire Shield, giving your team an extra advantage: you’ll move faster, they’ll move slower.
Flame Consumption – Ultimate
Flame Consumption saves your life. Period. It procs automatically once Accursed reaches 400 HP: it removes all debuffs cast on you and applies Protective Flames: all damage you take will be converted to health. And that means ALL the damage you receive, 100%.
Flame Consumption must be used wisely. In the middle of a fight, if low on HP, activate Flame Consumption to catch the enemy team by surprise and absorb all the spells and attacks they tried to use to make Flame Consumption activate. Smart players might stop attacking once Flame Consumption is up; in order to avoid this, manually activate Flame Consumption before reaching 400 HP, this way the opposite team might not react fast enough and you’ll get a good bunch of health, enough to survive.
However, Flame Consumption can be ignored: if you get hit by Pyromancer’s or Legionnaire’s Ultimate, both spells that will kill you instantly if under a certain HP, Flame Consumption won’t activate because you won’t reach the 400 HP autocast limit, which means you’ll be DEAD. Pyromancer’s Ultimate deals 800 magic damage approximately, and if under 600 HP it will kill you instantly; Legionnaire’s Ultimate will instantly kill you if under 500 HP approximately because of its specific effect. Be aware of these skills or any other that might drop your life instantly from over 400 to 0.
Skill Build
1. Fire Shield
2. Cauterize
3. Fire Shield
4. Sear
5. Fire Shield
6. Flame Consumption
7. Fire Shield
8. Cauterize
9. Cauterize
10. Cauterize
11. Flame Consumption
12-15. Stats
16. Flame Consumption
17-19. Sear
20-25. Stats
Upon reaching level 11, Sear can be taken instead of Stats. However, I only find the MS bonus to be actually useful, so level 1 is fine enough; you rather have some extra HP, Armor and Mana from Stats that an ASPD bonus that is just no as good as it looks.
Item Build
Post-Haste/Enhanced Marchers
The best choice is Post-Haste, but Enhanced Marchers CAN be chosen if the game was fairly complicated and you weren’t allowed (or just couldn’t) farm well. Post-Haste gives you insane base MS and the Teleport ability, which is priceless. Enhanced Marchers gives you damage, armor and an active MS boost that might come handy.
Astrolabe
This is one of your core items. A support Accursed is not allowed to NOT have one of these. Active AoE heal and armor aura; healing aura and good buffs to self. A good all around item.
Stormspirit/Personal choice
Or Personal Choice
Ok…why? Why Stormspirit? There are many alternatives to this item, so I’ll let your imagination flow like a river just once. However, my play style focuses on having a lot of freedom on my hero; that is, not to make him fat and slow, but swift in order to be there when needed. Not to mention: it’s quite cheap, easy to assemble and boosts your mana pool, regen, along with an active disable! On this guide, I’ll choose this item over others, but you guys are free to choose whatever you want.
The three items listed above are the key to a support Accursed, and can be obtained quite easily. A combination of Fortified Bracelets or Talismans of Exile makes a stable inventory, and then it’s all luxury.
Other non luxury options:
Null Stone
I kinda like this item for its components (Sustainer, mainly); it’s a fairly good replacement for Stormspirit and gives you some good HP and regen from mid to late game. A very good option if you’re too squishy (it can happen).
Abyssal Skull
I have to be honest: I love this item. 15% Lifesteal aura, a +0.8 Mana regen aura, +5 armour aura and a 15% damage aura for 2000 gold and very cheap (and useful early game) components make this item a smart buy. If noone on your team is willing to buy Abyssal Skull and you feel that Totem can wait a bit, Abyssal Skull is the way to go.
Luxury items include, but are not limited to:
Totem of Kuldra
Yes. You are supporting. You’ll never run out of mana, you’ll never run out of spells to cast (Cauterize, Fire Shield, Stormspirit’s Cyclone and Totem’s Hex) and it’s a terrific item. This is my luxury item of choice along with Behemoth’s Heart.
Behemoth’s Heart
With the three key items along with Totem of Kuldra, Behemoth’s Heart will be the last item you’ll need to be the ultimate support Accursed. Because of the bonus HP and regen (which enables you to spam Cauterize as never before) and the amount of damage you gain from the strength bonus, you’ll be always there to heal your allies and disable your enemies while you beat the crap out of ‘em.
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Starting items
Two Minor Totems, for they’ll be the base for Refreshing Ornament and Shield of the Five. We take a Trinket of Restoration for having constant laning and for a later upgrade into Refreshing Ornament. And only one stack of Runes and Mana Pot: you won’t be using a lot of mana early game, and the Trinket will solve you HP problems, so 2 stacks won’t be needed.
Some people insist on taking Bottle as a first item but…don’t.
On the lane
Accursed is a melee hero, with a fairly decent base damage and a good attack animation. However, as we’re aiming to SUPPORT, it is FORBIDDEN, PROHIBITED and it’s almost ILLEGAL to solo. Your best lane partner should be a ranged hero that can abuse the MS bonus from Sear and at the same time have enough damage potential to kill the enemy heroes: someone along the lines of Pyromancer, Glacius…ok, any ranged hero would do. Accursed can adapt to almost any lane, but trying to fight against two ranged heroes might prove difficult. Accursed can’t baby sit and can’t support the team correctly unless he obtains enough mana and regen to keep up with his continuous spell spam. Your lane choice can either be Top or Bottom lane (this counts for Legion and Hellbourne).
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Note: If you run out of mana and have no Flame Consumption, you’re dead meat. Yes, even with that impressive HP of yours.
Early game
Farm constantly. Even though you are a support hero, you’ll need a lot of gold to boost your mana pool and mana regen to actually do something in the heat of the battle. Accursed can’t gank, and relies solely on laning capability; kill attempts are possible, especially when you get to assign Sear and the MS becomes a decisive factor. However, your goal here is to FARM and FARM until you get enough money to buy a Manatube, while Refreshing Ornament, two Talismans of Exile (or components) and Marchers wait in your stash (this would cost 2545 gold); for this to happen, you need to lasthit every creep you can and farm some weak to average neutrals using Fire Shield; this is why you’ll rather lane at Bottom as Legion or Top as Hellbourne.
Early game can be tough if you are solely trying to support; however, Fire Shield is much more powerful early game, so don’t think twice to use it as a nuke or as a life saver. Keep in mind, every move you perform while playing Accursed in early game must aim to be as mana conservative and effective as possible: if Fire Shield is about to break and there’s no incoming damage, use Cauterize and make the absorbed damage splash onto everything on sight. If you have a free slot, always take a Homecoming Stone with you: save your ally, and then save yourself!
I don’t recommend Accursed to be a ward placer, for he need tons of gold to actually do something later (and because your inventory will most likely be full); however, and if your team requests it, you can set the wards for a while until someone along the lines of Scout or Pyromancer gets the job done.
Mid game
With Astrolabe almost complete and, with it, your potential starting to unfold, Accursed becomes more dynamic and can spend more time moving around the map, farming and helping allies on everything they need, from taking a tower down to ganking an enemy hero. Accursed depends strongly on his skills, and without mana you’ll be much more inefficient to your team; however, remember your cheap mana costs and your passive buff from Sear: that tiny MS bonus can decide a team fight. Farm, farm, farm and keep on farming while you make your enemies piss off because that Arachna escaped on 250 HP because of a well placed Fire Shield-Cauterize combo.
By the middle of mid game (:B), the three core items should be completed without delay (Post-Haste/Enhanced Marchers, Astrolabe and Stormspirit) and then luxury kicks in. At this point, your base MS will most likely be higher than your enemies’ MS. Crazy base MS equals a fast paced playstyle and a dynamic support role, and is one of the most important aspects of this guide in particular. Push lanes, take down towers, farm and escape unharmed thanks to your MS or, if needed, Teleport.
Mid game is, without a doubt, the point where Accursed really shines, but it’s also about preparing for Late. However, in more competitive levels of play, Mid game might pretty much be the time when the match end, but FEAR NOT! Your choice of boots, Astrolabe and Stormspirit, along with two Talismans or Bracelets should be enough to keep you up during fights and still be an important part of the team.
Late game
This is it: luxury items on the way, key items set. Accursed is, at this point, capable of spamming Cauterize and Fire Shield endlessly without risking his own life and will decide the outcome of a battle. You are now fast, with high HP and Mana, enormous HP and Mana regen and more healing capacity than almost any hero.
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Final notes
Abaddon is one of my favourite DotA heroes, and mainly because of that my Accursed follows the same build and playstyle. This guide was not meant to be a standard guide; it is a support Accursed guide with a heavy focus on MS, spell spamming and intensive map roaming. Hope you enjoyed it, took me quite a while.
Thank you.
Bife
Originally Posted by LegoPirate
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