Abaddon the Rat

I learned of a synergy between Borrowed Time and Blink Dagger, that if Borrowed Time was active, it is completely impossible to disable dagger. I thought that although cool, Abaddon pretty much never needs more survivability than he already has and given his massive survivability, he was better off building auras or crippling utility items and fighting early while also scaling well late for those teamfights.

Then recently, a thought came to me. What if you used Blink on aba to rat your enemies? Pretty much no one can catch you since blink is not disabled while Borrowed Time is active, you become the slipperiest hero, up there with Kunkka. The flaws came mainly in that unlike all other heroes who can rat, Abaddon farms very slowly. So if you get him an early Maelstrom, a blink, a travels, he can damage the lanes. With a Necrobook afterwards and he's a big threat to towers and he cannot be caught, even into late game.

Does this seem like something to try around in pubs? Would it work?

I can't check right now if this works or not...

But if that actually works then dota is broken.

Can someone confirm that damage taken during Borrowed Time doesn't disable blink?

Yes it works. Look:

also, on an unrelated note, Blade Mail while Borrowed Time is active will still return damage. So you still take damage, but you don't. Nothing makes sense anymore.

Borrowed Time is one of those broken ults, up there with False Promise and Divided We Stand.

Balanced, of course, by the fact that it's on a lowish-impact support.

Well Borrowed Time is balanced, and Abaddon is balanced...that's not the issue...

The problem is more with Blink Dagger...The only thing that makes blink balanced is the fact that every hero can buy one, so the absolute ******** of this "one item to rule them all" is available to every team giving no advantage to either. But then what you get is that blink is core on every hero...as it is right now.
(seriously what was Icefrog thinking when he buffed blink to not get disabled when damage is prevented? I thought Abaddon's ult was like Shallow Grave where blink is disabled, visibly it is not)

Anyways...for me Blink Dagger was already almost a must-buy on Abaddon for the same reason you buy it on Wraith King : to land blink- Aphotic Shield to dispel stuns (the cast range sucks), and to use Curse of Avernus without getting kited.

And Abaddon was already a really good rat. He could split push really easily because he's pretty hard to pick off, and he was one of the best T3 tower / rax rats in the game because he could simply pop Borrowed Time to hit buildings under the very nose of the enemy team.

So yeah...rat Abaaddon is awesome. If you can split push and split farm all game long and simply pop Borrowed Time and blink out when you get ganked...you're pretty much Anti-Mage or Morphling in terms of ratting power...oh wait AM and Morph can get chainstunned and killed, Abaddon can't.

It's actually not that good. Even if you grab a Maelstrom, you still don't clear Creep Waves that fast. Compared to Heroes have Burst AoE, e.g. Queen of Pain, Storm Spirit, Luna, etc. he's mediocre at Ratting in the Early Game. No matter how many Items you build on him, he'll always lose out to Anti-Mage, Tinker and of course... Naga Siren.

Using Blink Dagger to chase Heroes down no matter what is probably the best use of this bug. Abba's strength as a Core is early Aggression, and his strength as a Support is in protecting Cores and making any trade in HP uneven through Aphotic Shield.

Song of the Siren, Nightmare or even Sycthe of Vyse + Refresher Orb is his Ratting is actually a threat.

..which coincidentally, does not damage Abaddon while Borrowed Time is active (originally, in DOTA 1, it used to, since it used to be HP Removal, but for some reason this was never implemented properly in DOTA 2...I miss HP Removal T-T )

I tried it in a bot game. Found it does not work that efficiently because of a lack of damage and pushing speed. A Lycan can do the job too much better unless the game is at like 50+ minutes. It's just really annoying for the enemies, but may not win games, kind of like picking a Tinker.

You can rat with Abaddon, but unless you build items specifically to rat, it's kinda trashy. Like, it's something you can do in game for sure, because that's something you are meant to be doing at certain points in the game, and Abaddon naturally builds Blink Dagger as it is.

But the issue is... you have no way to address creep momentum quickly, nor do you have great building damage. And that's why some heroes are better rats than others; it's not just about having an escape. Like take Lycan - He's a little mediocre at giving the wave momentum because he has no wave clearing nuke, but he builds plenty of aura's which compensates that. He also has massive amounts of physical damage, and is thus threatening when he gets to a build. Or Nature's Prophet who can give waves free momentum with his Ulti, and adds a lot more physical damage to the lane with Treants.

So unless you build say a Maelstrom, or a lot of aura's that affect the creeps, you just don't rat that fast. And thus it's not worth it as a dedicated strat, compared to what you could be doing by being near your team in fights, keeping people alive, and throwing shield to despell.

Looks interesting. I can say for sure tho that it interacts differently with Blink Dagger than False Promise then, because Oracle's ult doesn't prevent Blink Dagger from getting put on cd.