Introduction

Accursed is both a strong tank and a strong laner. It’s difficult to tank in HoN due to the fact that a hero who specializes in living has difficulties killing other heroes. Accursed finds a way around that by making it difficult to kill his teammates while he’s around; healers are prime targets in HoN. That’s why Accursed is one of the few Heroes of Newerth able to tank.

Accursed can be both offensive and defensive support as well as a tank, a versatile hero that can be an asset to any lineup. If anyone didn’t know, Accursed is a direct port of Abaddon, Lord of Avernus from DotA, although this model has 12x the badassery of that model.

Pros and Cons

Pros
Powerful support and laning capabilites.
An ult that absorbs incoming damage that will activate even while stunned or silenced.
An asset in a lane, a gank, or a push.
Virtually unkillable even while keeping allies alive if played right.
Versatile to an extent based on item choice.
Kick-ass model, flaming sword, and smooth animations.

Cons
Skillset becomes considerably weaker late game, item dependent to prevent that.
Above average dependency on allies.

Skills

Cauterize
At the cost of some of his own health, Accursed bursts the air around a target, dealing damage to them if they are an enemy or healing them if they are an ally.

Target unit (not self)
Magic damage
Range:300
Cooldown: 6 seconds
Mana cost: 75
Deals 100/150/200/250 Magic damage to enemy units or heals allied units for 100/150/200/250 Health. Deals 50/75/100/125 Magic damage to self.

This is your main heal and nuke. 250 to heal or nuke is a decent amount, and 75 mana is cheap for what it does. The interesting things about the ability are it’s low cooldown and mana cost, but with a moderate health investment. Considering the rest of our skill set, however, that health investment can be used to our advantage.

*When I saw the range on Abaddon’s ability Death Coil and Accursed’s Cauterize was reduced to 300 I was left sad. However, after playing the hero in a couple games I found it doesn’t change much. If rolling with Post haste or even enhanced marcher you should easily be able to catch fleeing enemies, especially if you put in a level of sear at some point. It doesn’t make much of a difference offensively, but I did have problems getting to allies in time to heal them with it.

Fire Shield
Accursed covers a friendly unit in a shield of flames protecting them from damage and removing harmful effects. If the shield is damaged to its breaking point, it will explode, dealing Magical damage to nearby enemies equal to that of the damage absorbed.

Allied target
Magic damage
Range: 600
Mana Cost: 100/105/110/115
Cooldown: 18/15/12/9
Removes most debuffs, then applies Fire Shield to target for 15 seconds. Fire Shield prevents 110/140/170/200. Once full amount is absorbed, damages enemies in 700 radius for 110/140/170/200 Magic damage.

A powerful skill, and probably the one Accursed is best known for. In addition to the actual numbers of 200 heal followed be 200 AoE nuke as well as an almost complete dispel, this skill can be used in various mind games. Also, once combined with cauterize it gives Accursed incredible early game potential and laning power.

Sear
Causes Accursed’s attacks to sear his target, slowing their movement speed. Any ally that attacks the affected unit will be buffed with increased attack speed and movement speed.

Passive, applied on target
Attack modifier
How this ability works is it places a debuff on any unit you attack. That debuff slows them by 5/10/15/20 for 4.5 seconds, and any friendly unit that hits them during that time gains 10/20/30/40% attack and 10% movement speed for a short time.

The first item of note is that this ability sets your sword ON FIRE. Seriously, your model looks 3x cooler. This and the 10% movement speed at all levels suggests you get at least 1 level of this early. This spell is useful in many situations once leveled. Keep in mind that this effect works not only on you, but on anyone hitting the target it’s been applied to, making this ability a form of offensive support.

Flame Consumption
Accursed summons a powerful fire tornado around himself which, when fueled with damage, causes him to regain his life. When not in cooldown, this ability automatically activates when The Accursed drops below 400 Health.

Passive, applied on self -You can activate it yourself as well-
Removes debuffs and applies Protective Flames to self for 3/4/5 seconds. Automatically activates when Accursed’s health drops below 400. Protective Flames, 100% of damage taken converted to health.

This is the ability that makes you a tank, and practically unkillable.While this ult is not on cooldown, you don’t need to fear ANY form of burst damage. Magmus ult, Moon queen ult, Behemoth combo, all these things act as a heal if you’re ult is up and used correctly.

I personally find the 10% movement speed and visual effect of one level of sear worth it early on. I also don’t see the need of leveling up Fire Shield so fast considering you only get 30 shield/AoE nuke power per level. Granted, leveling up Fire Shield from 1 to 4 halves it’s cooldown from 18 to 9, even so I find leveling up Cauterize and having a 250 nuke every 6 seconds by level 7 to be worthwhile. You still have the same result by level 10, so try it out if you’re bored of the classic build.

Skill use and synergies

Who do I cast Fire Shield on?

Preferably, heroes. Fire Shield is usually wasted on creeps, but if you have mana to spare feel free to cast it on a creep being focused by a tower or enemy creeps to harass a lane. Cast it on yourself, cast it on dieing allies, cast it on an ally who’s about to run in. The thing about Fire Shield is in most situations it acts as a damage deterrent, to a degree. Noone’s gonna stop nuking pyromancer at 100 hp just because he has a 200 shield on him. But if everyone’s level 5 and Magebane blinks in with a level 2 Fire Shield on him, hitting the guy is just not worth it.

In addition, Fire Shield removes debuffs. For those not used to the term, this means hostile effects such as damage over time, slows, and some harder disables are removed. If your ally is held by pollywog’s net or electrician’s grip and you cast Fire Shield on them, they’re freed from the immobilize.

When do I use Cauterize?

Whenever you have health to spare. A 6 second cooldown almost DEMANDS that you spam it. If your ult just activated or you have Fire Shield on yourself, cast it on ANYONE. Apart from the health requirement, it’s extremely mana efficient for what it does. However, remember your role, supporter guy. If an allied 100 hp Blood hunter is chasing an enemy 100 hp Pyromancer with no mana, heal the Blood Hunter. He needs the cash more than you do, and the 250 isn’t mitigated by magic armor if it’s a heal.

When do I use Flame Consumption?

Preferably, as late as possible. It activates on it’s own if you’re under 400, so in most cases actually activating it will be a mistake. As long as your ult isn’t on cooldown NOONE wants to focus you over the Moon Queen at half life. If you activate your ult early, you’re just as fragile as the rest of the team. Generally, let the ultimate go off on it’s own, unless a legionaire is fighting you. His ult counters yours. There are some rare moments you’ll want to activate your ult. If you see Magmus channeling his ultimate and noone’s gonna stun him, throw your ult on, charge him, and enjoy the full heal. This tactic is TWICE as funny if you got Barbed Armor earlier.To summarize, let the ult take care of itself unless you see a HUGE amount of preferably AoE damage coming your way, in which case enjoy the 3/4/5 seconds of healing.

Keep in mind that when your ult activates a rather noticeable visual effect (blue flames) appears on your hero. Any smart enemies will stop attacking you at this point, so don’t rely on it’s healing powers in some scenarios.

Synergies

+ High mana cost, but any damage Cauterize would deal to you is instead dealt to the flame shield if the shield was cast on yourself, possibly for even more damage dealt. You are a surprisingly powerful nuker early game if you use this combo right.
+Cooldown inefficient, but if you’re in a position where you NEED a cauterize and you NEED health more than your minute long cooldown, any cauterize cast while your ult is on will heal you for 125. On the other hand, if you’re down to 350 hp and your ult actives on it’s own, go ahead and throw out a cauterize if it’s not on cd.

+++Once you get all your abilities leveled, here’s your general tactic in a 1v1. Shield yourself and hit the badguy to apply Sear. While chasing him, drop 2 Cauterize’s on him to break the shield for a hefty nuke, keeping up with him due to the advantage of sear. If anything goes wrong, well, you still have your ult.

+ If you’re in over your head and need to GTFO, this combo. would be the veritable ace up your sleeve. Run, juke, hide, do whatever it takes to get your enemy/enemies to blow their stuns on you. As soon as every inturrupt and stun is on cooldown, or once you get a ways into the fog of war, pop your ult and teleport out. They can’t kill you with your ult on, so if they can’t cancel the teleport you’re free.

BFF’s and worst enemies
Best Friend’s Forever

Heroes with surprise attacks
Example: Wretched Hag

Anyone with the ability to surprise an enemy, either with an invis or a blink, is a good ally to throw Fire Shield on. It allows an aggresive hero like magebane or wretched hag to blink into the middle of an enemy formation and let the nukes fly. Also, throwing Fire shield on Night Hound or Legionaire before the run in throws in a mind game effect, as enemies are less likely to want to focus them with that 200 shield/nuke present.

Heroes thematically designed to charge into fights
Example: Blood Hunter

A Blood Hunter, Dark Lady, or the previously mentioned Magebane will LOVE you if you drop a Fire Shield on them prior to engaging the enemy. These heroes are all relatively fragile heroes who deal the most damage at melee range.

Worst Enemies

Heroes with disables/chasing abilities
Example: Pestilence

Heroes with disables like pollywog or succubus can stop you from escaping when you use borrowed time. If your ult goes off you have a short amount of time to GTFO. If you spend those 5 second of ult stunned or otherwise incapable of escaping, you’re a sitting duck for the enemy team.

Heroes that can bypass Flame Consumption.
Example: Legionaire

An ultimate like Pyromancer or Legionaire’s will bypass Flame Consumption completely. Pyromancer has hit 1k damage nuke he can throw at us when we have 600 hp, for example.

Favorite Enemies

Burst damage
Example: Devourer

Any hero with a high damage combo. or damage that, once fired, can’t be retracted are not a problem for Accursed. Whether it be Magmus channeling his ult or Pollywog dropping wards, Tempest’s meteor+ult combo. or Voodoo’s CG+ult, our ult counters these abilities that would normally be a guaranteed kill on any other hero. Also, if it’s an ally being focused you can drop your 2 spells to seriously help them out, but a magmus ulti is still gonna mess up everyone on your team but you.

Damage over Time and powerful debuffs
Example: Slither

A long enough DoT will still give us trouble, but we have two tools to use against these types of heroes. Anything we can’t simply purge with a use of Fire Shield or Flame Consumption will deal damage to either of those two.

Neutrals and Jungling

Accursed is not a jungle hero, best leave that to Tempest. However, Fire Shield is useful for supplementing your income with the occasional camp. In addition to pulling if you were lucky enough to get the long lane, you can gain a couple hundred easily. The best way to do this is probably to stack a wave or two, and then throw Fire Shield on yourself. Spread the damage around so that every enemy is around 200 life (or 400, if you’re gonna drop 2) and watch as the shield BLOWS THE WHOLE CAMP TO SMITHEREENS!

Items
As with everything in this guide, what I suggest here is pretty standard for Accursed/Abaddon at all levels of play.
Stole the pictures from HoN wiki, if anyone knows how to make them smaller let me know, until then deal with the unnecessarily large item pictures.

Ring of the Teacher – 500g
Fortified Bracelet – 510g
Power Supply- 494g
and Post Haste. – 2700g
Core build – 4204

Expensive, I know. Ring of the teacher provides a good source of mana regen early, and it’s part of the recipe for Abyssal Skull more support-oriented Accursed’s will want to build. Power Supply and Fortified Bracelet provide decent stat coverage and a powerful heal/regen source for both pools. Post Haste’s mobility, both movespeed and teleport, are necessary to maintain good farm and good support simultaneously.

Power supply, who gets that?
The mana battery or upgraded power supply is one of the best items in the game, and it was made for a hero like Accursed. For slightly less than the fortified bracelet I used to have in the core, you trade 3 to strength (51 hp) for an almost never-ending supply of hp and mana, provided you’re staying within 1600 of an enemy who uses spells often. If you’ve never used power supply before and don’t see it’s advantages, please test it out, it is definitely worth it.

Which boots do I want?

*After the modifications to boots post haste still comes out on top. the +5 ms is a nice upgrade if you always built them, and the only contender for boots (enhanced marchers) has been given stats we don’t really need, and a movespeed reduction. Steamboots are more of an option, now, as the 5 armor and 10 strength/16 intelligence are all welcome stats on top of the new 75 ms, for a price of only 1500g. I would still recommend Post Haste unless you’re completely broke, in which case Steamboots comes in second over Enhanced Marchers.

You are a support hero with a skill (sear) that emphasizes being able to keep up with an enemy hero and at least hit them once for the slow. This suggests you get the fastest boots on the market. Post haste gives you unrivaled mobility to be in every team fight, supporting your allies as necessary. The beauty of Post Haste is your ability to farm a lane, spot a gank top, and teleport across the map in 3 seconds to help a bro out of a jam.

If you don’t think you’ll be using the teleport function, or you can’t farm well enough to pay the steep recipe cost for 2200, you can choose either enhanced marchers or steamboots to specialize your role. Steamboots provide either 10 strength or 16 int, 2 stats you can make great use of, and a useful 5 armor. Enhanced marchers provide damage and attack speed, but more importantly movespeed superior to steamboots but still lackluster compared to post haste. Even when activated, enhanced marchers barely tops post haste’s constant bonus. The unitwalking is nice, though.

Post haste are the superior boots for Accursed, if you can farm them. Otherwise, take Steamboots for 1200g less and enjoy your 10 strength or 16 int. Enhanced marchers is subpar, unless you’re a big fan of unitwalking.

So what next?
Accursed is a very versatile hero, and which items you choose to build specializes whichever role you decide to focus on. It’s generally accepted that you can focus on Tanking, Supporting, or Damage with Accursed. The next four items are to some degree situational in that they focus your role, rather than enhance it. You do not need to get all four before moving on to luxuries, but it is suggested you get at least 1-2 of these based on what your team needs. If healing power is weak, get an astrolabe. If you are lacking in DPS, grab an insanitarius. If the enemy is ignoring you to go after weaker teammates, make them pay for it with Mock of Brilliance.

I’ve given the items the tags Support, DPS, Tank, and Carry. Decide which niche you want to focus on and mix and match accordingly.

Mock of Brilliance-5150-Tank, DPS, Carry- You are a tank with a support skill-set. But sometimes, especially late game, your support abilities alone aren’t enough to make your enemies focus you. With a 40/sec damage aura, your enemies will either focus you down or pay for it.
Astrolabe-2306-Support, Tank- You play heals and support, grab an astrolabe if your skillset just isn’t cutting it.
Abyssal Skull-2050-Support- A collection of useful aura’s for any team. With Ring of the Teacher in the core, it makes sense to finish this for an item beneficial to the entire team.
Insanitarius-2850-Carry, DPS, Tank- An alternative for those who play Accursed AS A HARD CARRY or if you want some variety. The hp bonus combined with your skillset allows for some REALLY fun mindgames, and as a str hero it ups your DPS by a fair amount.

Situational/Luxury


Behemoths heart-5500-Tank, Carry
Obvious choice if you have the money and the core, increases your tanking potential.

Barbed armor-2200-Tank/DPS
There’s nothing like running up to an ulting Magmus with your ult on, getting HEALED with your ult, and DAMAGING HIM with your barbed armor

Shrunken head-3900-All/Situational
If disables are a problem even with Fire Shield and Flame Consumption, here’s your item.

Daemonic Breast Plate-5550-Carry, Tank, DPS
A ridiculously expensive item that adds nice support, get it if you have 5.5k to blow.

Symbol of Rage-6150-Carry, Tank, DPS
By late game you actually have pretty stellar damage if you got post haste, mock of brilliance, Insanitarius, and Sear (your passive). If you’re damage is high and you’re still having survivability problems, life steal of this magnitude will solve those problems.

Rejected items
Helm of the Black Legion- may sound like a cheap way to solve your hp problems, but you’re better off going with the core and working on your behemoths heart. Just get the beastheart for the extra 250 hp and turn it into your heart later. Remember, most of the time we’ll WANT people blowing up our Fire Shield, which Helm defends against, and we have plenty of survivability early.
Shaman’s Headdress- I’ve never seen much use in buying this, but by all means if you’re dieing to nukes grab it. I just believe there are better options.
Shieldbreaker and Frostwolf skull- Both of these items work as BUFF PLACERS. If you’ll recall, Sear is a buff placer and it does not stack with either of these.

1. Obviously you can focus on two roles at once. For example, you could build Post Haste, Mock of Brilliance, Behemoth’s Heart and Insanitarius to do Tank/DPS.
2. In general, support is more powerful early game and Tank, DPS, Carry are more powerful late. If you build Abyssal Skull and Astrolabe you’ll rock the mid game. But if you neglect the more expensive and late game items like Mock of Brilliance, Insanitarius, or Behemoth’s Heart you will scale poorly late.
3. There are a lot of items you see used in game, some very common on Accursed, that I neglect to mention. For example, I neither suggest nor reject Slash & Maim. Myself, I never build it on Accursed. But if you really like the item or need an ms boost, it’s not rejected, either.

Gameplay

Early game
Get either of your lane item sets and head either top or bottom. Try to lane with the weakest early gamer on your team, they could use the support. Solo mid and a level advantage are wasted on you, but if you have the chance to play an aggressive lane with another strong laner, by all means go for it. Fire Shield synergizes wonderfully with heroes like Magebane and LEGIONNAIRE. You have an excellent attack animation and powerful spells, keep your enemy on their toes.

Mid game
At this point you should have your core, provided you did well in your lane. Which you should have unless you were babysitting Chronos/Dark Lady against 2 nukers/disablers. Feel free to farm and defend towers at your leisure, as with Post Haste you can get to most team fights in 5-10 seconds. Whether you play an amazing Accursed or a poor one, your gameplay will depend largely on your allies. That said, feel free to particapate in any ganks on any farmers your team can find. This is probably your strongest game phase, with your heal and your shield maxed. You can turn the tide of any team fight or gank you participate in, and you should be participating in ALL of them, there’s not excuse not to if you were smart and got Post Haste. By the end of this phase, you hopefully did one of two things. You either farmed into a DPS semi-carry yourself, or kept the other team low enough that a level 16 Accursed with a Bracelet, Power Supply, and Post Haste makes them run IN TERROR.

Late Game
Flame Shield and Cauterize begin to lose effectiveness this late. You should still be spamming them, as your mana pool is significantly better to compensate, just don’t expect one Flame Shield to save a fleeing ally. If you farmed your core and a couple luxuries, that’s fine, because sear works on percentages, and thus scales, and your ult will never lose effectiveness. Really, at this point, you’ve either decided the game by doing well mid game (farmed or kept them weak) or you’re gonna have to hope your allies did better. You CAN carry, but it’s more likely you’ll be outcarried by an agility based hero if they weren’t ganked earlier in the match.