Dota 2 Ability Arena best spells – Guide, breakdown, and info

Ability Arena is the newest Dota 2 game mode that has been sweeping the Dota community. The combination of Auto Chess, Dota Underlords, and Ability Draft has a complex, yet fun gameplay loop to it. However, with each match being unique and having a pool of over 100 spells per match, its hard to figure out which spells to pick. So, lets dive into the best spells you can pick up in your game of Ability Arena.

In total there are 150 spells available in Ability Arena that are a combination of basic abilities, passives and ultimates. At the start of each match, 50 of the spells are banned at random, leaving a pool of 100 spells for the match. Then, each spell has 20 copies of it that players can fight over. Spells cost three gold each. Once a spell is upgraded six times it gets an additional upgrade which is a shard or talent and then again once its been upgraded nine total times. With Ultimate abilities, you'll need to upgrade your shop to level 3 to unlock the ability to purchase them.

Basic spells are the bread and butter of Ability Arena. With a pool of 100 different spells there are a lot of options per match. So, here are some of the best spells you can pick up in Ability Arena.

Most defensive spells that supports have go a long way in Ability Arena, and Frost Shield is a perfect example. When its cast on an ally, that hero essentially gets alarmingly tanky. The hero receives 8 seconds of 60% damage reduction and attacks get slowed by 35%. On top of that, each pulse of the frost shield (once per second) deals 50 damage, which totals out to 400 damage over the duration. Then, with Super, things get out of hand.

Frost Shield's Super upgrade grants an additional 10% damage reduction and gives 50 HP regen per second. All while boosting the duration to 10 seconds total. So lets just to go over the stats again to show how powerful it is. Every 15 seconds, a hero gets 70% damage reduction, 50 HP regen, 35% Attack slow when attacked and 500 damage over the duration. At that point, the Gaben level grants Shivas Guard aura and cast but you don't even need to consider it.

At first Fade Bolt doesn't seem like much. But in reality, Fade Bolt can really put in the work. Enemies hit with the bolt receive 35% damage reduction for 10 seconds and the ability has unlimited bounces. There is also a damage component to Fade Bolt, at 325 damage, but on each bounce the damage is reduced by 6%. What makes this so good is that with a 10 second cooldown, you can basically always keep the damage reduction up on your opponent.

With regards to the Super and Gaben levels, the super lowers the cooldown to six seconds, attacks every enemy hit by the fade bolt and increases the damage reduction to 45%. If you manage to get the Gaben level, Fade Bolt also steals damage. However, with how popular the spell is, especially at early levels, that might pose a challenge.

On the more offensive side of things, there's Rolling Boulder. With this spell, your hero rolls into a enemy hero and stuns them for two seconds and deals 30 + 100% their strength as damage. But what makes Rolling Boulder such a good ability is that its on a four second cooldown. So essentially there's a two second window where the enemy hero can attack or cast spells. What others typically overlook is that the AI places the a stone remnant before the cast, so you are getting an extra one second on the stun. But, when the super upgrade is unlocked, the damage and stun are also increased. Totaling to now a 3 second stun and 150+100% strength as damage.

This makes Rolling Boulder terrifying, as your hero can essentially lock a enemy hero with stuns because of the low cooldown. At Gaben level, the spell grants 80% status resistance for two seconds. Typically, you give Rolling Boulder to a Strength hero and they can jump and focus down a backline enemy hero. They'll be doing more than enough damage and be tanky enough to win you the round on most occasions.

There are a couple really stellar passive abilities in Ability Arena. Although most of them are offensive that have minor effects like Inner Beast. However, the next two we talk about are some of the best in the game.

Spectre's Dispersion is probably one of the best defensive passives in the game. The ability to reflect 20% of damage taken is a great passive for frontline tanks. For the same reason why Centaur is one of the strongest Gods in the game as they have almost the same ability. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your view, the Super and Gaben abilities aren't that good. The upgrades essentially casts spectral dagger on attacking foes. But again, you essentially pick up Dispersion for the damage reflect and nothing else.

Next up is any right click attacking hero's best passive. Like Monkey King, once your hero gets four attacks on the same target, your hero gains four stacks of Jingu Mastery. These attacks do bonus damage as well as grant bonus lifesteal on each. With a bonus 100 damage and 70% lifesteal on four attacks, if you can get enough attack speed, your hero can do tons of damage and survive for a while. With the Super, the bonus damage is kicked up to 130, totaling to a bonus 230 damage and 70% lifesteal on that. Unfortunately, Jingu is a really popular passive, so it'll be a insanely rare match if you find the Gaben level of Jingu.

If basic spells are the bread and butter, ultimate's are the main meat. After getting the shop upgraded to level three, you unlock the ability to purchase ultimate abilities. Each hero can get one ultimate unless the god they are playing allows them to have multiple. So, here are some of the best ultimate abilities you can pick up.

Just like in your average Dota game, Warlock's ultimate can really turn a fight around. The spell is a 600 unit one second AOE stun that summons a Golem that does great damage. Specifically, the Golem has 12 armor, 75 health regen and a whopping 3000 total HP. So suffice to say, the Golem won't be falling anytime soon. What makes Chaotic Offering so scary in Ability Arena is that enemy heroes don't prioritize it as an attack target. So with its Flaming Fist and Immolation aura, its slamming right clicks into heroes.

At level 6 is where you can somewhat diversify your strategy. Rather than having Chaotic Offering on a backline caster, you can use it on one of your frontline heroes. With the super level, your hero will summon a Golem on death. So having the ultimate on a frontline hero that typically dies mid fight will have a huge AOE stun and summon a another huge DPS monster. At that point, the Gaben level doesn't even matter, but as the saying goes. "Two is always better than one".

Mystic Flare is just pure damage. Over a small 2.2 seconds, heroes that are unfortunately caught inside the area of Mystic flare will take 1600 damage. This damage is sure enough to out right kill most non strength heroes or severely cripple them if they do survive. However, with such high damage, the cost is 500 mana, so you'll be needing a hero with a pretty decent mana pool to support Mystic Flare.

The Super and Gaben upgrades crank Mystic Flare to 11. With the Super, Mystic Flare will cast again on another hero within 700 range. This essentially means you get to wipe out two heroes at the cost of one spell if they have to take the full Flare. The Gaben ability pumps the damage up to 2050 total damage and doesn't cause the damage to split. Because a decent counter to Mystic Flare is to group some heroes together to split the full 1600 damage together. However, that won't work anymore with the Gaben upgrade.

Last but certainly not least is Kunkka's Ghostship. What makes Ghostship such a strong spell is that it combines the best part of different spells. The arguably weakest part of Ghostship is the 300 damage on impact. However, to offset the low damage, Ghostship stuns for 1.4 seconds and the rum buff which is the best part about the ultimate. The Rum buff grants 12% move speed and 30% damage delay for 10 seconds.

With the super and Gaben upgrades, Ghostship only gets stronger. With the super upgrade, the hero also gets Tidal Wave which is a great stun tool that is really good for displacing enemies mid fight. Then with Gaben, there are two more boats after the first that all have the rum buff for your team.

And those are some of the best spells to pick up in your matches of Ability Arena. As the game continues to update, there will be more and more abilities to chose from. But who knows what else is to come from Sunsfan's and the rest of the developer's crazy minds. For more Ability Arena and Dota 2 content, stick around on Esports.gg.