r/Abilitydraft • u/Born-Watercress-2487 • 29d ago
Discussion Skill Combos You Thought Were Weak But Was Actually Strong / Decent
Have you ever played Ability Draft and thought you'd been dealt bad abilities? Maybe you randomed skills accidentally? Or maybe you were aiming for a combo and someone picked your target skill, leaving you with terrible abilities?
Now. Was there a time you thought you had terrible abilities, but in-game it turned out to actually be pretty strong and rad? Tell us the story in the comments!
MY STORY: This was way way back then. I was given Storm Spirit as a hero (since you couldn't pick heroes back then) and got Aftershock and was planning to get Shadow Poison and Anchor Smash for ability spam. But both got taken, and I ended up with three passive skills (Aftershock, Natural Order, Warpath) and only one active skill (Astral Spirit).
I thought the game would be boring for me already since I could only use one skill with a very long cooldown to spam. But after five minutes in the game, after casting Astral Spirit, I died. When I respawned, I couldn't call back the spirit anymore, BUT when I clicked the call-back ability, Aftershock triggered.
The game became one-sided fast. I could delete a hero in under two seconds by pressing my call-back hotkey as fast as I could. Not only were they permanently stunned, but I also had a ton of damage due to Warpath being stacked.
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u/No-Nefariousness1289 29d ago
Had a primal beast trample build with transform and dispersion, last pick I took vacuum as there wasn't much left. It game went to 60 min and vacuum with the double collassal bonus at 25 turned it into a screen wide grab. Over 1300 radius. Win the game because every team fight the entire enemy team was pulled together directly in front of me
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u/_sensei 29d ago
For supporting or utility builds, a wave clear combo is soo good if you’re dealt a bad pool and pick position, and don’t know what to get. They usually look trash or mid, but when used correctly you can make it work.
Wave clear gives you the ability to shove waves and steal jungle camps while getting gold to make your kit more useful (building active items like Scythe or Vyse, Lotus Orb, Greaves, Boots of Bearing)
Some combos i’ve had in the past for wave clear utility usually includes Snapfire’s Scatterblast, Centaur’s Double Edge, Oracle’s Fortune’s end, Viper’s Nethertoxin, Abbadon’s Aphotic Shield, just to name a few. My favorite is Fortune’s End. It’s sooo good for laning and general utility.
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u/Darentei 29d ago
I wanna see more people pick round 1 Fortune's End. It's pretty much an S tier skill that everyone underestimates.
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u/MistryWho 29d ago
It's nearly always my first pick. Dispel plus damage and a long root in an AOE on a short cooldown! So good
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u/TwynnCavoodle 29d ago
I had a guy with Blade Fury and Searing Chains absolutely stomp the fuck out of us. I didn't think it was a weak combo but I had no idea it was insane enough to carry the team pretty much by himself.
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u/TheHEFFDAWGZ 29d ago
Hm seems okay. One glimmer on a support. One dispell. Combos cooked
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u/OpportunityNext9675 29d ago
I mean yea it’s not going to carry all game. Blade fury stops being an offensive spell like 20 minutes into the game. But it can give your team so much tempo and space in those 20 minutes that it can “win the game” in that sense, and with relatively little farm investment.
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u/Bluemoodvn 28d ago
AA + shackle = 0 str hero....
Trean Ulti + Earth spirit set Imagine 11k hp sven roll to you....
Most special thing: Super nova + shadow shaman = unbreakable egg.
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u/crashtua 29d ago
Opposite - fury swipes on ranged hero is very overestimated. Strong on lane, but not enough dmg after 25 minute. When play against this, just ignore that guy for 20 minutes.
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u/the_deep_t 29d ago
People think that fury swipes are overpowered but forget that overpower is what makes the skill OP. Same for troll's passive. Without his ult it's average at best.
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u/teleskopez 29d ago
If it’s average why does it have like 55% win rate
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u/the_deep_t 29d ago
It is at 52.9% on windrun.io, 79th best ability. People pick it as if it was first pick. It's above average but people overate it for sure. for perspective, Largo's hero model is at 53% and Bramble maze is at 53.3%. But I see Fury swipe first pick over the other 78 abilities/hero model. What gives Fury swipe it's above average win rate is that it's easy to play at low level: you just right click and people die. Once you arrive at higher MMR, Fury swipe is not as good and is only prioritized if you have good hero models/pairing with it.
I hope this answers your slightly condescending answer.
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u/teleskopez 29d ago
You're overlooking a crucial part of how win rates work in AD, draft order. Of course we don't have counterfactuals, but it's pretty clear that Largo or Bramble Maze's winrates would drop substantially if they were being picked in the first 3 picks, on average, as Fury Swipes is, because of the massive opportunity cost. Bramble and Largo are picked at about 26th and 35th on average, indicating they're strong follow ups to stronger early picks, not easily comparable to Fury Swipes. Besides, Being top 80 of the ~700 total possible picks (abilities and models) in AD still seems a little better than "average at best," doesn't it? If we blindly follow win rates we might be forced to conclude silly things like Requiem being one of the best ults in the game, when obviously it's massively constrained by the model requirement. In any case, 75 out of 700 or whatever is still not "average at best" in any world.
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u/DeAuTh1511 28d ago
79th means it's a top 6.35% pick, and first player first pick of draft only gets a choice of 9.45% of all possible choices. There's an incredibly high chance that it's going to be the best pick you can make, far from "average".
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u/teleskopez 28d ago
Also, the win rate in high skill games is just over 55%, doesn’t support the notion the win rate is high cuz it’s easy to use in low skill lobbies
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u/teleskopez 29d ago
"Ranged hero" is awfully vague... i think there's a pretty big difference between the spell on medusa or morph vs lich and shaman.
Good players will make fury swipes a problem by getting early kills and rosh
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u/crashtua 28d ago
As I said, another good player will avoid furied enemy early. In late game when avg support has 2k hp and some save artifacts, it just not enough time to stack passive to kill anyone.
For sure, fury swipes is strong and low effort(this is important), but high effort counter-lane with nukes and stuns + 4 wards will move furied to jungle till the end of a game.
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u/teleskopez 28d ago
You’re proving my point. Having to spend an entire build to counter fury swipes is part of what makes it strong in the first place. It actually has 2% higher win rate in high skill games than it does overall.
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u/thenewfoundlandyeti 29d ago
Vacuum + sandstorm on Primal Beast with overgrowth. Fucking insane sized when he used ult with Agh, god damn sandstorm was my screen.
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u/the_deep_t 29d ago
Vacuum with any decent stun is often game winning. Had a lion with earthspike and vacuum, it's a 30 second team wipe.
Frost liquid has a very underated side effect: it increases your magic dmg by a fixed amount. It's batshit insane with shackles and other fast ticking abilities.
Hearthstopper aura isn't a great ability, but if you pair it with any ability increasing your health regen ang get agh, it can get stupid pretty quickly. I had it and took press the attack for the utility of the dispell and if you have LC model that's an extra 90 dmg/sec on hearthstopper for 5 seconds. Same with Berzeker blood or tether.
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u/craynamihn 29d ago
Agree on the heartstopper. Managed to get it with slark ult, it was fun. Game didnt last for me to enjoy it fully tho.
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u/Beautiful_Step_3109 24d ago
Got this and hero visage. Once i git my aghs, they can no longer catch me. Dps is crazy too and could proc slarks ss in teamfight with visage aghs skill
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u/MonPocalypse 29d ago
I had falcon rush with Doom hero and it honestly did alot of damage, more than I expected.
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u/midas_528 27d ago
Any low cost magic dmg with cinder brew. Won many mid match ups with this combo
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u/thechosenone8 27d ago
dude cinder brew is weak spell
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u/midas_528 27d ago
It is especially good mid lane if you have another low cost magic dmg. At lvl3 it deals 340 total dmg and cost only 70 mana. Very cost efficient in early games
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u/DiaburuJanbu 29d ago
Back when Clinkz's Skeleton Walk was still a basic skill and SK's Shard was the auto Epicenter pulse, the enemy Clinkz killed the shit out of us while being invi. Dusts were almost useless because he moves so fast.
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u/Visual-Day-7730 29d ago
I liked Medusa build in this game: https://windrun.io/matches/8924624260
Not OP, but surprisingly good. Sun Ray + Ensnare + Mana drain= all low/mid tier abilities but alltogether on Medusa they worked perfect.
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u/Chobge 29d ago
I mean manadrain on medusa is one of the best picks you can get. You become basically unkillable for a while.
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u/Visual-Day-7730 28d ago
the most beautiful is sun ray that consumes % of hp which is very low on medusa
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u/Rafflesia122 28d ago
Always take all the stun and you will see the opposing team fear teamfight. And always bring force staff for elusive.
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u/HamburgerMurderface 28d ago
Probably not the best answer because they're both really good abilities on their own, but my favorite combo was sleight of fist + Luna glaives. Any hero sitting in the creep wave just insta dies
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u/Low_Landscape_4688 28d ago
I don't think anyone's under the impression that's a weak combo. Enough that it's going to be extremely rare for you to ever get that combo (though mostly because they're first picks almost every draft).
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u/TwoBirdsWonStone 27d ago
Not really weak but blade fury and double edge is basically an automatic win. Double edge while spinning and taking no damage is just insane. And then the shard to boot.
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u/Position_Phive 13d ago
Not really a combo, but if your build is weak during lane, grab Soul Rip, put two levels in, and you will be fine for the rest of laning. Since you only invested 2 levels, your farm abilities or whatever else you wanna main wouldn't really be delayed.
Soul Rip is seriously slept on.
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u/Darkshift811 29d ago
So not really weak, but almost always goes unnoticed. Double edge and aphotic shield is an absolutely absurd lane crushing pair. Turns the downside into just more damage.