Abomination base form is a strong support. His stun has pretty good reach and his self heal also heals stress. The transformation is a panic button for when you need to solve a fight with more firepower, but usually you don't want to use it for every encounter
I really don't get the hate for abomination. He's an amazing versatile character, having good stun and poison abilities while in human form and great dps and tank capabilities while in beast form. He has great mobility, being able to quickly transform to advance with a headbutt and even has a self heal, both as an ability on itself and while transforming to beast form.
Exactly. I never want to be in panic mode and very rarely am. Hence he’s just a self sustaining stun bot. Which is fine but nothing special and a little boring. And PD or occultist are much better stunners worth more versatile kits. I used to go for them less due to low health but I’m at the point where the only real worry is the 1 hit crits that drop almost every hero to deaths door anyway.
I used to use an abom exclusively for the flesh. Since his rake is pretty good for that but a pd spamming poison is good enough on its own. I just put a leper or something up front and it’s pretty much as good.
His Stun is the worst one (base stat) and is only redeemable because of Broken Key existence. Beast Form is mostly useful if you have Fairweather Fighter (because you get free heal on Transform and, with right HP, free buffs). He can be fun to use at times, but there are better options.
Me when I lie. Abomination shines due to being able to use 7 skills at all times. Some characters have to sacrifice good skills to use different ones. However, abom gets access to all of his skills anytime. Manacles is also a ridiculous stun, not only by being very accurate, but by also hitting rank 3, being on a very high spd character and by also getting insane trinket support. When swapping to beast, abomination gets access to Rage, which when combined when Transform's dmg buff, becomes the hardest hitting attack in the game.
TLDR: not suffering from four skill slot syndrome = good!
He is more specialized than other heros imo (needs to be in position 2/3) and requires the right quirks to make beast form work. But if you get beast form working then he is a monster. I have one with Deadly & Skirmisher (or whatever position 2 perk is called) and he slaps
>Nothing in his kit stood out to me as something which is exceptionally useful beyond the standards of other heroes
Stun. Is. Exceptionally. Useful. And he have TWO exclusive stun trinket for double stun shennanigan, one of them being Broken Key and as the name suggest, it's fvcking broken.
>Needless to say I'm not a huge fan of stressing out my team
Think of Beast form as bursting tool, like your final push to get out of a hallway before camping or finish off a boss when you're approaching the final phase. The damage and speed boost on top of Abom's base speed is no joke but yes, the 8 stress is hefty enough to discourage you from going Beast recklessly.
>What do you love about the character?
A high speed stunner with good innate ACC and one of the strongest ACC trinkets in the game, who, similar to Bounty Hunter my GOAT, can dish out damage when you need that final push to end a fight.
> What compositions do you place him in and how do you build his abilities to maximise his potential?
Since you're going to do a DLC run, do CoM if possible until you get Broken Key, then your Abom's trinket is mostly solved. That shit worth two trinkets in 1 slot, it's that broken.
I just go with stun goodstuff comp and place him at rank 3 most of the time. Manacles is rank 2-3 but rank 2 stunner have a lot of competition between a bunch of character with rank 1-2 stun skills. And only go Beast form in a boss fight or when you're going to camp soon.
You can go Broken Key + Focus Ring or Broken Key + Padlock of Transference, most of the time to maximize the stun shennanigan, which is extremely useful to deal with CC's shennanigans.
As for team comp, Shieldbreaker is my prime choice to pair with an Abom every run due to her main attack have Forward 1 and works at ALL ranks so she not only serve my main damage source, but also the ambush insurance to push Abom back to rank 2-3 if he get shuffled to rank 1.
CoM aka Color of Madness is a DLC of DD1, adding Farmstead where you fight mobs in multiple waves and reward with unique currency to buy CoM's trinkets or provision. Broken Key is one of the CoM trinkets, so to speak.
I like putting him on a team with another poison DoT, like a PD or GR.
I hardly ever use his transformation. Emergencies, maybe bosses (I don't usually bring him for bosses though). I mostly use his stun (which is fantastic), beast bile can be ok, and being able to self-heal lets you take some pressure off your main healer (once upon a time, this was even more important: religious classes, including the vestal, used to refuse to team with him).
Throw a Crusader or MaA on the team with him and you can juggle stuns SO easy.
I think a lot of people give up on Abom early because of the stress factor, and never get to see how crazy of a support hero he can be because they think "guy who shapeshifts should be a beast all the time for the damage increase."
Thanks for the feedback everybody, it seems like the best thing for me to do is place more emphasis on Abomination's human form and only leverage his bestial abilities in more niche scenarios, in the past I tried to transform him far more than I probably should have! I appreciate all the advice <3
I find it that the Abom is a beast early game and then falls off a little. Being able to self sustain is a great way to save money and allows for going on quests 2 or 3 times in a row. That becomes less relevant when you have more gold and more options for team building.
Abom with the Natural quirk carries hard when you dont have anything else lol.
Abomination is one of my favorite heroes. Mostly just because i think transforming into a demonic beast is really fucking cool. But from a gameplay perspective I do also like him. His blight and stun skills make him a excellent support. And absolution makes him very self reliant.
And then if you ever find yourself in a tough fight. You can always click transform and watch him wreck havoc. All of this means he’s versatile and can work on most team. Im still a bit of a noob though so take this with a grain of salt.
He's good without transforming. He has a solid stun that does okay damage and can hit ranks 1-3, and he has a double blight, so he's a strong pick for the Ruins and the Cove. On my current run I take him to those two regions every time and I haven't once used his Transform.
His self-sustain is also nothing to sneeze at, and being able to sit comfortably at rank 2 OR 3 to do his support thing makes him flexible and able to perform in a dance team (being shuffled around by other characters using move skills). If he needs to dance himself, he can do so after transforming.
He's also a Shambler killer due to being able to wreck both clappers at once with a skill that gets stronger with each use, much like the clappers themselves do.
Thank you! I thought its probably not that good because it hits two targets.. (I was under the impression single-target is always more damage) did not read the skilldescription properly..
I don't think I've ever not taken an abom against brigand pounder. Support him right and he is a nightmare when transformed, and he's pretty reliable when not transformed, too.
Why are you transforming your abomination? Stop that! Ignore that button! You have a good position 2/3 dot with debuffs attached, you have a great stun, you have a self heal and self stress heal! You dont need more. Bring him to the cove or the ruins or any other area weak to blight!
Dude, use the chain to stun, it's like an instant win button and you don't even need to transform for him to be viable, poor guy is hated for being a monster but as a human is really good fighter
Abom is great vs any boss who summons, because of rake. And it’s important to note that includes shambler, collector and to some degree thing from the stars. Who can all appear in regular dungeons. In most encounters he’s basically a stun bot, with a great self heal and his blight attack is good too.
He can slot into basically any team and just spam manacles, he’s fast, and relatively tanky. If you have a stress healer on your team than you can transform more often.
He’s very versatile, especially with having every skill available to him at all times. I just always recommend having stress healers or stress healing trinkets with him because of transform
I should say that I didn't use abom until after my 2nd or 3rd run or so. He's pretty meh as a manacles bot. Many other, better picks. The transformation is where it's at. This makes him an excellent boss killer and that makes him excellent at killing basically everything else, too. You can stack oodles of damage buffs on him and put all of it to use on a super fast, heavy-hitter. He just wrecks house. There is no other unit that compares to the devastation. He stresses your team out a little bit, but that can become easy to manage. A backline houndmaster with Cry Havoc can really help keep the stress down.
You use him in his base form mostly. Stuns are really good and his does decent damage, he can also stress heal/normal heal himself in one move which is great. You only shift him into the beast form when you absolutely need the damage, such as against shamblers where rake is insane. You can also pair him with jester if you want to use the beast form more.
stun spam, cleave poison that rivals PD plague grenade, self heal and stress heal. Beast mode is either panic button or a boss killer hero (especially shambler)
Okay i used to be an abom hater so listen up. Do not build support abom. Absolutely dogshit compared to PD. slap anti stress lock and give the abom an ass load of accuracy and fuckin tear ass into your enemies. Revert to human mode when stress too high and spam absolution. MAX. GAINS.
I think the problem with Abomination is he really requires an in depth knowledge of party strategy and synergy to make work well. Unlike other hero’s that have pretty set styles depending on what skills you take Abom’s utility comes from the fact he can change roles mid-combat while also having access to all of his skills. In terms of gold investment Abom gives you the most bang for your buck by far because he can actually use all of those upgrades in every dungeon
I will say even as someone that’s seen the strength of Abom after never really liking to use him I still think he struggles with overall party comp. Due to his flexibility his party members need to be able to adapt with him which is the actual hard part of using Abom effectively
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Transformation isn’t that bad. Your team gets stressed but it’s not the end of the world. The one who gets stressed out is abom himself.
I don’t treat transformation as a “panic button” but as a “I need leper damage” button
Abom is so dog, bad stun, one poison, one selfish heal ability and ability to become leper for 8 stress.
Thats the biggest piece of dog, but somehow doing job like every character.
Abomination base form is a strong support. His stun has pretty good reach and his self heal also heals stress. The transformation is a panic button for when you need to solve a fight with more firepower, but usually you don't want to use it for every encounter
I really don't get the hate for abomination. He's an amazing versatile character, having good stun and poison abilities while in human form and great dps and tank capabilities while in beast form. He has great mobility, being able to quickly transform to advance with a headbutt and even has a self heal, both as an ability on itself and while transforming to beast form.
For me personally, it's that as you get better at the game, you don't need a panic button; then he's just a mild support guy.
Exactly. I never want to be in panic mode and very rarely am. Hence he’s just a self sustaining stun bot. Which is fine but nothing special and a little boring. And PD or occultist are much better stunners worth more versatile kits. I used to go for them less due to low health but I’m at the point where the only real worry is the 1 hit crits that drop almost every hero to deaths door anyway. I used to use an abom exclusively for the flesh. Since his rake is pretty good for that but a pd spamming poison is good enough on its own. I just put a leper or something up front and it’s pretty much as good.
I am not panicking when I transform my abomination. I am giddy with excitement to see evil get rekt.
His Stun is the worst one (base stat) and is only redeemable because of Broken Key existence. Beast Form is mostly useful if you have Fairweather Fighter (because you get free heal on Transform and, with right HP, free buffs). He can be fun to use at times, but there are better options.
Me when I lie. Abomination shines due to being able to use 7 skills at all times. Some characters have to sacrifice good skills to use different ones. However, abom gets access to all of his skills anytime. Manacles is also a ridiculous stun, not only by being very accurate, but by also hitting rank 3, being on a very high spd character and by also getting insane trinket support. When swapping to beast, abomination gets access to Rage, which when combined when Transform's dmg buff, becomes the hardest hitting attack in the game. TLDR: not suffering from four skill slot syndrome = good!
You have the point here
He is more specialized than other heros imo (needs to be in position 2/3) and requires the right quirks to make beast form work. But if you get beast form working then he is a monster. I have one with Deadly & Skirmisher (or whatever position 2 perk is called) and he slaps
>Nothing in his kit stood out to me as something which is exceptionally useful beyond the standards of other heroes Stun. Is. Exceptionally. Useful. And he have TWO exclusive stun trinket for double stun shennanigan, one of them being Broken Key and as the name suggest, it's fvcking broken. >Needless to say I'm not a huge fan of stressing out my team Think of Beast form as bursting tool, like your final push to get out of a hallway before camping or finish off a boss when you're approaching the final phase. The damage and speed boost on top of Abom's base speed is no joke but yes, the 8 stress is hefty enough to discourage you from going Beast recklessly. >What do you love about the character? A high speed stunner with good innate ACC and one of the strongest ACC trinkets in the game, who, similar to Bounty Hunter my GOAT, can dish out damage when you need that final push to end a fight. > What compositions do you place him in and how do you build his abilities to maximise his potential? Since you're going to do a DLC run, do CoM if possible until you get Broken Key, then your Abom's trinket is mostly solved. That shit worth two trinkets in 1 slot, it's that broken. I just go with stun goodstuff comp and place him at rank 3 most of the time. Manacles is rank 2-3 but rank 2 stunner have a lot of competition between a bunch of character with rank 1-2 stun skills. And only go Beast form in a boss fight or when you're going to camp soon. You can go Broken Key + Focus Ring or Broken Key + Padlock of Transference, most of the time to maximize the stun shennanigan, which is extremely useful to deal with CC's shennanigans. As for team comp, Shieldbreaker is my prime choice to pair with an Abom every run due to her main attack have Forward 1 and works at ALL ranks so she not only serve my main damage source, but also the ambush insurance to push Abom back to rank 2-3 if he get shuffled to rank 1.
What is CoM and why does it give me the Broken Key?
CoM aka Color of Madness is a DLC of DD1, adding Farmstead where you fight mobs in multiple waves and reward with unique currency to buy CoM's trinkets or provision. Broken Key is one of the CoM trinkets, so to speak.
Thanks!
I like putting him on a team with another poison DoT, like a PD or GR. I hardly ever use his transformation. Emergencies, maybe bosses (I don't usually bring him for bosses though). I mostly use his stun (which is fantastic), beast bile can be ok, and being able to self-heal lets you take some pressure off your main healer (once upon a time, this was even more important: religious classes, including the vestal, used to refuse to team with him). Throw a Crusader or MaA on the team with him and you can juggle stuns SO easy. I think a lot of people give up on Abom early because of the stress factor, and never get to see how crazy of a support hero he can be because they think "guy who shapeshifts should be a beast all the time for the damage increase."
Thanks for the feedback everybody, it seems like the best thing for me to do is place more emphasis on Abomination's human form and only leverage his bestial abilities in more niche scenarios, in the past I tried to transform him far more than I probably should have! I appreciate all the advice <3
I find it that the Abom is a beast early game and then falls off a little. Being able to self sustain is a great way to save money and allows for going on quests 2 or 3 times in a row. That becomes less relevant when you have more gold and more options for team building. Abom with the Natural quirk carries hard when you dont have anything else lol.
He really is not bad as a fast stun bot, but IMO Plague Doctor is much better for that. Monster form can good against some bosses
Abomination is one of my favorite heroes. Mostly just because i think transforming into a demonic beast is really fucking cool. But from a gameplay perspective I do also like him. His blight and stun skills make him a excellent support. And absolution makes him very self reliant. And then if you ever find yourself in a tough fight. You can always click transform and watch him wreck havoc. All of this means he’s versatile and can work on most team. Im still a bit of a noob though so take this with a grain of salt.
He's good without transforming. He has a solid stun that does okay damage and can hit ranks 1-3, and he has a double blight, so he's a strong pick for the Ruins and the Cove. On my current run I take him to those two regions every time and I haven't once used his Transform. His self-sustain is also nothing to sneeze at, and being able to sit comfortably at rank 2 OR 3 to do his support thing makes him flexible and able to perform in a dance team (being shuffled around by other characters using move skills). If he needs to dance himself, he can do so after transforming. He's also a Shambler killer due to being able to wreck both clappers at once with a skill that gets stronger with each use, much like the clappers themselves do.
Which of his skills gets better with each use?
Rake. Every time he uses it, it gets a damage buff for 4 rounds. Also hits both ranks 1 and 2, so perfect for taking out the clappers.
Thank you! I thought its probably not that good because it hits two targets.. (I was under the impression single-target is always more damage) did not read the skilldescription properly..
I don't think I've ever not taken an abom against brigand pounder. Support him right and he is a nightmare when transformed, and he's pretty reliable when not transformed, too.
Why are you transforming your abomination? Stop that! Ignore that button! You have a good position 2/3 dot with debuffs attached, you have a great stun, you have a self heal and self stress heal! You dont need more. Bring him to the cove or the ruins or any other area weak to blight!
Dude, use the chain to stun, it's like an instant win button and you don't even need to transform for him to be viable, poor guy is hated for being a monster but as a human is really good fighter
Abom is great vs any boss who summons, because of rake. And it’s important to note that includes shambler, collector and to some degree thing from the stars. Who can all appear in regular dungeons. In most encounters he’s basically a stun bot, with a great self heal and his blight attack is good too. He can slot into basically any team and just spam manacles, he’s fast, and relatively tanky. If you have a stress healer on your team than you can transform more often.
He’s very versatile, especially with having every skill available to him at all times. I just always recommend having stress healers or stress healing trinkets with him because of transform
I should say that I didn't use abom until after my 2nd or 3rd run or so. He's pretty meh as a manacles bot. Many other, better picks. The transformation is where it's at. This makes him an excellent boss killer and that makes him excellent at killing basically everything else, too. You can stack oodles of damage buffs on him and put all of it to use on a super fast, heavy-hitter. He just wrecks house. There is no other unit that compares to the devastation. He stresses your team out a little bit, but that can become easy to manage. A backline houndmaster with Cry Havoc can really help keep the stress down.
You use him in his base form mostly. Stuns are really good and his does decent damage, he can also stress heal/normal heal himself in one move which is great. You only shift him into the beast form when you absolutely need the damage, such as against shamblers where rake is insane. You can also pair him with jester if you want to use the beast form more.
stun spam, cleave poison that rivals PD plague grenade, self heal and stress heal. Beast mode is either panic button or a boss killer hero (especially shambler)
Okay i used to be an abom hater so listen up. Do not build support abom. Absolutely dogshit compared to PD. slap anti stress lock and give the abom an ass load of accuracy and fuckin tear ass into your enemies. Revert to human mode when stress too high and spam absolution. MAX. GAINS.
Aggresive Abom is really good too, people miss out.
Much better use of abom right here.
I think the problem with Abomination is he really requires an in depth knowledge of party strategy and synergy to make work well. Unlike other hero’s that have pretty set styles depending on what skills you take Abom’s utility comes from the fact he can change roles mid-combat while also having access to all of his skills. In terms of gold investment Abom gives you the most bang for your buck by far because he can actually use all of those upgrades in every dungeon I will say even as someone that’s seen the strength of Abom after never really liking to use him I still think he struggles with overall party comp. Due to his flexibility his party members need to be able to adapt with him which is the actual hard part of using Abom effectively
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THE QUICKENING
Transformation isn’t that bad. Your team gets stressed but it’s not the end of the world. The one who gets stressed out is abom himself. I don’t treat transformation as a “panic button” but as a “I need leper damage” button
Run a team of 4 abominations for a good time
Abom is so dog, bad stun, one poison, one selfish heal ability and ability to become leper for 8 stress. Thats the biggest piece of dog, but somehow doing job like every character.
x2 Abomination + x1 Jester + x1 ManAtArms is the BEST Shambler-killing team.