Aghanim’s Shard
Aghanim’s Shard is a special consumable item only purchasable at and after the 15 minute mark. It does not provide any stat bonuses and is essentially useless if not consumed. However, when consumed, the Shard provides the consuming hero with enhanced or new abilities, making them more formidable on the battlefield. Every hero in Dota 2 is able to purchase an Aghanim’s Shard. Some heroes utilize the shard incredibly well and should be bought the very moment the 15 minute comes to pass. In this list, we will go over the most powerful Aghanim’s Shard for the top 15 heroes and see why it is so.
15. Dazzle
What Dazzle’s Shard does:
- Causes Poison Touch to hex affected targets for 2 second
Starting off this list, we have one of the strongest Aghanim’s Shards for support in the game. This hero’s Aghanim Shard is one of the only Shards in the game that offers an AOE disable that can affect multiple enemies at once. This, coupled with the fact that Dazzle’s Poison Touch has a relatively low cooldown, makes him incredibly annoying to deal with, giving the hero that has no sort of crowd control essentially one.
The Shard is incredibly effective as Dazzle naturally has some decent cast range and it serves the same as a Scythe of Vyse for a fraction of the price.
14. Dragon Knight
What Dragon Knight’s Shard does:
- Grants the Fireball ability
- The ability Ignites an area, dealing damage over time that lingers on enemies in it.
Dragon Knight’s Aghanim’s is a core item purchase for Dragon Knight as it synergizes incredibly well with his skill set. Dragon Knight does not have many great ways to farm and his Shard ability fills in that gap. The new ability gives Dragon Knight a low cooldown damage over time ability that doubles as damage in team fights as well as being a low cost method of farming. The ability combos well with his Dragon Tail, stunning enemies in place and dealing incredible damage over time. Dragon Knight players should pick up the Shard as soon as it’s available as it is just too good to forgo.
13. Dark Willow
What Dark Willow’s Shard does:
- Cursed Crown creates 4 brambles in a 175 radius around the target after the counter ends. Triggers even upon dispel. Reduces stun delay by 1 second.
Dark Willow’s Shard makes the hero extremely potent as a powerful disabler. For the cost of 1400 gold, the Shard gives Dark Willow the ability to have an extra root that synergizes very well with her Bramble Maze ability, as well as provide a stun delay to her cursed crown ability. This means that when properly comboed, Dark Willow can lock any hero down without magic immunity or a dispel for a whopping 8 seconds. The Bramble’s created from the Shard also act as extra area denial, making the battlefield even harder to navigate, causing ample amounts of confusion for such a cheap pick up.
12. Necrophos
What Necophos’s Shard does:
- Grants the Death Seeker ability
- Spawns a fast moving large Death Pulse towards the target enemy or ally, causing the target to become ethereal. Reduces enemy magic resistance. Spreads towards nearby enemies and allies after impact.
Necrophos’s Shard is borderline broken in that it essentially serves as an Ethereal Blade and doubles up as an extra Death Pulse. This means that it basically doubles the amount of damage the hero does from his Death Pulse ability and synergizes extremely well with his magic based damage abilities. If that is not enough, the Shard turns enemies or allies ethereal, meaning that they cannot be damaged by any physical abilities or attacks, making the shard a very potent counter towards physical damage dealers and carries.
11. Queen of Pain
What Queen of Pain’s Shard does:
- Releases a sonic boom when Queen of Pain blinks, at both her starting and ending locations. Deals 125 damage in a 300 AoE and silences for 1.75 seconds.
Queen of Pain’s Shard is one of the best core pickups on the hero as it offers her some extra damage and disruption. The ability synergizes well with her low cooldown Scream of Pain that essentially enables her to nuke down waves of enemy creeps, increasing her farming speed and allowing her to do more damage in team fights. The silence also enables her to blink into enemy lines with less fragility, silencing her foes and rendering them unable to prevent her onslaught without proper dispels or allied assistance. You will always see professional cores pick up this Shard on Queen of Pain.
10. Sniper
What Sniper’s Shard does:
- Grants the Concussive Grenade ability
- The ability launches a grenade at the target area, dealing damage to enemies and knocking them and Sniper himself back. Enemies affected have their movement slowed after the knockback
Sniper’s Shard is incredibly underrated as it essentially gives Sniper a defensive ability on an incredibly low cooldown. As most enemies like to pounce on Sniper at the earliest possible choice, the Shard is a cheap way to deal with right-click based carries such as Phantom Assassin, as it knocks back his opponents, increasing the distance between his enemy and himself. Although not mentioned in the ability toolbar, the Shard actually disarms his opponents too, allowing Sniper to have some decent kiting and extra utility on top of the slow and knock back the item provides. The Aghanim’s Shard is usually picked up as a later choice in the game depending on how the game is going and whether an extra disarm in your team would be invaluable.
9. Vengeful Spirit
What Vengeful Spirit’s Shard does:
- Bounces once on an enemy, prioritizing heroes, within Magic Missile's current cast range from the first target.
Vengeful Spirit’s Shard is as simple as it is powerful. Allowing Vengeful Spirit’s Magic Missile ability to bounce to opponent’s essentially allows the hero to have an extra stun in team fights. The single-target stun ability is a very powerful nuke and delivers a respectable disable, making her able to disrupt team fights every 9 seconds.
8. Venomancer
What Venomancer’s Shard does:
- Grants the Latent Toxicity ability
Venomancer’s Shard is a situational pick that gives the hero some extra damage and utility in games where the enemy team has some strong dispels or Black King Bar carriers. Although not picked up every game, the hero’s Shard can make it such that if enemies try to pop their BKB’s whilst they have the Shard’s debuff on them, they will be stunned during their magic immunity, wasting a lot of time and often dictating the team fight.
7. Warlock
What Warlock’s Shard does:
- Turns Shadow Word into a 450 AoE Spell
Warlock’s Aghanim’s Shard is extremely powerful, granting the ability for Shadow Word to be placed on a huge number of both allied and enemy targets. Although seemingly underwhelming, the AOE Shadow Word offers your team incredible amounts of sustain when sieging towers and is best picked up on a team that works together and pushes objectives in union. At worst, the Shard is a powerful damage over time ability that gives Warlock some much needed farming and wave pushing ability.
6. Wraith King
What Wraith King’s Shard does:
- Causes Reincarnation to have no mana cost and spawn 3 skeletons to attack each nearby enemy hero when Reincarnation is triggered.
Believe it or not, but Wraith King’s Shard ability was only ever possible when the hero reached level 25 as part of his talent tree. Now, for 1500 gold, Wraith King can get the item as early as need be, making it such that his former mana-burning counters such as Anti-Mage and Phantom Lancer, are now much less proficient against the hero. The hero is all about having a free Aegis in long drawn out team fights. With the Aghanim’s Shard, you will always be able to have a second life in every engagement.
5. Chaos Knight
What Phantom Lancer’s Shard does:
- Spirit Lance bounces once on an enemy, prioritizing Heroes. Increases Spirit Lance illusion damage.
Phantom Lancer’s Shard is usually picked up once the hero has most of his core items such as his Diffusal Blade and Manta Style, allowing him to pick and prod at his enemies without needing to commit into battle until he is confident he can win. The Shard is exceptionally powerful at whittling enemies down from afar, as well as acting as an extra source of spawning additional illusions which is what the hero is known for.
4. Pudge
What Pudge’s Shard does:
- Grants the Eject ability
- Allows Pudge to swallow up ally heroes and heal them over time
Reduces the cooldown of his Ultimate- Dismember
It was only a matter of time before Pudge’s Shard was mentioned in this list. Pudge’s Aghanim's Shard ability is an exceptional utility tool that is used to save crucial allied targets at best, and reduce his downtime of his ultimate at worst. For 1400 gold, the Shard gives Pudge the ability to do what almost no other hero in Dota 2 can do. It can protect his allies, swallowing them whole away from harm's way from the enemy’s initiation tools. For example, Pudge can save key team mates caught in Chronosphere, Fiends Grip or other disables, healing them for the duration that they stay within Pudge.
3. Ursa
What Ursa’s Shard does:
- Earthshock applies a 1.5 second Enrage on Ursa when cast.
Getting into the crucible of powerful shard abilities, we have Ursa’s Shard that gives the hero the ability to bound into battle with almost no downtime with his ultimate. It makes him incredibly tanky and makes him a formidable frontliner for his team. As with Phantom Lancer, the Shard ability should only be picked up once the hero has their core items or if it is situationally required.
2. Tiny
What Tiny’s Shard does:
- Causes Tree Grab to have no charge limit.
Tiny’s Shard is ridiculously valuable for the hero, giving him essentially a free Battlefury by the 15 minute mark for a third of the price. Tiny’s Shard makes it so that the hero can essentially siege towers by the 20 minute mark due to the incredible powerful farming capability that the item offers, and is picked up by position 1 Tiny players almost every time by the 15 minute mark.
1. Witch Doctor
What Witch Doctor’s Shard does:
- Grants the Voodoo Switcheroo ability.
The final and possibly most powerful and underrated Shard of this list is for Witch Doctor. The hero’s Shard essentially grants him the ability to turn himself into a ward that is invulnerable for 3 seconds which is an incredibly long time in the scheme of a team fight. As the hero is often the first target in most engagements, this tool is invaluable, buying himself some much needed time for his allies to come to the rescue whilst making himself a source of damage for the duration. The Shard also complements well with his Maledict ability, making him do an insane amount of damage even without his ultimate ability.
A full list of all the Aghanim Shard upgrades can be found at the link: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Aghanim%27s_Shard/Upgraded_Abilities
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