Why no Dunk build on Tomb of the Spider Queen? With the massive minion wave build up, wouldn't dunk builds be more viable?

so many options with Azmo! excellent guide. :)

great guide, thank you!

Good guide, I only disagree with your preferred choice of ultimate.

Currently pushing lanes doesn't seem to be as big of a priority as ganking or winning team fights. The team experience and shifted battle lines of an early periphery base destruction, while helpful, just doesn't seem to swing the tide of the game quite as much as a well timed gank or team fight. Often have I seen teams lead in the early game with focuses on pushing, only to lose the late game because of diminished team fighting potential.

Of course an intelligent team should be able to snowball the early game lead into a late game victory of levels, but the concept of an 'intelligent team' in mobas seems more like an oxymoron. Heh.

All this being said, grunts just don't match up with the raw damage of pool.

I'll probably get a few odd remarks for saying this, but a skilled azmodan is a team fight champion. The proper and skilled use of his Q can control both lanes and enemy champions in the mid to late game, effectively forcing them to disengage before their health pools drop to where an azmodan can snipe them. Q also forces the opponents to stay far apart, which has both positives and negatives. Chunking over fifteen hundred hp from their valla before a fight even starts also controls the fight in a much more direct way. And with a lot more flying limbs.

I have never wanted an escape with azmodan. You're simply playing poorly if you 'get caught'. Situational and map awareness is the biggest factor in the skilled play of any character, especially azmodan. His insane hp pool allows you to take risks that other specialists simply cannot. I love walking into the middle of a team fight and channeling. If their stupid enough to focus on my big fat butt over our valla, they're gonna lose anyway! Even if they interrupt you, you can always pop a pool and hit those three melee for more damage total than they did to you. If your team cannot press that advantage, you are likely to lose anyway.

Tldr - grunts don't do enough. If you're skilled, you'll want to take pool.

Nice guide mate, now that he's free to play this week im going to crash course him through hell and back ;) +1

There isn't really push atm in the game. Some organised teams can overwhelm and do objectives + push and end pre 8mn consistently on 3 lane maps against non organised teams(faced a full team, very organised with abathur asmodan few days ago, 8 then 12mn wins and never seen them again, well it works but they were winning most of their fights and were far more efficient at everything on the map). But in solo queue or low/mid skillcap you can't really push to win. Not coming for the trades is beeing a nuisance to your mates. Asmodan pushes well and has great strengh when taking down Golems(solo quickly)/Bases but 95% of the time you are not focused on pushing. You are focused on winning fights and getting objectives above all. Micromanaging your traits, landing good "Q" and using your ultimate very agressively on objectives/keeps when possible is required from you to compensate for your lack of diable or burst of any kind in the fights.(despite the fact that asmodan is generally ok at trading, and in extended fights)

Hmmm... Good question. I feel as if it is still viable. Azmodan is fantastic at pushing other lanes he is not in and as i've mentioned you always want more than 1 lane pushing in your favour, the more lanes you having pushing the more problems your enemy has to deal with. Promote or not, it is still very viable to split-push as Azmodan.

Is is worth it to go 100% split-push with the recent nerf to [promote]?
Go big or go home scenario, I presume?

Hey, sorry about getting back to you so late. When it comes to stealth heroes the best bet you have is stay away from the fight throwing your globe at the enemy team and hugging the support that way if they show up your support can assist you and help you deal with them. A general rule to go by with stealth heroes on any MOBA is if you can't see them on the map then expect them to come to you. Try and look for the shimmer when it comes to teamfights and try to catch them out with a Q as they will be forced to retreat. Naturally Azmodan's damage is not that great. He can deal a decent amount with All Shall Burn and a long range Globe of Annihilation but that's it. Azmodan is more suited to laning and pushing not fighting. Just keep your distance and bombard your enemies with your Globes.

I find March of Sin useful but using All Shall Burn is situational. It's great at taking out a fleeing enemy as you can almost always keep up with them. It's great to apply some damage to someone that's close to you and it allows you to dance around the target avoiding some damage. The majority of the teamfight I find myself using my globe a lot and if any enemies get close enough I will use All Shall Burn on them. If you want to engage directly in a 1v1 with someone as Azmodan the best thing you can do is wittle them down with long range globe's and then punish them with All Shall Burn if they get close enough to you with a low amount of hp. So in short March of Sin is a great talent but using All Shall Burn is situational.

As for improving general Azmodan play map awareness is key, always glance at your map as Azmodan is very susceptible to ganks especially with how much he can push the lane. The more pushed up you are the more likely you are to be ganked. Use your trait in other lanes it can be an empty lane to help get more waves pushing or to help your allys help push out the lane. The more lanes you have pushing in your favour the better as thats 1 more problem the enemy has to deal with. Azmodan's job is to create pressure on structures and push the lane out far and he can do that from anywhere.

Hey, thanks for the guide, however i have some problems playing Azmodan.

Right now the meta is quite burst heavy, everytime a team fight happens some zeratul/nova just comes from behind and kills me. How do you approach that? I always try to not stand in the teamfight directly, but inbetween the teamfight and the next tower/defensive structur of my team. A other approach would be to just not participate in the teamfight at all but stay in range of the Q ability. This, however, brings huge problems since your damageoutput and influence on the game will be quite low, won't it? Also you cant really go in the teamfight directly because your healthpool isnt that great and you lack CC

The March of Sin ability is coped to deal with such issues, however the damage input is far too low to be able to win a 1v1; this brings me to the next question. Is March of Sin basically a PvE only ability? Everytime you try to use it in team fights you get bursted down easily since you have to be close to your enemy.

Maybe its different playing this hero on grouped up 5v5 teams since you will have much more support from your team when it comes to teamfights, however, on random teams, even though my MMR isnt that terrible, this hero seems to work out pretty bad for me.

I hope you can give me some ideas how to improve my play!

True, but you shouldn't be overextending in the first place. if he ulted you, e him after, then if he runs, q him, then he will be most likely lower than you because of your large health pool.

Whilst Illidan is easy to deal with early in the game he does gain more of an ability to kill you. If you overextend he will punish you for doing so by not letting you escape via unit collision when he uses his Q and also his damage. It's not easy to track Illidan's cooldowns due to his passive. He could ult you, trade with you, back off then come back again do it all again a few moments after.