Hi guys! I'm Thalgor and this is my first guide on heroesfire. I'm here to show you my main and favorite hero in the game, Azmodan. I wanted to create this guide because there wasn't many other guides on him that talked about his mercenary capabilities. He's a lot more than just pushing out lanes. If you like to have a lot of cool and fun abilities, able to solo mercs easily, and to have a large health pool at the same time, then Azmodan is for you.

Azmodan is a strong hero with fun abilities. With his abilities and his awesome self mount, he can be a lot of fun. Although he has certain problems that can be difficult to overcome, his main ability that makes me keep playing him is to solo mercs easily and quickly. Now for some pros and cons:

Pros:

- To be able to split push easily with his Q and D.

- To be able to solo boss at level 10 with taking no expenses expect for mana.

- Having a large health pool.

- To usually be able to 1v1 anybody that has no interrupt.

Cons:

- Absolutely no escape abilities or extra movement speed.

- Can be blocked easily considering his size.


Timing with this hero is essential, to do mercs before enemies arrive, or to time your q right into place to hit an enemy. If you have bad lag, you might not want to play this hero until you get that fixed. Now, remember all those times I said, his q, or his e, or whatever? If you weren't sure what I meant, I meant his abilities. Here are his abilities that make him who he is.

General of Hell
This ability is one of your split pushing abilities or just pushing abilities that you can use to buff minions or your summons, except for your heroic summons. Use it whenever it's up to push harder, and whenever lane minions are fighting alone, abuse the power of unlimited range.

Globe of Annihilation
One of your most useful and fun abilities, just it to find where your enemies could be and to help other lanes to abuse it's long range. The long range also increases its damage considering we are taking Sieging Wrath as our first talent. Sometimes, if I'm going top lane on maps like Dragon Shire, and Cursed Hollow, I throw a Globe to hit the first 3 buildings, the 2 towers and the wall, because it reveals if an enemy is in the bushes or not.

Summon Demon Warrior
A simple ability that you should cast before right before doing mercs to let them soak up some of the damage. When your in the early game or just simply pushing, use them to soak up ammo from the towers.

All Shall Burn
Your main ability that allows you to quickly do mercs and 1v1 certain heroes. When doing most mercenary camps, i try to summon the demon warriors to attack one of them, and I will use E for a healthy one. On champions that charge you alone that can't interrupt you like Illidan, cast this on him and since he can't interrupt you, the damage will most likely be to fast for him to keep up.

Demonic Invasion
Your ultimate, the ability that allows you to clear out boss and hard camps so easily. On maps with bosses, save this for when the enemy team is distracted, or when you just hit level 10, because most people don't expect a hero to solo a boss that early on. The reason it's so strong against bosses is because bosses to slower attacks, but strong damage. The grunts don't die depending on damage, they die depending on attacks. They die when they are attacked 4 times, and this take a bit for a boss to do, and with a good 10 of them attacking it and you using you E against it, it won't take very long to kill it.

Black Pool
The ultimate that we will not be going for because the other ultimate in my opinion is just better for everything. In a merc build you'd think it would be good to clear mercs easier, it is, but it isn't as good as the other one because it allows you to clear out mercs easier. During teamfights, it's REALLY bad. This is because in order to get the extra damage, which is actually really good, you have to stand in it, making you immobile. In a teamfight, if you immobile your going to be targeted by sustain dps heroes like Illidan and Raynor.

In this build, we won't be going for more teamfighty talents, we're going for the merc build like this whole thing has been about. The one to pick will have a YES under it, the ones to not pick, will have a NO under it, and the ones that you could use the the build will have a MAYBE under it.


Taste for Blood
NO
Don't ever go for this. There's better talents in the tree, since getting last hits from it is too rare, and you'll have to be using too much mana for it.

Sieging Wrath
YES
A great talent since before you go into serious teamfights, you can throw these from afar which will highly increase the damage. It can also help catching runners to ensure the kill, if they are low enough health.

Spare Nothing
NO
There's much better talents in the tree, and your not going to be laning against towers with a merc build, but even if you weren't, I'd still stay away from this talent, since you already have summons to soak ammo if needed.

Healing Ward
MAYBE
I pick this ability on Cursed Hollow, since if you place it at the tribute, allies are going to be around it, so they will be healed. I also pick if I feel like the game won't be as teamfighty, since Sieging Wrath would be better for that situation.

Bribe
MAYBE
I've tried this, but it's too much work to be killing minions then to gain the stacks. In the long run Sieging Wrath would do better in my opinion, but the choice is yours.


Superiority
NO
You shouldn't need this while doing mercenary camps since your demons will be soaking most of the damage for you. You really shouldn't pick this in any build of Azmodan.

Army of Hell
NO
It would be OK for doing merc camps, but Burn the Weak is much better, and in normal builds it's just not very good since demons aren't very powerful in general.

Burn the Weak
YES
Is essential for clearing out mercs a lot faster and no way competes with any other talent for doing mercs.

Gluttony
NO
If your going for an All Shall Burn build against enemy heroes, then take this talent.

Bound Minion
NO
Use this talent if your going for an all round normal split pushing build, because it can alone easily start using turret ammo. If you are, use it on the warriors first, since it only last 15 seconds, so you want to get the best out of it.

Mercenary Lord
YES
A huge no brainer, some people have suggested to me to pick master of destruction, the mercenaries are going to be a lot more of a pain if they're stronger like that.

Infernal Globe
NO
A fantastic talent considering the travel and cast time is quite long although the burn damage isn't that much, it's better than nothing. Take this talent when doing a normal teamfight build.

Enduring Warriors
NO
Considering they already last 10 seconds and they die pretty quickly, there's not really any point of this talent ever.

Master of Destruction
NO
A strong talent for the All Shall Burn build, but I wouldn't take it in a mercenary build.

First Aid
MAYBE
A strong talent for a hero that has a lot of health. I would say for a mercenary build, mercenary lord is too good, but for an all round teamfight build, go for this or Infernal Globe.

I already talked about these in the ability listing.



Relentless
MAYBE
I usually don't take this talent, but if you seem to be being focused a lot and the most easiest person to keep up with on your team, stay back in teamfights, because there's two talents in this tree that you'll want.


Hellforged Armor
YES
Usually the talent you should go for since it will allow your demons to tank a lot more damage from mercs and you take a lot less damage from mercs.

Blazing Demons
NO
There's almost no point in this talent ever since it isn't as strong as the other talents in the tree.

March of Sin
MAYBE
If you see yourself in a lot more teamfights, and if your going an allround teamfight build, go for this one. It can allow you to teamfight so much better.


Imposing Presence
MAYBE
If the enemy has a handful of assassins that are based more off basic attacks, go for it.

Battleborn
YES
A really good talent that you can throw mid to late game, since you get it at level 16, pushing will be important. The awesome thing about this is in maps like Dragon Shire and Cursed Hollow, when people are collecting tributes, or the dragon, you can throw your Globe, then that will interrupt them, and adding on to that they will have a demon to deal with that will interrupt them. This can definitely buy some time.

Demonic Smite
NO
Can be good if you want to be pushing a lane all game, but other than that it's just not as good at Battleborn in my opinion.

Blood for Blood
MAYBE
A strong ability if your enemy has a lot of warriors with health, it can save your life at points so definitely a good choice.

Resurgence of the Storm
YES
An amazing pick that I realized is a lot better than perishing flame, since at this point in the game if you die, that means 60 seconds that a 4v5 is going on.

Swift Storm (Deprecated)
NO
I don't see much of a point with this talent. You have much stronger talents already in the tree.

Storm Shield
NO
Can be decent for teamfights but I still think theres better talents in this tree.

Perishing Flame
MAYBE
I realized that this talent isn't actually as good as I thought it was. It did an OK amount of damage, so Resurgence is a lot better in my opinion. Your choice.

Fifth Circle
NO
Since you picked the other ultimate, this is useless. If you did still pick Black Pool, Resurgence of the Storm is still better in my opinion.

To start off, you want to choose what lane to go. Never go mid lane, because that usually requires you to be there 24/7. Go the lane that you can get easiest access to a siege giant camp. Once you get into your lane, just cast your W and your D every now and then to hold the lane. When you hit level 4, you want to take Burn the Weak and go to the siege giant camp closest to you and do it. After that you can do the camps you wish and keep an eye on your lane. If your ally needs a bit of help, help him out a bit then go back to taking mercs until you hit level 10.

As soon as you hit level 10, if there is a boss and the enemies are distracted, go do it. Use your ult and your D and E it. This should die relatively quick so enemies don't come and find out what your doing. Keep an eye on where the enemy is with your Q and do mercs just like normal. Except at this point map objectives like golems and garden terrors are occurring, so defend against those. By the way on the garden terror map, you can solo the nightly garden terrors if your enemies are fighting your allies.

This is around the time a game usually ends, the early twenties. Mercs are a bit less relevant and you want to usually stay with your allies at this point for teamfights, because assassins at this point in the game can do a lot and quickly kill you, even with your large health pool.

To start off, you want to throw out your W then auto attack. Then throw your Q if your mana is high then throw out the next W. Then throw out your D then throw out your E on the giant with the highest health. This is the most efficient way to do it as I've seen, so you don't end up taking any extra damage.

Doing the knights isn't much different expect for the fact that it is going to take a lot longer which could be dangerous for an enemy to find you and kill you. The same rotation as the siege giants, except if there isn't any bosses on the map, just ult them. It will quickly kill them with your E and D.

This is a pretty simple thing. Before you do these, make sure at least half your enemies are on the minimap seen. If not, they could be coming after your boss or looking for you. I've had this happen with a Nova and just as I was about to finish it she had almost killed me and she had allies coming, so they got the boss and I died. That was a huge tragedy. The rotation is, R, D, then E. During the R animation, you can throw your W out into a nearby bush to search if an enemy is coming.

- To the addition of making sure enemies aren't expecting or knowing where you are, you need to be careful of your D ability. You have to be very careful of it because unlike your W, your D isn't marching forward a target point. It's just spawning there and going straight towards the closest lane and fighting anything in its path. If you summon your W then INSTANTLY summon your D on top, it might be far enough away to the point it will just run away to the closest lane which would TOTALLY run your position. Then a couple of enemies could just run from where it came from and kill you and take your mercenary camp. Summon your D on your W AFTER it's close enough to a merc so the D will see it and fight it, soaking up more damage.

- Don't be throwing out your Q while doing mercs blindly. If you throw it at a pack of lane minions while doing a merc camp, an enemy could see where it came from and find you. Be aware of enemy vision that if they see it, they might be smart enough to go after it and find you.

Bound Minion (Level 4 Talent)

Now heals target to full health
Now lasts 15 seconds

Now with this talent, you going to want to use it on the warriors so you get the best out of it. If you use it on the archers, then you won't get the health benefit used, and you'll only get the damage output used. Use it on damaged warriors as well, just so you can get the benefit of healing it. Other than that, Azmodan wasn't nerfed too hard. I also found out I can't use General of Hell on my heroic summons, which is kind of annoying, but not much harm done.

That's pretty much it. Thanks a whole lot for reading the guide and I hope it helped out a lot of people. I would love feedback and if you disagree on something let me know! If you want to see a Nova ... build I have that finished!