RECENT CHANGES (BY PATCH)
05/17/16 (Chromie patch) - reviewed; no significant changes
04/07/16 (Dehaka patch) - reviewed; no significant changes
01/13/16 (Greymane patch) - reviewed; no significant changes
11/20/15 (Cho'gall patch) - reviewed; some changes below
8/19/15 (Kharazim patch) - extensive rewrite, under review while heroesfire updates talents
6/2/15 (post-Johanna and game launch) - reviewed guide.
6/2/15 (post-Kael'thas patch) - started this guide. |
Build Disclaimer: Don't let me tell you how to play this Hero. Play him how you play him best! There are many Heroes and many builds that can be viable in the right hands. This is just one guide amongst many and is my take on this Hero. Have fun, and enjoy!
If you want to talk shop, I can often be found playing with friend and steamer Kennigma on twitch.tv/kennigma. |
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NAME |
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Azmodan, Lord of Sin |
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CLASS |
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Specialist |
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SUB-CLASS |
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Lane pusher, but with very good Assassin damage |
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MY DIFFICULTY RATING |
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Easy. Medium if you keep yourself busy with dual duties |
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ATTACK DISTANCE |
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Ranged to VERY ranged |
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ACTUAL FIGHT DISTANCE |
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Mid-ranged to VERY ranged |
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MOBILITY |
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Very low, not fast, no escapes |
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COMPETITIVE? |
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Sort of...depends entirely on stacking the globe up |
Azmodan is a Specialist, which mostly means he has abilities that help him do things like push a lane effectively. In fact, he's very good at it. He also has abilities and talents that give him good Hero damage output, sort of like a pseudo-assassin. In truth, he can be played in either of those roles quite successfully.
Azmodan's damage is mostly a small mix of burst with
 Globe of Annihilation and
 Black Pool and stacked by
 Taste for Blood, but also sustain with
 Gluttony and
 March of Sin. The most common build right now is to focus on
Taste for Blood and stacking up 300+ bonus damage towards the late game, where Azmodan can chunk down Heroes very quickly. On the other hand, Azmodan's Siege Damage should be near the highest of the game (not including stats gained while in things like a Dragon Knight), because of his lane push abilities such as General of Hell.
Just remember that some abilities are meant for pushing a lane, and are not necessarily useful to spend mana on in a team fight. Summoning a General of Hell or
 Summon Demon Warrior in the confusion of a team fight is usually a waste. Become efficient with your mana spend, because Azmodan will be hurting for mana at times.
Azmodan has really no CC, no stuns, and no interrupts. In fact, as a tank-like character, he can really be hard-pressed to give the enemy team a reason to attack him, so you need to make sure you're in their face doing body blocks and channeling
 All Shall Burn on priority targets for that delicious max damage. But his real threat is the ability for Azmodan to be present at the top of a map for a team fight, and still have a powerful General of Hell pushing down your lane hard at the bottom of the map. Or, if uncontested, pushing a lane fast and deep himself!
 Kharazim patch updates
General Notes: The meta for Azmodan changed pretty soon after this guide was last updated, moving from a split push meta with
 Sieging Wrath and
 Bound Minion to now focusing on stacking up
Taste for Blood. This patch then changed more things around, and the developer notes suggest they wanted to give Azmodan more viable options, which I think they did an ok job with. Azmodan now can go full
All Shall Burn build and his split-push builds had quality of life or overall damage improvements. Overall, this guide has gotten an extensive rewrite with this patch, even dropping the "AzmoDunk" from the name of the main build, since it's not really a dunk...
Cho'gall patch updates
General Notes: Azmodan didn't have any direct changes in this patch, but the scaling changes and a bug did affect him. His laning presence isn't quite as strong as it was before, but only because towers/forts in the early game give less of a lead for your team, as XP/level differences have been reduced. There is a bug, however, that causes his
Black Pool to not properly augment his
Taste for Blood+
Globe of Annihilation for the proper amount of damage, hurting his stack-gaining after level 10. (This has been fixed.) Still, changes are big and affect everyone to some degree, so if anything else big is found, I'll keep this updated.
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(Q) Globe of Annihilation
Cooldown: 10 seconds | Crazy, long range attack lending itself to the "dunk" monikers for Azmodan (it sort of resembles a basketball being tossed into a hoop, which technically isn't a dunk, but whatever...). But very mana intensive to spam out and the damage is not great, especially early in the game. Best used to nuke down low health fleeing Heroes who think they are safe. Path of travel also reveals map for a brief moment. |
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(W) Summon Demon Warrior
Cooldown: 10 seconds | Summon a demon warrior that will push a lane. Great to augment lane creep for better pushing. |
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(E) All Shall Burn
Cooldown: 6 seconds | Azmodan's main damage dealing ability against Heroes; should be used quite often. If you're playing the tank role, making this ability a target for interrupts and CC is the goal, so put this on someone important and force the enemy team to blow some abilities on you before your death laser heats up. And when it heats up, that damage per second gets delicious! Also great for melting structures. |
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(Trait) General of Hell
Cooldown: 30 seconds | This is a cast ability and has global range. It's not completely obvious to new players, but you can cast this in a lane you're not presently in, which gives Azmodan really strong split-pushing ability. Should probably be used on cooldown, without fail, for the entire match. Will buff nearby minions, as well! |
LET'S TALK ABOUT BUILDS
Azmodan is in a fun place for a specialist. He's a big lane pusher, but he also has a dps side to him. Plus he has a large body that just screams "get in people's way!" Currently, the meta is to stack up
Taste for Blood for late-game huge hits from
Globe of Annihilation while abusing the global range of General of Hell to push a lane you're not even present in, and contribute to the team in ways that a tank or damage dealer does. At first glance, most players look at Azmodan and think he just has a dunk build based around
Taste for Blood, but closer inspection reveals a much deeper viability and variability to his builds, to better push lanes or just mix things up with Laz0rs.
BUILD: AZMOGLOBE
Azmodan is best known for his blazing, fiery globes of death gracefully hurled at great distances. This is the current meta pick right now, which sees Azmodan focusing on stacking up
Taste for Blood as efficiently as he can, while also augment lane push with General of Hell on cooldown and taking other talents to better contribute during late game team fights while
Globe of Annihilation is on cooldown. A purposeful Azmodan should expect 300+ bonus damage from
Taste for Blood in most any game, and you can go up from there, especially if you have a buddy like
Johanna scouting and clumping up creep waves with
Condemn to set up a long range
Globe of Annihilation strike. Drop
Black Pool for even more secured last hits. Note that level 16 is a bit of a flex pick, so choose your talent as you prefer. Personally, I prefer
Blood for Blood or
Imposing Presence for team fights. The biggest downside to this build is how mana intensive it can be, so you probably do not want to waste any mana to
Summon Demon Warrior.
BUILD: AZMOPUSH
This build sees Azmodan half staying with the team to do team things (map objectives and team fights), but also having a presence in a separate lane as the General of Hell pushes with
Bound Minion as well. Otherwise, this keeps Azmodan's team fight potential relatively high with
All Shall Burn. And when it comes time to split push,
Master of Destruction can allow quicker structure kills so you can escape sooner.
BUILD: AZMOLASER
If you don't need to play the split push role, or you just want to watch enemies melt and burn, then putting emphasis on your team fight damage is the answer. This build focuses on surviving and landing
All Shall Burn at every chance you can get, and to hit as hard as you can with
Black Pool and
Fifth Circle pumping it up. You can also still split push by dropping General of Hell in another lane... Ultimately, though, you probably should be rolling with the AzmoGlobe build.
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Sieging Wrath [ not recommended ] - This talent might be useful, but honestly, there are other better options at this level. In fact, this drops down to being the least interesting talent at level 1 now. |
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Taste for Blood [ good ] - A key component of "Globe" builds. The theory is you harm a creep wave and then slam a bunch with
Globe of Annihilation to get last hits on them with the impact. Any that die due to the impact increases the base damage. Works on minions, mercs, Heroes, plant fodders, and mine ghouls. Also, if you can auto attack or have a helper, there is a small fraction of a second after the Globe hits that you can still kill the minion and have it count. As the damage gets higher and your level improves, you can slam groups of enemies more efficiently and start exponentially increasing the damage. This should lend itself to huge damage on Heroes in the late game. The problem is execution; you have to really be on the ball to get this going, and you need to do it all match, and even try to coordinate with your team to allow you to get last hits on cooldown. Great in theory, and fun when it all works out, but can be unreliable. It also allows the enemy team to focus Azmodan as a gank target early on, and screw up his stack collection. |
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 Bribe [ situational ] - This talent actually has its moments, such as on Blackheart's Bay, for some quick push groups and coins. Or as an alternative to
Master of Destruction for lane push builds. But otherwise, other talents here benefit Azmodan more. This would work well with
Taste for Blood if they weren't on the same tier, to give Azmodan significant pushing potential while not losing out on stack-farming. |
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 Army of Hell [ situational ] - One of the biggest issuse with using
Summon Demon Warrior is the mana cost and low impact, but this talent goes a long way to fixing that issue for lane push builds. But keep in mind that
 Mercenary Lord will still compete here. Initial reaction is that
Army of Hell will be slightly better. |
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Gluttony [ situational ] - For most builds, this used to be a default choice at this tier. The problem now is
 Sin's Grasp being present at this level. With the Kharazim patch, Azmodan was pretty much stripped of his tanky abilities. This means he now wants to make sure his damage is maximized, and this talent won't help that. In some comps this might still see play, but with a Laser build you want
Sin's Grasp and with lane push builds you want other talents at this tiew. |
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Sin's Grasp [ good ] - More damage! Basically this is an Azmodan replacement for
 Envenom only on a faster timer. Basically, this is probably going to become the default pick for Laser and Globe builds as it improves Azmodan's damage flat out. There may still be a place for
Gluttony against sustain comps where you lack heals, but that's maybe it. |
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Mercenary Lord [ not recommended ] - This talent allows Azmodan to take Merc camps without taking much damage (including Boss damage!) and pumps up all Mercs he pushes with. This can be a really good talent for a lane push build when you plan to actively take Merc camps and bosses. The problem is you can build some bad habits by moving with your Merc camps. When you send a Merc camp forward, but head off somewhere else, you force the enemy team to make a choice on what they respond to. If you're with the Merc camp, the choice becomes far easier, which makes this talent slightly less useful, even for lane push builds. |
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Bound Minion [ situational ] - The General of Hell trait is a global ability, and for any Azmodan that wants to push lanes (and they all should), it should be used on cooldown. And this talent helps make that push even more powerful. The problem with this talent (which is essentially
 Promote for Azmodan) is the 30s time limit for this, and having
 Gluttonous Ward at this tier. The Ward is going to be an interesting talent here for lane push builds, but those builds may still opt to pick
Bound Minion first, as it helps with creep push. |
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 Infernal Globe [ good ] - A key component to the
Taste for Blood build to get globes landed with more damage for more kills and with higher accuracy due to the speed increase. |
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 Infused Power [ situational ] - You want to do a laser build to do max power with
All Shall Burn? Well, this is your talent to pick at this tier. Otherwise, move along! |
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Gluttonous Ward [ situational ] - Azmodan can be a hog with mana, and this talent will immediately help that issue, as well as restore some health (about 25% of each). The problem is every build has other needs at this tier. |
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 Demonic Invasion [ situational ] - A great heroic to pick up, minions deal damage, can push effectively, and in team fights provide meat shields to soak up skill shots and Hero ability damage. Definitely has its place! |
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Black Pool [ good ] - Also an excellent heroic to pick up, assuming you get to stand in it for the duration and sling out a globe and channel some hurtful
All Shall Burn. Low cooldown makes this really tempting for most builds to augment burst damage. Pool can be used by allies! That means your minions and demons and mercs (not Heroes)! Also, really helps you build more stacks of
Taste for Blood by powering up your
Globe of Annihilation. |
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 Hellforged Armor [ situational ] -Demon warriors got buffed with the Kharazim patch, as well as their talents like this one, which gives them more survivability and an AoE damage pulse every second. If you're looking to push lanes with your minions, this is a good talent to pick up. |
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March of Sin [ good ] - A great addition, as it is second nature until this level, for a target of
All Shall Burn to just outrange and cancel the channel. Now, Azmodan can actually keep the burn on longer, and reposition during team fights. And using his body for body blocks is a very big thing for him. Almost a default pick at this tier for any build. It really changes the way Azmodan plays. Normally, Azmodan channeling
All Shall Burn is an Azmodan that is no doing anything else. With this talent, he can now reposition at will and leverage his mass for body blocks. |
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 Hedonism [ good ] - This is a new talent, and is tempting especially to Globe builds that want to sling out more Globes and worry a little bit less about low mana issues in late game team fights. Still, this isn't a slam dunk pick at this tier, and depending on your playstyle and needs, will probably switch out regularly with
March of Sin. |
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 Relentless [ not recommended ] - Prior to the last patch, Azmodan had talents and the ability to play a sort of pseudo-tank role, and this talent sort of helped out. Now, however, there are too many other solid choices at this tier, which really pushes
Relentless down in priority. Most of the time, Azmodan is an all-in sort of hero who lacks escape until level 20's
 Bolt of the Storm. That's just a fact of life for Azmodan, and being able to shake off slows and roots quick probably won't help. |
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 Battleborn [ not recommended ] -I don't see many situations where this talent is very useful. If you're doing a globe build, I can see picking this up for a little warrior to be a nuisance, but you probably get more impact from
Blood for Blood or
Imposing Presence. |
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 Demonic Smite [ situational ] - This talent competes against other better talents, but might have a spot on maps like Tomb of the Spider Queen where the extra blast of damage actually isn't overkill. On other maps, the damage is overkill on most minions. If you're doing a minion-based lane push build, this talent is tempting, but you still might find
Blood for Blood or
Imposing Presence more useful for team fights you need to participate in. |
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Imposing Presence [ situational ] - Prior to the Kharazim patch, Azmodan could play a sort of tanky role, but these days, he's less a tank and more of a mid-to-long ranged assassin. This talent can definitely help when Azmodan is the target of an auto attack-based Hero assault, but by that time, it's very possible Azmodan is already in too much trouble. Still, this could be a decent pick against a really heavy Auto Attack team that is focusing you early in fights. |
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Blood for Blood [ good ] - Always a great talent to improve survivability and do a little dps on the side. Unless you have a reason to pick something else at this tier (i.e. you're the tank against basic attack enemies), you pretty much pick this one up. |
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 Perishing Flame [ not recommended ] - Fun talent if the grunts explode and actually have an impact on something, but this can be an unreliable and often wasted talent to pick up. If you've been doing a lane push build and have had success with little response from the enemy, this can help you push even more, though. |
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Fifth Circle [ situational ] - Keep in mind this talent does not improve the damage to
Black Pool, but rather debuffs the victims of attacks augmented by
Black Pool. Pretty cool if you don't find yourself needing either of the other defensive talents at this tier. |
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 Forced Recruitment [ situational ] - Lane push build? Warrior/minion build? And you don't need
Bolt of the Storm? Then you pick this one up for even more hilarity with General of Hell everywhere. Honestly, this talent might be a little late, but this talent also can turn a normal push into a very fast Keep/Core kill. |
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Bolt of the Storm [ good ] - Azmodan's single biggest weakness is lack of escapes. He's slow, has no ability to slow anyone else pursuing him and no escapes. Making this talent a huge pick-up for survivability. Pick this by default, unless you've found the enemy team absolutely ignoring you or unable to kill you. |
GENERAL PLAYSTYLE
Let's get a few things out of the way first. Azmodan should use General of Hell on cooldown in a lane that he wants to push. He doesn't need to be present there, just fire and forget the trait. Azmodan has one of the biggest hitboxes in the game, meaning he's one of the best body blockers in the game. You must master this skill! Also, being able to body block at suboptimal speeds is key, while you channel
All Shall Burn with
March of Sin.
With that out of the way, what you should be doing from the start of the game until the very late game is stacking
Taste for Blood by getting killing blows on as many creep minions as possible on every cooldown of
Globe of Annihilation. On smaller maps, roam between the lanes and stack that up, as it will make or break your team fight potential in the late game.
A GOOD AZMODAN...
...will be a pushing nightmare to the other team, when it's safe for him and his team to do so.
...knows when he has to retreat or when he can stand and win a small skirmish.
...has superb map awareness and enemy team position prediction.
...has excellent map objectives timing for maximum pushing.
...will always have General of Hell on cooldown due to constant usage.
EARLY GAME
Push your lane. Or split push already. Dunk creep groups and roam lanes if they're close so you can get more kills. Feel free to let your team know you're going to skip the initial objective or two in favor of pushing your lane and stacking
Taste for Blood. You want to see about 100 bonus damage by level 10.
MID GAME
Honestly, this is the same as the early game, only you'll be participating in team fights and map objectives more than being present in an actual lane. Just keep using General of Hell on cooldown. Drop
Black Pool down every chance you can make use of it to pump a Globe of Annilhilation and get more stacks. If you find an opening to split push alone, go for it, but be aware where the enemy team is. At this point in the game, a lone hero off to the side can make a very nice target for a roaming group of 3 enemy Heroes. Don't overstay your welcome, you have no escapes!
LATE GAME/TEAM FIGHTS
Again, same as the mid game. Keep using General of Hell on cooldown, and contribute to the team directly in fights and objectives. If you see an opening to push a keep down, feel free to take it, and start looking to drop General of Hell on a Catapult that is near its destination for some serious work. Use
Black Pool plus
Globe of Annihilation on Heroes to do some serious chunking of their health. If you have no Heroes to attack, drop it on another creep wave for more stacks. Always watch your mana, and be ready to hearth to base at any time. Nothing is more pathetic to watch than an Azmodan who can't free cast
Globe of Annihilation due to lack of mana!
PLAYING AGAINST
Look for that level 1 pick. If Azmodan has picked up
Taste for Blood he will absolutely be focusing on stacking that up; so try to set up a gank on him in the early game. This will put him behind on stacks. Even
 Murky can effectively bully an Azmodan that just wants to farm stacks. The longer the game goes, the better Azmodan gets with his stacks, so quicker games are better. But late in the game, be aware that Azmodan will be hurting for mana, and take advantage of his reduced effectiveness at low mana. If Azmodan is going for any other build, keep a stun ready for
All Shall Burn in every team fight to reset that ability. If you see Azmodan split-pushing a lane, you can punish him by either ganking him quickly or hard pushing another lane. In most team fights, despite high globe damage, you probably want to prioritize Azmodan pretty low, as he doesn't have much utility or use beyond tossing globes on cooldown. |
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