The name's Cam. Foremost a nerd, secondarily a 3000 MMR fill player, thirdly an RTB participant, and fourthly a YouTuber under the pseudonym OfClanMurray. For more boring stuff about me, you can check the links below.

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This guide is for Artanis, the Hierarch of Daelaam... and duels. He's foremost an incredible lane bully in most situations, but can be an amazing frontline if you choose that path as well. While I'm not overly fond of the juggernaut meta, he can also fit into a beefy team comp as an assassin if the rest of your team can provide appropriate support and CC.

I'll go through the three builds I've used to maintain a 100% ranked winrate, and let you decide which you'd like to use for yourself! Below are a couple videos of my Artanis play in action, featuring the "Solo Tank" build found at the top of this guide.

NOTE: THE THREATS LISTED WITHIN THE "SOLO TANK" BUILD APPLY UNIVERSALLY.
Play Video

The first build I'll go over is the "Solo Tank" build. This build works very well when you are either playing Artanis as your team's only warrior, or if you're running alongside another "bruiser" warrior. It allows you to establish a dominant, persistent, and engaging frontline. Remember, Artanis thrives off of sustained combat, so this build is quite seriously meant to put yourself on the lines for the sins of your teammates.

This build is effective on any and all maps currently presented in game.

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LEVEL 1: REACTIVE PARRY
- For a tank build, Reactive Parry is a must. It's really the only talent on this tier that provides immediate early game beef outside of his passive. Reactive parry will help you in your early laning, as well as help immensely in negating late game damage from heavy auto attack heroes.

LEVEL 4: TEMPLAR'S ZEAL
- Templar's Zeal is a building necessity. While it may seem to be aimed more at damage before leveling further, this talent is critical in maintaining Artanis' signature team fight pressure, reaching damage, and ultimately proc'ing his shields to allow him to stay alive. While this heavily reduces the ability's cooldown, be careful not to tear through your mana with overuse.

LEVEL 7: PSIONIC SYNERGY
- This talent builds off of the level 4 talent. As you stay in the fight longer, and your health drops below 50%, the reduced cooldown from Templar's Zeal will allow you to use your Q more, and in turn letting you keep your shields on as short a cooldown as possible. Of course, this requires you to be skilled in directing your Q. Remember that it turns you into a boomerang, and that you will return from wherever you started. Even more so, remember you can be stunned in your Q. Be smart about its use, but keep in mind all the same that it's a huge part of managing your shields.

LEVEL 10: SUPPRESSION PULSE
- Suppression Pulse is really the go-to Ult for this build. While the death beam provides good zoning and instills fear, the massive AoE blind has a shorter cooldown, wider area of effect, and can completely turn the tide of a fight. Did I mention it's a global cast? You can be anywhere on the map and potentially save a teammate by just giving them that tiny breath of life.

LEVEL 13: PHASE BULWARK
- Phase Bulwark turns you into the complete package. Between this and Reactive Parry at level 1, you now have the ability to heavily negate both AD and AP pressure, both on very short CD's. For a solo tank build, this is a complete necessity, and works incredibly well against heavy AP spread pressure comps, such as mage-centric teams.

LEVEL 16: SHIELD SURGE
- Shield Surge is beating a dead horse, completely necessarily. This talent buffs your initial shield proc and allows you to be as in-your-face as Artanis requires you to be. Dive the enemy team and start creating the frontline that will allow the rest of your team to capitalize and make plays. Even in a worst case scenario, proper engaging and focus will keep you alive so long as you manage to keep wailing on people, and Shield Surge gives you extra weight for the job.

LEVEL 20: FORCE OF WILL
- Force of Will is the cherry on top. If you were to do nothing but auto attack, this puts your shields back up almost every 2-3 autos. Stack this on top of the reduction from your Q, and the fact that your W constitutes as autos, and you're a big, beefy, shielded MF who gives not a single effing hell about anyone or anything. Get in the enemy team's face and force them to pay attention to you. Execute this correctly and it will pay off in a big way, but never overestimate good CC. It will still shut you down magnificently.

I theorized up this build way before Artanis had even released, but didn't truly understand the applications of it. After field testing it relentlessly and figuring out the inner workings of this theory, I've finalized how and where this build is effective, and when it is effective.

Artanis' assassin build is incredible for dueling, dealing out massive percent health damage, melting tanks, and ganking with brutal force. However, what you sacrifice in talents to allow for this takes away much of his tanky nature. For this build to work fully and functionally, the situations in which it applies are rather specific.

You will get the most out of this build on a team with two other warriors; specifically two other warriors that can provide large HP frontlines and CC, both of which you won't have with the Assassin build otherwise. This build also requires large, scaling maps. This pertains to the 3-lane maps that will allow you to effectively stack, lane, and scale properly to ruin your enemy in the late game.

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LEVEL 1: SEASONED MARKSMAN
- Seasoned Marksman is where this build begins. If you haven't figured it out by just seeing that, this build is centered around Auto Attack strength and the potency between Artanis' kit and his scaling AD. Seasoned Marksman is where this begins, but make no mistake, this build requires intense and efficient laning that will often require you to play passively for the sake of getting ahead. Do not make foolish early game plays, unless you want to be set back for the whole game and drag your team down.

A good mark I like to set for myself is doubling the minutes in the game with SM stacks. FOR EXAMPLE: If the game is at 15 minutes, you should be AT or OVER 30 stacks.

LEVEL 4: CHRONO SURGE
- Like many of the talents you'll see in this specific build, Chrono Surge plays off the idea of the "scaling" Artanis. As your AD rises, so too will the effectivity of this talent. Successfully swapping an opponent with your E will increase your attack speed, which you can imagine is pretty deadly once you've stacked up SM, and even deadlier as your later talent tiers come into play. It also allows you to speed up the regeneration of your shields in a worst-case scenario.

LEVEL 7: FOLLOW THROUGH
- Follow Through works incredibly well with Artanis in his assassin build, especially with the insanely low CD on his W, which regardless of being comprised of Auto Attacks, is considered an "ability". This also works with your other abilities, and puts even more pressure forward with the idea of the "scaling" Artanis. Being able to moderate and avoid spamming your abilities will reward you with heavy damage output when executed properly. For example, use your E, get one auto off for the increased damage, and THEN use your W. You'll get two crits off, not to mention the building damage that you'll accumulate throughout the game.

LEVEL 10: PURIFIER BEAM
- This is the preferred ult for this build, as it puts out far more damage and will allow you to isolate targets in a team fight. Especially when paired with other CC heavy warriors, having the enemy team caught in a beam will put out a ton of damage in a small window of time. Like his other ult, Purifier Beam is a global cast and can be used to aid your teammates regardless of position on the map, which can often allow you to be absent from a team objective for a small window of time to continue your highly necessary scaling.

LEVEL 13: TRIPLE STRIKE
- Triple Strike further adds to the potency of your AD in this build. By making your W into 3 immediate autos, this works nicely with Follow Through for pinch-situation huge damage onto a single target. Make sure to utilize it well, and prioritize anything that is closest to you. You'll see that at 16, even focusing a tank can be a wholly legitimate way to win a team fight, and keep you alive with your passive by keeping someone in melee range of you.

LEVEL 16: TITAN KILLER
- Titan Killer is a great talent, and builds onto the awesome power of your W in this build. This will also allow you to mow down other warriors and tanks because of the increased percent health damage. You may often find yourself having to duke it out with tanks for the sake of staying alive, but that's totally okay! If you've scaled appropriately throughout the game, you can nearly two shot most tanks simply with two well placed W's.

LEVEL 20: NEXUS BLADES
- Little explanation is needed for this talent. Obviously this is the way to go when trying to maximize your auto damage, and if you've done your job scaling the right way throughout the game, imagine this extra 20% damage on top of the base increase to your AD by Seasoned Marksman, your extra 40% damage on Follow Through, and 2.5% max health extra damage from Titan Killer. Yeah, it's as nasty as it sounds.

The Hybrid build is a pretty solid build for many situations. It revolves around the live-lord potential that Artanis has, but still being able to put out some pretty formidable damage. You'll see that it is quite literally a half and half between the two builds prior to this one, and as it would suggest, does both jobs pretty well. It is also super flexible, and allows you to watch the flow of a game and judge which way to build. Getting pounded pretty badly? Fear not, because up until 13, you're building the same as the Solo Tank, and can easily switch to that if you need the extra beef. Totally slaughtering them? Stick to the build and go for that little extra damage.

This build works the most effectively when you have one other tank on the team that defines themselves as the "solo tank". This pertains to tanks such as ETC, Johanna, Leoric, Rexxar, Diablo, Stitches, and Muradin. You'll want to avoid going this build with fellow bruisers on your team such as Sonya, Arthas, Anub'arak, and Chen. This build applies to any map as it does not require specific scaling.

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LEVEL 1: REACTIVE PARRY
- This talent is elaborated on in the Solo Tank build. Again, it is the best choice for this build for early game harassment and sustain.

LEVEL 4: TEMPLAR'S ZEAL
- Again, builds towards the early game beefy-ness and stacks nicely with Psionic Synergy at 7. Further elaboration can be found in the Solo Tank build.

LEVEL 7: PSIONIC SYNERGY
- Built specifically around his passive and Templar's Zeal, this talent rounds off the survivability provided by your Q. Elaboration can be found in the Solo Tank build.

LEVEL 10: SUPPRESSION PULSE
- Honestly the best pick of the two ults for this build. Purifier Beam provides pressure, but the blind will allow you to take great advantage of an enemy team in a small window of time.

LEVEL 13: TRIPLE STRIKE
- Now that you've scaled a bit of your defensive side, you can focus on your damage output, and Triple Strike is where that starts. While it appears on the surface that this talent is JUST to buff your damage, it also ticks as 3 auto attacks, which will reduce the cooldown on your shield even further, giving you the best of both worlds and really giving you that "hybrid" feel. This will build into more damage at 16.

LEVEL 16: TITAN KILLER
- This is a great damage buff, and as I mentioned earlier, your W is now just as offensively oriented as it is defensively. You can take percent health damage off a target and keep them fearing for their life, while being able to keep yourself well sustained in a fight. Again, like the assassin build, this percent health damage will allow you to instill fear into tanks just as much as squishies, as big health pool tanks are hugely affected by a 2.5% extra HP burn.

LEVEL 20: FORCE OF WILL OR NEXUS BLADES
- This is a great liberty you can take at 20 with the Hybrid build. Depending on the ebb and flow of the match, you can choose here to go for more life sustain or more damage. If you want more damage, go Nexus Blades for that stinging pressure and tiny slow that will force huge fight damage onto the enemy team, on top of the damage your team will already provide. If you're not feeling safe, go with Force of Will; this will work super well with Triple Strike and your earlier talent choices and allow you to keep your shields up and yourself into the fight while not necessarily losing all of your damage. Sometimes living is better than that extra 20%, but sometimes that extra 20% will do wonders.