1. Introduction 2. Statistics 3. Abilities 3.1 Trait 3.2 Mount 3.3 Disruption Pulse 3.4 Warp Rift 3.5 Photon Cannon 3.6 Null Gate 3.7 Pylon Overcharge 4. Talents 5. Playstyle 5.1 Early-Game 5.2 Mid-Game 5.3 Late-Game 5.4 Battleground Specific 6. The End

Probius is a StarCraft specialist, and is representative of the Protoss Probe worker unit. As a specialist he has a large focus on zone control and waveclear, similar to Gazlowe, however instead of relying on a field of Turrets to protect his area he simply obliterates any enemy that steps too close (or too far). Many people are dissatisfied with his representation in HotS, and wanted someone with a greater focus on building a nest of Cannons, but the way he is now I think he's an excellent and powerful hero. Unfortunately I think that most players play Probius far too passively, relying on his zone control and hoping enemies don't jump on top of him. Instead people need to play him like the lord of Destruction he is!

Hi, I'm Demolij, a Masters player who has enjoyed this game since the Alpha. Probius may have some quirks, but for some reason he's one of my best heroes, and that's coming from a bruiser/melee assassin main. So sit tight, and I hope you get some value out of my first guide.

Strengths:

Abilities hit hard like a Li-Ming 2.0
Tactical poking
Extremely slippery, and chasing him can lead you to your doom
Peels well for allies with strong slows
Waveclear better than pretty much any other hero
Startlingly good mercing capabilities
Can take objectiv and defense it
Nobody knows what he does (except you if you read this guide)
Just an adorable killer robot

Weaknesses:

Health pool equal to the squishiest mages
Has no way of handling long range or hyper mobility
Zero self-sustain outside of maybe some shields
Basic attacks are almost worse than Abathur's
Heroic abilities are kind of clunky
Terrible PR, people think he sucks when he doesn't

Base health pool: 1310 (+4% per level)
- Compare Chromie: 1323 (+4% per level)
- Compare Pilot D.Va: 1153 (+4% per level)

Base Health regeneration: 2.73 (+4% per level)

Mana pool: 600
- Compare other heroes: 490 (+10 mana per level)

Attack range: 3.0

Base attack damage: 34 (+4% per level)

Attack speed: 1.11

Base dps: 38 (+4% per level)
- Compare Abathur: 37 (+4% per level)
- Compare Olaf from The Lost Vikings: 52 (+4% per level)
- Compare Samuro's Mirror Image: 15 (+4% per level)

Balance Patch history
Summary of all patches: Null Gate and Photon Cannons buffed, Pylon Overcharge nerfed, minor talent nerfs.

Trait: Warp in Pylon

Understanding how to use this ability is an important step in playing Probius well. Innately you have a pretty sizeable mana pool but you do not regenerate mana passively and all abilities have massive mana costs. 4 casts of his W at full mana brings you oom. In order to offset this you can activate your Trait, letting you place a Pylon that generates an aura around it, and while inside the aura you regenerate mana at the massive rate of 100 per second. In summary if you're in a Pylon field you have far more mana than you can actually spend, and if you're not in a field you're on life support.

Pylons should be placed in locations where the enemy won't think to destroy them. If you place a Pylon in plain view enemies are going to want to destroy it, but if you put in in a bush or behind a wall they're less likely to kill them. Although they aren't the tankiest of units, a Pylon can still survive a full on Li-Ming orb with a liver of health, meaning they won't die randomly unless the enemy devotes some attention to removing them. Since you are a much bigger threat than a Pylon enemies tend to ignore hidden Pylons, even if they aren't hidden well. In other words, out of sight, out of mind.

A good strategy is to place one Pylon somewhere that it's unlikely to be destroyed easily (such as by your gate) and then place another Pylon in a much more aggressive location, so if the second one is destroyed you can fall back on the backup. If you have time you can also place your initial Pylon nearby (but not directly on) a dangerous area such as a gank bush or jungle path to provide vision, and as a bonus if your team gets into a fight you have a Pylon there already. Finally, It's strongly advised that you think about where you plan on moving with each Pylon, because if lategame you place a Pylon down for mana but then your team moves, you can't regen mana for a decent chunk of time.

Mount: Worker Rush

Most heroes have a channeled mount that grants them 30% movespeed. Probius on the other hand has a passive 10% movespeed at all times, which isn't enough to keep you away from fast-moving enemies like Lunara or Tracer, but is plenty for simply running away from a pursuing normal hero. The active component is much more important, granting you a gigantic boost in speed for 5 seconds letting you cover a huge space of land quite rapidly. It has a really short cooldown too so use it for rotating between lanes whenever you can. It is one of your only escape mechanisms, so keep an eye on the minimap while it's on cooldown.

The active has one downside, and that is the fact that it's instantly disabled if you take any damage while it's active. This applies to DoT effects as well! It is not supposed to be a "get out of jail free" card. If you see the enemy nearby, your base movement speed can keep you safe. If the enemy starts moving in you should use the active right away without hesitation. When you get caught by the enemy as they jump on and around you, you deserve to get caught for not getting out sooner, and should use your brain to figure out how to get out (one tip would be to kite them around your Pylon until help comes).

Q: Disruption Pulse

This ability is extremely simple: you fire a projectile that deals average damage to all enemies it passes through. The projectile moves decently fast, travelling approximately twice as fast as a heroes' movement speed but has a brief delay before it is fired. On its own, it's a rather simple ability. It has a very short cooldown, at a measly 3 seconds, so it could theoretically be used for poke it it didn't have a much more important purpose. More on this below.

W: Warp Rift

This is single-handedly the defining feature of Probius. Knowing where to place Pylons will make you not useless, but knowing how to use Warp Rifts will make you a God. The ability itself is unassuming, it creates a rather small AoE field after a 1.25 second delay that slows enemies inside. What's important is that if a Warp Rift's center is hit by a Disruption Pulse then it will explode, dealing high damage to all enemies in the AoE immediately. And by high damage I mean pretty good damage early on, but extreme damage later on due to the 5.0% per level scaling. This means that at the beginning of the game you should use it mostly for poke damage, because although it doesn't have raw killing potential on its own you can still chunk a squishy for a quarter of their health. Also the 6 second cooldown means it can be used over and over, so be frivolous with it. One Disruption Pulse can hit multiple Rifts at the same time, so although you can't place a Rift right on top of another one, placing them close together will double your damage. Also, if you hit an enemy with both the Pulse and the Rift explosion, you'll deal that much more damage.

Now, here is the most important part about playing Probius: quick-detonations. While arming a Rift is very small and unnoticeable, but upon arming it turns into a large and imposing globe. You can't expect an enemy to stand on top of an active Rift and let it explode on them. The problem is that Disruption Pulse must be used to trigger it, and the Pulse has a cast point and projectile speed, adding about half a second onto the detonation time. That means that if you wait for the Rift to pop up the enemy has a chance to dash or walk out. This means that the key is to make it detonate the instant it finishes arming. If a Disruption Pulse is on top of a Rift when it arms it will instantaneously detonate, which means with good timing enemies will have only 1.25 seconds to react to an unassuming globe before it hits them. If you get good at it you can be hitting enemies with essentially a Flamestrike every 6 seconds, and can even chase down fleeing foes.

E: Photon Cannon

Cannons are an amazing zone control tool that many people underestimate. You simply place down a turret that arms after a brief moment to fire on nearby enemies. The Cannon does deal surprisingly decent damage, having dps roughly equal to Muradin untalented, but that is not the main purpose of the ability. It does not prioritize heroes, so if it's in a minion wave it will shoot minions instead. The main strength is how durable the Cannon is; it has just enough health to make it annoying to kill, but not enough health to make it pointless to attack, so enemies have to waste time attacking it if they don't want to keep getting poked. That also makes it a great tool for PvE, because it can absorb all the damage minions or mercs might deal to you, and can even be placed under a Fort to divert 4-5 shots. It also has a decently large hitbox making it excellent for absorbing skillshots! The cooldown is only 2 seconds longer than the duration so there is no reason not to have a Cannon active whenever possible.

R1: Null Gate

Null Gate is my personal choice of heroic because it provides Probius with some actual crowd control. The ability creates a vector targeted slowing field that applies a massive slow and minor DoT to enemies in a very thin hitbox. It has a pretty sizeable delay on-cast meaning you have to place it in anticipation of where the enemy will go, and the vector targeting starts at the edge of the ability so if you start the cast outside of your range you will have to move until you get in range, even if the other side is close enough. It's janky, but if you get the hang of it you can disable enemies really, really well. Enemies fleeing down the length of the ability can't go anywhere and are sitting ducks for casual Warp Rifts. Don't be afraid to use it just to block a pathway, the cooldown is miniscule and is likely to be available for any teamfight.

R2: Pylon Overcharge

This second heroic choice is a very powerful damage tool that can deal an immense amount of damage to enemies that don't respect it. Activation instantly empowers all of your Pylons to have a larger power field size and rapidly fire lasers at enemies for a long duration. The increased range isn't a big deal, although it does give you a bit more leeway with casting your abilities, but the damage the ability deals is very high capable of almost solo-killing a squishy hero with 2 Pylons. The cooldown is annoyingly long sometimes but being able to almost assuredly secure a kill on a nearby enemy before they can run away is usually worth it. It has a fatal flaw, however, that being the Pylons themselves. Even though they have really long range, if the enemy can manage to destroy them you lose practically all the benefits, and even though you can place a new Pylon and it will keep firing (even if you die) it can easily be circumvented rather easily. It also requires you to prepare in advance, so if you don't get time to place the Pylons in advance you might as well not have a heroic.

Level 1

Warp Resonance preferred. Gather Minerals viable. Echo Pulse unreliable.

Level 4

Photon Barrier most reliable, Shield Capacitor still good. Turbo Charged ok.

Level 7

Rift Shock really good. Tower Defense good with level 1 talent. Never pick Particle Accelerator.

Level 10

Pylon Overcharge better for pure defense, Null Gate better everywhere else

Level 13

Aggressive Matrix good but niche. Aggressive Matrix or Power Overflowing cover build weaknesses.

Level 16

Pick whichever one suits the circumstance, except for Gravity Well.

Level 20

Upgrade sometimes, Shoot 'Em Up standard choice. Probius Loop very niche.

At the beginning of the game enemies don't have as much burst so you can play far more aggressively. Depending on the map you are a great choice for a solo laner, being able to clear waves quicker than anyone else at the time. Pay attention to the enemy's team comps and playstyle. If they have good rotations make sure to play a bit safer, but don't sit by your gate or you won't provide much value. You have many ways of granting vision, so consider using Cannons and Pylons as wards, or even Rifts for a quick brush check. If you're on a small map it's a good idea to double soak, so long as you rotate very carefully and be sure not to trade your life for some measly soak.

Use your Rifts cleverly. Keep pressure on the enemy laner with quick-detonations if you're free to do so, and try and score damage on their buildings when possible. If you're worried about the enemy jumping on you place your rifts defensively; putting a rift on top of your own minions will dissuade them from attacking them for risk of getting hit. If you get ganked place Rifts in front of where you're fleeing to, so if the enemy tries to chase you can hit them or slow them down. Bully the enemy out of lane while trying and distract the enemy as much as possible, you don't push buildings as hard as other specialists but if you can pull an enemy into your lane you give your team more space to move around. Poke at the enemy as much as possible, and plug up choke points with Rifts to limit the enemy's movement. The Rifts last a decent amount of time, so if you can keep concealed enemies often get lazy and think it's safe to walk through a Rift, which is the perfect time to nail them with some damage. Be assertive and don't give the enemy any space to breathe.

Once you acquire your Heroics you change to a completely different playstyle for a while. You already hit a powerspike at level 7 so be sure to mellow out for a while and focus on sticking with the team. By now you should have your quest finished and can kill a Bruiser camp with about 4 Rifts, so you can be the one to handle mercing (just make sure that your Cannons are the ones that tank for you). You don't push super hard yet but still have some great defensive power, so be sure to show up for objectives and just clear waves. This doesn't mean you should play totally passively, and if you do have an advantage on a lane you can still try and push in a bit. If your team groups up for a push try for aggressive Cannon placements to absorb damage for the team.

Around this time is where warriors and bruisers shine, and they will start to become much more intimidating. Luckily for your teammates you have some amazing abilities for peeling, so here is where you should focus on keeping your team alive. You're probably more mobile that your squishy supports or ranged assassin, so if you keep bombarding the enemy with quick-detonations you can hold them back and even net yourself a kill once in awhile! Also your tanks should start to be able to pull off much more ballsy techniques, so if you follow up with them you can combo enemies to death. This is especially true for heroes like Anub'arak and Diablo. If your team starts pulling ahead you can play slightly more aggressively, but always remember that this is your weakest phase and you can't get cocky. Just push through until the late-game.

Here is where the ball starts rolling. Due to your raw scaling you now have the capability of single-handedly sending an enemy to the Altar with a rift or two. Catching an enemy out of position can spell immediate death, and enemies can't kill you unless they commit their souls to it due to all your defenses. Left unchecked during a teamfight and you can burn through the entire enemy team's life by unloading all your abilities. A rooted or stunned enemy is equivalent to a sacrificial lamb laid on an altar by your allies, ready to be devoured by Rifts to the unspeakable horrors you can provide. All for their god. All for you.

...ahem. While that is true you still need to think a little bit about what you're doing. The slightest misposition and you can die right away, in fact most of my games the only deaths I would have are near the end. Enemies can push into a defensible position much easier too, mostly because many Storm Talents are really darn powerful. You should be the one to do whatever PvE things your team requires, and never go deep into the enemy's territory alone unless you want to die. You need your team and they really need you even if they don't say it. Don't focus on trying to make damage stick with poke as much, healers are much stronger now as well and against heroes with long range you can't afford to try and trade with them anyways. Instead focus on either zoning the enemy with Rifts, or just sieging them down with a barrage of explosives, because even if they will probably survive the hit they still don't want to take the damage. If a fight breaks out let the carries do carry things, you need to play like an assassin and kill whatever you can. When you get focused just try to deal as much damage as possible and survive, in that order.

Braxis Holdout Probably your best map all things considered. You are likely going to be the solo laner, which means you need to go full offense and push them out of lane. Be a bit careful with hard-engaging heroes, but unless you're facing Rexxar or Zagara you will almost always win the Beacon battle. Take mercs, and then even if the enemy wins the majority of the Zerg wave, you can still annihilate it anyways. Keep up the defense and clearing and you have the game in the bag.

Dragon Shire One of your strongest maps, especially for Cannon builds. Your best best is to solo bot lane to give your teammates a chance to handle enemies in the other lanes. If your mid-laner goes top to help you can dash mid to clear and then head bot again, but always be very careful of ganks on this map. You can take Shrines extremely well, whether it be pushing onto one or taking one for yourself. If you end up falling back, don't fret, you can still deal with any heavy minion or merc waves that they might send in on you, and if the Dragon pushes a bit to hard you can burn down a Dragon Knight really easily (especially with Photon Overcharge!)[/spoiler]

Tomb of the Spider Queen An easy map, with rather simple play. You're already amazing at clearing but now you get rewarded for clearing with Gems. The rotations are extremely short, so as long as you move somewhat carefully between lanes so as not to get ganked you can deny any enemy progress. Abuse your vision abilities, defend your lane and turn-in points hotly (Disruption Pulse is great for interrupting), and kill off any pushing waves or Webweavers. Keep doing that throughout the game and you're solid.

Infernal Shrines Even though it's a bit risky, rotating between lanes to clear isn't an extremely difficult affair. If an objective spawns make sure to clear your current wave, and then always go to help out. Your skeleton killing is top-notch and you can really hurt enemies that try and clear as well. It's important that you do secure a Punisher as well, because if you don't then you have no way of handling the punishment it will dish out, so if that happens your best option is to go back to soaking or mercing, or if the enemy lets the Punisher push solo try and poke at the enemies' push attempts. Of course, late-game you're going to need to defend, but even then you should place your attentions on the weak heroes following the Punisher instead. If you do get a Punisher obviously you should go with it, but if the Punisher leaps behind a gate then you should consider trying to hit the enemies behind to give your teammates more time to push in.

Sky Temple This map has 2 potential playstyles early on. The first is where you double soak top and mid lanes while your team all goes bot, which only works if the enemy doesn't have competent globals or aren't crushing your team bot. The other is where you glue yourself to bot lane until way late, constantly soaking and pushing whenever possible. Players usually don't gank bot lane if top is hotly contested, so the only time you should consider leaving lane would be if there's no chance of bot being pushed but the enemies' 4-man is crushing your 4-man handily. Otherwise, never leave bot lane, even if the fort is destroyed, until later in the game. Both of these playstyle will need to help out on Temples after a while, but once you reach later levels you can actually solo Temples well enough, even against enemies trying to push in on them. At this stage you can go back to your standard Probius late-game play, crushing enemies with superior firepower.

Volskaya Foundry A rather large map with strange mechanics. Early on you can rotate between any lane you wish faster than enemies can catch you, and can still clear really fast, so play very aggressively. Once the objective spawns that should be your primary concern so hunker down as much as possible. If you do secure the Triglav you would do best to enter it as Pilot or Gunner, but if your teammates get in first then play carefully and poke when possible. Grab mercs when you can, and keep up the good work!

Cursed Hollow This map is large and can be risky to rotate around, so you work best as a solo laner in the top or bottom lane. Once the first objective spawns you have a very important decision to make. If you picked up Gather Minerals at level 1 then staying in lane is generally the better option, because higher levels and structure damage is more important than a single early Tribute. You should certainly stay in lane if the enemy has a strong global presence, or if you think your team can hold their own for a while 4v5. In most cases your best choice is to clear the enemy's wave as fast as possible and then move towards the objective asap. If you can clear quick enough that you get to a Tribute early then you have a massive advantage, because securing the zone with Pylons Rifts and Cannons can make it very difficult for an enemy to push in, and can be a goldmine for quest stacks. Past the initial laning phase you should play regularly, capturing mercs when possible, sticking with the team, and destroying unwary heroes.

Towers of Doom Play quite carefully. Try not to push too hard, it won't win you the game and will only net you sadness when you get ganked. Just soak, grab Sappers, defend objectives. You are rather effective at protecting an Altar, so you can place down a bunch of Rifts and start channeling to challenge enemies to try and stop you. If the enemy does manage to take down your structures you should be the spearhead of trying to reclaim it if possible, and never ever forget to deal with enemy Sappers.

Haunted Mines Unless the enemy is roaming a lot, try and flit back and forth between lanes and mercs to clear as much as possible. You are a great soloist on this map and can push both lanes really fast. Once the Mines open you may enter the mines but if you do it's strongly advised that you do it very carefully. Don't go too deep, have Pylons placed down in advance, and try and go with at least one buddy. You can clear Skeletons in seconds and prevent the enemy from claiming the Golem. Once the Golems spawn you would do better pushing with your Golem early on, because even if the enemy gets a massive one it's too early for it to make a difference. Later on you need to be even more careful, but if the enemy isn't nearby you can try and snipe a wave or merc camp without them noticing.

Warhead Junction Place yourself in mid or top lane, and play regular Probius play. If the enemy has a lot of poke you might not be able to secure a Warhead by yourself, but you certainly can punish enemies who try to claim one for themselves. Be very careful on rotations, and always prepare a little in advance for an objective. You can't backdoor on this map because enemies are likely to rotate onto you right away, so play extremely careful. Later on you can possibly interrupt Nuke channels with the level 16 Repulsor talent.

Garden of Terror This is a map that you don't want to double soak on as much due to how large the jungle is, making it extremely easy to get ganked and die. Play very safely, and early on you may want to focus more on waves than Terrors. Later on you can 1-shot Plant Horrors though, and with a little preparation you can force the enemy away from your team for easy Seed harvesting. You can't handle a pushing Terror very well, so if you're losing be sure a more competent dps handles it while you focus on either the enemy team or pushing waves. If your team secures a Terror you are much better suited to assisting the Terror from the outside, because you can bomb enemies every time the try and hit your ally while sieging just fine.

Battlefield of Eternity Not one of your best maps but you can still win if you play a different game than your allies. You are most likely going to be pinned to one lane for a long time, and on this map there's little chance of getting assistance from an ally if you get ganked, so play very carefully (unless you kill your lane opponent in which you can go hog wild on their towers). Unlike an assassin you don't have amazing dps for Immortals, so your focus should be on the enemy heroes instead. Zone the enemy away as much as possible, then if you succeed in getting an Immortal just punish enemies that try and fight it.

Blackheart's Bay Probius struggles on this map because the objective will usually get more value than he can, but he's not very good at handling the objective. Due to your poor dps you aren't very fast at breaking Chests, however you are amazing at double soaking top and mid, so that should be a high priority. If your teammates don't want to 4man bot you can try and merc early on, but be wary of enemies trying to counter-jungle. This is one map where your push is usually not very important, so just constantly clear and rotate. If your team needs you on the objective you should help them though even if you arrive late. Focus on neutral objectives until late game where you can start killing the enemy with your raw ability power.

11:00pm 2/27/18: Guide created
1:00am 2/28/18: Statistics and format improvements
1:00pm 2/28/18: Added Battleground help
11:00am 3/2/18: Color-coordinated recommendations
12:00am 3/13/18: Table of Contents and minor reformatting