Foreword - Oh Please No Top
'no aba plz'
'anything but abathur'
'not another ab'
These quotes and more I hear at hero select every day before winning hard. It took quite a few games to develop this build and strategy, but it has been very successful on most maps. I would only suggest not doing Abathur on Sky Temple or Blackheart's. This strategy has been successful for me on every other map.
The build consists of 3 phases: early game (1-10), mid game (11-20) and late game (20+). If you can make it to late game you will almost certainly win. Mid game gives this build the most trouble, but it is mostly map dependent/team mid game.
Early game - Get ahead Top
Always take
Survival Instincts for your level 1 talent. Late game it will pay off in heavy dividends.
Start in the middle lane behind the middle-most wall. From here you can place bombs in all 3 lanes of 3-laned maps. If playing haunted mines, go to the bottom lane. From the bottom lane you can cast bombs into the top half of the mines until you get level 4.
Main strategy is to keep an exp advantage at this point in the game. Put yourself in lanes with the least defense so your team can take advantage of the push, but be aware to frequently symbiote lanes that may be temporarily unattended. Find a bush or a good dark chokepoint and lay down a mine or two in a cluster to protect against ganks or set one up. It's usually best to put them into bushes.
At rank 4 you gain the most enabling ability of this build: mapwide bombs with
Ballistospores. With these you will enable the mid/late game of your dreams, and in the mean time allow you to travel to any lane and still be able to support across the map.
Level 7 take
Vile Nest to give them that last bit of edge for escapes and covering paths to your hiding spot. Won't be taking any more non-minion talents from now on. Bomb the bushes on your teams side of objectives on curse if your team is silly enough to go for it, but continue to gather exp across the map with symbiote.
Mid game - Hold on! Top
At rank 10 you get
Evolve Monstrosity, which allow you to slowly build up a lane push and to devastate enemies who aren't paying attention. The best thing to do with him is to build ranks of his damage bonus, and keep him alive. You don't have to do much for this, just occasionally symbiote him and pull him back so the nearby creeps can tank. By the time you have 20 or 30 he's ready to fight whoever comes to stop your push (with your help). Keep him away from buildings before they're ripe or tanked by creeps to make the most of monstrosity.
Rank 13 your push begins. Take
Bombard Strain and now your creeps will have the range of catapults, though still not amazing damage-wise. Around now some walls should be down, and perhaps forts too. The moment forts start falling, your rank 4 ability will come into play. Just drop bombs in bushes near unattended lanes when the enemy is off team fighting or going after objectives, and then you can tunnel to that bush from anywhere on the map. It's a quick and easy way to gain sight on a location from across the map. If you lose sight of all 5 enemies, make sure you have bombs in nearby dark alleys and choke points to give you a heads up.
SECRET TIP: At this point there's one extra trick I can suggest if you're worried about being ganked by unseen enemies. Just keep B going. Look around the map, placing your Ws, but between them just let Abathur channel the back spell. Until you get another tunnel, it's your only way to escape a pursuer. I would only do this if I was behind and knew someone was looking for me.
At rank 16 things really change. Pick up
Locust Brood and you can now spawn an extra 3 locusts at once. Combine this with being able to appear in any unattended lane and you can quickly push down a set of turrets or a fort. I alternate tunneling between top and bottom lanes so that I have a moment to recover tunnel before anyone who went looking for me in the other lane can get to me.
Late Game - Push to win! Top
At rank 20, pick up
Locust Nest and watch the buildings crumble. This type of pushing in the top and bottom lanes will be impossible to ignore and you can expect enemies to be defending all the time now, making their team fights far easier for the rest of your team. At this point, if a lane is left unattended you can push it down and attack the core before anyone is on the lane.
Just put the nest out half a screen away from where you are and you'll have early warning. If you expect to tunnel away because an enemy hero is coming for you, try to hold onto your brood so you can drop it as soon as you tunnel to the opposite lane.
At this point, your team should be winning most team fights away from their core, and if the enemy ever stops defending you should be able to push to win.
Postscript - All You Baby Top
The only real obstacle with this build is Nova, who can do a good job of sneaking up on you in the mid/late game pushes. I would also suggest against it on maps that really do benefit from additional bodies (looking at you sky temple, and blackheart's to a lesser degree for chests).
Be ready for people to cry about you all game until the end. At the end of most of my games on curse, our team has barely collected one tribute and the enemy will have cursed us several times. I will have heard all sorts of 'i hate abathur' and 'we lost', but by the end we'll have pushed their core and I will have in excess of 250k siege damage. Since you're Abathur, you can push without being present. Feel free to type a nice insult to the people giving you crud all game as you carry them to victory.
Quick Comment (3) View Comments
You need to log in before commenting.