Hello, I'm Shadowfigure19. I stream on twitch and have been playing Heroes of the Storm since Alpha. I've decided to start doing Hero Guides for all the heroes that I play, since I lot of guides aren't updated regularly, or at all. If you have any questions or are curious on the playstyle of all of my guides, drop by my stream www.twitch.tv/Shadowfigure19 - I stream all my Heroes games, and answer questions in chat. You can also drop a comment here, and I'll answer it the best I can.

Pre-Season: Plat 5
Season 1: Gold 1
Season 2: Gold 2

If you enjoy my Guide, check out some of my other Guides. :)

100/150 Build

The Corpse Spiders / Vile Infection Build was my first trial and over-all my personal favorite. A good bit harder to use compared to Plague of Toads build, but is very satisfying to master and use. This build is based more around team fights and harass/poke. Has a high kill potential with your Corpse Spiders + Zombie Wall Combo, specially later on with Ring of Poison Talent.

Plague of Toads Build

This is the more popular, easier to use build. Essentially you're a poker/siege. You shine during the team-fight stale at an objective, and for hitting nice AoEs on enemies rushing your team. You're also good at sieging a Fort/Wall that the enemy is trying to hold, Seeing as they either have to soak your Plague of Toads or let you slowly crumble the HP on their Towers/Walls/Forts. Has more dynamic choices in talents/Ultimates as well.

Pros

+ In-lane Sustain
+ High kill potential w/ combo
+ Good Wave Clear
+ Good Siege Damage
+ Good Hero Damage
+ Viable on most maps
+ Decent Zoning Potential

Cons

- No escapes
- Requires Stack-farming
- Requires Good Positioning (Due to lack of escapes)
- Corpse Spiders can be hard to land
- Bad vs High mobility teams

Purple is Corpse Spiders and Vile Infection Build.
Green is Plague of Toads Build
Blue Situational/Personal reference/Works with any build
Grey Worthless Talent.

Tier 1 Talent

Widowmakers - Quest: After hitting Heroes 100 times with Corpse Spider attacks, their damage is increased by 30%.

30% more damage on each spider, completing this Quest and landing a single target Corpse Spiders will annihilate a squishy. Specially after hitting 150 stacks of your passive with Vile Infection

Thing of the Deep - Increases the range of your Basic Abilities by 20%.

Decent talent to take against some teams for the Toad build. You give up a wider spread [[Plague of Toads] for a longer poke range, and easier positioning.

Pandemic - Quest: After hitting 40 Heroes with Plague of Toads, it spawns 2 additional toads.

Take this talent if you want to go the Plague of Toads build.

Tier 2 Talents

Situational/Personal Preference

Blood Ritual - If an enemy dies while poisoned by Voodoo Ritual, restore 1.95% of your maximum Health and Mana.

This is my personal favorite, and out of the other 2 talents offered the best results. 2% HP/mana per kill, essentially 14% hp/mana per minion wave + HP orb if you can obtain it.

Big Voodoo - Increases the Health and Mana bonuses from Voodoo Ritual by 100%.

This would be my second choice, Not really any sustain but it gives you 8 HP and 2 mana instead of 4 hp and 1 mana per kill (Perm bonus).

Hexed Crawlers - Corpse spiders restore 0.75% of your maximum Health and Mana when they attack an enemy Hero.

It isn't terrible, but it sure isn't great. Even if you managed to land every Q, it isn't ideal with the cool down of spiders, and since spiders are now a skill-shot, that only attack the target that is damaged from the initial blast of the jar, isn't ideal unless every throw is on a hero and not minions.

Tier 3 Talents

Spirit of Arachyr - If your jar of Corpse Spiders hits only 1 enemy, spawn an additional spider.

A good talent, great single-target poke early and late game, personal reference to use.

Dead Rush - Wall of Zombies deals 100% more damage. When it expires up to 5 remaining Zombies uproot and attack nearby enemies for 3 seconds.

Everything about this is great, better damage if you trap someone in your Zombie Wall + hit them with Corpse Spiders, and decent harass/after damage since when it expires you have zombies running around attacking heroes/minions.

Toads of Hugeness - Increase the damage and explosion radius of Plague of Toads by 1% after each hop, up to maximum of 60%.

This is your bread and butter talent for Plague of Toads build. It gives you the poke/harass in a team fight, and good damage when sieging a Fort/Walls.

Ultimate Talent

Gargantuan - Cooldown: 70 seconds - Summon a Gargantuan that guards you for 20 seconds. Deals 331 (158 + 4% per level) damage to nearby enemies when summoned, attacks for 428 (203 + 4% per level) damage, and can be ordered to stomp.

Great for both builds. Take this if you want to easily push forts, zone enemies, duel 1v1/1v2 enemies, Take merc camps, and even potentially solo bosses on certain maps.

Ravenous Spirit - Cooldown: 90 seconds - Channel a Ravenous Spirit that deals 412 (196 + 4% per level) damage per second. Cannot move while channeling. Lasts for 8 seconds.

You can take this with the Toad build if you aren't planning on picking up Vile Infection at level 20. It'll give you more use in team fights kill-damage wise without putting yourself in harms way to poke down squishies. Just watch positioning and make sure you have a team that can front-line to keep you safe.

Tier 5 Talents

Guardian Toads - Hitting an enemy Hero with Plague of Toads grants you Resistant, reducing damage taken by 25% for 2 seconds.

Not really worth anything. The other 2 talents have much better potential.

Superstition - You take 50% less damage from Abilities, but 30% more damage from Basic Attacks.

I consider this a viable talent in a HEAVY Mage comp situation. If the entire enemy team's carries are mage-based, I would consider the option of taking this talent, just watch out for their tank(s) sitting on you. Cause they will hurt with a 30% damage buff.

For example of some comps: Double mage-Double tank-Support, triple mage-Tank-Support.

Ice Block - Cooldown: 60 seconds - Activate to place yourself in Stasis and gain Invulnerability for 3 seconds.

The go-to talent in this tier, It offers you 3 seconds of immunity so that your team can peel, or the enemy team will lose interest and target switch. It'll be the closest thing to an escape you are going to get.

Tier 6 Talents

Spider Colony - Corpse Spiders' cooldown recharges 100% faster while above 1863 (884 +4% per level) Health.

Essentially making your Corpse Spiders a 5 second cooldown, which is great in theory, but staying on high amounts of health isn't always ideal. Take at own risk, or if your stomping the enemy team. Also worth taking if you have a pocket healer.

Ring of Poison - Zombie Wall last 1 second longer, and the center is filled with poison that deals a total of 822 (390 + 4% per level) damage over 4 seconds. This damage starts small and increases over the duration.

The best talent in this tier in my personal opinion. Offers a lot of potential, great damage to anything caught in it, Good for burning Bosses, objectives, Forts/Towers, and Merc camps. Also can be used for some very decent zoning, seeing as no one wants to break through zombies just to walk through some nasty poison.

Soul Harvest - Cooldown: 15 seconds
Activate to increase your Health and Ability Power by 3% for each nearby enemy, up to a maximum of 15%. Lasts 15 seconds.

Marking this as useless, but can take for fun. It's not entirely useless, 15% ability power is nice, health isn't really worth, but might be decent if you're 1v1ing a lot. Essentially I find the other 2 talents to be more worth in the long run.

Final Tier

Humongoid - Reduce Gargantuan's cooldown by 50 seconds and its mana cost by 50%.

Good to take in your Plague of Toads build. Worth taking if you're taking a lot of merc camps and Fort pushing. Also really good for zoning in back to back team fights.

Annihilating Spirit - Increases the range of Ravenous Spirit by 50% and Movement Speed by 30%.

If you took Ravenous Spirit ultimate then this is (IMO) a REQUIRED talent to take. It'll give you safer positioning in using it, and it'll remove the potential for enemies/Squishies to out run your Spirit un less they are high mobility heroes.

Fury of the Storm - Every 5 seconds, your next basic attack will deal an additional 91 damage to the target, and 228 damage to all nearby Minions and Mercenaries.

I haven't personally used this talent or tried it out. I have used it before on other heroes, I don't think it's really worth taking. I feel Humongoid is a better option for pushing/merc camps. But to each their own.

Vile Infection

The go-to for your Corpse Spiders Build, also good to take for Plague of Toads Build.