I'm just a dude who really likes playing Murky, I'm going to offer my advice on situations and talents based off experience. I pretty much only play QM, while that sounds less respectable than a storm league player, I have lots of experience dealing with counters and dealing with them on bad maps. I can't offer you advice on when to - or not to draft Murky, only gameplay tips.


Murky is a """"melee assassin"""" who specializes in XP soaking and generally being annoying, starting off extremely weak and progressing into a monster.

Pros

Low XP death reward
Fast respawn times
Exceptional wave clear
Good ganker
Good XP soaker
Good teamfighter

Cons

Begins the game with less HP than a melee minion and remains at this low HP level until 20
First 10-13 levels you are extremely weak
Wave clear is almost entirely reliant on the pufferfish which can be killed by anyone easily
Easily bullied out of lane

Here I'll quickly go through his abilities and trait, along with HP issues.


Spawn Egg is Murky's trait, wherever you place it is where you respawn. Additionally, you only give 25% hero XP for dying and your respawn timer is 8 seconds. These attributes are important for different stages of the game. Early game, your deaths don't matter as much, allowing you to proxy and trade evenly or ahead if you die while doing so. Late game the 8 second respawn timer allows you a high degree of flexibility, allowing you to trade and come out completely on top, or sacrifice yourself to let an ally live. Positioning is just a skill that will come with play, be mindful of your egg, and don't place it in terrible spots. Even if your egg is destroyed and you die, you still reward only 25% XP, so its not as punishing. It should also be noted that Big Tuna Kahuna sets your respawn time to 16 seconds.


The work horse of the Murky kit. It has decent damage throughout the game, and has a small, but noticeable slow attached to it. If you don't go Black Lagoon the radius of Slime is pretty small, and make sure to keep this in mind when trying to clear or go for kills.


Pufferfish is the main clear of Murky's kit. Untalented it still does a healthy amount of damage. To clear with it at level one, Slime the wave then toss your Pufferfish and Slime again right when it comes up. Done right, and with no interruptions, you'll have gotten the full wave. This ability has a relatively long cooldown, and is easily focused down.

Most heroes in the game can kill it in two autos or one ability of their own. Two strategies can be used to counter this.

1. If you are laning against someone directly targeting your Pufferfish its time for passive play. Let them clear the wave, and time it so that when your last archer dies, your Pufferfish lands around the edge of your tower range. Its all guess work, but if done correctly, the minions will take the full Pufferfish damage, or the enemy will come all the way to your side of the lane to kill the fish opening them up for being gank spanked.

2. Option two is proxying. This works especially well if option one isn't working because your team isn't ganking for you, which is basically every QM game. I'm not going to go into detail about proxying here, but proxying works better on some maps and some lanes on those maps than others. As long as you kill the wave its a 15 or so XP gain for your team even if you die, and their structures take the wave's full damage. Just make sure that if you are going to die, you prolong your death as much as possible.



Safety Bubble Is Murky's get out of jail freecard ability. Its got a fairly long cooldown, but is often a life saver. This ability is especially good at helping you stalling or tanking abilities. All damage over time abilities like Living Bomb are canceled by this, letting you tank huge amounts of DoTs and just walk away like nothing happened. Safety Bubble, in combination with Murky's high passive health regen should make killing you a complete chore, at least.



March of the Murlocs LE MURLOCS HAVE ARRIVED. But not really, because you shouldn't be taking this ult. Its very good in very specific situations, but those situations are rare, and its far more likely your ult will do nothing as it has a decently long cast time, and it actually takes a while for the murlocs to reach their targets. It has has one of the longest cooldowns in the game at 110 seconds. It has a good stacking slow, and if enemies are complete morons and just stand in it, the ult cant kill even full soul diablos, but that's not going to happen. This ult is relegated to the meme/throw category.



Octo-Grab is a two second, point and click, stun that has a fairly large cast range. Its amazing. It can catch retreating characters with short escapes like Li Ming or Zeratul, or completely punish dive heroes like Illidan and Kerrigan. Though, it does have its downsides. It also stuns Murky for the duration of the cast, and Murky only has around 1200-1300 HP, so its extremely easy to burst him down. Still, this ability combined with Tufferfish, Wrath of Cod, ... And a Shark Too! has the potential to one shot most heroes in the game.

Level 1

Your go to



The most overpowered talent in the entire game. You get stacks super easily and consistently. Its not hard to double soak and bribe every merc camp on the map.

The Situational



Provides a pretty large vision radius, its like a static watch tower that reveals stealth. The health bonus is a nice touch, since you should be placing this pretty aggressively. I wouldn't really recommend taking this over A Fishy Deal, but if you feel like you need vision, is here.

Bad



Long ago this talent was super good, and let you take bruisers from level 1. Not anymore. Its a meme talent, spread these around the map for vision and to piss enemies off by hitting them with Slime every time they break one. I have managed to put 3 in a bush and sit in it, then delete a KT who decided to blow all of them up, its funny, but not very good.

Level 4

Your go to



Slime Time is extremely good versus team comps where you can consistently land Slime. It scales far better late game than Tufferfish. Its a mandatory talent for Slime builds.



Tufferfish is an extreme powerspike. It lets you almost instantly clear waves when you take it and later on will let it survive AoE spam when you're comboing with Octo-Grab. If you need to double soak, or play Macro overall, this is a great talent. It goes amazing with A Fishy Deal as it makes killing minions with your Pufferfish easier.

Situational



My problem with Living the Dream is that it makes you death averse as Murky. While you shouldn't just be killing yourself, you are expendable when it comes to trading. Whether that be for an enemy hero, a keep, or saving a teammate. This takes a minute 15 to stack completely, meaning if you die, you're going to be severely weakened for the next little while. It may not seem like a big deal, but there's quite a few situations where you need to be trading yourself to stall objectives and if you die then have to go back in immediately, you're far weaker than if you had the other two. However, if you plan on going March of the Murlocs, then this is a mandatory talent. It makes your damage far greater.

Level 7

Your go to



The slow from Time to Krill is extremely good. If you plan on going auto attack based with Toxic Buildup at 16, then take this talent. The 28% bonus slow is amazingly useful. The extra damage is forgettable, it used to be way better.



This makes your get out of jail freecard far better. It makes it a 12 second cool down, move through units, and makes you super speedy. If you plan on going Rejuvenating Bubble at 13, I recommend this.

Situational



Black Lagoon is good if you plan on going a Slime build but not auto attack based, or if you notice the enemy team really likes clumping up together. The radius increase isn't game changing, but its nice.

Level 10

Your go to



Octo-Grab is the only really viable ult for Murky. It combos well with everything, can let you catch running enemies, catch divers when they go in on your team, and really anything. Its got a really short cooldown, meaning you can use super frequently. Just remember, you're a 1300 HP static object when you use it.

No.



Its a meme ult. If you're splitpushing, I'd still recommend Octograb because you provide more consistent utility to your team with it. If you do use this on buildings, except maybe a quarter of a tower for a 110 second cooldown, its really not that great. It does, however, go through walls, and there are Cores you can cheese through walls - outside of vision radius if you go Never-Ending Murlocs at 20. The ult is funny, but not great.

Level 13

Your go to



Rejuvenating Bubble is really, really good. Its a consistent, reliable heal and pairs great with Slippery When Wet. Its always funny to have enemies spend 30 seconds whittling you down to 1 hp when you have Big Tuna Kahuna then just pressing e and flying around in circles then being 2k HP again, making them restart the process all over again.



If you are going a Slime build, then Fish Tank is mandatory in my opinion. If you've already decided to go a Slime build, then you think you can get consistent damage off. Which means, Fish Tank is going to reward you. Its super satisfying to just sit there and 1v1 most heroes in the game just healing all of their damage, or going from 1 HP to full when your pufferfish kills a wave.

HAHAAH



This talent sucks. It doesn't ever regenerate, meaning you only get it when you respawn. You trade healing off for a one time shield. The only time I can see this being useful is when you constantly die, and want to get maximum value out of getting killed on respawn. If you do go Big Tuna Kahuna at level 20, upon respawn you'll have effectively 6.6k HP or so, and you basically get a 6.6k HP tank every 16 seconds. Its funny, but also garbage, and if you went this, good luck getting to 20.

Level 16

All of these are good



Fish Oil is a pretty good talent. Its good for dismounts from range and range slows. It also gives you a free cast of Slime for when your Pufferfish wont blow anyone up. Not terrible, but not great. Jack of all trades talent.



Toxic Buildup is a mandatory talent if you go Time to Krill, and if you go a Slime build, its also mandatory. Every third basic on the same target gives you a free cast of slime. When pick this up, no tank in the game can 1v1 you, and most heroes in the game struggle against you, if you can land autos.



Wrath of Cod is a mandatory for oneshot builds, or high single target damage burst builds. 15% max hp ontop of the Pufferfish damage is massive. If you go Tufferfish, even if you don't go ... And a Shark Too! at 20, will do around 2500 damage.

Level 20

Your go to



For me, this is my go to level 20. You trade off damage for survivability, which is what Murky desperately needs. If you go a Slime build, you completely destroy anyone, and everything you come across. You have the HP to survive outright being bursted down, and you can become annoyance incarnate. Finally, all those people who instant killed you all game will get to enjoy spending a solid minute to kill you, or just die to you. The doubled respawn time is negligible since at 20 other people are going to be respawning around a minute, and you in 16 seconds.

Situational



Okay, I struggled where to put this talent honestly. Its very good, but you still only have 1600 HP meaning you can do lots of damage, but you're easily shut down. I feel that Big Tuna Kahuna is far more consistent than this talent. However, if you have a Nanoboost, this makes you able to cast Slime every half a second. You basically can 1v5 and come out with full HP, its insane.



... And a Shark Too! is kind of a meme talent, and kind of not. You do roughly 1k extra damage if your stun lasts the full 2 seconds, meaning if you go full 1 shot, you'll end up with around 3800 total damage. Its really good damage, but you have 1600 HP, and late game abilities will just delete you. Less consistent Making Inky with the same problems in my opinion.

Might as well



Okay, I love this talent. Its funny as **** just to sit in an objective chokepoint, like on Towers of Doom, and just deny the entire objective or the path to it, to the enemy. Sadly, you don't get unstoppable,so any and all CC will ruin your joke. Also, soloing a core with this talent is the funniest thing you can ever do, but that comes once in a hundred games. If you went March of the Murlocs at 10, might as well finish what you started.

Surviving the Early Game

First thing's first, place your Spawn Egg somewhere near where you'll be operating. People in this game love killing Murky eggs, even if it kills them. So don't be surprised if a Genji kills your egg randomly. There's no science to it, just don't have it die when you're dead or about to die, and that's it.

You only reward 100 XP or so when you die early on, minion waves are worth way more. If you can kill a minion wave, and cost the enemies a wave, you are making a positive trade on top of wasting their time.

You have less HP than a melee minion at the start of the game, be careful. You have insane health regen, but this wont make up the difference of a Valla right clicking you then going to grab a bite of food. You're still going to die.

Most people outlane you early on, play around your strengths. If you die 3 times to kill a Tracer, you still traded positively in the end. You can pretty often turn your lane into one of attrition and either outright kill your opponent, or force them to back.

If you go A Fish Deal grab all the mercs you can. Especially steal enemy camps, it really pisses them off, takes them out of the lane with you giving you a breather, really useful versus characters like Xul or Azmodan.

Your teamfight before 10 is basically nonexistent, and even at 10 its limited to your ult. Your job is to double soak XP, not teamfight. Get your team a talent advantage, and steal every damn merc camp on the map with all your stacks. If you're given free reign, you can destroy lanes, if they send someone to deal with you, its an even fight for you team.

Midgame

You're still not a teamfight god, keep soaking lanes and rotating into the teamfight to make your ult known. Striking a balance between soaking and teamfighting is an important Murky skill to learn. Do it well, and your team wins most objectives and keeps an XP lead. Do it poorly, and hear your team whine constantly about why their Murky who gave them a 10k XP lead isn't in the teamfight.

At this stage you're really starting to hit your stride, but you're still not that powerful. You can start to 1v1 characters out of position, and you can instant clear waves even if you didn't go Tufferfish. Continue pressing your XP gaining advantages, and if the situation is bleak, remember, you have one of the best level 20s and level 16s in the game. You're still scaling baby.

End Game

Late game is when this hero goes from a pile of **** like he is at level 1, to a god among men, well, if by god we mean annoyance incarnate. You can 1v2 and 1v1 most heroes in the game, and you should make your presence known. Your teamfight is amazing at this point, and you should be able to lock down, and zone out their damage dealers and healers with no real problem.

Clears waves when its convenient or necessary, but a major priority is now actively fighting people. Even if you die, you respawn in 8 or 16 seconds, while they take 60+. Trading yourself is always worth it, especially now.

People really ****ing like killing Murky for some reason, and if you don't want to die, you can make it take ages. Literally be as annoying as possible. Murky kills aren't worth it if you spend a solid minute chasing down a 200xp kill that has been killing your waves, and is going to be back in 8 seconds just to start all over again.

Make Zeratul players spend 5 minutes straight hunting your stupid egg. If someone is constantly hunting your egg, just put it where no one is going to expect it, like the bushes next to their keep where you never are.

YOUR EGG. DOES NOT. BELONG. IN. SPAWN. I HATE ABATHURS WHO SIT IN SPAWN, AND I HATE MURKYS WHO LEAVE THEIR EGG THERE. MOVE IT.

B-stepping high damage mage really tilts them and makes them spend large amounts of effort chasing you down. Its not classy, but nothing like seeing a Nova you killed 3 minutes ago check every single bush for your egg and spend every waking moment trying to kill you, only to just miss her snipes because you used Safety Bubble to dodge them. You can really get under people's skin as this hero, use it to your advantage.

Egg Hunt is really funny to line the enemy spawn with as your team is winning. Its not really a tip, but its always funny to see them waste their time killing your eggs and chase you out of frustration.

Instead of using March of the Murlocs to do 15 damage to structures, instead use it to deny enemies the ability to easily stop you from pushing said structures.

The Comrade Murky build is centered around constantly killing yourself to make a massive war of attrition, and using march to bring in the soviet army.