This guide will be the Master Abathur Guide and explained things as simply as possible.
Version 1.0 of this guide will explain how to act out Abathur's full potential, emphasizing advance play and tactics like who to clone and how to travel as an Abathur. In the extremely near future, this guide will explain the bare-bone basics and include more images to accompany some of the writing.
Feedback is welcomed. Anything from a different point of view to formatting suggestions and requests.
Abathur is a freak of nature and share his brother Roger's (from American Dad) passion of having many faces. Saying he is unique and difficult to play is an understatement. Stating he is not a direct-engaging hero does not explain enough and is boarder-line untrue.
Abathur's
Symbiote and
Toxic Nest make him a support of sorts. His passive
Locust Strain and deep tunnel] makes him a split pusher. And finally, his ultimate [[Ultimate Evolution can make him a whatever he clones.
As the game progresses, Abathur's role evolves. As you gain more talents, additional responsibility will be placed on you. Chapter: Abathur's responsibilities will explain in detail (work in progress).
Learning Abathur is daunting and playing him is a constant workout. Luckily you are reading this guide, which will explain proper Abathur play. This guide will be the ultimate Abathur Guide.
The following are the best Abathur talents. Unfortunately, many of Abathur's possible talents are ridiculously horrible and need balancing tweaks.
Combat Adaptation: Increased attacked speed on locust will cause them to get the job done quicker as their short spawn timer ticks down.
Because minion paths can be large distances, locust will usually die due to their spawn timers instead of actual damage dealt to them when playing safe. Our goal is to minimize this norm by positioning and
Combat Adaptation. We want locust to clash up against buildings as they brawl through minions and camps.
Barbed Spines: Increased damage on
Symbiote's
Stab will make Abathur's bread-and-butter even more deadly. Providing even more extra damage support at a moment's notice will make or break engagements, tactics, and games.
Grooved Spines: Same as
Barbed Spines reasoning;
Symbiote's
Stab connecting is what will push the damage to translate into kills.
Ultimate Evolution: This ultimate is so unique and dynamic that Abathur has this only option.
Assault Strain: Increases the effectiveness and efficiency of your short-lived locust. More damage on
Locust Strain means more destroyed objectives quicker.
Locust Swarm: Abathur undertakes the role of an efficient split pusher at this point.
Three
Locust Strains at an instance cleaving and exploding their way down lanes and through camps is nothing to take lightly. Note that
Locust Strain will only attack camp monsters if the camp is aggroed.
Evolution Master: Decreasing
Ultimate Evolution's cooldown to 90 seconds and increasing its duration for 60 seconds nets a new total of only 30 seconds of downtime between ultimates. This is exactly what is needed to keep Abathur relevant in the lategame where team-fights are so pivotal.
Map-specific strategy for Abathur revolves heavily on positioning to place effective
Toxic Nests and spawn efficient
Locust Strain.
Prime position for Abathur is usually near the middle forward fort so his toxin nest range engulfs most of the three lanes and all avenues into them.
Positioning:
Best forward position for Abathur will be at top fort near the south wall. Even though it is risky, there is no better option in order to influence both lanes. Be extra cautious if they have stealthies by being extra vigilant/constantly re-positioning/or hugging the fort.
Realistically speaking, early ganks on you will be difficult to survive and may lead to enemy team losing on overall experience because they are not in lane.
Toxin nest Placement:
Since you will not be taking
Ballistospores and never going into the mines, toxin nest no icons can only be placed on the surface. Haunting Mines play currently revolves around doing a couple camps as a group or team, followed by a push or skull hunting. This translate to easily predicting enemy movement and thus, great toxin nest placement.
Example 1: Enemy team just finished their bottom giants, no skull phase is currently going on, and their top giants are still live. Because enemy heroes will probably be mobilizing for their top giant camp, place mines around their top giants for vision and dismounting.
Example 2: Enemy team just finished knights and no skull phase is currently going on. Because enemy team will probably push alongside their knights, start placing toxin nest no icon along the paths that lead to the soon-to-be-sieged lane. Once your team is defending against the siege, start placing mines behind the enemy team to dismount and deal finishing blows.
Example 3: Your team just finished up mines and the enemy team will have to 5-man defend your Golem. Because the whole enemy team is showing on the map, use toxin nest to push the other lane and pressure a second front. Since your team has full effective vision without your toxin nest placement due to current circumstances, use toxin nest for its secondary role: DPS.
Positioning:
Early forward positioning on Blackheart's Bay is not as black and white as the rest of the maps. You have two major options off the bat, midlane forward fort to support team with toxin nest for the Xel'naga Watchtower engagement or botlane fort near its north tower to provide experience from bottom lane plus toxin nest ready for one of the two chests.
Positioning inside the vent near your giants is a risky position that will provide both experience at botlane and toxin nest noicion support at Xel'naga Watchtower.
Early positioning will be quite dynamic because of the early objectives at play that span from mid to botlane. This means Abathur will have to go top to soak up experience at times, but provide limiting toxin nest support during early portions of the game.
Toxin nest Placement:
Without a doubt, most of your toxin nests should be placed around Blackheart. All three functions of a toxin nest (vision, damage, dismount) will be of great help for objective control.
Because the most common avenue of travel will be the path that leads from midfort to Blackheart, try to always keep toxin nest charges there. Other areas of high traffic include the bridge that leads from midlane to Blackheart and the two vents next to Blackheart.
Lane control on Dragon Shrine is extremely important; each lane has an objective that needs to be minding. Because of this fact, teammates doing camps are either soloing or have little time to clear since objectives are demanding attention. This is where Abathur shines, by providing toxin nest and
Symbiote damage unto camp minions.
Since most enemies will show because they are constantly near the lane objectives, enemy movement is easy to predict. This will cause Abathur to provide more effective Toxin nest placement and
Symbiote.
Positioning:
Best forward position is definitely at midlane fort, between fort and gate. Your effective range will cover everything relevant.
Basic Abathur positioning and movement will stay true on this map because all objectives and camps are evenly scattered across the map. Keep in mind Abathur can cap a shrine. This may lead to the use of the infamous
Ultimate Evolution baits (bait by showing a vulnerable Abathur, just to become invulnerable by cloning right before you get ganked).
Getting the Dragon Knight is not recommended since getting out of the carcass alive is highly unlikely. Best to do the usual split pushing,
Symbiote support, and/or
Ultimate Evolution swing along side a teammate pushing with the Dragon Knight.
Toxin nest Placement:
Toxin Nest placement on shrines is an alright tactic, but your brute support still revolves around
Symbiote. Always chose to
Symbiote support over toxin nest placement especially when battling over a shrine.
Toxin Nest placement should mainly be divided between placement on avenues leading to midlane and placement to damage camp minions.
Positioning:
Best forward position is definitely at midlane fort, between fort and gate. Your effective range will cover everything relevant except some of the bushes at top and bottom lane.
When it comes to engagements over curse tributes, experience soaking trumps staying in close to the tribute to provide toxin nest support because you will be
Symbioteing someone and won't be able to place toxin nests.
Note the size and many hiding spots on this map. This is perfect for split pushing once you gain
Locust Swarm. Be more cautious if the enemy team includes high mobility heroes like
Illidan and
Falstad. Be less cautious and downright obnoxious if the enemy team includes low mobility heroes like
Sgt. Hammer.
Toxin nest Placement:
Toxin nest should be placed mainly to dismount and provide vision. Keeping eyes on the enemy team and slowing them down is a huge advantage on this huge map with time-sensitive objectives. Placement should revolve around the middle of the map and any live camps that may be the enemy team's target.
A nice trick is to use toxin nests to interrupt single individuals from capturing a tribute. If only one enemy is attempting to capture a tribute, place a toxin nest under them so it can interrupt them once it settles. Since the time for a toxin nest to settle is less than that of capturing a tribute, this annoyance can interrupt a capture until you run out of toxin nests or another enemy member starts destroy the nests as they are settling. Place one toxin nest at a time so the annoyance is lengthy.
Abathur himself can also interrupt by autoattacking or summoning a
Locust Swarm/
Locust Strain. It is extremely risky, but it may be necessary in some situations. You can combo this trick with
Ultimate Evolution invulnerability.
Heroes of the Storm Build Guides
Assumptions
Hover Siege Mode and
Graduating Range talents to be playable.
Mosh Pit or double
Robo-Goblin sounds awesome on paper, buts it is horrible in practice.
Valla/
Tychus/
Zagara) or a flexible hero (
Tassadar
Sonya).
Void Prison or
Rehgar
Ancestral Healing,
Commandeer Odin and
Archon.
E.T.C.
Muradin
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