Hi, guys, my name is Slimper! This is a small guide for The Butcher that features his best Builds both in Hero League and Quick match, Tips and a Replay example of how to play this hero.

Understand what the talents will do for you. Doing that defines how good you will do overall.

How to be effective as The Butcher: Your usual combo is E+W+AA+Q+AA+AA. After that you simply back off. This way you poke the target for ~25% of their health and they have to recieve a heal, go tap or hearthstone. What if they don't? You just re-engage with your E and poke/kill them! That's why Unrelenting Pursuit is such a good talent — it lets you do that 5 seconds earlier. When you complete your quest, you can 1v1 anyone in the game. Just don't eat the burst and don't dive in the team fights first ;)

1. Getting your meat stacks is the most important thing when you play The Butcher. Do not dive in any fair (1v1, 3v3, etc) fights, because that way you will risk completing your quest.

2. Don't push the lane. Wait for you enemies to do that, then gather meat near your walls. It's much safer that way. Furthermore, you will not be able to gather meat if the lane is pushed out too far — your foes will gank you for sure.

3. Don't engage first. Wait for your supports to root the enemy or for your tanks to start a fight, then use Ruthless Onslaught on the high priority target (squishies, support and low health heroes). In addition, Ruthless Onslaught is a great gap closer. Use it to finish off the escaping heroes.

4. When it is a sure 1v1 and you know that no one hides in the near bushes — always check the map — engage and poke/kill your lane opponent.

5. Always look for an unfair fight (unfair for your foes). 2v1 enemies with someone who can root them for you. Ganking people and murlocks will grant easy meat stacks and a win in the end of the game.

6. Once you're level 10 - Lamb to the Slaughter anyone who is sololaning or out of position for an easy kill.

7. The moment you gathered 125 meat, you should start doing camps solo when the enemy team is at their base or when there are no objectives on the map. Specifically ask team mates to do other things while you're at it, unless the rotation seems to be dangerous.

8. Don't solo boss if you don't know where everyone is, this can cost you the game. Soloing boss is kind of slower than you'd like unless you turn the Enraged on first.

9. If you got caught in a bad situation, try to Butcher's Brand the tank / melee hero who is the closest to you. This way you might survive or at least get 1 kill for 1 death.

10. Burst damage is very dangerous when you play The Butcher. If you know that there will be a lot of it in a fight, try to not go in before getting 125 meat at all.

11. You can always cancel your E! Do that if the enemy goes back to safety or has his teammates around him.

12. Don't use Q before attacking a minion once (if no one bullies you). Hamstring resets your AA and does it immidiately.

Abattoir or Block? Abattoir is not only forgiving, but it also makes it so that your auto-attacks become stronger each time you kill an enemy hero. That's much better than Block if you really think about it. But if you never engage in the bad fights and face heroes like Sgt. Hammer, Valla, Raynor or basically anyone who is going to poke you with their auto-attacks, only then you should go for the Block.

Level 20 is tricky, because you can use all of the given talents. The difference between picking Nexus Blades and Slaughterhouse / Bolt of the Storm is pretty big though, a whole ~4% of the winrate!

I suggest using Bolt of the Storm if the enemy team has a lot of dive or roots (if they're good, they will try to focus you a lot) and the Slaughterhouse if you want to silence and root their backline — you can secure kills against healers and assasins a lot this way. In other cases — Nexus Blades is a must, because The Butcher solely depends on his auto-attacks.

And don't forget you can use Bolt of the Storm as an agressive gap closer (the replay has an example of it in the late game).

1. The Butcher's winrate and matchups on HotsLogs (click).
2. My HeroLeague replay. 26 kills, 0 deaths, top damage (and respect of team mates and enemies lol).
3. MCntyre's Butcher "how to" guide and the gameplay.

P.S. Thanks for reading! Feel free to upvote and leave your comments! :) And have fun playing the Butcher and winning all your games!