Hello everyone, my name is Benjamin "BadBenny" Eekenulv, and I am the tank player for team expert. I have done some guides in the past, but this will be my first HotS guide, hope it will be appreciated.

The aim of this guide is to educate the reader on how to play Muradin properly. This will include builds, scenarios of when to pick what build, general playstyle information, and trying to explain Muradins "job" in the game.

Talents:

So the level 4, 7 , 10, 13, 20 talents are mandatory. These are by far the best talents if you are opting to go in to the more standard, yet adaptable build.

Level 1: The choice between block or third wind. My view of this tier is just pick what you need the most early game. If they have heavy auto attackers block is generally the way to go, and if they have weaker autoattackers and not much kill potential (i.e. not much "easy to hit" hard cc) you should get third wind. If neither of these are needed then you can get the perfect storm, but that talent does not have that much impact, you sometimes waste your stun aswell to get stacks which might result in missing a kill which is really bad.

Level 16: The adaptable talent. You basically have to ask yourself "What do I need to be on my team for us to win fights". The three options are stoneform (sustain), give 'em the axe (dps), and heavy impact (cc setup).

Playstyle:

Level 1-7 you generally just want to scout enemy movement, and be ready to gank/countergank if the enemy overextends. It is very important that you avoid showing on the map unnecessarily (like clearing minions if it is not needed). This does not mean you should never soak, just let the enemy push it in first as a general rule.

Level 10: If you are behind at this point, it is the time to force a fight. You're job in this fight is basically to bait the enemy to use everything on you, pop avatar, and turn the fight. Note: it is very important that your team is in range to actually do something when you get engaged upon, otherwise you will just die/waste your ultimate. If you are ahead on the other hand, keep scouting and just look for the counter initiate if the enemy is looking for a fight. The fight should be played the same way as if you're behind, only now you can be more aggressive since you probably have a level lead (stat advantage) or just a better fight position.

Level 13: Due to the healing static, your survivability increases dramatically. This lets you (and should encourage you) to play more aggressive. Instead of just using avatar as a bait you can now pop it early in the fight to get more value of your healing static, and pressure the backline more. A typical muradin lvl 13 fight is that you start attacking their tank, and then when both teams have commited to the fight you jump on their backline, pop avatar, and pressure relatively safely with the sustain of healing static.

Level 16: Regardless of what level 16 talent you take you generally just want to create space for your carries to do what they want. Either you do it by jumping backline and being unkillable (stoneform), or jumping backline and killing people (give 'em the axe), or setting up your carries to hit spells with the increased crowd control that heavy impact provides.

20: Basically the same as 16, but look for stun into rewind combos if someone positions poorly in the enemy team, or if for example cleanse is down and your team has damage up.

When: This build is basically a good starter for new muradin players - it is always good, it is easy to get a hang of, and you can afford to make a lot of mistakes without getting too punished for it. There are no direct counters to this build (that is not a counter to muradin in general). I would reccomend this build for everyone new to the hero, and then when more comfortable you can try the other builds.

Talents:

So the level 7, 10, 13, 16 talents are the ones I always pick when I go for this build, the situational ones are explained below.

Level 1: Block or third wind are the two options here. Since you want to be inside the fight as much as possible and just punch people I generally prefer block, but third wind still has its place.

Level 4: I would think my view on this talent tree is very controversial, but for me the increased attack speed slow from reverberation, or the reduced cooldown reduction from crowd control are my go to talents. The reason behind this is that since you will lack the sustainability that battle-forged momentum gives you (paired with healing static), you need as much survivablity as you can get. The attack speed slow gives the most if you are against heavy AA (graymane, valla, illidan and so on), while the crowd control is better if they are not as AA reliant. The reason I favor crowd control over thunderburn is that crowd control gives you better control of your sustain, while the thunderburn relies on the enemy staying in your w.

Level 20: So depending on the enemies kill potential you go either harden shield or rewind. Basically always take rewind if you can get away with it. The talent is insane and is always objectively better, but if you need harden to be able to do damage, then you should go with that. If that is the case you probably picked the wrong build though.

Playstyle:

The playstyle is the same early game regardless of what build you go. Scout the enemy, look for picks. At level 7 you can look to take more 1v1 trades since you are stronger than most heroes. Moving between autoing is more important since you want to keep ministunning heroes.

Level 10: Generally you won't be able to jump backline until you at least have avatar. This get increasingly easier at 13 with healing static, and of course more efficient at 16 when you can give them that axe (oh yeah). Basically you look to play safe (peel, attack frontline) until a backliner overextends. Then you jump, w for slow, and sit on them with ministuns + damage from skullcracker.

Level 13: Same things mentioned in the last paragraph, only you are more self-sustainable now. Depending on the enemies pressure you have to decide if instantly jumping backline when fight starts is the correct choice, or just peeling/damaging frontline and playing more patiently. With this build you do a lot more by yourself and rely less on teammates to follow, so it is important to understand whether or not your backline can kill the enemy tank faster than their backline can kill you. If the first is true, you are usually free to jump backline, if the second, you should help focus down their tank first.

Level 16: At this level it is usually more appealing to jump backline as a general rule due to the damage/pressure you can put out by yourself. Every scenario is different, but it is important to know your limits if you are used to the normal build, and respect your tankiness, but also to not underestimate your kill potential.

Level 20: Rewind just lets muradin do everything he already does, but better. The only thing to note here is that since you have give 'em the axe it is more important to chain autos between stuns (if you can afford it), because you lose way more damage by not getting them autos in. Scenario: Auto stun auto rewind stun auto (not including w), compared to stun stun auto which a lot of people do even though they can get autos in. Harden is basically picked if enemy has high cooldown reliant comp, and you can draw their aggro and then jump in and kill people. SeemsGood? Ok.

When: For this build to work, or rather be better than other builds, the enemy cannot have too much pressure on you cc/burst wise. An example of this is etc + malf combo - you do not want to pick skullcracker into that. The build is also a bit worse against super mobile heroes, where it might be hard to sit and pressure them with skullcracker and give 'em the axe. So in general I would pick this build against more sustained damage, when they are lacking cc (so you are free to do whatever you want relatively safely).

Talents:

There is not much to say about talents here. I have seen other people play different builds with haymaker, but this is the one I prefer and think is the best.

Level 1: This is the only situational talent, where you can pick everything and go fine with it. I usually only pick the perfect storm for fun, but it is not bad. I just personally prefer the increased sustain/tankiness that block and third wind provides.

Playstyle:

Outside of the haymaker the hero is of course played the same way, you only have to be more careful of jumping backline since you do not have the easy save that avatar provides. Personally I play each situation and fight differently and there is not one "correct" approach, but this build is mostly about knowing your limits, and knowing when you can make an aggressive play or when you need to peel.

The classic haymaker play is stunning, jumping in, and haymakering a key target into your team. This rarely happens in a team fight though, the normal use of haymaker is basically to push one of their frontliners into the rest of their team, or to deny an important cooldown (i.e. haymakering lucio away when he is going in to sound barrier, or reghar with ancestral). Another good/value use it to haymaker arthas away when he pop ghouls, since he is an hero that has a very hard time getting back into the fight if he is knocked away due to his lack of mobility.

When: Whenever you want to have a good time :^) jokes aside, it is as stated strong against an enemy composition that relies on double frontline engage to work, or if the enemy has a key ultimate they need to get off (like lucio/reghar ult).

This is all for now, if you have any questions or feel the guide is missing something feel free to message me at @twitter.com/badbennyhots , or just come and ask while I am streaming @twitch.tv/badbennyhots .