If you are not excited to play Murky, you either don't know how he plays, or you have a deep, deep hatred for Murlocs. Regardless of which is the case, I hope this guide will help you learn to love Murky as a cute and lovable baby fish... and one of the strongest heroes in the Nexus.

In the game, Murky is classified as a Melee Specialist, which is completely right. He definitely is "special" with his ability to resurrect almost instantaneously after death, at the cost of having a ridiculously puny HP pool. This is Murky's signature ability and it makes him a very unique character to play. Because of his cute (or whatever) looks, he doesn't really seem like too big of a threat, but Murky actually has one of the highest burst damage combos in the game.

Pros:

INSANE BURST
GIANT KILLER IS BASICALLY USELESS ON HIM
HIGHEST HEALTH REGEN IN THE GAME
GIVES VERY LITTLE EXPERIENCE ON DEATH
ALWAYS IN COMBAT BECAUSE OF HIS 8 SECOND DEATH TIMER
3 SECOND STUN
AMAZING WAVE CLEAR
DOESN'T USE MANA OR ANY RESOURCE
EPIC SKIN (GRUNTY MURKY)
CUTE...?

Cons:

Lowest HP pool in the game
Very little survivability before level 13
Pufferfish can be nuked down by fast attackers
Drops all gems/coins on maps such as the Tomb of the Spider Queen and Blackheart's Bay
No reliable ranged attack or initiation
Pretty useless if countered

Too Much Murky
This is the all-rounder build. The monster murky build. The build of vengeance. I actually went through quite a bit of testing to create this seemingly weird setup. The build focuses on using Tufferfish and A Fishy Deal to generate huge amounts of bribe stacks real early, and then stealing every camp on the enemy side of the map. You can still do this later in the game, but the next few talents will be dedicated to holding your own in hero combat while also potentially getting epic picks with Octo-Grab and Wrath of Cod. Use this build to emphasize your pushing power while also swaying the flow of teamfights by instantly eliminating key targets.

Slime Time!
This is the drown-in-slime build. The endless lagoon build. The annoying build. Personally I think the slime build is hilarious. It's very counter intuitive because it focuses on something that Murky typically isn't known for: hunting heroes. With this build you want to constantly be in combat with other heroes to build up Slime Time in addition to Murky's original pushing role. Use this build when you think your team doesn't particularly need more pushing power and when the enemies don't have enough burst to keep you out of melee combat.

As always, these builds are simply my take on the best versions of his builds. You can build murky any way you'd like to! Personally I think most (if not all) of his talents have fun and powerful uses in almost all situations. No matter how you build him, Murky will always be Murky.

(Trait) Goddammit

Spawn Egg is Murky's signature ability. This trait allows him to respawn eight seconds after death from where the egg was placed (assuming the egg has been placed and has not been destroyed). This trait also gives Murky the ability to only grant 25% of a hero's death experience when he dies. This is what makes Murky such a pain because killing him doesn't really benefit the enemy team that much. In the "Battlegrounds" portion of this guide I will explain a bit about egg placement. When your egg is destroyed, Murky will become revealed for 15 seconds, and your egg will instantly be put on cooldown.

(Q) 8 Second Slow

Slime is probably Murky's most reliable damage source. Every time you hit an enemy with slime, they will receive a debuff which slows them by 25% for 8 SECONDS. You heard me right: 8 SECONDS. This makes it very difficult for low health enemies to escape Murky. In addition, if a slimed enemy is hit with Slime again, they will take MASSIVE damage.

(W) Too Much Damage

Pufferfish is one of the highest damaging AOE abilities in the game, only losing out to Precision Strike, Pyroblast, Dragon's Breath, and (potentially) Guillotine. This is your nuke. Upon activation, Murky will spit out a pufferfish that will land in the targeted area. After 3 seconds, the pufferfish will detonate, dealing a GODLY amount of damage. You won't usually land this ability on heroes without your Octograb, but this ability can clear waves like no one's business. Of course, the pufferfish can be disarmed by dealing damage to it, but no one wants to risk taking 1000 damage, so usually they will try to kill it from range.

(E) Ha! You Can't Kill Me!

Safety Bubble Is the ability that compensates for Murky's ridiculously low HP. Upon activation, Murky hops into a little bubble and becomes invulnerable and untargetable for two seconds, but he cannot do anything else other than move. This ability would be pretty overpowered for any other hero, (I bet you wish Illidan could just become invulnerable when his Evasion popped) so as a result, it has a very long cooldown. Be sure not to engage when this ability isn't ready because it is your wild card. One really important thing to remember is that you need to pop your bubble IN ADVANCE, NOT IN RESPONSE. What I mean is, don't wait until the last minute to pop your bubble, pop it before you take the damage. You will find that your death rate will decrease dramatically if you just bubble early. It's not like Murky uses mana...

(R1) Army of Fish

March of the Murlocs is a really fun heroic ability. If you want to push lanes like no tomorrow and unleash your army of baby fish men on the world, I have no objections. This ability does a fearsome amount of damage while also applying a crippling slow. The only problem is that taking this ability will greatly reduce your potential burst without the ability to trap people in your pufferfish.

(R2) The Most Unfair CC in the Game

Octo-Grab is Murky's Stun. Use this to trap people in your pufferfish or to dash to escaping enemies and make them easy pickings for your team. You will be able to stun people from great distance with this, but don't be too cocky, because enemies can free their teammates from your grasp by killing you. Funnily enough, Murky is unstoppable while using this move, so their stuns won't interrupt your stun.

Key:

Too Much Murky
Slime Time
Both TMM and Slime Builds
Good Alternatives
Not So Good Alternatives

Level 1

Fish Eye I don't think I would recommend this over the other choices, but Fish Eye isn't a useless talent. Especially against stealth heroes, you can place your egg under tower and still see the whole lane, as long as the egg is close to the wall. It gives so much vision it's basically a miniature watchtower. The only problem is that you spawn from that watchtower and any enemies near it will be notified of its presence with a red eye over their head. The movement speed is great, however, because it's so insanely high. You can literally speed back to any fight in no time.

Egg Hunt This is actually the most hilarious talent in the game. Murky will be granted the ability to place fake eggs that explode with slime when destroyed. Your enemies cannot see which ones are fake, but you can because they will have a derpy face on it. Use this ability to grant vision in important areas, or use them to hold up a lane. If you're feeling really cruel, you can place a few near your real egg, so that enemies will have to choose which one to destroy while you escape. The stealth is very helpful because you can essentially keep your egg spot a mystery while also getting some surprise ganks on the enemy.

A Fishy Deal This talent is amazing. No other bribe in the game can generate stacks as fast as this one. Every minion wave that you kill with this talent will grant you one stack of bribe. That's insane! All you need is four minion waves and you can steal some bruisers. However, you cannot finish a minion wave with pufferfish unless you get Tufferfish and then slime the minions first. In later levels, you won't need to slime, you can just one-shot the wave.

Level 4

Slime Time Time to hunt some heroes... This talent takes a lot of buildup, but the results can be devastating. A 35% 8 second slow is already on the brink of overpowered, not to mention that you get a flat boost to slime damage at the halfway point. Be wary, however, that this quest is not easy to complete. Unless you're playing against idiots no one is going to stand there and let Murky slime them, and they'll most likely kill you if you try too hard to go in for those empowered slimes. Build up slowly, and it will pay off.

Tufferfish This is one amazing talent. Not only does it make it near impossible to kill your pufferfish with abilities, but the increased damage on slimed targets can instantly clear minions while boosting the damage for some terrifying puffergrabs. Because pufferfish does so much damage to begin with, the percent increase is nothing to scoff at.

Living the Dream Living the Dream is basically Murky's own version of Gathering Power except that instead of hero kills, Murky just does nothing and gets ability power every 5 seconds. At max power this talent can grant even more damage than the first half of the quest for Slime Time, but it requires you to remain alive (which is what you should be doing anyway). Overall a great talent to boost damage output, if you want consistency over specialization.

Level 7

Black Lagoon I LOVE the name of this talent. It just sounds so awesome and badass at the same time. However, even as a slime talent, it comes in second for the slime build. The slime range helps you land some pretty scary AOE, but the only problem is that this talent is competing with Time to Krill, which can be more advantageous if you can get the auto-attacks off. If you think you're not going to be able to, this talent is a much more powerful buff.

Slippery When Wet This talent is a great addition to your survivability and utility. This will allow for smoother disengages and it will allow you to catch up to fleeing enemies if you haven't got your slime on them yet. If you find yourself up against heroes with powerful gap closers, the movement speed will be great to get out of range of their attacks. Safety Bubble has a long cooldown, so you want to make sure that whenever you use it, you're getting the most out of it.

Time to Krill This is just a really good talent. If you dance around a fight and stack auto attacks on a single target, they will build up a crippling slow, along with some slight damage over time. Combine this with slime, and the enemy will basically become rooted indefinitely. This is a powerful talent, however, its benefits become rather useless if you are not able to consistently hit enemies at melee range. Keep this in mind before picking this talent.

Level 10 (Heroics)

Octo-Grab This is the move that makes Murky a Monster. The ability to have a ranged three second stun on Murky is just far too overpowered. With this ultimate, you can trap people under your pufferfish, pick off a single out-of-position enemy, or dash to an escaping enemy so your team can clean up that Mega Kill. In addition, this ability only has a 50 second cooldown, which means that every 3rd pufferfish you throw out will have an Octograb ready to combo with it. Keep in mind that you shouldn't ever use this ability if you don't think Murky can survive the full duration, because your death will cancel the stun.

March of the Murlocs Imagine Poison Nova, but with more damage and a devastating slow. That is March of the Murlocs. The murlocs don't travel very fast, and enemies can run out of its range very easily, but this is a powerful zoning ability because of its duration and damage. Any enemies who are stupid enough to stand in the army of murlocs will die. No questions asked.

Level 13

Rejuvenating Bubble This is the talent that boosts Murky's survivability to insane levels. 50% percent of your health is actually a very fair amount, especially at level 13 (and even more with Big Tuna Kahuna!). This talent almost guarantees that it will be impossible for anyone to kill you in a 1v1. This becomes a problem for the enemy team because they will need to send more than 1 person to stop you from pushing. Be wary, however, of the long cooldown on Safety Bubble, and that you can't use this healing if it's still recharging.

Fish Tank If you think you don't need to worry about spell burst, but more about physical damage, this talent can be a solid pick. A permanent 75% physical damage reduction is INSANE, however, to get the full value from this ability you need to attack a hero before they start to hit you, or else you will suffer the damage before you receive the armor increase.

Egg Shell I am actually kind of conflicted on this talent. On one hand, it's a great boost to your survivability that is even greater than the other two talents on this tier... POTENTIALLY. The only problem is that this is a survivability talent that only helps you AFTER YOU DIE. That just seems counter intuitive to me. However, if you find yourself dying rather often, this is a surefire way to lower that death rate if you think your enemies will continue to burst you down.

Level 16

Toxic Buildup Combined with Time to Krill, this talent can destroy most squishy heroes. In a matter of seconds you can output a ridiculous amount of slimes that will scare any tank, and straight up kill assassins. As with the other auto attack oriented talents, don't pick this one if you don't think you will be able to land many attacks on the enemy team.

Slimy Pufferfish If you use this in conjunction with Tufferfish, this talent will devastate opponents who get caught in your pufferfish, because you can just puffer into an Octo-Grab without the need to get up close for a slime. In fact, you can use this talent as a ranged slow if you are chasing an enemy.

Wrath of Cod The percentage damage on this talent is frightening even for squishies. With this damage, your puffergrabs will be ever more devastating, and now even tanks aren't safe from your combo. Keep in mind that this bonus damage is done over time, so don't expect to instakill unless they are at lower health.

Level 20

Never Ending Murlocs If you took March of the Murlocs, this talent is a great buff. If enemies just ignore you, you can single-handedly wipe towers, forts, keeps, and even the core off from the face of the earth. In teamfights, you can create a permanent zone of death while your allies channel on the objective. Keep in mind that you are not unstoppable while channeling, so stuns and other hard cc will still interrupt you.

... And A Shark Too! This talent is just so amazing. I can't stress how important it is to have your ranged stun also deal 900 DAMAGE! This makes Octograb useful just to finish off enemies and increase the overall burst of your combo. The damage also scales really well, so this ability will eventually be able to combo into instakill puffergrabs, provided you stay alive long enough to get the full damage.

Big Tuna Kahuna I'm just going to say it: This talent is overpowered. This talent doubles Murky's health, respawn time, and size, making him the front line of your team. Normal things that Murky could never do (like tanking) now become cakewalks. Combined with Rejuvenating Bubble, you don't even have to worry about the increased death timer, because you'll never die!

Making Inky I didn't recommend this for the slime build, only because Big Tuna Kahuna is just way too insane, but if you don't think you need the survivability, you can pick this talent to drown your opponents in slime. With Toxic Buildup, you already unleash a severe amount of ink, but combined with this talent, your opponents will never expect your damage.

Murky functions very similarly to an assassin, with low HP and a lot of damage. The only difference is you trade a LOT of health for a LOT of damage.

How to Puffergrab (A Step By Step Guide)

Many people think it's very hard to 1v1 as Murky because of his health disadvantage, but don't worry it's not as difficult as it seems. Granted some matchups are impossible to win, but here is my take on the Murky Combo.

1. Go in and slime
2. Auto attack them until they notice and start to hit you.
3. Run away (or bubble if necessary)
4. Wait for slime (and bubble) to come off cooldown
5. repeat steps 1-4 until the enemy is down to about 30% - 50% health (depends on the hero)
6. Throw a pufferfish under them
7. Octo-Grab them onto it
8. Revel in your glory

Laning Phase

The first thing you need to do as Murky is establish lane dominance. While laning, save your pufferfish to hit minion waves to ensure that the enemies will get pushed back and hopefully take some minion aggro. Try to keep your opponent slimed all the time so they will take a LOT of bonus damage whenever you go in to slime again. In the occasion that you find yourself in some kind of immediate danger (which is going to be most of the time), just bubble. If you took A Fishy Deal, use this pushing to grind out some sweet stacks and steal every camp on the enemy side.

Objectives

When an objective comes up, you have a choice to make. Do you want to aid your team with the objective, or do you want to push and soak experience? Helping your team is always a safe choice, because it will raise the chances of your team claiming victory over the objective. On the other hand, early game split pushing is a high risk high reward choice. If you split push successfully, you will help grant a ton of experience. If your team loses the objective because you weren't there, then the enemy most likely will get the experience advantage. Most people don't think Murky is very efficient at helping with objectives, so a lot of Murky players choose to split push and throw their games. The truth is, Murky is really good at zoning for his team. With his pufferfish, Murky can force the enemy team to move in inconvenient ways, because no one wants to take a thousand damage.

Heroic Phase

After the first few objectives, your team should be doing everything they can to reach level 10. Depending on who reaches that level first, you should either be forcing a teamfight, or avoiding one until both teams reach level 10. You should be doing everything to split push (or clear lanes for bribe stacks) as much as you can. With Murky, split pushing is usually a no risk high reward scenario because the enemy team will find it very difficult to kill you without at least two people. Even if they do kill you, they don't even get that much exp. If you took Slime Time, you may need to spend less time pushing and more time fighting heroes to gain your stacks.

Late Game

You can spend time gathering bribe or split pushing, but now you probably want to spend more time with your team, since deaths at this time are very punishing and Big Tuna Kahuna (or any of the other level 20 talents) will equip you for teamfights. Since you respawn in eight seconds, you shouldn't be afraid to sacrifice yourself to save teammates. If you took Never-Ending Murlocs, you will be responsible for keeping the enemy team split so they never teamfight. If you keep pushing, they will have to send one or hopefully two people over to stop you, or risk losing the game.

Murky's Trait, Spawn Egg, is one of the most unique and most useful traits in the game. With this trait, Murky is able to basically become immortal because his deaths are so unrewarding to the enemy team. Unfortunately, the Spawn Egg is also one of the most misused traits. Let me just clarify this: There is no perfect egg spot. No matter where you place your egg, it can be, and most likely will be, found. That being said, don't just place your egg in the middle of the lane. If an idiot on the enemy team is searching for your egg, chances are, they are wasting a lot more time then they should be. If someone finds your egg DO NOT PROTECT IT. I can't even name how many times I've seen Murky players rush in to save their egg when it gets found. It is not worth a full death timer. If someone destroys your egg, just replace it and move on. On another note, if you realize that your egg is about to get destroyed, disengage from any fight you are in. Dying with a full death timer is not worth it.

Remember, just because your deaths only grant the enemy 25% of a hero's death experience, it doesn't mean you can just feed mindlessly. 25% may not seem like a lot, but it adds up fast. Don't just keep rushing into the same death over and over. Take a moment to just breathe whenever you die, and I guarantee your deaths will decrease dramatically.

Haunted Mines

Honestly I'm just happy this map is back in the rotation! This was one of Murky's best maps back then, and not much has changed. If anything, this map is now even better for him. When the objective comes up, it can be very advantageous for Murky to bribe mercenaries instead of heading into the mines. In fact, he can probably snatch a few and then still have time to clear out some objective skeletons. Sapper camps are very important on this map because buildings can't recover, so enemies will have to focus down your sappers or risk taking some irreversible damage.

Battlefield of Eternity

This map is not particularly good or bad for Murky. There are no egg spots, but the constant teamfights in this map makes Murky's zoning very effective, especially in the closed spaces of the battle arena. You should spend your objective time attacking the enemy immortal because you can literally deal one thousand damage on call. You are also good at defending with your zoning, so choose your position wisely.

Blackheart's Bay

This is, in my opinion, the worst map for Murky. You can't really reliably turn in or hold coins, so you really need to rely on your team. Never pick up any coins, let your teammates do it. You should be split pushing all the time unless your team is heading for a group turn in.

Cursed Hollow

A pretty good map for Murky since the tributes set up some really good pufferfish locations around them. You should definitely help with the objective if you can. Murky can really abuse the curse because of how good he is at pushing. Just instaclear a wave with slime and launch pufferfish on structures. Mercenaries are also pretty safe to go after regardless of which side they are on. There are numerous hiding spots for your egg EVERYWHERE in the crevices and dead ends.

Dragon Shire

Not a good map for Murky. You should try to push out middle lane as much as you can since you can't really help with the shrines. The shrines force you to remain immobile in a small spot and that sucks for you since Murky needs to not get hit by skillshots. You are very good at zoning the enemy away from the capture point, though, because pufferfish basically covers the whole point.

Garden of Terror

A pretty nice map for Murky. The teamfight area around the garden camps have nice choke points for some really good pufferfish placements. The Garden Terror camp can even root your enemies while you throw a pufferfish at them! There are many egg spots and the mercenary camps are often safe to take alone. In addition, Murky is the best hero to claim the Garden Terror, because there is minimal loss if he dies.

Braxis Holdout

This map is really similar to Dragon Shire, except that you can't push out a mid lane anymore. There aren't many good egg spots, but the mercs on this map are easier to take than the default ones (with the exception of the boss). Honestly you need your team to contest the capture points, because you won't be able to stand on it without getting obliterated.

Warhead Junction

Not Murky's best map, but it's also not bad. There are nice pushing mercs and numerous nooks and crannies for eggs. In addition, the map is huge, giving Murky more opportunities for split pushing. However, the teamfighting areas around the nukes are way too cramped, making it easy for you to hit enemies, but also making it a hell of a lot easier for them to hit you. Also, good luck holding nukes.

Infernal Shrines

This is an awesome map for Murky. You can clear the shrine minions instantly with your pufferfish and the teamfight zones have choke points on the 4 sides. There are also a lot of mercenary camps for you to take/steal that only require 3 bribe stacks for bruisers. A good egg spot is in the corner of the lower shrine.

Sky Temple

Similar to the dragon shire which forces you to fight in an area. The good thing is that this area is now much larger. You can usually try to contest temples since people will find it hard to deal with your zoning and the guardians at the same time. Good egg spots are in the bushes between the mid and bottom lanes, especially on your side where people will rarely go check.

Tomb of the Spider Queen

Not a good map for Murky in theory, but I have the highest win rate on this map for some reason. Murky can't really carry the gems or get turn ins, but he can push like mad since this map has no teamfighting objective. Be sure to still help if your team wants to group, though. There aren't too many good egg spots so just choose a random bush or crevice.

Towers of Doom

I love this map. The entire map is a good egg spot with it's numerous bushes and crevices. A map where you win by pushing? Murky couldn't be happier. The teamfight zones around the shrines are perfect for pufferfish, so you should be able to contest captures relatively easily. There are no bruisers on this map, but taking both bottom sappers can result in some pretty early tower captures.

Thank you for reading my guide! If you have made it this far, I am very happy that you spent the time to look through this... or just scroll to the bottom to see how long my guide is. Regardless, I am grateful that you viewed my article! Please correct me on any of my mistakes, typos, or anything else you have to suggest! I will try to keep this guide as updated as possible!