Heroes of the Storm Abathur

[Morcalivan 86]

Trap build works on Towers of Doom with a side of locust or sym. Went from losing to winning. Just have to use mines as bombs a bunch. Clear minions quick and even ready the sapper camps for a teammate. Sappers can be easy and quick to counter with your mines and symbiote if the enemy tries to cap and forget them, making them waste time on them. Following up with locust or sym talents is the next step depending whether you want to target altars or towers.

Some of my weaker maps also work best with locusts. However the guide locust build is too short reaching for me. You need global mined locusts to work better than symbiote. Maintaining vision is needed to deep tunnel. This in turn is needed to give yourself time to shift to a new position in lane or into another lane to continue your locust burst. Otherwise you will be found by your locust trail very quickly, particularly if you chose ranged locusts, giving away your position by shooting from it. You will need to be pretty liberal with spike burst and mines to do some real damage with your locusts though. Adding a monstrosity before minion clear makes wiping towers and forts pretty quick. Too quick usually to stop, and a possible death sentence to some that try. The lack of shield healing your monstrosity is a bit of a pain though.

Not a fan of using clone with locusts. The monstrosity lets you quickly go through fortifications and pressure the core or defend your fortifications. You can only really do that with clone if your team is already doing that. You have your symbiote for that. The advantage of locust and mine is the global on demand pressure they provide.

Medhiv also needs to be added as counter. He can track your locust trail with ease and then strike you down again and again. Same with Murky and his egg.

[xevex 41]

This is my usual build used on most maps unless there is really no point pushing since everything is about objective:
1. Survival Insticts 
4. Prolific Dispersal 
7. Networked Carapace or Mule 
10. Ultimate Evolution 
13. Bombard Strain 
16. Locust Brood 
20. Locust Nest 

I like the late game push power that this build provides also the fact that you can solo camps with it while the enemy team is trying to do the objective.

[Morcalivan 86]

Posted some builds on Heroesfire.

https://www.heroesfire.com/hots/guide/abathur-from-healing-to-stabbing-locusts-15979

These are the builds I currently use. The third one is one of my 'fun time' builds just to see if I can do it. The first is my main competitive build. The second is more of a relaxing quick match build filler when a lack of push/wave clear is there. I think for wins, Monstrosity gets more done and leads to more victories even if the cloning is cool.

[Morcalivan 86]

Evolve Monstrosity is a strong pushing and sieging tool, but you must sacrifice a lot of team fight presence in order to take it.

There is a sentence in the talents description which is just wrong. You don't sacrifice anything. Your Monstrosity can be spawned and ignored most of the time allowing you to continue to use your Symbiote, which can keep hosts alive so they may add damage as well as your symbiote damage combined.

While this is happening your Monstrosity is feeding and after you pull it back to let it feed again it's ready for business. You can let it do its thing and draw away enemy fighters from team fights or you can walk it into the team foght lane fairly easily. It will deal and take more damage on average than a clone. Since it has longevity and mobility, it does more damage over time than a clone over mutiple team fights instead of just one, and whatever other solo fights it encounters. It also more easily finishes kills since it gets more flanking in from traversing lanes.

The clone damage is situational and therefore, by definition, happens less. And without mobility, control or burst damage the enemy can simply avoid it until it dies.

Furthurmore the Symbiote being used while piloting Monstrosity and its ability to use Twin Symbiote talent means that it in fact can vastly increase team fight damage, and not the other way around.

Clone is a situational power based on the right comp.

[Valhalen 1,484]

11 minutes ago, Morcalivan said:

Evolve Monstrosity is a strong pushing and sieging tool, but you must sacrifice a lot of team fight presence in order to take it.

There is a sentence in the talents description which is just wrong. You don't sacrifice anything. Your Monstrosity can be spawned and ignored most of the time allowing you to continue to use your Symbiote, which can keep hosts alive so they may add damage as well as your symbiote damage combined.

While this is happening your Monstrosity is feeding and after you pull it back to let it feed again it's ready for business. You can let it do its thing and draw away enemy fighters from team fights or you can walk it into the team foght lane fairly easily. It will deal and take more damage on average than a clone. Since it has longevity and mobility, it does more damage over time than a clone over mutiple team fights instead of just one, and whatever other solo fights it encounters. It also more easily finishes kills since it gets more flanking in from traversing lanes.

The clone damage is situational and therefore, by definition, happens less. And without mobility, control or burst damage the enemy can simply avoid it until it dies.

Furthurmore the Symbiote being used while piloting Monstrosity and its ability to use Twin Symbiote talent means that it in fact can vastly increase team fight damage, and not the other way around.

Clone is a situational power based on the right comp.

It depends on the map, to be honest. On heavy objective-oriented maps where you need that extra firepower to defend a point (i.e. Volskaya Foundry, Battlefield of Eternity), picking Evolve Monstrosity isn't helpful at all. I feel that this Heroic has more value in maps where pushing power is more impactful, such as Blackheart's Bay and Towers of Doom. But I agree that the talent description could be updated to reflect the situational use of this Heroic.

Edited January 31, 2018 by Valhalen

[Morcalivan 86]

I use Monstrosity more for killing than sieging. You just have to know how to feed it without costing you to invest too much time into it. Once it's ready to go, it cuts through heroes. Much better than any clone. I think the randomness of the stats helps with that initially. Only when people start getting hit in melee do they realize it's buffed and they need to take it out ASAP. Assuming they can reach it in the later game due to speed boost heal. The fact that chasing it means you're going to get hit means that often times players will break off to pursue someone else only to have it come back at full health to reengage. Not saying I don't use clone, I do, but it always depends on the team and map to see if it will be useful enough to compare with my symbiote. If it's not, then Monstrosity it is. If xp is getting behind a bit then Monstrosity as well. Ya wonna push during an objective fight? Pop out a Monstrosity then Symbiote your team.

Edited February 1, 2018 by Morcalivan

[ShadowerDerek 69]

Have been playing a lot of Abathur recently. I want to mention something about him:

1.) Mine build is the most difficult build to play, but it doesn't mean it's bad. It's more of a macro build. The main point of this build is to slow down the enemy's rotation when contesting multiple objective. It's really powerful in Towers of Doom and Dragon Shire. 

2.) Global mine is crucial to the Locust build. With this build, your main method of split pushing is to Z into a bush (or somewhere that the enemy don't have vision on) close to the enemy keep, dump your Locusts and Nest, and then hearthstone back to base. Without the global mine, you can't do that, especially in late game where forts of both sides are downed. Also, being able to scout camps and enemy heroes from a safe area is really helpful for preventing ganks. 

3.) I know I'll get a lot of hates by saying this, but I think I need to state it clearly: Monstrosity SUCKS, for multiple reasons:

a.) It requires your enemy to have bad map awareness to work: good teams will kill it before you're able to stack, no matter where or when you use it.

b.) You sacrifice A LOT of team fight presence by not picking Ultimate Evolution. Even if the monstrosity is fully stacked and have the upgrade at 20, it's just a Dehaka without Drag and Isolation. Ultimate Evolution brings a lot of team fight presence because it doesn't only provides damage: it also brings CC, strong frontline, healing, or anything you need. Without this heroic, you're essentially putting your team in a disadvantage at EVERY SINGLE team fight, which means you give your enemy every objective by just picking Monstrosity. 

c.) It promotes self-centered playstyle. If you pick Monstrosity, you need to babysit it for the entire game. Monstrosity won't get any decent value unless you constantly scout for ganks and move it away from any potential danger. You're essentially playing a glorified minion. 

d.) Ultimate Evolution has great value in almost every single game. There're only a few heroes for cloning:

Varian: no heroic(trait)

Azmodan: really bad without talents

Murky: no egg

Butcher: no meat

Alexstraza: no Dragonqueen

Ragnaros: no Molten Core

Malfurion: no time to use Regrowth on multiple heroes

Nazeebo: no Vile Infection

Kharazim: no trait

Xul: he just sucks

Cho'Gall: you can only copy Cho

Kel'Thuzad: no trait stacks

Dva: no self destruct

Vikings: one viking doesn't do anything

Any other heroes can give you good value, and you have 4 heroes to choose from. Besides, most of the aformentioned heroes are specialists, which rarely pair with Abathur in ranked.

In short, Monstrosity should NEVER be picked, because it has less value than Ultimate Evolution in any situation.

Edited May 19, 2018 by ShadowerDerek

[Morcalivan 86]

So after 60 levels I'd still have to say that Shield, Shield, Stab, Monstrosity, Stab, Shield, Twin Sym is best.

Nearly every situation. It can match Locust for siege/xp. It can match some supports in healing while outpacing in damage. Everything else just fails to measure up. Not that they aren't fun sometimes. Having 5 long lasting mines instead of 3 short timered ones creates some fun placement. But it, and Locust, and all shield builds listed in guide just can't do the things the above build can. Abathur is about adapting. Not just for the map and team comp, but for the situation. The other builds are way too specialized and sacrifice that capability. The lack of range and damage on an all carapace build, the lack of healing on locust or mine builds, and the lack of xp and diverting threat when you choose clone over monstrosity. It just leaves gaps in what you can do for your team. Big gaps. On a two lane map, or very small map then it sometimes is more useful to have a clone when you have the right team. But other than that, Monstrosity just offers too much, in xp, pushing, damage, sustained existence, mobility. Clone is chained to your teammates. Trading a team symbiote for a singular untalented character.

Still, if you want to play Abathur in League, expect insults, disconnects and reports about being a troll. Have fun! ?

[Guest DoomOfGods]

Networked Carapace working with Sustained Carapace is outdated information. Haven't played for years and came back to this not working anymore made me quite sad since i loved the pushing value one could get out of this. Networked Carapace sounds like it lost a good amount of its value due to this?

 

"(Patch May 16, 2017) Note: Fixed an issue in which Networked Carapace provided a lower than intended Shield amount. Secondary Shields granted by Networked Carapace will no longer benefit from Sustained Carapace." -wiki

Networked Carapace working with Sustained Carapace is outdated information. Haven't played for years and came back to this not working anymore made me quite sad since i loved the pushing value one could get out of this. Networked Carapace sounds like it lost a good amount of its value due to this?

 

"(Patch May 16, 2017) Note: Fixed an issue in which Networked Carapace provided a lower than intended Shield amount. Secondary Shields granted by Networked Carapace will no longer benefit from Sustained Carapace." -wiki

 

[DeskDrawer 3]

I would implore this build to not recommend Evolve Monstrosity as the recommended in a tldr build (I know it's listed as situational in the talent build page but still). Games above Platinum usually have enough map awareness and decision making to limit its push. Personally I've never seen this ult get good value in ranked, not in my own plays, my teammates, or my opponents.

To suggest that Evolve Monstrosity has the same sort of team fight contribution as Ultimate Evolution is just wrong. First, Ultimate Evolution can immediately impact a fight when it's off cd no matter where the fight occurs. Whereas you have to evolve the Monstrosity, get it stacked, and hope that the fight happens near the lane you're pushing lest you walk it through the entire map, with you also not able to assist team with Symbiote during the long walk.

2nd, Monstrosity has some strong stats once it's stacked, but even then, I wouldn't rate it above a full fledged hero. Yeah its stats is strong, but heroes have abilities that the Monstrosity does not have. And again, with UE you gain access to the power spike immediately, whereas Monstrosity takes time to ramp up.

3rd, Monstrosity can create split pressure while a fight is going on. But in that case your team fights roughly half a hero down. It's similar idea to a split pushing Gazlowe or TLV. It may work, but it forces your entire team into a different play style of not heavily committing in team fights. That's the definition of situational for me.

[Guest Yawgmoth]

monstro is like a bruiser once it s stacked, soaking dmg for ur team with its big hitbox. at the same time it deals crazy dmg unless kited. ue is good too no question. but i d make picking monstro or not more dependant on the enemy setup. if they have high aa dps or heroes with bonus dmg against nhc then monstro loses a lot value

[Guest Abathur in ptr]

With the new updates to Abathur in the ptr making his locust do more damage but has less time on the he field and the all the other updates and balance changes on his other abilities, I think you need to make or update this guide since this might change the play style of Abathur.  

[Morcalivan 86]

So I did some testing and put together some thoughts below on HeroesFire.com

Start of an Abathur Guide

Basically, Abathur thrives with much of the same talent choices I've always favoured, using Monstrosity over Clone.

But now he does nearly everything better, except for the healing outside of combat. That can sometimes slow things down and keep you on hosts you don't want to stay on since they require 2-3 activations of your shield instead of one, but while in combat, it'll heal more overall since it also prevents more damage and is activated more often. It also lets you deal more damage more often and scare away and eliminate targets that would otherwise be doing damage to your host.

Thew new monstrosity changes last patch to shift its damage to early game combined with the new shield cooldown and benefits make it pretty scary since you don't need to stop controlling or doing damage to heal it. This makes it much more deadly and mobile in short range. In long range you lose the rapid tunneling but also get it 10 levels earlier, so on it's own it's a nerf but with the better Monstrosity situation, it's more effective overall.

Network Carapace is also a huge change now that we don't have to compete with damage. Combined with our base heal and sustained shield, it's just a scary team fight and pushing tool. Throw in speed boost shield at 16 and twin symbiote at 20 for extra range and mobility. Use your Monstrosity to better direct the buffs and you have a very effective hit-run squad that just survives and kills everything.

Level 1 Spine Burst now combines well with Network to quickly push. Locusts as late game talents can add to that, but it's pretty pointless since late game is for team fighting and needs a buffed monstrosity or twin symbiote anyways. The buffs for Locusts are just too oddly spread out among the different talents which makes taking just a couple of them a poor decision while taking all of them makes you a one trick Abathur without any other benfits then pushing lanes, which all Abathur builds can now do very well.

So, I like the new changes, even if I'll miss the healing numbers I could previously do. It makes Abathur more fun and no longer just a one build choice as he was before.

And just reached level 100 with Abby, yay me! :p

[SuperKaioken 0]

It should be mentioned that post abba rework, due to shield healing and staying after symb is removed now being baseline, the aoe shield heals all targets the same as the first. Abbathur can actually outheal old abba, provided your allies clump up when shield CD is off, but that could get them hit by AoE attacks so its situational. Still worth mentioning because of the teamfight healing potential.  

 

Edit: Comment suggestion reflected in guide, comment no longer needed.

Edited February 20, 2019 by SuperKaioken
Realized comment was incorrect

[Morcalivan 86]

14 hours ago, SuperKaioken said:

It should be mentioned that post abba rework, due to shield healing and staying after symb is removed now being baseline, the aoe shield heals all targets the same as the first. Abbathur can actually outheal old abba, provided your allies clump up when shield CD is off, but that could get them hit by AoE attacks so its situational. Still worth mentioning because of the teamfight healing potential.  

 

Edit: Comment suggestion reflected in guide, comment no longer needed.

Twin Symbiote can extend the range of your Network so that there's less clumping required. Unless your Monstrosity feeding is super reliable, this is the talent to pick. Monstrosity can be difficult to keep alive in later levels. If this happens, your double melee damage isn't really helpful to the team. The value of it is more as a Symbiote Networking tool than a melee damage tool. You also can double your symbiote ranged damage in return so its not too much of a damage reduction and it relies less on a heroic cooldown.

So while Monstrosity and even the clone shield are impressive when they're up, the Twin Symbiote is a more baseline buff to your team long term.

Loving the reports at the start of the match and upvotes at the end of it in Team League. :p

I wonder what they write when they try and report? Intentionally dying? AFK? Any ideas?

Of course, if your team loses it's clearly your fault and the reports increase, lol.

[ArtVandelay 24]

I still feel like E build is the best way to go with Abathur post re-work.  I am not sure it is better/worse numbers wise, but you aren't punished for leaving it on 1 host for longer, unlike before where you really needed to move it a ton to maximize healing/CD.

I do wonder which heroic is really better.  I think they are map dependent, unlike the build dependency listed here.  I don't see how Monstrosity is inherently better in Carapace build, for example.  Sure, the shared shield does a lot in a split push scenario, but it also does a fair amount in a team fight.  I have experimented with the new monstrosity and the burrow is pretty cool, but it requires more babysitting than before without the resistance to minions.  I find it keeps me from getting shielding on my teammates as much as I would prefer.  For that reason, I would say clone is much better in a carapace build, because you can still body soak while focusing on shielding everyone in the fight.  Monstrosity feels better to me in a locust build, where you can basically split push two lanes hard and ignore the objective (say on Cursed Hollow or Garden where you can afford to skip them at times).  I also still love the 'disappear' effect of clone, especially with the locust changes intended to force you closer to the waves to soak...it is nice to be able to hide when they come (I have been saved by that a lot).

 

[Morcalivan 86]

1 hour ago, ArtVandelay said:

I still feel like E build is the best way to go with Abathur post re-work.  I am not sure it is better/worse numbers wise, but you aren't punished for leaving it on 1 host for longer, unlike before where you really needed to move it a ton to maximize healing/CD.

I do wonder which heroic is really better.  I think they are map dependent, unlike the build dependency listed here.  I don't see how Monstrosity is inherently better in Carapace build, for example.  Sure, the shared shield does a lot in a split push scenario, but it also does a fair amount in a team fight.  I have experimented with the new monstrosity and the burrow is pretty cool, but it requires more babysitting than before without the resistance to minions.  I find it keeps me from getting shielding on my teammates as much as I would prefer.  For that reason, I would say clone is much better in a carapace build, because you can still body soak while focusing on shielding everyone in the fight.  Monstrosity feels better to me in a locust build, where you can basically split push two lanes hard and ignore the objective (say on Cursed Hollow or Garden where you can afford to skip them at times).  I also still love the 'disappear' effect of clone, especially with the locust changes intended to force you closer to the waves to soak...it is nice to be able to hide when they come (I have been saved by that a lot).

 

Move your monstrosity begind minions and turn your shield on. Place a mine inside the enemy wave or fire off a spine burst before using the shield. It'll heal up and empower your minions enough that monstrosity will be dine for a while.

But as I said. The real value is the networking. Move your Monstrosity with your team, spamming shield and healing multiple allies at once more accurately than you can with just Symbiote.

At level 16 your speed boosts become game changing. Particularly when directed by your Monstrosity. You combine elements of Lucio and Tyreal on a Dehaka-like base. 

Clone has a pretty good single player shield at level 20. I would mostly use it to double up on a good base tank character. Combine that with volatile mutation to buff your own tank and you have two very survivable tanks. At the cost of Monstrosity and Twin Symbiote and Speed Boosts.

I just don't like the idea of not buffing the whole team with shields, heals and speed since it impacts the defense and offense of the team greatly. It also allows monstrosity to feed since a buffed team is a team that can push repeatedly. Throw in a merc camp and you're taking a tower even 5 on 5 most times.

As for Locust, those talents create a lot of downtime looking after your body. With the new cooldown for shields, its just too much of a risk for too little a reward. That said, it pairs best with double clone talents and a good tank. If you absolutely need to Locust. Then at least shield your tank. And prolific dispersal for extra mines obviously.

A better way to push is just to boost the range on your Spine Burst at level 1 with Network Carapace at level 7. Throw in some extra mines at level 4 and you have a very strong pushing tool that can still work with your team. After that you can go Monstrosity for rapid feeding and spine burst healing from heroes, or still go clone route without sacrificing team fighting too much outside of clone.

[Guest Kethcup]

I think it's important to note that Evolve Monstrosity soaks XP passively from the lane that it's in without requiring Symbiote, which gives it niche uses on large battlegrounds in builds that revolve around Symbiote or Support. 

When using Evolve Monstrosity, note that deep tunnel is on a separate cooldown to Aba's deep tunnel. This is important because it means a good aba player can soak two lanes at once with relative safety. 

If using this heroic, make sure to ALWAYS target Mage Minions so that the enemy team is denied a health globe if they defend against that lane. 

[CyberDVonaven 82]

Under the guide for Talents and Abilities. Under Symbiote it says ' Stab, Spike Burst, and Carapace have their cooldowns immediately refreshed when Symbiote is discontinued. ' Which is no longer true since it keeps track of each individual cooldowns even when you drop the hat. I'll assume that you guys didn't catch that you left it the same. 

Edited October 3, 2020 by CyberDVonaven

[Elitesparkle 14]

8 hours ago, CyberDVonaven said:

Under the guide for Talents and Abilities. Under Symbiote it says ' Stab, Spike Burst, and Carapace have their cooldowns immediately refreshed when Symbiote is discontinued. ' Which is no longer true since it keeps track of each individual cooldowns even when you drop the hat. I'll assume that you guys didn't catch that you left it the same. 

Thank you for letting us notice! We'll fix it soon.

After investigating the issue, we found out that the error you described is not present because those Abilities always have 0.5 seconds of cooldown immediately after using Symbiote, regardless of when you used them the last time.

[CyberDVonaven 82]

Ok, I see what you're talking about now. Glad I looked over everything here and in Try Mode. And also went back and found the Abby changes in the Feb 12 2019 patch notes to get a better understanding. The CDs being so close when I was watching someone play them when you drop the hat and would put it back on had me confused. Sorry about that. It's good to know that the Spike Burst and Carapace cooldowns are now effectively 4.5sec if you drop the hat immediately after using them.