Azmodan Talents

Level	Choices
1	✓ ? ?
4	✘︎ ✓ ✘︎
7	? ? ✓
10	✓ ?
13	? ✓ ✘︎
16	? ✓ ?
20	? ? ? ✓

This tier improves Globe of Annihilation.

Greed is the best pick when going for a siege type of build on Azmodan. Greed synergizes well with Demonic Invasion and allows you to split-push better and take down Forts or Keeps in the mid and late game.

Gluttony is the Talent to go for if you want more teamfight presence. The Quest effect is particularly powerful, as reducing Globe of Annihilation's cooldown is invaluable for gathering Annihilation stacks beyond 200 and generally damaging opponents during team fights.

Wrath trades Gluttony's reliability for potentially more Annihilation stacks. Wrath is typically picked against double Tank team compositions on 2-lane Maps. Such compositions often allow you to get many Basic Attacks off, which greatly improves your overall Annihilation stack generation. Wrath's Quest effect also provides more burst damage than the alternatives. Wrath synergises particularly well with Bombardment.

This Tier improves Summon Demon Warrior.

Army of Hell doubles the burst power of Summon Demon Warrior at the cost of doubling its cooldown. Although this Talent may seem like an attractive effect at first glance, Summon Demon Warrior's true utility comes from using the Ability to selectively take damage for you, absorb skillshots, and reducing the Movement Speed of enemies (through Brutish Vanguard later on). The alternative Hellforged Armor Talent fulfills this purpose much better, on top of providing more opportunities to use Summon Demon Warrior by keeping its reasonable 10-second cooldown untouched. Further, summoning two Demon Warriors are at once makes them prone to be killed by area of effect damage. Army of Hell is an easy trap to fall into.

Hellforged Armor makes Demon Warriors and Demon Lieutenant surprisingly resilient, allowing them to survive Hero attacks to ultimately be more disruptive and deal more damage. The 4-second increased duration also represents a 40% overall damage increase for Demon Warriors (20% for Demon Lieutenants), should they remain alive for the full duration. This Talent single-handedly makes Summon Demon Warrior worth using in most cases, whereas it would otherwise be a very situational Ability.

Battleborn provides both Summon Demon Warrior and Demon Lieutenant with a reasonable cooldown reduction effect. This effect, however, requires Azmodan to constantly deliver Basic Attacks to see any value, which is rarely possible during team fighting situations, even when combined with other Basic Attack-oriented Talents. Battleborn also suffers from being a very poor late-game Talent due to the general late-game weakness of Demon Warriors. The Hellforged Armor alternative is just too good to not pick.

This tier improves Annihilation generation.

Art of Chaos is a straightforward Talent with a great payoff that helps with both Mana management and gathering additional Annihilation. Since you should be already be aiming to hit as many Heroes as possible with Globe of Annihilation at all times, Art of Chaos requires no adjustment from your part; simply keep on dunking.

Bombardment is a situational Talent picked alongside Wrath. Its main advantage is making it easier for Azmodan to deliver Basic Attacks, thanks to the added range provided by the Talent.

Master of Destruction helps with split-pushing, as it provides Azmodan with more area of effect damage. When synergized with the other Talents, it can reliably get you those last stacks of Annihiliaton as well.

In this section we discuss when and why to pick a given Heroic Ability. If you want to read how they work in detail and/or you are looking for some tips on how to use them, check them out on the Abilities and Strategy page.

Demonic Invasion summons Demonic Grunts and does great siege damage. This Ability should rarely be used in team fights as it would just be used for a type of wall, which could work in specific scenarios if the enemy team consists of skillshot Heroes whose Abilities can be blocked.

Tide of Sin is a generic way of improving Azmodan's area of effect damage output and waveclear, and incidentally, his ability to generate Annihilation.

This tier provides utility.

Brutish Vanguard synergises well with Hellforged Armor by multiplying the survivability of your Demon Warriors. Further, this Talent provides Azmodan with something his baseline kit sorely lacks: a Slow. On top of improving your Demon Warriors' uptime, this effect helps with hitting both Globe of Annihilation and All Shall Burn's end effect.

Cydaea's Kiss provides Azmodan with some self sustain and improves the reliability of All Shall Burn slightly. This Talent also helps with Annihilation generation through Master of Destruction.

Chain of Command improves Azmodan's map presence by allowing you to bolster Mercenary Camps and generally split-push faster. Although it is a powerful Talent, Chain of Command suffers from Demon Lieutenant's long 1-minute Cooldown. This means that for any given match, you will only get to benefit from Chain of Command a few times, and this, under the specific circumstances where no opposing Hero is able to kill off your Demon Lieutenant.

This Tier improves Azmodan's late-game damage output.

Total Annihilation significantly increases Globe of Annihilation's damage. This increase ranges between 25 and 75% of the Ability's base damage (before taking Annihilation stacks into consideration) depending on the target's total Health. Assuming full Annhilation stacks, this damage increase instead ranges between 10 and 30%. Regardless, few Talents in Heroes of the Storm provide such a steep damage increase to any given Ability, making Total Annihilation incredibly potent.

Hell Rift has powerful split-pushing implications and notable synergy with most All Shall Burn-related Talents. Demon Warriors from Summon Demon Warrior and from Hell Rift itself will deal more damage, however, Demonic Lieutenants from Demon Lieutenant and Demonic Grunts from Demonic Invasion will not.

Trample provides Azmodan with a welcomed short-ranged, high damage gap closer. Trample is particularly powerful against some of the more frail Melee Assassins, such as Genji and Zeratul. It is also worth picking as tool for escaping dive-heavy team compositions or those that feature Azmodan's counters, including Malthael and Muradin. If you do not feel pressured, however, Total Annihilation is likely to provide more overall damage.

This tier further improves Azmodan's late-game damage output.

Siegebreaker allows Demonic Invasion to become a small win condition. With Siegebreaker, a single cast of Demonic Invasion plus Demon Lieutenant can destroy a Fort (approximately 13000 damage at Level 20). A single cast of Demonic Invasion plus Demon Lieutenant and three full-Annihilation Globe of Annihilations can destroy a Keep (17000 damage). To do so, you need to time Demonic Invasion in a way that Minion Waves do not distract your Demonic Grunts. Further, Siegebreaker makes for a powerful Core racing Talent. Do not be too greedy, however; you may still need your Heroic Ability to win a decisive team fight.

Black Pool should be selected when you do not have enough Annihilation stacks to fulfill Pride's 400-stack condition. If you are nearly there, go for Pride. Both Talents are essentially the same, with Pride providing more area of effect on a shorter cooldown.

Pride is Azmodan's go-to Talent at this tier. In most games, you should have the required 400 Annihilation stacks to make the Talent function. If you do not, and are not within a few hits of doing so, look into the alternatives.

Sin's Grasp improves the reliability of All Shall Burn, not unlike Cydaea's Kiss. This Talent provides Azmodan with some teamfight presence and the Slow can be useful to help your team catch up to your target.