Hi there! This is my first HotS guide, so let me introduce myself. I don't play videogames often, but when I do, I'm the best! No, really... Years ago, I played WoW (ahah, who didnt?) mostly for PvP. Since I didn't have much time I played on AT where I had +-2,2k multiclass rat and 2,6k with DK. But yeah, this is not MMORPG, this is MOBA dude, so talk about your MOBA experience! I also played LoL mostly on midlane. Maining Ahri brought me to the Diamond I. Sadly, she wasnt that great for me after rework and I fell to the Diamond IV in a few games. Well, screw you Rito, I'm not gonna play that anymore! Aaaand now I'm here. Trying to get the best from every intresting champ. I'm still unranked, because getting 10 intresting (I mean expensive) champs is pure pain and I don't want to buy cheap champs just to be able to play rankeds.

Dont expect colorful text, beautiful pictures and great looking guide at all. I really don't need to get tons of upvotes, fans, whatever. Those who will read this will get a really nice foundations about being the master of split push. Those who are not going to read this will base their gameplay on beautiful, colorful guides that are (in my opinion) pretty useless at all. We are going to learn something about owning enemy team (almost) regardless of our team. I am not going to teach you how to play this champ step by step. Because it is not possible. The true is that Abathur is not for everyone. In fact, I bet most of the players wouldn't be capable to play him correctly.

"Noooo, dont pick Abathur, he makes game 4v5"

Well, Abathur is really difficult champ. And as I said before, since average player is not capable to play him at least well, people think that he sucks as a champ. Thats not true. When we are talking about insane skill level, we don't mean crazy plays and reaction time under 0,01 sec. This goes for every other champ. But as Abathur player, you are not going to need to be an Asian. You are going to be more like Napoleon. The pure tactical genius. If you play Abathur correctly, the advantage of one (or more) man in teamfight goes for your team.

You need to realise one thing. This game is not about teamfights. Its not about objectives. It is not about laning phase, ganking or whatever else. You just have to destroy enemys core. But wait! Dude, how can I destroy the core without laning, objectives, fighting and ganking? Well, this is not your business. I am not good at history at all, but Im still pretty sure that Napoleon was bad fighter. And he still won (almost) every battle.

Most of the guides are going to teach you how to push one lane quickly and then help friendly team in teamfight. NO! HELL NO!!! Dont even try to play it like that. If your team cant win mid and late game teamfight without your help, you failed. And your Q on friendly tank will not save it. Basically, you are here to make enemy team busy. And by "busy" I mean that enemy team will not even think about some teamfight. Meanwhile your team will be able to do everything from objectives to hunt enemies all around the map.

Well, that sounds nice. And how are we going to achieve that? The answer is creeps. Creeps are the power. Im serious. You are going to became a master of forming minion waves. As you probably noticed, my talents are focused on your shield ability. Lets keep it simple. I will talk about gameplay after lvl 7, because before lvl 7 there is no much you can do. Basically just spawning mines, helping friendly team by Q and so on. But after lvl 7 things begin to happen. Now you are able to shield a whole creeps wave. That means if it comes to your minion wave vs enemy minion wave, your minion wave are going to win. Every. Single. Time. Enemy is not in the lane? Well, its time to take his tower. Trubutes have spawned? That means all 3 lanes are free, so lets push them. All at once. This tactic keeps enemy team distracted. "What are we going to do? Objectives? Def? Fighting?" The mmost beautiful thing is that there is not correct answer. There is no way to stop it. Are they defending base? Free objectives for your team. Are they fighting? Free pushing for you. Did they split to stop you at all 3 lanes? Great, your team can hunt them and pwn them 4v1-2.

When you get your ult, you can still push 2 lanes by shielding wave and shooting nearby enemies and minions, but you can empower wave on 3rd line with giantic worm that stacks health and damage from killed minions. Once he reaches 30 stacks, he is strong 1v1 opponent for any enemy champ. You can control his movement by holding Q on him and as I said, you are able to own almost everyone in 1v1 fight. Combined with your minion wave it means that enemy team needs at least 2 players to stop push like this. And this is really big deal. You are able to take gate and fort under 40 secs. That means enemy team have to try to stop you. That means 3v4 or 2v4 fight for your team. Aaaand we are talking just about one lane. Don't forget about push destroying forts on another 2 lanes.

After getting Adrenaline Boost that increases movement speed of shielded targets you are able to form waves even more effectively. Lets say first wave of minions is fighting with enemy wave. Well, put your shield first on fighting wave and then on incoming wave. That allows second wave to arrive quicker, defeat enemy wave faster and lose less minions in your wave.

And this is not over. Enemy team is tired from running all over the map trying to stop you, they are smashing keyboard because they just got pwned by your worm (HOW CAN FCKING NPC BEAT ME?!?!) and they hope you have nothing more to show them. But you do. Your worm can use Deep Tunnel at lvl 20. I usually use it on CD. Push one lane as hard as possible and tunnel to another lane. Again, push as hard as you can until CD on deep Tunnel resets and go to another lane. And again and again.


Btw don't forget about tons of experience you will earn for your team. You can sit on one lane spawning Locusts, holding your Q on second lane and pushing 3rd lane with your ult. Always wath the map and use your deep tunnel to move on empty lane.

BUT you are not going to see your work in stats. Minions are doing a big part of your work for you, so you are not going to have that high siege damage. You will see your work mostly in experience gained. Nah, just don't trust numbers. One look at the map and it's clear for everyone that the Abathur is doing his job right.

Ofc, pushing is not all you have to do. You have to watch the map, spawn mines, support allies when they need it. There is always something you can do. Mostly there are more than 3 opportunities to be useful at a same time. You have to choose which one is correct. Sometimes you are going to let your team lose teamfight because your push is much more important. Sometimes you have to sacrifise your carefully built push including worm with 30 stacks (it will always hurt you inside) to win teamfight. Depends. There is no guide for right decisions. Its up to you, it makes difference between average tactician and master tactician. The more things you can do, the more games you can carry. My winrate with Abathur is currently at 66% after more than 150 games and I am sure that the champ is capable of 70 maybe 75%.

Sometimes your team is just bad, sometimes enemy team is too good... What can be your main problem? Well, my biggest nightmare are enemy camps. Friendly team just have to secure as many camps as possible. Your minion wave will lose against wave empowered by camps. Even if you try to support it by holding Q on them. Communication is important, your team have to know that taking camps is much more important than killing enemies when there is Abathur in team. Second bad thing that could happen to you is friendly team unable to hunt splitted enemies. Enemy team decides to stop your waves. And your team does...Nothing...All 4 are acting like they are doing something, meanwhile enemy team destroys your carefully prepared waves.

What about maps? Never ever play Abathur on Haunted Mines or Tomb of the Spider Queen. Those maps are cancer for you. Mines are just lost. There are just 2 lanes. You will be not allowed to push. You can try different build focused on your Q ability so you can deal more damage to players, but you are still pretty much useless compared to another champs. Tomb might look like good map for Abathur. Once your team spawns spiders, you can make insane push on every lane. But there is a problem. Map is still really small and you can't collect crystals. That means first spiders always go for enemy team. Spiders will push every single lane no matter how you try to stop them. Basically, you play Abathur because you want to carry games. But you are not effective on this maps. If your team wins, they would win regardless of you, because they are much better than enemy team players. Hoping for good team is deffinitly not what you want.

And you are going to hate Sylvanas...

Every guide needs some screenshots. Notice lanes and exp gained.