Murky is by far my most played hero and I have above a 60% win rate with him. I have tried many builds found on this site and have watched (the very few) professional games with him as a hero. And, one thing a lot of pros did with him was go for a bubble build instead of the more traditional puffer build. I can explain why they do this. And you won't lose much siege damage but your survivability and team fight presence will be unmatched by even some of the best warriors. You will be a constant and huge annoyance to the enemy team. Which, that's our job... right?

To answer this in short. Yes. Absolutely yes.

Murky offers a lot of damage mitigation and an amazing CC used to isolate important targets. His ability to be in the front lines of team fights is definitely there, and if he goes down in a fight he's right there again. Teams like to try to focus down murky so he's out of the way for a little while, so if you can make it so that they are spending all their time focusing you and not your healers and assassins the more time you give your team to take advantage of that. I have had a lot of teams get separated and out of position because 2 or 3 heroes decided to try and eliminate the murky which my teammates were able to take advantage of.

Pros High damage mitigation. Team fight presence. Annoyance. Crowd Control. Annoyance. Laning. Even more annoyance. Split laning. Maximum annoyance

Cons Low damage output. No real team fight potential until level 10.

Block is a great talent, and nearly all builds including pufferfish and assassin like builds. It reduces a lot of damage done to you as murky which helps your survivability in team fights and early game laning and pushing, and this is why I think it is the best talent for this build.
Bubble Machine is great if your team is lacking chasing power.
Assault Egg is actually really fun and useful as well. If you choose assault egg, be sure to place it in visible areas(as bait), areas that you need vision in (it's a great sentry) and always right behind your team in an ensuing fight. Bribe is also somewhat viable but with rejuvenating bubble later it's really easy to solo any camp you come across.


Envenom adds a lot of damage and also in a way "paints" your target, if your team sees that a particular enemy has envenom on them, it's more than likely they will focus that target. It is great for chasing enemies away from lanes and is just a great talent.
Living the Dream is a very powerful talent as well because it really rewards you for staying alive and allows you to deal even more damage with slime and a pufferfish.
Tufferfish is useful if your enemy is very good at focusing down your pufferfish. But, that usually only happens for the first few pufferfish you throw down. I think it's much weaker a talent compared to all the others.
Bigger slime is also a viable choice because it allows you to put a 20% slow in a much larger range, which is good for saving teammates or for catching heroes that are escaping.


Slime advantage allows you to deal a significant amount of damage with auto attacks since in later talents we will lose a bit of damage from not choosing the standard pufferfish talents. My damage with this alone has been on par if not higher than other murkys with the standard pufferfish talents. Do not doubt this talent's ability to dish out a lot of damage.
Hindering slime is a good talent if you went with bigger slime, otherwise I'd stay away from it. It's just not nearly as good a talent as slime advantage.
Compressed Pufferfish is a standard pufferfish build choice and is a great talent to choose, even with this build. However even without it laning is still very easy and it is still easy to octo grab enemies in its range.
Clairvoyance is a talent I have never personally used. Nor have I ever felt the need to use it. It seems like a very weak talent choice compared to Slime Advantage and Compressed Pufferfish.


Octograb is by far the best heroic for this hero because of its ability to take out a hero for 3 seconds in a fight allowing your team to focus down which ever unlucky soul finds themselves in its vices.
March of the Murlocs used to be a very viable talent. It received a nerf shortly after murky came out and has needed rework ever since then. Half damage to structures makes it nearly inviable even for a pure pushing murky. It is the cooler of his heroics and if it got reworked I would totally use it more.


Now for our role specific choices here. Bubble machine is absolutely necessary in making murky a very tanky hero. This talent allows murky to be invulnerable for 2 out of every 9 seconds. It couples amazingly with our next talent choice.
Continuous slime is viable for murky assassin builds but that's about it. Can be fun to just spam slime.
Wrath of the Cod is seen in your typical pufferfish builds and does add a lot of damage to your pufferfish. Also adds a cool animation to the explosion of your pufferfish.
Hidden Assault can be useful for those who have a very aggressive egg placement style. But overall I think it is the weakest talent choice here.


Rejuvenating Bubble is what makes murky a very strong tank. Alongside murky's passive health regen ( the largest out of any hero ) nearly heals him all the way. With Bubble Machine chosen, Murky gets a full heal as well as 2 second invulnerability every 9 seconds. This will be used to heal murky outright, to dodge any enemy root or stun or ultimate. It is the strongest talent by far for those seeking murky to be a tank.
Slimy Pufferfish is also a typical talent choice for those going for a traditional pufferfish build. Is very viable but not to this style of gameplay.
Blood for blood is a great talent to choose if the enemy has a hero with a large healthpool (Cho'gall, Diablo, Muradin, etc. ). But again, does not seem as useful as Rejuvenating Bubble.
Slimy end is the weakest talent to choose here because murky was not made to die. Yes dying has little impact but generally a player should shy away anything that gives the enemy team additional xp. I have seen murkys feed by running into towers, and that's not what we should strive to do as murky players.


And a shark too! adds a really awesome and funny animation to octograb which makes it more fun for me as a murky player to witness. It also adds a lot of damage! It alone can get squishy heroes down to half health, coupled with a good pufferfish can kill enemy heroes even without the normal pufferfish build. Very fun, very practical. And a shark too is a great choice.
Rewind is a good talent to choose because it allows you to cast your bubble again which gives another heal and more invulnerability. However,to me it doesn't feel as strong as And a shark too!
Bolt of the storm is unnecessary with this build unless you use it to chase and grab which can be practical.

Murky is the strongest laner in the game right now. Why? His pufferfish by default allows you to clear entire minion waves if landed properly and you slime them. If murky goes down he comes right back up behind the tower and can come right back to pushing lanes.
Murky is useless in a teamfight before level 10, so don't even go for objectives. You may get some hate, it's true, however if you soak 2 lanes at a time while your team teamfights you'll give the team a lot of experience and you will get to 10 much faster than the enemy team. Also by staying back it is very common the enemy team will leave one hero to try to keep you at bay. This is great because murky can outpush any hero by himself and now the teamfight is 4v4. If this happens envenom the enemy in your lane and just make it as hard as you can for them.
At level 10, begin going to teamfights, place your egg nearby and begin trying to rush in and slime. Use your pufferfish to try to shape the battle for your team by cutting off an escape route or using it to defend a fellow hero, or to even do a large amount of AoE damage. It is easily dodged so try to use it to shape the battlefield. Always use bubble if there is a lot of focus on you or you need to escape. It's also very useful for giving an enemy a much needed body block to save a teammate. Use your envenom and octograb to highlight a target for your team to focus.
At level 13 begin soloing siege camps to add pressure to enemies.
At level 16 it is very easy to solo bruiser camps, so do so. Remember to get into teamfights as much as possible now that you can tank. Cast bubble any time your health gets to 50% or lower. Don't be afraid to go deep and take pressure off of your allies. Always go after squishy assassins and supports. If you have placed your egg safely and aggressively you won't be out of the teamfight even if you die so just keep the pressure on those squishy targets.
At level 20 continue what you've been doing but now your octograb will be more threatening.

In short.
Soak xp by split laning until lvl 10.
At 10 get in teamfights and go after squishy heroes.
13, solo siege camps.
16, solo bruisers and take a lot of pressure off your teammates by making enemies focus you.
20, gg.