Nazeebo is the Witch Doctor you see in Diablo III. He didn't have a name there so Blizzard made one up. He was briefly called Naziba. They rightly changed it to the strong moniker you see today.

Nazeebo is an interesting hero in Heroes of the Storm. His auto attack is a DoT thanks to his passive which also makes his abilities do poison damage. He does not have any mobility, however he is ranged which is very helpful. It is also interesting to note that though Nazeebo is a specialist, he is capable of replicating the damage of an assassin with his array of abilities and his heroic abilities Ravenous Spirit and Gargantuan.

PROS:

• Nazeebo damage scales very well. Poison is good. Well, as long as you're the one delivering it.
• His health/mana can increase dramatically via the Death Ritual talent
• Awesome sustainability via Voodoo Ritual. You can solo lane, brah!
• Strong teamfight capablities, including certain 1v1's
• Ranged hero
• A "root" in the form of Zombie Wall
• His master skin...nay, ALL of his skins are top notch.
• He has his own mount. No clue why a Witch Doctor rides a zebra, but yo. It's his own freaking mount!

CONS:

• He has a bad back.
• He is quite and I mean QUITE vulnerable if not positioned correctly due to lack of mobility until level 13.
• Along with no escape ability, Nazeebo has no way to close the gap on fleeing heroes if Zombie Wall misses.
• Landing the Zombie Wall is an art form. Prepare to inadvertently kill teammates til you master it.
• Ravenous Spirit leaves you vulnerable. I mean vulnerable like standing in the middle of traffic at rush hour.

(Q) Corpse Spiders Nearly everyone hates spiders, right? So why not throw some at your enemies and let them nibble on their flesh? Not only do the spiders do initial damage, they also charge like mindless berserkers to bite the ankles of any hero, minion, turret, or building nearby. Throw your jar of spiders at whomever you please. You can use them just like Kevin McCallister in Home Alone.

(W) Zombie Wall The make or break skill for Nazeebo. It casts with a delay, so you have to be creative with running your enemies into it. Trapping that mean old Valla is satisfying. Accidentally trapping your Malfurion not so much. Don't forget you can press (W) again to lift the zombies if the placement was bad. You can also use the wall to block enemies from entering their gate, from advancing, or from retreating.

(E) Plague of Toads If you kiss the frog, he turns into a prince or so the story goes. If you kiss Nazeebo's frogs toads you'll be sporting some poisons that no shot can cure. The ability unleashes 3 toads that hop merrily along until they meet man-flesh or structure, whereupon they explode and do a decent amount of damage and of course add some poison from your passive.

(Passive) Voodoo Ritual This beauty makes you an HP and mana regening machine. It is also the maniacal power behind your poisons that keep Nova from going back into stealth. As far as passives go, this one is pretty damn good.

(R) Gargantuan This heroic summons a big...monster thing that will attack your enemies and occasionally perform a stomp a-la the golems you find on the majority of the Heroes of the Storm maps. His stomp slows any enemies caught in it's radius by 30% and he generally causes a ruckus. You can also now control when the stomp is cast by pressing (R). He has a decent chunk of health, but unlike Jaina's wonderful Summon Water Elemental you can't tell Mr. Gargantuan who to pick on. With the improvements to Gargantuan and the nerfs to Ravenous Spirit, there are plenty of times you are going to want to use Gargantuan over it's counterpart.

(R) Ravenous Spirit Ravenous Spirit is a channeled heroic that summons a rather large ball of green death that can attack your enemies up to a pretty good distance away from Nazeebo. The perk to Ravenous Spirit over Gargantuan is that Ravenous Spirit is directly controlled by you, which means all of that damage (and the poison that you are continually stacking on enemies) has a defined purpose. The downside is that while you channel Ravenous Spirit, you are completely vulnerable as you are simply standing still. Proper positioning is a must to both avoid getting killed, as well as to avoid getting crowd controlled by one of the 350 crowd control abilities in the game thereby ending your ultimate early. Your goal, should you choose this ult, is to get a fully channeled Ravenous Spirit with maximum uptime attacking enemy heroes.

The objective of this guide is set up Zombie Wall's that are empowered with extra range by Thing of the Deep, extra damage by Dead Rush, and a burst component added by Ring of Poison.

When you can land a Zombie Wall after taking these talents, and are able to drop Gargantuan into the ring, it's an almost guaranteed deletion of an enemy unless they are extremely tanky or receiving heavy support.

Simply put, it's devasting, and builds featuring more-or-less this exact set of talents are ranging an average of 68.3% winrate across around 1000 games played since the patch.

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Thing of the Deep - This build is focused on landing empowered Zombie Wall and exploiting the insane amount of damage it does thanks to Dead Rush and Ring of Poison. How to land Zombie Wall more easily? Add more range, of course.



Widowmakers - The more popular pick via HOTSlogs, Widowmakers allows you to get 30% more damage on your Corpse Spiders very quickly. It's a nice talent, no doubt, but it's easier to land Zombie Wall with Thing of the Deep's added range. Choose the one you prefer.

ALTERNATIVES Pandemic - While I initially thought the toad talent was a bit lackluster compared to it's spider counterpart Widowmakers, Pandemic is actually fairly easy to stack. Have five toads to fire into a well placed Zombie Wall, or just to fire in general is very nice and feels like the old days. The added bonus now, of course, is the fact that you get two charges. Anyone hanging around Nazeebo with Pandemic-empowered Toads is gonna feel it.

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Blood Ritual - This talent restores Nazeebo's trait to more or less what it was prior to this patch. The added mana and health is very useful when laning and getting a free boost when clearing waves later in the game.

ALTERNATIVES Big Voodoo - Extra health, extra mana. What's not to like?

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Dead Rush - Still as good as ever. Wall some noobs, let your zombies beat on them. This is the most popular talent at this tier on HOTSlogs and for good reason. When combined with Ring of Poison, things get sick. No pun intended.

ALTERNATIVES Toads of Hugeness - Much like in the past, Toads of Hugeness are still a decent talent. Extra damage on your toads is good. That's made even better by the extra charge meaning you can spam said toads. The talent doesn't pack the punch it did when it was bugged, but it's still useful if you go Toad build.

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Gargantuan - Guarding a decently large radius and sporting (slightly) better AI, Gargantuan continues to be a respected parcel of Nazeebo deliverance. There's a few great things about ole Gary: (1) he soaks up damage, (2) he tends to get ignored or underestimated in fights, and (3) he hurts. With his damage appreciably scaled up even further, he's a pretty solid choice.

More importantly than anything, Gargantuan has a 70 second cooldown compared to Ravenous Spirit's 90 second cooldown and it cannot be interrupted. Press (R) for maximum smash.

In this build, you want to land your empowered Zombie Wall's and then drop ole Gary right into the circle and let him beat the everloving stuffing out of your opponent. They can't get out. They can't live. You win.

ALTERNATIVES Ravenous Spirit - All that poison? It's your calories. Your fuel. Being a channeled spirit, he's also immune to all forms of CC and knockback which means Emerald Wind ain't gonna save that pink flesh (unless it hits Nazeebo - woops!). It must be reiterated, however, that your stationary Nazeebo body is not immune to that CC or death so make sure you pick your spots wisely. Let's be honest, Ravenous isn't what it used to be. That said, Blizzard has found it in their icy hearts to gift Nazeebo players with some of the old punch of Ravenous in the Kharazim patch (namely some of the radius back) so it is a more viable option at this point and you can feel free to pull the Green Meanie out of mothballs when the matchup is favorable. It's still decent, but not what we're looking for with this build.

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Superstition - This talent is freaking awesome. Great flavor, provides great utility to Nazeebo. Just awesome. If you have the opportunity to take it against a mage comp or whatever, you should do so. There are some games you'll hit an auto attacker comp where you should go with Ice Block, but otherwise, this is the pick. It makes Nazeebo extremely tanky.

ALTERNATIVES Ice Block - A good alternative to Superstition if you are facing a lot of auto attackers. Encase yourself in ice and hope your team can bail you out, or use it as a baiting tool for an ambush. Takes a bit to get used to when to use it properly, but once you do it's a nice tool to have with your homunculus. Ice Block - Another decent defensive tool. It is overshadowed by the other two talents and I don't know what the scenario is where you'd choose this over one of those, but it's still all right.

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Ring of Poison - If you are able to reliably land Zombie Wall, or you have someone to help you set them up, this is an amazing talent. This is the reason we took Thing of the Deep. You're looking for the big payoff here, and there will be some whiffs. When you catch someone, though...el fin.

Spider Colony - This talent makes the cooldown on your spiders shorter, allowing you to semi-replicate the charges that are attached to your toads. In theory you can therefore do more damage over time with this talent than you could with Ring of Poison if you can get enough of them out.

ALTERNATIVES Soul Harvest - In theory, Soul Harvest combined with Guardian Toads or (even better) Superstition should provide insane value if you stay alive. Again, the operative phrase is "in theory". As someone who solo queues or duo queues the majority of my play time, it's hard to rely on surviving in that scenario without potentially throwing a fight for my team.

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Vile Infection - The application of Voodoo Ritual having it's damage increased 200% is huge. Vile Infection allows you to win even harder than before. The only drawback is if you've been unable to farm up 150 stacks. If you haven't and aren't pretty close, perhaps you do not want this talent. Otherwise this is your pick.

ALTERNATIVES Humongoid - This upgrade makes your ole friend Gargy be available for use more or less constantly. His new rework makes him a terror in the area that he patrols, and he's a bit easier to control in that area. This talent is pretty good value for the Toad build and plays into the builds strengths of closer range burst damage.

Want the inside track on how to create the best poisons, curse your enemies, and carry your manpurse Homunculus like a pro? You may wanna read a different guide. Here's a few things I've learned throughout the Alpha, Beta, and a year plus of live, however:

- Zombie Wall is sometimes more detrimental than helpful.

You know the scenario. You place it ahead of an enemy Valla and she vaults through it while your Uther is chasing furiously to land a Hammer of Justice. Guess what happens next? The delay on Zombie Wall traps Uther instead, who is a fish in a barrel for Valla and her sordid gang. He dies and curses you for being a mouthbreather in chat because you trapped him.

There's a simple solution though...just hit your (W) again. Pick those zombies up. Don't litter, be considerate.

- Let me say that again. HIT YOUR (W) A SECOND TIME IF YOU TRAP A TEAMMATE!

- You can use Zombie Wall to keep enemy players out of their base/gate and in your line of fire or create pathing issues in general so that escape is slowed.

- Zombie Wall can also be used to drain a turret of ammo or to soak up ammo for your team as you push a lane. It's especially handy if no one is laning against you for whatever reason and you can just plop it right around a turret and waste a few ammo charges.

- Yet again, Zombie Wall will save you some HP while taking mercenary camps as well. Those mercs love crushing zombies just like Daryl and Rick.

- In certain scenarios, (against a leaping Muradin is the best example) Zombie Wall can be placed around yourself to protect you from Stormbolt for a short time as you begin to channel Ravenous. If he has Avatar, though, it's not going to matter. It's just a neat little trick you can use from time to time to keep your channel going. You're still better off using it offensively most of the time, however.

- Corpse Spiders will target the closest enemy, so if you can get an angle in the lane to fling it in vicinity of the enemy hero do so to avoid wasting it on lane minions.

- Plague of Toads does more damage with each toad that hits your enemy. If you can get em in close for a big group hug, unleash the toads and watch that health plummet.

- Auto attacking applies poison to your enemies the same as your attacks, so don't be shy about pumping them full of Witch Doctor venom.

- Like any other ability, the use of Ravenous Spirit while hiding in brush will break your stealth so that's not a viable hiding spot. It sort of goes without saying, but I see folks do it still from time to time only to get destroyed.

- You are not a front line hero and your presence on the front line will likely result in a hemorrhage in your voodoo.

- In the laning phase, if you are up against Stitches or Kerrigan, you better watch where you high step. Past a certain threshold in the lane, you're going to eat a Hook or Primal Grasp and end up watering the soil with your red liquid.

Nazeebo has the ability to be a very strong hero for those of you stuck with solo only queues. His range increases his survivability, along with his trait Voodoo Ritual adding to your sustain.

While he is quite viable in solo queue and you will find yourself outpacing most assassins in damage that you encounter, his true power is unlocked within a coordinated team where empowered Zombie Wall + Gargantuan can be set up to delete an opponent or Ravenous Spirit can get a full channel into a group of enemies who are hemmed into it's path by positioning or crowd control.

If you want a fun hero to play that is maybe a little outside the normal stock, you'll be hard pressed to encounter many more interesting than the Witch Doctor.

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