EPT
Basically, the biggest problem with Abathur is that he can both continually push lanes and also participate in team fights. The effect is bizarre scenarios where both teams are taking very equal engagements, getting equal mechanics, and staying fairly even in takedowns BUT one lane will be pushed all the way to the core for the team that has the Abathur. This is for three main reasons:
- Abathur scales into the late game better than other lane pushers (Zagara/Gazlowe/Sgt. Hammer/Nazeebo/Azmodan)
- His ultimate instantly powers up your team and allows for some ridiculously overpowered hero combos (double thor, double shock and awe, double precision strike, etc.)
- A good Abathur player simply cannot die
Abathur scales into the late game better than other lane pushers. If you play a game with Zagara or Gazlowe, you will notice that your ability to push lanes, while excessively powerful in the early game, becomes diminished relative to other heroes in the late game. For instance, a Valla with a tanky auto attack build can actually take down a fort faster than Zagara; plus, Valla would probably be considered a better hero for team fights (unless you have a wombo combo with Zag's ult). In the early game, you can push almost directly to the gate uncontested and it's really hard for the opposing team to really do anything about it; in the late game, pushing solo is incredibly difficult and dangerous simply because you can't 1v1 most heroes or risk being caught by their team.
Abathur, on the other hand, gets stronger and stronger as the game goes on. The locusts become a formidable force, and you can push with 4 of them at a time at any point. Symbiote plus mines can actually just completely demolish a gathering ball of minions pushing down a lane instantly. With the extra locusts, you also get the ability to take merc camps, which makes Abathur's pushing power even more crazy strong. On top of all of this, Abathur is arguably the best team fight hero in the game, as he's useful with both his ultimate evolution and his symbiote after he "dies".
Abathur's ultimate is too strong. Even though he doesn't take on talents, his ultimate is insane. It gives him the ability to copy any hero on your team and come up with some insane combos. For instance, if you already have an Uther stun + Precision Strike combo, you can now do Uther stun + Precision Strike x2 for double the damage on the entire enemy team, and that is disastrous. Some heroes are just simply too good to be copied. Double Falstad and double Tychus (thor) are perhaps the most popular choices for Abathur's ultimate because they suddenly double your damage output and carry your team super hard.
The newest "counter" in pro games to Abathur's ult is just force engagements and then back off when the Abathur clone shows up and wait for it to time out. However, you can't always force this to happen, especially when there are objectives to go for such as tributes or coin battles. Abathur's upgrade to his ultimate allows for a 90 second cooldown, meaning that after being in ultimate evolution for 60 seconds, he's ready to go again in 30 seconds, so he almost always has it up after level 20 and the enemy team can't really "counter" it.
A good Abathur simply cannot die. Abathur has a tunneling ability that allows him to tunnel to any point on the map with vision every 30 seconds. This cannot be interrupted (by damage) and only takes about 4 seconds. This means that if you see an Abathur somewhere and start running towards him, you have only 4 seconds to kill him before he escapes. If he doesn't have vision somewhere on the map, a mine can be placed and Abathur can burrow on top of it. And he also has the hearthstone, so he can travel back to the core at any point in time if his burrow is down. So basically, Abathur can travel anywhere on the map almost instantly. This allows a good Abathur to burrow to a lane, push it hard with locusts/mines, and then back up without anyone being able to stop him in time.
When Abathur goes into his ultimate, he ceases to exist on the map. In other words, if your opponent finds you, can just ult on the nearest hero and survive because you will literally disappear from the map. By the time you reappear, you can always just burrow back to safety in 4 seconds. The effect of this not dyingness is that Abathur can continually push lanes and participate in team fights without the inherent risk of dying and giving the opposing team an edge.
In short, he's always relevant throughout the game because he never stops. He's always alive, he's brutal in team fights, and he can push lanes continually. He's not limited by distance or time or fragility. He can just always be everywhere, never stopping.
Now to the fun part: BUILDS!
I have 3 main builds that I use for Abathur:
Lane Push Abathur
- Lvl 1 - Combat Adaptation
- Lvl 4 - Promote
- Lvl 7 - MULE/Regenerative Microbes (depending on map)
- Lvl 10 - Ultimate Evolution
- Lvl 13 - Assault Strain
- Lvl 16 - Locust Brood
- Lvl 20 - Evolution Master
This is basically the build most pros use on him. Promote + super minion killer locusts means that your laning power gets even stronger. In addition, the Assault Strain locusts allow you to take merc camps with the additional 3 locusts, so your pushing power is increased even more. On maps like Haunted Mines or Blackheart's Bay, I just don't get MULEs because saving your towers doesn't matter as much; Regenerative Microbes makes your Abahatᵀᴹ way more powerful, both for empowering heroes and minions.
Backdoor Abathur
- Lvl 1 - Survival Instincts
- Lvl 4 - Promote
- Lvl 7 - MULE/Regenerative Microbes
- Lvl 10 - Ultimate Evolution
- Lvl 13 - Bombard Strain
- Lvl 16 - Locust Brood
- Lvl 20 - Evolution Master
This is the same as the build above with a minor difference, that you get locusts that take a long time to die and deal long range siege damage. You can't take mercs with this build, unfortunately, but it works on larger maps (Raven map in particular) because you can backdoor and push towers continually, bypassing the time it takes for minions to travel all the way across the map.
Stabathurᵀᴹ
- Lvl 1 - Combat Adaptation
- Lvl 4 - Barbed Spines
- Lvl 7 - Regenerative Microbes
- Lvl 10 - Ultimate Evolution
- Lvl 13 - Spatial Efficiency
- Lvl 16 - Adrenaline Boost
- Lvl 20 - Evolution Master
Stabathurᵀᴹ is all about upgrading the symbiote and making Stab a very, very scary ability. It makes it so that having an Abahatᵀᴹ is not only good, but downright scary because the hero does insane amounts of damage, life regen, and a short speed boost. This build focuses a lot less on laning (but I still get the combat adaptation to make the early game go better) and a lot more on supporting heroes directly, allowing for some more dynamic play like early game soloing of mercs and more aggressive team fights before ults are up. Really good build for Blackheart's Bay or Dragon Shrine where the map has very obvious points of interest that are going to be contested all game long.
What I love about this build is that it also threatens solo heroes trying to clean up minions as well. The stab is just so powerful that if they don't DPS down the minion immediately, they end up taking a lot of damage for free. Personally, my favorite of the Abathur builds.
Have fun and carry!
