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Learning from C9Fan's Abathur

Forum Index > Heroes of the Storm
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EsportsJohn
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
United States4883 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-10-13 18:12:51
September 25 2015 16:47 GMT
#1
[image loading]


Introduction

Cloud9 and Tempo Storm met twice in the recent Americas Championship for The Road to Blizzcon, once during the group stage on Day 1 and second in the Finals on Day 2. Though the finals did go all the way to game 5, the Championship on Day 1 was remarkably one-sided in favor of Tempo Storm. Rarely is the MVP of a game the member of a losing team, but C9Fan’s Abathur play changed that in their Day 1 series. Tasteless turned to Artosis and surprised his fellow commentators when he announced, “I gotta say, though, I think the real MVP of that game back there was Abathur.” And he was right. Though team morale was low, Fan kicked it into overdrive and played perhaps the cleanest Abathur games of all time. Cloud9 may have lost both maps but Fan showed outstanding play on Abathur, keeping the team even on levels even when behind on objectives and finding ways to impede Tempo Storm’s progress time and time over.

VoDs
Game 1 on Dragon Shire
Game 2 on Sky Temple


Learning from Fan’s Abathur

From watching his play, we can learn three simple concepts that allowed Fan to make optimal use of Abathur’s kit:

  1. Abathur’s global map presence allows your team to compete in experience even when behind in objectives as well as prevent uncontested enemy movement across the map.
  2. Abathur can safely soak xp only when you know where the entire enemy team is.
  3. Abathur has a body which can be used to secure map objectives.


By keeping these ideas in mind, Fan was able to slow down the momentum of Tempo Storm considerably and keep his team in the game for much longer than they otherwise would have survived. In order to follow along with C9’s overarching game plan, Fan utilized a pushing build to impede Tempo Storm’s strong rotations as much as possible.

[image loading]

Survival Instincts
Prolific Dispersal
Vile Nest
Ultimate Evolution
Bombard Strain
Locust Brood
Locust Nest


Fan used the same build in both games, combining the pushing power of locusts with talents that gave him more freedom to place Toxic Nests around the map. The one exception was the substitution of the M.U.L.E. at level 7 on Sky Temple to mitigate some of the damage dealt by the temples.


Global Effect of Locusts

Though a simple mechanic, it’s important to understand that any imbalance in minion waves will cause one side to push if left unattended. With this in mind, whichever lane Abathur is situated closest to will always be imbalanced by locusts and will continually push, requiring attention and reaction from the enemy team in order to maintain balance. In addition to his locust’s pushing power, Abathur can easily jump onto the head of an allied mercenary or minion to help counter-push when the need arises, allowing for some control over minion waves in all lanes.

During the early to mid game, Fan used this idea by always positioning himself in the weakest lane in order to allow his teammates to take advantage of the stronger lanes and at the same time counterbalancing the lanes that have already been shoved. For example, Fan started Game 1 on Dragon Shire in the top lane, expecting most of the team rotations from both teams to revolve around the mid and bottom lane. This positioning had the dual purpose of not only pushing down the lane that might be left empty due to hero rotations (thus making it a “weaker” lane) but also forcing an enemy hero to rebalance the lane from time to time and thus weakening the mid/bot rotations from Tempo Storm.


Gaining Experience Leads and Using Toxic Nests

Soaking additional experience from lanes is a huge part of playing Abathur and taking advantage of his global presence. Abathur can soak xp two ways: physically standing near minions as they die (the way all other heroes gain xp) and using Symbiote on minions to push a lane. The first option is much more dangerous and requires you to know exactly where the rest of the enemy team is, but allows you to gain xp from a lane while helping allies with Symbiote. The latter option is 100% safe, and is used to ensure that your team is getting xp in an empty lane. Fan used both ideas to gain the maximum possible xp for his team and keep them even or ahead in levels throughout each game.

Before level 10, if no objectives are being contested, Fan soaked empty lanes with the Symbiote to allow his team to roam freely and take objectives, gain player advantages in a lane fight, or to give an ally enough time to recall and refill their lifebar before jumping back into the fray. In addition, he was also able to counterbalance lanes so his allies could focus their time and attention elsewhere on the map.

In order to ‘proxy’ soak by physically staying in lane, Abathur players need to know where the entirety of the enemy team is located to prevent getting caught out of position and taken down. This technique is not typically used until the later stages of the game when teams are constantly rotating as a whole to objectives, allowing you to predict their locations more accurately. However, as Fan demonstrated on Sky Temple, even early objectives can also serve as an obvious way to track enemy rotations. For instance, Fan knew that the mid and top temples would be contested by all five members of the enemy team during the first Temple phase, allowing him to move down and soak freely in the bottom lane while helping his allies contest the temples. Likewise, the second temple phase always spawns a single temple in the bottom lane, so Abathur could have soaked xp in the top lane while his team contested the temple. However, Cloud9 instead opted for a late bruiser camp push in the top lane to trade forts in Game 2, sidestepping the objective, and Fan did not get a chance to soak in the top lane as normally expected.

[image loading]

Abathur hides in a bush to soak xp while helping his team on the other side of the map with Symbiote


Toxic Nests also play a huge role in Abathur’s global presence. Toxic Nests allow the team to track rotations between lanes, and taking Vile Nest additionally slows down enemy rotations as well, particularly on smaller maps like Tomb of the Spider Queen and Dragon Shire where there are a lot of tight corridors and brush to obscure vision. Fan used Toxic Nests to their fullest extent by placing them in almost every brush between lanes to prevent his allies from getting surprised by a rotation, saving them several times. In addition, the Toxic Nests delayed the Dragon Knight from being taken on multiple occasions and slowed down the movement of the entire enemy team to an almost comedic speed during their group rotations.

[image loading]

Toxic Nest placement to ensure the maximum amount of frustration from Tempo Storm



Pushing in the Late Game

Teams start to rotate together as a full team in the late game in order to secure objectives and ensure victory if a team fight breaks out, particularly on maps like Dragon Shire and Garden of Terror which encourage big pushes with the entire team. During times in which an obvious objective is being contested (Temples, Immortals, Punishers, or even Boss camps) or group pushes are occurring, Abathur actually has the freedom to move out on the map. In fact, placing himself opposite of the map from the enemy team is actually safer than sitting in base, and he can even push during this time period. The stronger the enemy push is, the stronger Abathur’s split push should be. Fan usesdthis concept in Game 1 on Dragon Shire at 14:00 to push out the top lane and threaten the enemy fort after seeing the entire enemy team pushing with the Dragon Knight in the south side of the map.

[image loading]

As the enemy team is closing in on the base, Abathur moves to the opposite side of the map


Abathur’s level 16 talent Locust Brood is key in giving Abathur the split push potential to quickly snowball a lane in the late game and push down a wall, a fort, or even a keep while the enemy team is busy trying to take objectives or push. On top of this, Fan also took the talent Locust Nest at level 20 to give him up to five locusts pushing a lane at once. This allowed him to apply continual pressure on multiple lanes and threaten keeps when Tempo Storm couldn’t spare anyone for lane maintenance.


Thwarting/Achieving Map Objectives

As Tasteless pointed out in the cast, Abathur typically becomes increasingly tucked away behind structures as the game progresses in order to stay safe. In many cases, this is true and players and viewers alike forget to remember that Abathur does actually have a body that can be used for taking objectives like securing a tribute on Cursed Hollow or capturing a shrine on Dragon Shire. However, along with his constant movement to soak experience and push lanes in the late game, Fan also demonstrated that Abathur could be a potent force in controlling objectives. Game 1 on Dragon Shire had Abathur burrow and steal a shrine four times in total, preventing Tempo Storm from taking the Dragon Knight each time.

[image loading]

Fan uses vision from a nest to tunnel in, take the shrine, and recall immediately before the enemy team can spot him


Fan uses Ultimate Evolution in cases where an extra body is necessary, often cloning big backline threats like Arthas and The Butcher. Often times this is used just before a team fight breaks out, but Fan also cleverly uses it pre-emptively several times to force the other team off of an objective for a short while so that his team can secure it safely. An example of this can be seen in Game 2 on Sky Temple at 16:00 where Fan clones Arthas early to ensure that his team can gain position on the top temple and secure it.


Conclusion

Though C9 ultimately ended up losing both games and the match, Fan showed brilliant play on Abathur by highlighting many of the concepts which make him a strong pick and doing his best to slow down the momentum of Tempo Storm. While this series probably won’t be remembered for its remarkably close games, the audacity and wit showed by Fan’s aggressive pushing and shrine steals will stick in the minds of those watching closely and recognizing truly masterful play. Well played sir, GG.
StrategyAllyssa Grey <3<3
ShoCkeyy
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
7815 Posts
September 27 2015 02:52 GMT
#2
In my opinion Aba is such a good role in the game that most people just do not understand. This guide was really great insight on how to better myself as an Aba player. I just wish others would allow Aba on great maps for him and not complain about 'missing a 5th'.
Life?
MotherFox
Profile Blog Joined March 2013
United States1529 Posts
September 27 2015 04:55 GMT
#3
gave abby another try after reading this. what a fun character.
Don't Panic
EsportsJohn
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
United States4883 Posts
September 27 2015 06:29 GMT
#4
On September 27 2015 13:55 MotherFox wrote:
gave abby another try after reading this. what a fun character.


I'm regretting bringing this up now because I've been playing against really good Abathurs who frustrate me to no end. Especially the fucking mine fields of 50% slow, what the fuck. Today I played a game as Zeratul and had to go back 4 times in 5 minutes because of mines and random abahats chunking me down. It was the most frustrating thing I've had to deal with in a long time.

Anyways! I'm glad that this is opening some eyes to Abathur. I still kinda think he's a little boring haha, but watching a good Abathur play is really a pleasure. Pretty soon I'm gonna get into why Sonya is a BAWS in the meta now.
StrategyAllyssa Grey <3<3
MotherFox
Profile Blog Joined March 2013
United States1529 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-09-27 07:20:43
September 27 2015 07:19 GMT
#5
I think when I first played him I tried monstrosity--- this time around I've been running seige builds with ultimate evolution. Ultimating someone like KT just feels so wrong and so wonderful when the enemy team dies to quadruple living bombs.

Though another piece of the puzzle for me was just the advice to keep your eyes on the minimap and every time you see 5 enemies, go to a lane to do some in-person soaking. For some reason this had eluded me before and now the games feel much cleaner. (and I'm frequently getting top seige/hero/xp too)
Don't Panic
jubil
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States2602 Posts
September 27 2015 20:08 GMT
#6
Great breakdown, it's nice to see how all the parts of abba's toolkit fit together. I do wonder how much the build/playstyle would differ if they had been going for one of those Illidan-centric comps, though.

On September 27 2015 15:29 SC2John wrote:
Pretty soon I'm gonna get into why Sonya is a BAWS in the meta now.

Please do! Warrior is my least-played role, and I get especially frustrated playing Sonya - which makes me suspect I am playing her wrong. (specifically, she feels fragile and pretty kite-able, so I end up either dying or backing a lot.)
Marineking-Polt-Maru-Fantasy-Solar-Xenocider-Suppy fighting!
EsportsJohn
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
United States4883 Posts
October 03 2015 05:54 GMT
#7
On September 28 2015 05:08 jubil wrote:
Great breakdown, it's nice to see how all the parts of abba's toolkit fit together. I do wonder how much the build/playstyle would differ if they had been going for one of those Illidan-centric comps, though.

Show nested quote +
On September 27 2015 15:29 SC2John wrote:
Pretty soon I'm gonna get into why Sonya is a BAWS in the meta now.

Please do! Warrior is my least-played role, and I get especially frustrated playing Sonya - which makes me suspect I am playing her wrong. (specifically, she feels fragile and pretty kite-able, so I end up either dying or backing a lot.)


I can't comment too much about the efficacy of a symbiote build and how it actually affects split pushing, but in theory, some of the rules should apply. You still want to position Abathur in the weakest lane to help counterbalance it, and Abathur is still safest split pushing during team fights, though the split push won't be as hard. I usually see players take Monstrosity if they are going symbiote build though, so maybe that's not true.

As for Sonya, if you run across a really good game, let me know. I'm probably going to pull a topic out of the games this weekend for another article, if something catches my eye .
StrategyAllyssa Grey <3<3
karazax
Profile Joined May 2010
United States3737 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-10-13 18:09:11
October 13 2015 18:00 GMT
#8
C9 Fan made a video guide to complement this written one:


One difference to the written guide, he says he generally prefers Prolific Dispersal at 4 over Ballistaspores because he can Z move to an existing mine to gain virtual global range without a talent (though in my experience that isn't always safe to do and often requires hearthing back and being out of body position until your z move comes off cool down again.)
EsportsJohn
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
United States4883 Posts
October 13 2015 18:12 GMT
#9
I can see that. I took the build from the tournament, so all I could see were the icons and didn't know for sure whether or not it Ballistospores or Prolific Dispersal. I cross-referenced this with the most common talents and guessed Ballistospores, so perhaps that was my mistake. I'll go ahead and fix in the OP.
StrategyAllyssa Grey <3<3
ShoCkeyy
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
7815 Posts
October 13 2015 18:31 GMT
#10
Nice to know that I've been building Aba the same way he has. The only difference being the Ult depending on the game as he said. Great guide however!
Life?
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