Abathur Talents

1. Abathur's Talent Build

Level	Choices
1	? ? ✔ ?
4	? ? ✔
7	? ✔ ✔
10	✔ ?
13	? ✔ ?
16	? ? ? ?
20	? ? ✔ ?

2. Abathur's Talent Build Cheatsheet

3. Level 1 Talents for Abathur

3.1. Discussion

Pressurized Glands provides Spike Burst with a reasonable power increase during the early game, and has good synergy with Soma Transference and Envenomed Spikes at Levels 13 and 16 respectively. Pressurized Glands also helps improve your waveclear.

Envenomed Nest dramatically increases the damage of Toxic Nest, but deals this extra damage over time. Consider taking this if you really need to punish enemy rotations, and are planning on taking the other Toxic nest talents at levels 4 and 7. This Talent can also be useful in Quick Match games when the enemy team lacks a healer or self-sustain options.

Reinforced Carapace increases Carapace's shield amount. Carapace's healing effect ends if the shield is destroyed. This Talent will make it slightly more difficult for enemies to remove the shield and its healing effect.

Survival Instincts will pressure the enemy team by increasing the amount of damage your Locusts can deliver. This talent provides very little benefit unless other Locust talents are also selected. If you want to get the most out of Survival Instincts, take Bombard Strain at 13, Locust Brood at 16, and Locust Nest at 20.

4. Level 4 Talents for Abathur

4.1. Discussion

Adrenal Overload significantly increases the damage potential of Heroes who depend on Basic Attacks for damage, self-sustain, or to trigger other effects. Heroes that do not rely on Basic Attacks benefit much less from this Talent; its usefulness depends on team composition.

Needlespine allows Abathur to deal more damage with Symbiote by increasing Stab's range and damage. This talent can be especially helpful if the enemy team is made up of multiple ranged Heroes.

Prolific Dispersal dramatically increases the amount of times you can use Toxic Nest during a match. Prolific Dispersal has strong synergy with Vile Nest at level 7, even in the absence of Envenomed Nest from level 1.

5. Level 7 Talents for Abathur

5.1. Discussion

Vile Nest can be extremely annoying for the enemy team. This talent can help your team secure objectives and kills by reducing the effectiveness of enemy rotations and ganks. Vile Nest has great synergy with Prolific Dispersal.

Networked Carapace is predominantly a PvE Talent focused on pushing empty lanes by keeping large numbers of Minions and Mercenaries healthy. It does apply untalented shields to allied Heroes who are nearby the Symbiote host. Carapace's heal effect is not applied to Minions or Mercenaries, but it is applied to all Heroes that are shielded by Networked Carapace. While each individual shield is weak, the effects can add up to a meaningful advantage in long team fights.

Calldown: MULE should almost always be taken on Sky Temple, because it gets insane value due to the way the main objective plays out there. It is a situational pick on other maps. Calldown: Mule is usually a very strong choice. It allows you to apply pressure and push lanes during all stages of the game while repairing your own Structures.

6. Level 10 Talents for Abathur

6.1. Discussion

Ultimate Evolution is a fantastic and versatile Heroic ability. It should usually be used on high damage Heroes, as these clones will benefit the most from the extra Ability Power and Basic Attack damage. Ideally, the cloned Hero will also have a gap closer to ensure that you are able to close in on enemies and deal meaningful damage during the 20 second window. Cloning Tanks will yield less damage, but can be useful if your team requires more crowd control.

Evolve Monstrosity is a strong pushing and sieging tool, but you must sacrifice a lot of team fight presence in order to take it. Evolve Monstrosity deals massive team fight damage in ideal situations, but it is unrealistic to assume that you will be able to get the monstrosity into an ideal position. You need to build very specifically to properly mobilise a monstrosity.

7. Level 13 Talents for Abathur

7.1. Discussion

Spatial Efficiency can put out a lot of damage when paired with Needlespine. This can be useful when you find yourself primarily using Symbiote to imbue a ranged Basic Attacker with Adrenal Overload, or would otherwise get decreased value out of Spike Burst Talents.

Soma Transference can heal the host for a significant amount of Health, especially if Symbiote is on a melee Hero who will be within range of multiple enemy Heroes. Pressurized Glands synergises very well with this Talent. Soma Transference is less effective on ranged allies, and is also very weak against enemy compositions that have access to a lot of burst damage.

Bombard Strain increases the amount that Locust Strain passively pushes lanes. Bombard Strain increases the number of Basic Attacks that each Locust is capable of delivering before perishing. When this talent is paired with Locust Brood and Locust Nest, you can threaten enemy Keeps with waves of Locusts.

8. Level 16 Talents for Abathur

8.1. Discussion

Envenomed Spikes provides a significant Slow over a large area, especially when combined with Pressurized Glands at Level 1. It allows melee Heroes to stick to targets much more easily than they would otherwise be able to. One advantage this has over Adrenaline Boost is that its effect cannot be removed by damaging your Symbiote host. The other important difference is that Envenomed Spikes can affect multiple enemies.

Adrenaline Boost is essentially the opposite of Envenomed Spikes, speeding up a single ally, rather than slowing down multiple enemies. Slowing enemies allows your entire team to reposition, as opposed to giving a single ally increased movement speed. However, Adrenaline Boost can help your team run down kills that would otherwise escape. Adrenaline Boost is very useful for Evolve Monstrosity, which otherwise lacks mobility during combat. The main drawback to Adrenaline Boost is that its effect is removed when Carapace shield is destroyed. This talent is recommended within a Carapace oriented build, where it can really shine.

Volatile Mutation deals damage to enemies very near Abathur's Heroic entities. This talent may have some conflicts with Ultimate Evolution, where you will often clone a ranged Hero and may only be within range for Volatile Mutation very briefly. Volatile Mutation can help Evolve Monstrosity waveclear lanes more quickly, but Adrenaline Boost is extremely important in order to effectively mobilise Evolve Monstrosity.

Locust Brood can be used in combination with Deep Tunnel to instantly create pressure at any location. Locust Brood is required in any kind of Locust oriented build, as it is the only Talent capable of producing Locusts in bursts. Locust Brood can also be effective in situational hybrid builds, as it only needs Bombard Strain in order to get decent value.

9. Level 20 Talents for Abathur

9.1. Discussion

Evolutionary Link makes it harder for the enemy team to kill Ultimate Evolution's target. Because the shield is based on the target's maximum Health, this can be situationally useful if your composition's preferred clone is a Warrior. This Talent can also be strong with melee Assassins, as it will give them more Health for late-game fights.

Evolution Complete is a great Level 20 talent to take in games where Evolve Monstrosity has been selected. The bonus damage is so high that it will be hard to get as much value out of the other options. There are exceptions of course. If Evolve Monstrosity is taken with a Locust oriented build, Locust Nest would compete with it. Similarly, Hive Mind will get a lot of value in Spike Burst oriented builds.

Hivemind increases Symbiote's effectiveness by 50% when considering Symbiote Abilities directly. However, Hivemind doubles Symbiote's effectiveness when considering Talents like Soma Transference and Envenomed Spikes, as these Talents work per Hero hit, rather than per Ability cast. This provides you with greatly increased team fight presence. Regardless of what other Talents you take, you will almost always get good value out of Hivemind in team fights.

Locust Nest pushes a full Locust build to the limit, helping to generate as many Locusts as possible. It will double the number of passively generated Locusts, and allows you to simultaneously spawn Locusts in different lanes. This Talent is only recommended when you have several Talents already invested into Locusts, as other options at this tier will get more value otherwise.

10. Changelog