Anub'arak Abilities and Strategy
Welcome to our Abilities page for Anub'arak. Here, we give you an overview of every ability in Anub'arak's kit. For each of them, we explain what it does, how to best use it, and how it works in combination with Anub'arak's other abilities. We also give you strategy tips to play Anub'arak efficiently.
Anub'arak's Tips and Tricks
- Exploit
Scarab Host Beetles to soak damage from Structures and Mercenaries, and to intercept skillshots.
- Use
Burrow Charge to close up on a target, then follow up with
Impale for much crowd control.
Harden Carapace should be used on-Cooldown during fights due to its low Mana cost and ability to summon Beetles.
- Use
Locust Swarm with caution; it heals for a large amount, but does not make you invincible, especially versus burst damage.
- Hold onto your
Cocoon's cooldown to interrupt and deny strong enemy Heroic Abilities.
Impale


- Mana: 65
- Cooldown: 12 seconds
Deals 90 (+4% per level) damage. Stuns for 1 second.
Impale provides a long-range area of effect stun
to initiate and peel. Its range
makes it an excellent tool to interrupt
channeled Abilities. Due to its wave-like
nature, Impale can easily hit foes that are near you, but enemies located at
maximum range will have more time to evade it due to the spikes' traveling
time. With some practice, however, it becomes easier to successfully predict
enemy movement and land hits with Impale. The stun and Movement Speed reduction
effect provided by
Burrow Charge can also be used to
significantly facilitate Impale hits.
As with most crowd control Abilities, Impale has a long Cooldown and does little damage of its own. This makes it a poor waveclearing Ability; it is better to find opportunities to use it against Heroes (e.g. by ganking), and particularly when you have allies to follow up on the stun it provides.
Burrow Charge


- Mana: 65
- Cooldown: 14 seconds
Burrow to the target location, dealing 91 (+4% per level) damage and briefly stunning enemies in a small area upon surfacing, slowing them by 25% for 2.5 seconds.
Burrow Charge can be reactivated to surface early.
Burrow Charge provides Anub'arak with long-range
mobility, a short stun to interrupt
channeled abilities, as well as a fairly
potent Movement Speed reduction effect. Due to its fast speed and
collisionless nature, it is the perfect tool with
which to initiate fights, catch up to fleeing Heroes,
or escape. The stun provided by Burrow Charge also allows you reliably hit a
target with
Impale; as such, the two Abilities are
very commonly chained together. When initiating,
always try and surface (by recasting the Burrow Charge while Anubarak is
underground) in the direction your intended target may be trying to move in.
This will put you in a position where you will be able to perform
body-blocking maneuvers.
Burrow Charge's long range can be advantageous or disadvantageous: although it lets you catch opponents by surprise, it can also lead you to overextend out of your teammate's range, preventing them from properly follow up or assisting you. Be sure to account for your allies' positioning when aggressively using Burrow Charge.
Harden Carapace


- Mana: 25
- Cooldown: 7 seconds
Gain a Shield that grants 40 Spell Armor and absorbs 340 (+4% per level) damage over 3 seconds.
Harden Carapace is a key Ability in making up for
Anub'arak's limited Health pool. Although the Shielding amount Harden Carapace
provides is not particularly impressive, its Cooldown is short enough, and its
Mana cost low enough, that Anub'arak becomes more and more difficult to take
down as fights progress: failing to rapidly dispatch him means that he is going
to be able to repeatedly Shield himself.
Harden Carapace is generally useful against poke damage
and for general PvE purposes; it can and should be used very
liberally to summon Beetles through Scarab Host
whenever more damage is desirable. While laning the
Ability allows you to trade very effectively, or, at the
very least, maintain your Health pool as high as possible for impending
Objective-related rotations.
As with all Shielding effects, Harden Carapace must be used before taking damage or being disabled so as to actually protect your Health pool.
Locust Swarm


- Heroic
- Mana: 75
- Cooldown: 100 seconds
Deal 68 (+4% per level) damage per second to nearby enemies. Each enemy damaged restores 24 (+4% per level) Health. Lasts 6 seconds.
Besides the fact that Locust Swarm deals an
appreciable amount of area of effect damage, this Ability makes Anub'arak
extremely difficult to kill without a concerted effort from your opponents due
to its significant self-healing component. Locust Swarm takes into account all
enemy entities—including Minions, summons, Structures, and, of course,
Heroes—for the purpose of Health gains, making it especially effective
against grouped enemies. Due to its long Cooldown, it is recommended to only
use the Ability against several Heroes, and during extended engagements where
you can ensure that you will get the most out of its duration. The stuns
provided by
Impale and
Burrow Charge can help you keep foes within the
effective range of Locust Swarm.
Cocoon


- Heroic
- Mana: 70
- Cooldown: 70 seconds
Wraps target enemy Hero in a cocoon, rendering them unable to act or be targeted for 7 seconds. Allies of the Hero can attack the cocoon to break it and free them early.
Cocoon is a unique Ability that is primarily used
to instantly take specific Heroes out of the game for a lengthy time period,
preventing them from using key Abilities. During team fights, it is typically
used to disable Healers with powerful healing
Abilities (such as Alexstrasza). This forces their teammates to then
then decide between keeping fighting without their presence or wasting resources
to free them. Sometimes, however, you want to use
Cocoon
on Heroes who can deal a tremendous amount of damage (for example Tassadar
with
Archon). Cho'Gall,
being two Heroes in one, is the best target for Cocoon.
Cocoon is also an excellent tool for holding lone Heroes in place while your nearby teammates collapse on them. Cocoon can be used in this manner to great effect during the rotational phases that many of the Maps call for, netting your team easy kills that would otherwise be very difficult to get. Cocoon's instant crowd control effect can also allow you or your teammates to escape otherwise deadly situations.
Since Cocoon's remaining duration is clearly indicated by a green bar found
just above the Cocoon itself, you or your teammates can prepare your Abilities
for when the target is to be released from the Cocoon, as to
follow up rightly. It is advised to use
Impale just as the Cocoon expires to secure a Stun
to prevent your target from using Abilities that may help them escape.
Scarab Host


- Cooldown: 8 seconds
Using an Ability spawns a Beetle which lasts for 8 seconds, attacking nearby enemies for 20 (+4% per level) damage.
The Beetles spawned through Scarab Host are an
integral yet subtle part of Anub'arak's playstyle. Individual Beetles each add
approximately 20% more damage to Anub'arak's Basic Attacks, which rapidly adds
up as Anub'arak can consistently be surrounded by one to five of them.
Defensively, Beetles also act as extra bodies to catch single-target
skillshots (for example Storm Bolt by Muradin before Level 10),
indirectly increasing Anub'arak's and his allies' survivability. They also do a
good job of tanking Minions, Structures, Mercenaries, and other things that
would otherwise attack Anub'arak himself.
Harden Carapace's low Mana cost allows you to spawn
Beetles cheaply and on demand, even when you do not actually need to shield
yourself. When relatively low on Mana, though, avoid doing that.
Changelog
- 30 Mar. 2022: Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 22 Mar. 2021: Cocoon's Description updated.
- 04 Nov. 2020: Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 10 Oct. 2020: Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
More Tank Guides
Elitesparkle is a multiple times Master player in Europe who plays Heroes of the Storm since its release. He is an active member of the community who likes to teach new and veteran players all he knows about his favorite game. He also produces more teaching content on his Tips of the Storm page on Ko-fi.
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