Diablo Build Guide “Kneel before the Lord of Terror.”
Welcome to our guide for Diablo, a Melee Warrior in Heroes of the Storm. Within these pages, you will find everything required to understand how best to play this hero, in both different map styles and team compositions.
1. Diablo's Overview
Diablo is an aggressive Warrior. With multiple crowd control Abilities that also displace his opponents, he excels at setting up and peeling for his teammates, and punishing poor positioning. His displacement Abilities are double-edged, however, and can help opponents more than hinder them when misused.
2. Diablo's Strengths and Weaknesses
Extremely reliable on-demand initiation
Very large Health pool
Flexible Heroic Ability and defensive Talent choices
Excellent at body blocking and peeling
May respawn very quickly upon death through
Black Soulstone
Serviceable combat self sustain
Limited escapability
Very low single-target damage, leading to poor Merc'ing and sieging
No reliable means of dealing ranged damage besides
Lightning Breath
3. Diablo's Talent Build Cheatsheet
Fire Stomp Build
Talent calculator »This Fire Stomp Build focuses on improving Fire Stomp to increase
Diablo's damage output and significantly.
Shadow Charge Build
Talent calculator »This Shadow Charge Build focuses on improving Shadow Charge to improve Diablo's
ability to initiate, and specifically on Maps featuring a large number
of walls such as Battlefield of Eternity, Cursed Hollow, Dragon Shire, Garden of
Terror, Infernal Shrines, Towers of Doom, and Volskaya Foundry. Most Talents
showcased here synergise well with each other to make Diablo difficult to
peel or otherwise kill and very disruptive due to the
amount of crowd control he has at his disposal.
4. Diablo's Synergies and Counters
Since Diablo provides reliable means of initiating, it follows
naturally that he would work well with Heroes that have a strong and reliable
way of playing off and following up said initiating. Any Hero
that Stuns, Roots or otherwise hinders the movement of intended targets is
preferred, but Heroic Abilities that synergise with Apocalypse make
for particularly effective combos.
As a tank with a large amount of Health, Diablo is naturally vulnerable
to Heroes that deal percent-based damage. His reliance on being able to engage
to be impactful also makes him lackluster against some of the more resilient
backline Assassins who have tools to avoid or otherwise nullify
his Shadow Charge +
Overpower combo.
5. Diablo's Maps














As the premiere ganker, Diablo thrives on Maps that give him
ample opportunities to catch isolated Heroes or otherwise interrupt rotations.
Generally, this includes Maps with Objectives that have changing locations.
In contrast, Maps that have static Objectives or that require you to destroy
specific Monsters are hardly desirable for Diablo, who lacks sustained damage,
though cleverly exploiting terrain with Shadow Charge can make
up for this weakness.
6. Diablo's Tips and Tricks
- Remember that after reviving through
Black Soulstone, your Health pool will be 40% smaller.
Fire Stomp can hit any given target up to five times in melee range.
- Use
Overpower right after
Shadow Charge to unconditionally move opponents towards your teammates.
- Cast
Lightning Breath when you suspect you may be the target of a crowd control chain, as it makes you Unstoppable for the duration.
- Use
Apocalypse right before Shadow Charge and Overpower to unconditionally Stun your target.
7. Role in the Current Meta
Diablo's main strengths lie in his notorious Shadow Charge +
Overpower
combo, which can unconditionally displace and control a target of his choosing,
and very strong zoning Heroic Ability choices. Since his ability
to waveclewar, siege, and claim Mercenary Camps
is limited by his low damage output, Diablo is often picked for his ability to
reliably initiate and counter team compositions that rely on one
key damage dealer or healer. As Diablo is widely recognised as one of the best initiators
in the game, Diablo players are expected to position aggressively and look
for ganking opportunities or Heroes who are out of position all while
interrupting key channeled Abilities.
8. Changelog
- 22 May 2018 (talents page): Talents updated to account for the Diablo rework patch.
- 22 May 2018 (this page): Guide updated to account for the Diablo patch rework.
- 14 Jan. 2018 (talents page): Updated Heroic talent assessments. Updated Shadow build.
- 26 Jun. 2017 (talents page): Updated the Shadow Charge build.
- 05 Jun. 2017 (talents page): Talents updated to better reflect metagame state.
- 22 Dec. 2016 (this page): Guide updated to account for the Ragnaros patch rework and moved to the new format.
More Warrior Guides
Oxygen is a veteran of the MOBA genre, which he has been playing for nearly 15 years. He has coached some of Heroes of the Storm's most prominent North American players and teams alike, including Team Liquid. As a Master player, he enjoys playing all Heroes and roles.

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