Abathur is arguably the single best counter to Probius in the game.

The key reason for this is the fact that he gives that extra piece of burst needed to kill the little Probe more consistently!

It is not just the added burst that makes Abathur such a problem for a Probius, it is the fact he has so many ways to consistently interrupt an escaping Probius’s worker rush, with well-placed mines or a well-timed stab (spike burst) will usually have been used on engage.

Look out for:

Escape interrupts

Speed boosts/Slows after 16

Ganks with increased burst potential

Exploit:

Lack of a ‘body’ early

Abathur dies to a double rift

Pylons & cannons to spot him in bushes

Early Game (pre-level 10):

As Probius you should be looking to put as much macro and siege pressure on your opponents as possible. How you do this varies from map to map, but the key factor you are looking to exploit is that Abathur is great for soaking multiple lanes, but poor at rapidly clearing them and denying siege damage.

On the majority of maps you will find that one lane has a slightly longer travel distance than the others, e.g the top lane on Sky Temple, with the other two lanes being close enough together that Probius is able to effectively soak both of them. This means Probius can soak two lanes and leave his 4 team mates free to hard push the remaining lane.

On two-lane maps, the fact Probius has low cooldowns and unlimited mana means that you can comfortably hold a 3 v 4 lane. This means your team can run 2 heroes in the lane Abathur is body soaking and push in hard for early siege damage, or force them to move another hero and start losing both lanes.

Mid Game:

In the mid game the focus of the Probius player should be in making sure that your team does not fall too far behind in soak. You have the ability to very quickly clear lanes, so you can force pressure that keeps Abathurs hat on a lane to soak it and still rotate in time to be useful if there are engages and objectives.

During this time you need to keep a careful eye on the mini-map to make sure that no one has split off to gank you while the map is open. Ganks with an Abathur hat for support are lethal and almost impossible to escape if you did not spot it early.

Late Game:

You should still be making use of your incredible wave clear to quickly remove large waves and keep the pressure up on the Abathur player. But you should also be focusing on setting up solid position to fight for your team, bait clones out from Abathur and make sure the opposing team cannot follow it, wasting the clone.

Make sure you position conservatively in fights as all of your opponents are now more dangerous to you with the Abathur hat for burst.

Conclusion:

Abathur is incredibly dangerous to Probius. He forces you to play a mobile soaking style split from your team and heavily enables ganks while disabling your escape. The burden of skill in this match-up is on the Abathur and his team, not the Probius player which, in my opinion, makes Abathur the hardest counter to Probius in the game once the early game has ended.

About the Author: About the Author: My gaming tag is Arena and I am a high-level Heroes of the Storm player. In my professional life, I have worked in a variety of industries at well-known companies and have been a founder several times.