1. On the plus side, Blaze is viable in more than one role. On the negative, this often confuses people as to where exactly you want to put your Blaze, which results in a few compositions like these...

2. For builds, I'm to cover two main builds, both usable in both offtank and main tank play.



Blaze : Grill and Kill (Blaze Updated 6/20/18) Neural Stimpack Activate to gain 40 Mana and cause Basic Ability cooldowns to recharge 100% faster for 5 seconds. Oil Dispersal Increase Oil Spill's area by 20%. Additional functionality: Each enemy Hero hit with Flame Stream reduces the cooldown of Oil Spill by 1 second and refunds 5 Mana. Grill and Kill Quest: Damage enemy Heroes with Ignited Oil Spills 60 times. Reward: Increase Oil Spill's Ignite duration by 2 seconds, and damage by 20%. Bunker Drop After 0.5 seconds, deploy and enter a Bunker with 1435 Health. Blaze and his allies can enter (after a .5 second channel) and exit the Bunker at will. While in the Bunker, occupants gain access to Flamethrower, dealing 170 damage to enemies in a line. Exiting the Bunker grants 25 Armor for 2 seconds. Bunkers last 10 seconds, or until destroyed. Fuel Leak Jet Propulsion creates Oil Spills along Blaze's path. If Jet Propulsion impacts an enemy Hero, an additional Oil Spill is created underneath them. Juggernaut Plating Activate to gain 50 Spell Armor for 3 seconds. Upon expiration, gain a Shield equal to 125% of the Spell Damage reduced by Juggernaut Plating. Fortified Bunker Occupants can cast Oil Spill from Bunker Drop every 6 seconds. Additionally, Bunker Drop's Armor bonus exiting is increased by 25, and its duration by 1 second.

3. A Few tips to get you on your way and thinking with fire

On release, I preemptively tweeted out that I thought Blaze would be an offlaner and not a main tank at all. With a bit more thought and playtime now, I've happily concluded that I was only mostly correct. Blaze still shines brightest right now as an offlane tank, but can function as a main tank as well on a few maps. Blaze is easily one of the most fun tanks I've played in a while and I strongly suggest picking him up if you like the tank/bruiser role.This guide is going to be broken down into 3 major sections:1. When/How to draft Blaze2. Build and playstyle3. Tips for getting more burn out of your BlazeWithout further ado, let's get this started!--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Because of this, I highly suggest calling out the role you want when you draft Blaze. It will save you a ton of trouble in the long run.As for what types of compositions you want with the hero, even when main tanking him, you want another frontliner in the offlane. Blaze is best when you have another warrior on your team like a ETC or Muradin when you're playing him as an offlaner or a Tyrael or Dehaka offlane when playing him as a main tank.Outside of this, having a support/damage dealer with a bit of CC to follow up on your stun is ideal. This lets you and your team threaten kills off of your E since Blaze himself actually adds so much damage to a combo if his Pyromania is up.While still not perfect, something like this is much better:The second tank in Tyrael gives my team safety when I need to push lanes, gives me a dive buddy to keep me safe from Tychus, and lets us split one tank to zone while the other peels back to protect frontline. The Li-ming and Tracer and easily follow up on my stuns and get a reset train going, and the Rehgar Ancestral prevents the same from happening to us.Final note, Blaze is functional as an offlaner on just about every map, but there are significantly fewer maps where he functions as a main tank. Specifically, Dragon Shire, Sky Temple, Tomb of the Spider Queen, and Infernal Shrines are his best maps to main tank him on. Blaze excels as a main tank on smaller, rotation heavy, early game maps. His limited scaling and heavy focus on waveclear make him much weaker on larger and later-game maps like Cursed Hollow and Towers of Doom because of his inability to safely play a scouting role for his team. Simply put, Blaze is rather 1-dimensional as a main tank. He does rotations and waveclear SUPER well, but cannot deep scout or position out of lane like other tanks like Muradin and ETC.To recap what we've learned:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This first build focuses mainly on Incinerator Gauntlets at 7 and gives Blaze a ton of PvE presence and early game laning. This build scales slighly weaker into late game team fighting but will let Blaze abuse his high levels of PvE damage to get advantages through hard pushing lanes or taking camps.The main playstyle with this build will be to hard push out the lane and look for roam/camping opportunities off of the space created. In the main tank role, this will largely mean rotating with your team and ensuring your side wins rotations through waveclear. In the solo lane, this means aggressively pushing the lane to look for opportunites to roam down on the 4 man.Alternatives and tech choices listed in the build itself.This second build is much more for team fighting and early game sustain. Grill and Kill and Neural Stimpack are much better for team fighting and the longer burn and cdr can keep you standing in fire near indefinitely. The increased damage and disruption don't hurt either.This build plays early game a lot more passively and looks to more use oil as area denial for mid-late game. Use the increased slow from Oil Dispersal to lock off chokes and engage on people trying to walk through. Once Grill and Kill is complete, look to chain flaming oil pools for maximum burning.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A. Your E, Jet Propulsion, is very telegraphed and often super risky if missed. Think twice before using it aggressively. Instead, look to pressure people with ranged options and E when you have a clearer shot, or the enemy is cc'ed.

. Not all oil has to be used aggressively. It is perfectly legitimate to oil under you and throw your Q at an enemy to ensure you get the healing. This sometimes means not getting your oil on a full enemy wave, and that's ok. Keep yourself healthy before looking to throw out max ranged combos.. Ignited oil will light other oil spills. Use this to chain oil spills in the direction you want to go so you can use Q's purely on enemy heroes. This will get the maximum out of your damage and passive cdr and will also ensure you're always standing in the fire.. Getting the value out of Bunker often means getting in and out rapidly to reset the flamethrower cooldown inside the bunker. It's best to practice this in try mode to get the timing down without spamming, but once you've got it down, Bunker's damage is actually quite scary.. Bunker can also tank towers and forts. Use it on a dive to block shots or even just siege. The cooldown is low enough to use freely. Just remember to play more passively till its back up.. Bunker can remove DoTs, delayed damge like Pulse Bomb and Last Rites, slows, roots, or even block spells like Pyroblast. Look to use it to help out teammates who risk dying to these.. Late game, look to control enemies with oil spills before commiting with an E to either follow up on allied cc or to set them up when they're in range. If engaging, look to approach from a flank as Blaze's engage is very obvious.. Blaze's strongest points are his early and mid game by using waveclear and heavy AoE damage to pressure enemies in laning. Try and look for advantages early whenever you have a wave pushed out or to look to snowball midgame team fights. Blaze's scaling is suspect, but he's a monster for most of the game, so make sure to get the most out of it.