How to be greasy as Gazlowe

Talent ref: https://www.heroesfire.com/hots/talent-calculator/gazlowe

So here we are, you've decided to play the greasiest hero in HOTS. It's fine,

I get it. If you're playing Gazlowe you are greasy and some people will hate

you for it. And the best Gazlowes are as greasy as they come. What you'll get in exchange for

all the hate is a highly versatile hero with a very high winrate if done properly.

I'll try to explain how in this guide. I don't claim to be a Gazlowe God or anything, but I've

studied play by the likes of Glogan who has proven season after season that Gaz is viable up to

and including the GM hero league level. I personally have a very easy time getting over a 60%

winrate as him.

The basic strategy:

Be greasy. What I mean by this is get as much map value as you possibly can no

matter what when you can. If that means soaking and giving up an objective once, that's totally

fine. If that means joining a team fight and getting value, that's fine too. Your goal is to

basically win at all costs. Communicating with your team helps keep the hatred for Gazlowe down,

just be honest what you're doing. Sometimes running it down while the enemy is unawares fighting over

objectives is the most value. Your death means very little until late game if it means you're taking

their structures consistently. Use your judgment though and switch it up if it isn't working. Make

occasional appearances at objectives and teamfights if it's required to keep them honest.

Initial game strat:

You'll usually want to soak one of the lanes solo. Dropping turrets down mid then breaking off

to soak another lane is fine as well if you want to keep up appearances, but the idea is *never*

lose your soak if possible. Gazlowe can survive against almost any other lane bully if done right,

just make sure you are racking up the XP for your team. This sometimes means not being too aggressive

and sitting back with turrets near your lane's wall, letting the enemy over extend while soaking.

Gazlowe has very little escape ability if he gets caught out of position, and you'll be punished

hard if you step too far.

That said, if you can get huge siege value early-mid game it's often

worth a death. If you can take down a couple towers or a fort before they get to you, it's usually

worth it if you aren't dropping huge soak.

Also remember if you use the talents in this guide, *turrets are fleeting*, you should be constantly

building them up and breaking them down when you don't need them anymore to retain their scrap and keep

mana and cooldowns up. It's expected you'll lose several turrets every engagement almost.

Talents:

So here's the part where most Gazlowes get it wrong imo. They pick whatever hotslog tells them is

popular without thinking. And again this is my opinion, but there's a style of talent build that makes

you far, far more effective in general. Instead of just going for TNT talents or globe quest like the vast majority of

people, you'll want either "break it down" or "scrap-o-matic smelter". Ideally break it down, but if you

really need early game mana for laning against say Zag or a huge lane bully, smelter is OK too.

Why would you want that over the cool talents like TNT etc? It's because the key to a good Gazlowe is

*always pick up scrap* unless it's massively out of your pathing's way. More scrap, with these talents,

means more mana or faster cooldowns which means you're using ALL your abilities *more*, the whole game.

It's the most value. Without these, you're constantly falling back and can't push as hard. Gazlowe's main

strength is getting momentum with his siege.

Which brings us to the next talent tier, and by far his best talent overall: reduce-reuse-recycle. This

means there's a good % chance every single minion that dies near you drops additional scrap which you can

keep picking up and keep building momentum. Every single building in the game drops scrap too including the

walls. So if you're running 'break it down' that means your cooldowns are popping for your abilities way,

WAY more often than if you aren't around as much scrap. I can't stress this enough, reduce reuse recycle.

Gaz can merc / push np anyway so hired goons is garbage. The TNT talent is again just the showboaty one people like,

the only other viable talent at this tier is clockwerk fists, but it's situational. R-R-R is by far the preferred

choice here.

Next up, you have the interesting talent tier. You can go lazer build, and it's situationally decent, but if you're

learning to be greasy you'll want to learn the more common talent builds. Most people prefer 'engine gunk' which is good

sometimes if your team has no CC and you really need slow (so e.g. say they have genji or tracer and your team has no answer),

but the best talent here is XL turrets. They cleave attack which means you're laning WAY harder and outputting way

more damage than any other talent here. Again, hotslogs won't reflect this, but the XL turrets are insanely good. You're

shooting 3x every single shot, even at a slightly reduced % of dmg this adds up FAST over a game. It's also good in team

fights since you're hitting half their team almost always. Gazlowe's main strength isn't slowing enemies usually, it's

snowballing the enemy and sieging them hard. XL gives you this and far superior damage. The one thing about the lazer build

I will mention is if you go hyperfocus coils and then dimensional ripper you can disable buildings like Sylvanas, which most

people aren't aware of. XL gives top value most games however.

Next tier is the ult of course, and again, most people know Gaz because of his Gravo-bomb wombo combo. It's decent, but more

situational. The far superior ult most games is robogoblin. Why? Because it makes you punch like a truck which most opponents

never expect, and it gives you a very key ability: an escape. You can activate it to gain speed and armour, which will save

your ass in many situations. Gazlowe's main weakness is he doesn't have a ton of mobility, so this is a very high value talent.

He also becomes one of the strongest siegers in the game at this point, you can punch down buildings lickity split.

One trick is to rush their towers and drop turrets, which will automatically gain priority targeting over your hero and tank for you, punch

the building down, and use your 'break it down' / scrap talents to keep dropping turrets to tank for you. This also works when mercing

and is a very valuable tactic. Just keep in mind when people see Gaz sieging you'll be gank-bait, keep your eye on the minimap.

Next tier is sort of the lazer build tier. If you went hyperfocus you'll likely want one of the lazer talents. However, every other

build almost always it's best to take the extra large bombs. Why extra large bombs? Because it makes your main zoning tool (TNT), way

larger radius of influence, and it has the handy bonus of if you get stunned by say, butcher catching you off guard, it drops a TNT

at your feet and helps protect you. If they stick around, they'll be stunned and give you the chance at gaining the upper hand. It's

important to remember TNT against good opponents rarely lands, it's primarily a zoning tool.

Tier 16 is pretty easy, it's almost always extra turret storage. It just comes in way more handy than the others. Double TNT is kind

of fun sometimes, but really, top value is extra turrets here most games. That's extra tanking / extra scrap for you in every situation,

it's value.