Probius vs Alarak is an interesting game of ‘chicken’ for both sides. As the Probius you want to wait out his combo, and throw yours on him while he is standing in place; often you can land a double rift on an Alarak who is not careful about combo’ing while you’re nearby!

For any who are newer to Heroes of the Storm Alarak’s combo is the following:

Telekinesis to pull an opponent towards them

Discord strike as soon as Telekinesis has been cast

This combo unloads a large burst of damage and silences the target, but it means Alarak will be standing still for about a second.

Things to look out for:

Can cancel your Z (worker rush) with his lightning surge

The Alarak combo will almost one shot you, or actually one shot you later. Make sure you have seen it used before you get too close!

If you see Alarak go for Counter-strike at level 10 be more cautious about using more than one rift explosion (avoid committing to double and triple rifts) on Alarak if he has the Counter-strike off cooldown

Try to Exploit:

He stands still when he casts his combo!

You are a tiny target, if caught you can side-step his combo more easily than some other characters can

Melee assassin who can be zoned effectively with well placed cannons, and rifts to slow his movement

Early game:

This is somewhat map dependent. I do not recommend Probius as a solo laner, and while it is less common at the moment Alarak can often find himself in the solo lane also. This means that your interactions with him may be limited early. But I will go through a few scenarios:

Two lane maps:

You are both in the solo lane: This is not an ideal situation, a good Alarak will wear you down with his lightning surge and force you out of lane. You can attempt to respond to this by placing your cannons in a position to ward him away from the lane, obviously this is hard as the cannon cannot be manually targeted and will often just hit the lane minions

You are both in the 4 man lane: Here you are looking to punish Alarak every time he uses his combo, use him to stack your own level one quest

Three lane maps:

Here you can often end up in a situation where you are 1v1 with Alarak in one of the lanes, ideally you want to swap away from him so that your ability to pressure can be used more effectively early.

If this is a 4 man rotation map, like Dragon Shire you should be in the rotation and the same rules apply as when you are 4v4 against an Alarak on a two lane map; obviously your focus should be on clearing waves first!

Mid Game:

Through the mid-game you will only be interacting with Alarak in team fights, he should not be the hero on the enemy team that is trying to keep up with your map pressure and soaking.

In the team fight you should still be looking to ward him away from the team with rifts and cannons, then punishing him when he does step up to land a combo on your team.

At this stage of the game make sure you always have a pylon, or cannon, in any approach paths or bushes around the area a fight will occur, this prevents Alarak surprising your team with a Deadly charge and or a flanking combo.

Late Game:

Nothing changes here from the mid-game, other than it is very likely now that Alarak can 1-shot kill you with a combo, lightning surge and auto attack!

Conclusion:

Alarak is dangerous to Probius, he represents a lethal threat that can very quickly kill you. Probius is also a huge nuisance to Alarak, being able to make it difficult for him to effectively engage with your team, and punishing him when he does. In the team fights the battle between these two is a chess match and both players should be focused on getting the upper hand with positioning before they make their move!