part of the issue of guides is that they do tend to only consider 1 particular use for an ability, or talent, and then base all other picks around mix/max selections to suit that one idea.
the design intent for talents is that different circumstances make some more advantageous than others as the game is NOT optimized in play and players need to build around offsetting weaknesses or complimenting conditional strengths.
One of the main flaws of the playerbase mindset comes with the idea that an ability should pretty much be used whenever it’s off cooldown, and then reinforce, or rewards, a mindset of useless spam.
Yes, for soaking damage, the armor/duration is a better options; however on maps that are farther from lanes, it’s less about spamming the demons and rather timing them so they have better impact for when they’re alive.
Army of hell is for skirmesse that allow teams to attack from multiple sides (the demon might approach outside the line of fire and put pressure on backline heroes that have to waste time or positioning to deal with them)
Hellforged armor works better on aram where adding more durability to a lane can make the difference on getting the push momentum for taking towers/forts
and battleborn works with off-lane big maps where azmo may want more lieutenants for global soaking. Each of those could be spelled out to have maps, modes or teams on which they can shine, and I generally find guides don’t take those sort of possibilities into consideration as having an tl;dr this/that conclusion makes them seem more authoritative (or skilled) at the game, and thus make the advice better suited for players that don’t want to know better, or have time to think deeper than one-trick builds.
most of what I wrote was fairly generic on ‘guides’ but being particular to Icy Veins, as Ocek said, they tend to be out of date or conclude “no update needed” despite some changes happening, or neglect options from the first place, and just maintain a singular focus on their builds/advise.