HotS Free Hero Rotation (6/16-6/22): Free Hero Rundown

Free Hero of the Week:  Kael’thas

Free Hero Rundown will focus on one hero from the weekly set of free heroes.  During the week, except for daily quests, you’ll see me playing this hero, hopefully kicking butt and taking names.

Possible Talent Choices

It’s been a couple of weeks since Kael’thas, a mage assassin, made his debut in Heroes of the Storm, and now he’s available in the Free Hero Rotation!  You do need to have a player level of 15 or higher, but with the 100% XP boost going on, that shouldn’t take long if you aren’t already there.

Kael’thas has some serious damage potential, both AOE and single target.  Of course, the flip side is that he’s quite squishy, so try not to get caught.  His trait, Verdant Spheres, is an activated one, allowing you to buff your basic abilities every 6 seconds.  Using it optimally will take some practice though, so don’t expect to land 3 stun Gravity Lapses in your first game with him.

Basic Abilities

Flamestrike is Kael’thas’ Q ability, and it’s his bread and butter damage spell.  This spell is used for hero damage, wave clear and even siege damage.  Using it with Verdant Spheres gives Flamestrike an extra 50% damage radius and a rather large damage boost.  There is a delay before the spell strikes the target area though, so try to stun your enemy with Gravity Lapse first.

Kael’thas’ W is Living Bomb.  This spell deals damage over time to the target, then after 3 seconds, explodes, harming any other nearby enemies.  When used with his trait, Living Bomb can be cast manaless and with no cooldown.  This is important because double casting on the same target causes the explosion right away, giving you some serious burst.  Living Bomb is also a major source of damage in the late game with talents that spread it for free as well.

As mentioned before, his E ability, Gravity Lapse, is a stun.  The stun lasts for 1.5 seconds and when paired with Verdant Spheres, it will stun the first 3 enemies it hits.  Any kind of incapacitation is very strong in a team fight, so try and save this ability for a damage dealer or healer so your team can blow them up.

Heroic Abilities

Kael’thas’ first Heroic Ability is Phoenix, which summons the mythical bird to an area where it deals damage to your enemies.  This is similar to Raynor’s Hyperion Heroic Ability, but once the Phoenix reaches it’s target area, it stays there dealing damage for 7 seconds.

His unlockable Heroic Ability is Pyroblast.  This spell is cast after 2 seconds, but locks on to your target, following them until it can hit them and explode.  It deals massive damage to the main target and medium damage to any nearby enemies.  It can deal upwards of half the HP of a squishy target making it very effective at finishing off a weakened opponent.

Talents

For the first couple talents, I chose to go for sustain, with health regeneration on trait use and mana restore when Flamestrike kills enemies.  These should help keep him going in the early game before he can just blow people up.  After that, I went for damage, focusing on enhancing Living Bomb.  This includes talents that spread a free Living Bomb to targets hit by its explosion and from targets hit by Flamestrike.

For his Heroic Ability, I chose Pyroblast, to augment his single target damage.  Phoenix has many uses and if your enemies tend to bunch up, by all means take it.  I like that Pyroblast can execute a fleeing enemy, and if they aren’t paying attention, they will damage their whole team too.  As his final talent, I chose Bolt of the Storm, giving him that extra mobility, since his kit has none.

Kael’thas can be a huge threat to the enemy team because, left alone to cast his spells, he will simply wipe them out.  As long as he can get Living Bomb chains going, his damage will continue to multiply.  Because of this, the enemy will make you a prime target, so stay near the back of your team.  Kael’thas doesn’t have a lot of health and, besides a good Gravity Lapse, no escapes until level 20, so be very careful not to get caught out.

I hope you have fun playing Kael’thas or any of the other free heroes this week.  I’ll be playing him in game as AGRitterific.  You can also PM me at ritterific@agentsofgame.com for a friend request.  Hit me up @AGRitterific with any questions or comments as well.