Free Hero of the Week: Muradin
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
Muradin is a melee warrior hero and is one of the cheapest heroes to purchase with in-game gold. Because of this, he’s an excellent hero to learn if you like taking on the tank role in team fights. If you’re on a team with another tanky character, he can also build for some surprisingly good damage as well.
His trait and heroic abilities do tend to lend themselves to his tanky role though. Second Wind, his trait, regenerates health after Muradin has gone without taking damage for 4 seconds. This heal ramps up when he’s below 40% HP. Because of his trait, he can stay in lane longer than most heroes, or hop out of a team fight for a few seconds and jump right back in after healing up a bit. When used carefully, Muradin can absorb a lot of damage for his team thanks to all that healing.
Basic Abilities
Muradin’s Q, Storm Bolt, is a skill shot stun that deals damage as well. A well placed stun can stop a fleeing enemy, lock down a damage dealer for your team, or give you the extra space you need to get away. While the cooldown isn’t extremely long, this ability should be used mostly against enemy heroes and not so much on minions. Stunning a minion just doesn’t have the same impact as stunning a hero.
The other form of crowd control that Muradin brings is his W, Thunderclap. This does area of effect damage around Muradin and slows enemies hit by 25%. When you find yourself in the middle of a melee, Thunderclap can slow down the enemy team, letting your team catch up to you. It’s also good to use it after stunning a fleeing enemy with Storm Bolt, locking them down even more.
His E, Dwarf Toss, gives Muradin quite a bit of mobility. While the idea is simple, jump to the target location, using this ability properly takes some practice. Of course, it can make some clutch escapes. One of Dward Toss’s best uses though is a surprise engagement. Jumping in to the enemy team and using Thunderclap to slow them all or jumping behind a single enemy and stunning them are both good ways to give your team the advantage in a fight.
Heroic Abilities
Muradin starts out with Avatar, his general use heroic. This increases his size, grants him a large amount of health, and makes all of his basic attacks stun. This heroic ability is great in lots of situations. It’s great for engaging the enemy and tanking their opening onslaught. It’s great for giving yourself a few more seconds to escape if you’re caught out of position. It can even turn the tide of a fight if the enemy thinks they can kill you and over commits. You gain a bunch of health and lead them right back into your team where they get picked off.
After reaching hero level 2, you unlock Haymaker. This is a single target knockback that stuns the primary target and then damages them and any other enemies hit by them. While this is a powerful heroic ability, it is a bit more specialized and harder to use correctly. Using Dwarf Toss to get behind an enemy and then punching them into your team is a great use. If you can get to the back line, you can also knock a damage dealer or healer out of the fight giving your team the advantage. Even though this heroic takes more practice than Avatar, if you like playing Muradin, it’s definitely worth learning to use it.
Talents
I chose a very tanky talent build for Muradin with lots of survivability. Block is always a solid choice for a tank. I took the Thunderclap enhancement that reduces the cooldown based on the number of enemies hit and the talent that stuns an enemy after 3 consecutive basic attacks. More slows and stuns are always good.
Avatar is a great heroic ability when learning Muradin and boosts his survivability substantially. Hardened Shield and Imposing Presence both reduce the amount of damage the enemy does to you as well. I like to use Hardened Shield to engage then follow it up with Avatar to regain health and keep tanking damage. Finally, I took Burning Rage to give Muradin a bit of extra damage while he’s right in the middle of the enemy team.
While Muradin can be built with damage in mind, I think he’s most effective when he gets in the middle of a team fight and uses his CC to disrupt the enemy team. If you can get your enemies to waste their big damage cooldowns on you then your team will have an easier time picking them off. In lane, try to pair up with a damage dealer and bully the enemy heroes so they have a hard time getting minion XP. Your Storm Bolt stun will be one of your best tools, letting your damage dealer take free shots at the enemy.
That does it for this week’s Free Hero Rundown. I’ll be playing Muradin in game as AGRitterific if you’re looking for a game. I’m also Twitter @AGRitterific where I’d love to hear about some sweet Haymaker plays or any other comments you might have.
