Kel'Thuzad by Nitrosol

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Kel'Thuzad

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Level 1 Talents

Quickening Blight (D - Trait)
Allied units standing on blight get 15% additional movement speed.

Regenerative Blight (D - Trait)
Allied units standing on blight regenerate 2% of their maximum HP and 1% of their maximum mana every second.

Bloodtheft Blight (D - Trait)
Allied units standing on blight heal themselves for 15% of basic attack damage they deal.

Level 4 Talents

Ziggurats (D - Trait)
Allied towers near Crypts and Necropolis are transformed into Ziggurats, increasing their damage dealt by 50% and granting them a regenerating shield equal to half the shield bonus on your Necropolis. Additionally, they further spread blight within their firing radius. Constructing a Crypt now also builds a Ziggurat where its accompanying tower would stand.

Gathering Chill (Q - Frost Nova)
Takedowns grants stacks of Gathering Chill, increasing the damage of Frost Nova by 2% and the slow on all Chill effects by 1% per stack. All stacks are lost on death, maximum of 15 stacks.

Blight Armor (W - Frost Armor)
Frost Armor's cooldown is reduced by 1 second every time an enemy hero is chilled by its effect. Additionally, Frost Armor can be cast on any allied hero standing on blight, regardless of range and your chill effects now also reduce enemy attack speed by 15%.

Endless Dominion (D - Trait)
When your Ravenous Ghouls destroy an enemy minion or mercenary, blight is generated within their vision radius. This blight is destroyed when an enemy minion walks over it.

Level 7 Talents

Ocular's Gaze (Active Ability)
Activate to reveal target area for 10 seconds and enemies within the area for 4 seconds. Blights the area for the duration but otherwise identical to Clairvoyance. Passively increases the vision radius of your scourge structures by 50%.

Ice Lance (Q - Frost Nova)
Frost Nova's projectile now passes through non-heroic units, stopping on the first hero hit and triggering the detonation effect as it passes over each enemy unit. A unit can only be damaged once per cast, however.

Icy Veins (Q - Frost Nova)
If Frost Nova affects an already chilled Hero, the cooldown of Frost Nova is reduced by 1 second for each Chilled hero affected.

Soul Well (D - Trait)
Healing Fountains near Crypts and Necropolis are transformed into Soul Wells. In addition to the regeneration effect, they grant a shield equal to 25% of the Hero's maximum health when activated for 12

Level 13 Talents

Marked for Death (Q - Frost Nova)
Enemy heroes damaged by Frost Nova are marked for 5 seconds. Structures prioritize attacking marked heroes over any other unit in range. Additionally, whenever you cast Frost Nova, all Scourge Structures also launch a Frost Nova towards the target point. Enemies can only be damaged once per cast.

Marrow Guard (Z - Necrotic Transport)
Teleporting to an allied structure grants it a 1000 (+4%/lvl) shield for 10 seconds. Also reduces the cooldown of Necrotic Transport by 15 seconds.

Dark Harvest (E - Death Ritual)
Sacrificing a minion heals you for the amount of mana restored and nearby allied heroes for half that amount.

Permafrost (W - Frost Armor)
Casting Frost Armor on Scourge Structures does not trigger the spell's cooldown.

Level 16 Talents

Scourge Conversion (D - Trait)
Crypts can now be constructed on the foundations of destroyed enemy Forts and Keeps. Your crypts have 100% more maximum ammunition and gain a shield identical to that of your Necropolis.

Chillblains (W - Frost Armor)
Frost Armor now causes its target's basic attacks to chill enemies and extend the duration of Frost Armor by 0.5 seconds. Casting Frost Armor on an ally unit or structure now also casts it on Kel'Thuzad.

Vitality Engine (E - Death Ritual)
Death Ritual now targets an area of effect, sacrificing every Ghoul in the area. You also gain 3% ability power per sacrificed Ghoul for 20 seconds.

Level 20 Talents

Life and Death (R1 - Death and Decay)
Allied heroes on blight are healed for 4% of their maximum life per second during Death and Decay.

Last Gasp (R2 - Reanimate Ally)
Reanimate Ally can now be cast while you are dead, instantly resurrecting you and your allies at the location that you died. When Reanimate Ally ends, you do not perish.

Summoning Stone (Passive Ability)
A summoning stone is spawned at your Altar. Allies can activate the stone to teleport to your Crypt or Necropolis after a 3 second channel.

Scourge Supremacy (Passive Ability)
You may now control up to 2 Crypts or Necropolis and Scourge Construction can now hold up to 2 charges.

Stats

Health: 1250 (+4%/lvl)
Health Regen: 2.5 (+4%/lvl)
Mana: 500
Mana Regen: 3
Attack Damage: 60 (+4%/lvl)
Attack Speed: 1.0

Strategy and Playstyle

As a specialist, Kel'Thuzad functions by defending a lane and passively pushing it by converting it into a Scourge stronghold while offering powerful team fight utility and encouraging engagements so his lane can do its dirty work while the enemy team is otherwise engaged.

Kel'Thuzad brings the entire might of the scourge to the battlefield, at level 1 he is capable of converting an allied building into a powerful scourge Necropolis that is heavily fortified and blights the nearby ground. Its important to remember that when an allied minion touches blight it is permanently transformed into a ravenous ghoul (Perhaps ranged creeps/wizards could become Nerubians) which deal increased damage and passively push the lane.

Additionally to this benefit of blight, at level 1 Kel'Thuzad can choose between granting allies standing atop his blight increased movement speed, vampiric attacks, or passive regeneration to encourage his allies to fight alongside his strongholds.

Kel'Thuzad relies heavily on his mana pool, he has a powerful toolbox of abilities to both cripple enemies and empower his allies. In addition to the passive benefit his blight will apply to allies, he also offers an extremely easy to apply and long duration debuff called Chilled (similar to jaina but a separate debuff entirely) that slows enemies. The slow isn't very extreme but is easy to apply and long lasting, so will just be enough to allow your allies a leg up in combat. The issue is that Kel'Thuzad's mana costs are exorbitantly high and discretion must be used on how to use it.

His Frost Nova is a very short cooldown, high damage AoE damaging ability with decent range, it has a narrow hitbox however but considering many allies will be Chilled it won't be too difficult to land. Frost Nova is heavily balanced, however, by it's extremely high mana cost, so while it can be spammed, it is not something he can easily maintain. Additionally, due to the way it detonates, it may be difficult to clear creep waves with it, lack of direct wave clear is a weakness of Kel'Thuzad that he can potentially remedy with Ice Lance (Level 7 Talent).

Additionally, his mana must also be spent on constructing crypts and necropolis, defending allies with Frost Armor and for Channeling his Death and Decay ultimate. Fortunately, he has access to Death Ritual, a global range ability that he can use to sacrifice his Ravenous Ghouls to restore mana to himself. This is of course a trade off that he can pursue in during combat, weaken your auto-pushing lane in favor of a couple more spells in a teamfight? Or just retreat and teleport back in with your unique mount ability? This choice is much more pronounced if the Vitality Engine (Level 13 talent) is chosen, as he can potentially sacrifice an entire creep wave to extremely enhance his combat capabilities and restore a large amount of mana.

Also, Kel'Thuzad may choose to restore less mana to himself by destroying a friendly Wizard to deny his opponents a regeneration globe.

His heroics, in turn, offer a choice between Death and Decay which encourages defense of his structures or Reanimate Ally, an extremely powerful teamfighting tool that may just allow your allies to turn a full teamwipe into an "Everyone's dead but Kel'Thuzad" situation or allow an ally that was picked off to engage in an ensuing fight.

Talent choices are typically available in several flavours:

1. Enhancing his strongholds with new capabilities.
2. Enhancing his offensive teamfighting.
3. Enhancing his lane pushing.
4. Enhancing his ability to defend allies.

His strongholds can be transformed from potentially just a lone blight-generating crypt or necropolis into incredible scourge fortifications containing Ziggurats (Level 4) and Soul Wells (Level 7). In addition to this, the Marked for Death (Level 13) talents means that a Crypt or Necropolis, especially with Ziggurats nearby, can focus down any aggressing heroes and defend themselves from creeps with Kel'Thuzad's help. The Level 7 Talent choice is important with this build, however. Soul Wells improve your fortifications and provide an extra Marked for Death Frost Nova, but Icy Veins can have borderline no cooldown if rapid fired by your Scourge Structures, however Ice Lance makes them more efficient at defending themselves from minions and for marking enemies hiding behind a creep wave.

For less aggressive structure based builds, level 13 talents are again very important. Permafrost (Level 13) can effectively cause Scourge Structures to have a semi-permanent Resistant buff and potentially even slow attack speed if Blight Armor (Level 4) was chosen. Or, for a more direct approach, Marrow Guard allows Kel'Thuzad to directly intervene in any aggressive approach to his buildings.

At level 16, Scourge Conversion allows Kel'Thuzad to begin aggressively constructing which is very effective with Ziggurats and Soul Wells as forward bases for his allies or, Chillblains, when combined with Permafrost (Level 13) can offer a very long duration of Frost Armor on a structure and up to 100% uptime on Kel'Thuzad's own Frost Armor if he continues to target his structures.

At level 20, a Structure build can be rounded out with either Summoning Stone or Scourge Supremacy to either grant him 2 strongholds or easy reinforcements from this allies.

An offensive build could be called a "Frost Nova Machine Gun" build, as it heavily relies on the talent Icy Veins (Level 7). This talent causes subsequent Frost Novas on already chilled targets to have extremely low cooldowns. If Kel'Thuzad strikes 4 already chilled enemy heroes with a single nova, the cooldown will actually instantly reset. This build can be heavily enhanced by taking Gathering Chill (Level 4), but this may be unwise due to Kel'Thuzad's lack of escape and extreme squishiness. This build will rely heavily on accuracy though, as a single nova striking a creep wave instead of a hero may just end your streak early. Mana is also a worry with this build, so talenting into Vitality Engine (Level 13) may be wise for both the mana top-up and increased ability power it grants.

A defensive build will focus on Frost Armor. Blight Armor allows Kel'Thuzad to enhance the, frankly, garbage range on Frost Armor so that he can potentially support allies globally if they happen to be near his structures. If paired with Ocular's Gaze, Kel'Thuzad could potentially blight any terrain on the map instantly underneath his allies to provide both his Level 1 Blight upgrade and instantly cast Frost Armor on his ally. Alternatively at this tier, Soul Well might be the way to go for additional defensive benefit when allies are near your structures.

This defensive build will likely talent into Dark Harvest (Level 13), which grants Kel'Thuzad a rather hefty AoE heal on a long cooldown (At the cost of his pushing power of course.). Be wary though, as being this close to your allies when you're as fragile as Kel'Thuzad may be risky. This choice can be further enhanced at Level 16 with Vitality Engine to make this heal extremely potent if a whole wave is sacrificed, but Chillblains is also a good option for helping defend Kel'Thuzad himself and for empowering auto-attack based allies.

A pushing build would largely rely on the level 4 talent, Endless Dominion, which causes your blight to extend down a lane as your creeps push. Not only does this blight grant your allies and ghouls a benefit of your choice (Vampiric being probably the strongest choice for supporting your minions) but can synergise powerfully with Death and Decay as your Heroic. Endless Dominion is a powerful tool as it can potentially transform temporary sources of blight into permanent ones. If you cast Ocular's Gaze on an allied creep wave, they will instantly transform into Ravenous Ghouls due to the temporary blight, if these ghouls then destroy an enemy minion, a more permanent source of blight will spawn and potentially transform more minions into Ghouls. Between Ocular's Gaze and Death and Decay, you can blight all 3 lanes at once (Including whichever lane your structures are in). Beyond these synergies, a pushing based build can either default into any of the other 3 builds as they choose.

Kel'Thuzad has several glaring weaknesses that a player will have to keep in mind when both playing as and playing against him. The most obvious is his mana pool, which good players will know is not only based on what is visibly within his mana bar, but also the current state of the lane his minions are pushing. If Kel'Thuzad is out of mana and the Blighted Lane is empty, Kel'Thuzad is a sitting duck, unable to perform his ritual. Though a skilled Kel'Thuzad may use Ocular's Gaze (Level 7) to instantly blight and sacrifice a minion.

Additionally, Kel'Thuzad's lack of mount is both a blessing and a curse. Kel'Thuzad's effective range is limited extremely by the structures present on the map. If Kel'Thuzad is far away, engagements in the jungle are heavily in the enemy's favour. Kel'Thuzad can help with this using Marrowguard (level 13) and Scourge Conversion (Level 16) and Scourge Supremacy (Level 20) to supplement this late game weakness. Additionally, Summoning Stone (Level 20) grants his allies a similar range of transport and allows him to conserve his Necrotic Transport cooldown by using the stone to teleport instead.
Finally, he's just simply very squishy and has no direct escape. Quickening Blight (Level 1) can offer some decent mobility while fighting on blight, Ocular's Gaze (Level 7) can make this bonus potentially arrive on demand and a Blight Armor build will also help him survive, but it's hardly enough without his team. Kel'Thuzad is largely going to be relying on his structures and team to survive.

Minutea

Scourge Construction
[ul]
[li]"Building" a Crypt or Necropolis functions identically to the "construction" effect caused by destroying a Fort on the Towers of Doom map.[/li]
[li]A Crypt, Ziggurat

Kel'Thuzad by Nitrosol

Kel'Thuzad

Kel'Thuzad

Level 1 Talents

Level 4 Talents

Level 7 Talents

Level 13 Talents

Level 16 Talents

Level 20 Talents

Stats

Strategy and Playstyle

Minutea

Quick Comment

Heroes of the Storm

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Kel'Thuzad by Nitrosol

Kel'Thuzad

Kel'Thuzad

Level 1 Talents

Level 4 Talents

Level 7 Talents

Level 13 Talents

Level 16 Talents

Level 20 Talents

Stats

Strategy and Playstyle

Minutea

Quick Comment

Heroes of the Storm