Introduction Top
This guide is for Patch 13
Videos are also coming soon!
With the latest patch there was some major changes to
Kerrigan dramatically changing her play style.
The two major changes I'd like to focus on are removing the talent that increases the range on
Primal Grasp, enabling you to pick a new 1st tier talent, and the nerf on
Sprint.
Now that the range for
Primal Grasp is an innate ability this allows us to go for different builds which will completely change the Playstyle of Kerrigan.
The other thing to consider is that
Sprint was removed and replaced with a new ability called
Queen's Rush. I consider this to be a huge nerf to Kerrigan because you can no longer to do the
Maelstrom bombs and expect to always be able to get away. The 25% movement speed isn't even fast enough to chase down someone on a horse however it can still play a role in securing kills.
How reliable is this build for Solo Que?
12 Game winning streak
Directly from HOTS Log
The Basics: Kerrigan Combo Top
For those of you who are new to
Kerrigan, she is one of the most challenging characters to play effectively in the game. Most people that play an assassin have one thing in mind, and that is to get kills. We will be doing plenty of that however its far more important to maximize your impact to the game.
The Kerrigan Combo:
Start with
Impaling Blades, casted directly infront of you, and then using
Sweeping Grasp to pull enemy heroes into your blades. This will be your primary source of damage on this build and will be your bread and butter.
You can also lead with a
Ravage on this combo to get you close however with this build you want to save your ravage to secure a kill or to capitalize on a heal from siphoning impact.
Its very important to consider the placement of your your
Impaling Blades. If the target is going running from you, then you want to put some distance of your impaling blades for when sweeping grasp pulls, they are sucked into your blades. Likewise if they are close to you, sweeping grasp will actually pull them directly on top of you and you will want to compensate by putting your blades on top of your self.
A great way to practice this combo is on minions. When done right, you'll clear the entire wave relatively easily. Practice your vertical and horizontal axis at first and when you feel more comfortable start practicing diagonal axis as they can be challenging.
Early Game Top
This build is not your traditional
Kerrigan build where you will be netting a lot of kills early game. In fact your DPS with this build will be a little on the low side until you reach level 10. Now if you catch a
Jaina or
Valla with half health you'll still be able to secure a kill but we are building for late game survival and split pushing.
The concept is very simple. A dead player can not do damage. This build will be the exception.
Early game you are going to want to stay in lane. You need EXP and you need to fast. I tend to chose middle as often as possible and monitor what the other two lanes are doing periodically and if they need help I can rotate to secure a kill or counter push.
A typical fight will happen in this sequence:
You see an Enemy hero, you engage with Kerrigan combo. If they are squishy, they will almost always panic and try to escape, not knowing that you just used all your burst. At this point you want to completely disengage and wait for your cool downs to reset while not using any mana. When cool downs are reset, allow them to come out of hiding and use your Kerrigan combo again. I like to save ravage for this moment because if you keep beating them down they'll eventually get low enough for a ravage to kill them and they wont know what hit them.
Sustain Top
The reason this build is so effective is because of the first 3 talents you chose and the synergy they create.
LEVEL 1
Siphoning Impact: Allows you to heal for 10% of your maximum health. It doesnt sound like much however there is a synergy here that is often overlooked. Ravage: Leap to a target, dealing 82 (+22 per level) damage. If this kills the target, its cooldown is instantly reset. If you take Siphoning impact, and use ravage on an enemy, say a minion, and it dies, you will heal for 10% and its cool down will be reset. This will allow you to effectively HEAL to full health in a matter of seconds with your level 1 talent and this is a huge advantage by using it on a lightly damage minion wave (Think Rehgars ultimate,
Ancestral Healing effectively does the same thing).
LEVEL 4
Clean Kill: The major draw back to this is that it will consume all your mana instantly, unless you take the talent Clean Kill which will refund your mana. Note that this talent is also the same tier as Fury of the Swarm, Psionic Pulse, and Envenom. On Infernal Shrines I typically opt for either Fury of the Swarm or Psionic Pulse so I can clear the shrine much more quickly and get the punisher. The same can be applied to Garden of Terror and Haunted mines however ravage will eventually be strong enough to instantly kill the objective mobs on those maps fairly quick.
LEVEL 7
Assimilation Mastery:Kerrigans damage output is limited by her mana. Talents like battle momentum and Impaling swarm are both solid talents however I find that battle momentum is only as good as my mana pool and impaling swarm is only marginally useful against merc camps and maybe some degree of split pushing. Assimilation mastery will allow you to generate mana and health at a much faster rate when shielded. This is very useful at the low level game because when other heros are going back to their fountains to heal, you're still gaining experience because you aint got no time for no fountain.
Ultimate Top
Maelstrom
This ability does an insane amount of AOE damage if you can get close and stick to your targets. This damage also adds to your shields. However with the nerf of sprint I find that it gets me killed more than anything else because you have to be so close. However if you catch someone offguard and alone this will almost always secure you a kill. I'll rarely take this skill on a solo queue match because to maximize its effectiveness its best paired with another hero that can protect you. Uther's Divine shield being the best however a Tassadar or brightwing shield can be effective.
Summon Ultralisk
For survivability, you can't beat the ultralisk. We have been building for sustain up to this point and we might be getting frustrated because we can't kill anyone. This is going to change that. I like to cast it on healers and watch them scramble to escape it and if an opportunity comes up, I'll jump in for the kill. Same goes for a heavy hitting DPS. The ultralisk hits hard enough that it will force dps to flee (Thus not doing dps anymore) and allow your team to clean up the front line.
The other important thing is that you can control it now (in beta you could not) and switch the target its focusing by using the "R" key again. The best part is you can do this even if they kill you. You can wreck people's day with this thing by switching to weaker targets even if you're dead, making you one of a very small handful of players that can still participate while dead. This ability is much stronger with toresque
Also you can use the ultralisk to split push, much like
Abathur. Cast the ultra on a lane and then move to join a team fight or push another line. Once you're level 20 and can obtain
Torrasque the ultralisk is even better than monstrosity because you can't see if on the mini map so often times it goes overlooked.
Late Game Top
LEVEL 13
At this tier, you can't go wrong.
Lingering Essence: Will add to your Assimilation Shield duration, making them last 20 seconds. This timer is refreshed every time you attack something. This will make you really tanky and hard to kill if you build your shields up prior to a fight.
Eviscerate: This will increase your ravage by 40%. This is huge. This will allow you to dive on enemies that are trying to flee securing kills and it will most likely get you out of a death or two by casting it on a minion or an ally if you took adaptation.
Double Strike: I usually take this if i'm facing a team that's a little harder to kill. You are almost always given an auto attack after you use Ravage and 75% damage is pretty significant. I find that if you save ravage for your killing blow it'll allow this talent to proc a little more often.
Queens Rush: This ability is the replacement for sprint. It only allows a movement speed of 25% so it will not get you out of a dire situation like sprint would however if you cast it prior to being in trouble and make your escape typically you'll get away. This ability also helps in securing kills much like Eviscerate does. It also procs every time you kill someone so it could add leverage to a team fight
LEVEL 16
Aggressive Defense: This talent adds a lot of shields really fast and if you took Assimilation Mastery, its a must. This ability will make you much harder to kill and if you find that you're on the wrong end of a beat down stick, this talent might change the pace.
Essence for Essence: This ability is the nerfed blood for blood. It no longer snares which was the best reason to take blood for blood but it does still do 10% damage to an enemy instantly and will give you 20% shields. I'll even cast this on healers or big dps players to melt them even faster.
Overdrive and
Blade Torrent are worth playing with but I dont find them to be effective in higher level play.
LEVEL 20
Torresque:
Most people will shun upon the kerrigan that picks torrasque however it has some insane potential. Every time your ultralisk dies, it'll respawn again after 8 seconds if no one kills the egg. With a little bit of micro you can move your ultralisk into a somewhat safe spot and guard it till it pops again. This effect also persists after you die and you can push lanes with this ultimate while you wait for your death timer. You would also be surprised how often the egg gets ignored in team fights.
One bug I have noticed however is that on haunted mines if you cast ultralisk in the mines, he'll be stuck in the mines and you wont be able to recast.
Also, if you find that you are dying a lot, bolt of the storm can help mitigate some of those deaths.
Nexus Blades:
Playing against a mobile team? Pick this. This talent makes its almost impossible to escape you. Especially a great option if you took adaptation or queens rush.
Bolt of the Storm:
This is never ever a bad talent to take and always safe. This can secure kills, or grant a quick escape. Remember, a living kerrigan does much more damage than a dead one even though a torrasque kerrigan can cause a lot of problems.
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