How To Team Fight
Front line control: using your abilities to protect your back line.
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Remember to use your auto attacks when you can! It's free damage and it heals you with
 Rune Tap! If you consistently land autoattacks, rune tap will heal you as much as
 Regeneration Master does.
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For 80% of the time, you should use your death coil in a team fight to self heal. This is because if you are protecting your back line, it means that the enemy can not attack them. If the enemy can not attack your back line, you will be the only thing that they can attack, and they will attack you. Therefore, you will be taking a lot of damage, and you should be spamming this ability on yourself.
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There are two uses of howling blast. The first is to stop any heroes that manage to get past your
 Frozen Tempest from killing your squishy back line. Once you land your howling blast, your team will be able to get away. In a team fight, you will never be able to stop all 5 enemies from hitting your back line. Therefore, to maximize protection for your back line, you should land your howling blast on targets that are not already slowed by your
Frozen Tempest. The second use of howling blast is to help a friendly assassin lock down a target. For example, once you initiate a team fight, a
 Thrall on your team might try to walk around the enemy tank and get a good angle to kill the enemy
 Kael'thas. In this case, the kaelthas will try to run to his tank for protection, or run in a random direction. You can stop him by landing your howling blast, which will then allow your thrall to secure the kill.
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Your Frozen Tempest should be active at all times during a team fight. The result is that you become like a wall that people literally can't pass without a gap closer like
 Ancient Spear on
 Sonya. The reason is that the moment they try to walk pass you, they will be slowed and damaged, which will make it effortless for you to body block them. The longer they keep trying, the more slowed they become and the more damage they will take. Any squishy hero without mobility will not dare to walk near you. See the section on positioning below for further instruction on how to use your frozen tempest to its full advantage.
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You should activate your army of the dead shortly after you initiate a fight, and you're at around 80% health. You don't want to activate it before you initiate because that will give more time for your enemy to kill your ghouls, which will mean less healing for you. You should not be stingy when it comes to sacrificing your ghouls to regenerate health. The ghouls by themselves are not that helpful and can be blown up easily by certain heroes (
Kael'thas for example). You should use your ghouls to regenerate your health whenever your
Death Coil doesn't fully heal you. Usually, you will not be able to sacrifice all of your ghouls to regenerate health because your enemies will kill them before you get the chance. Therefore, it's more important that you don't be stingy about sacrificing them.
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Damage dealing: securing kills for your team
Before discussing when you should use your burst kit, you need to understand how much damage Arthas does. Using the build in this guide, at level 20 your
Death Coil will deal 359 damage, your
Frostmourne Hungers will deal 433 damage, your
Howling Blast will deal 149 damage, and your
Frozen Tempest will deal 157 damage per second (with biting cold at level 13). That is a total of 1098 damage.
Compare this to Jaina's burst kit at level 20, which deals a total of 2218 damage assuming she lands all three of her spells in a combo (without
Northern Exposure). This means you can deal almost half the amount of burst damage that Jaina can. Most squishy heroes have around 3000 to 3300 health at level 20, which means you can take out a third of the health of any squishy hero in a burst.
From the above calculation, you should realize that you can deal some serious damage, but not enough to take out an enemy squishy target by yourself. Therefore, it's not very helpful for you to apply your burst kit if you don't have help from a team mate. For example, if an enemy
Nazeebo is in a safe position, it will be possible for you to walk up to him and apply your burst kit (because you're tanky). However, since he's in a safe position, his team will be able to prevent your squishy assassins from getting near him. Therefore, you will not get the kill, his healer will heal him back up and you will likely die.
Having said that, the rule of thumb for dealing damage as Arthas is to only use your burst kit on enemies that are
out of position. In other words, if an enemy target is within range of one or more of your assassins, you should use your burst kit on that target. Remember, just as you can prevent enemies from attacking your assassins, the enemy tank can do the same thing. So "within range" does not only mean within a certain distance, but also that there is no obstruction to your assassins.
It's also worth talking about under what circumstances targets become "within range." Any hero that is in range to deal damage is also within range to receive damage from the person they deal damage to. This means whenever an enemy attempts to attack anyone but the tank, they are technically "out of position." Having said that, you should apply your burst to anyone that attempts to attack anyone but your self. For targets that attack you, you should just absorb up the damage and heal yourself with death coil and army of the dead. This idea of absorbing up damage might sound weird at first, but if everyone is focusing on attacking you, that will allow your assassins to get into aggressive positioning to deal their damage. For example, if a
Raynor is applying his damage to you, your
Jaina will be able to damage Raynor without him retaliating against her.
Dealing damage and maintaining front line control at the same time
Above, I've discussed two extremes cases of what you should be doing in a team fight. They are:
- Using all abilities to maintain front line control
- Using all abilities for damage
More realistically however, you're going to have to operate midway between those two extremes. For example, an enemy
Valla might break off from her team, bypass your
Frozen Tempest by going far to the east, and then aggressively engaging
Jaina on your team. In this case, valla is quite out of position, and in theory you could go and burst her down. However, doing so will mean completely abandoning control of the front line because you have to follow valla to apply your
Frostmourne Hungers. Doing so will allow the remaining 4 enemy to completely devastate your back line from the west. Moreover, a smart valla would immediately run if she sees that you go and try to burst her down. So you might not even get the kill, but by taking time to walk over, you've already abandoned control of the front line.
In the above scenario, you might compromise the two extremes by dropping a howling blast on the valla, and then using your
Frostmourne Hungers on a random squishy target that's already in range just so you don't waste free damage. This example shows that you won't always be able to get your damage out as a full burst, but will have to split it up.
In rank 1 hero league play, team fights will get even more involved, but it all boils down to deciding between when to maintain front line control and when to deal damage. You can improve your judgement with practice and paying close attention to what all 5 enemy is trying to do. However, generally speaking, front line control is always more important than dealing damage because your damage is high for a tank, but low compared to all assassins.
Positioning: more about front line control
Heroes can be classified into dive heroes, and non-dive heroes. Dive heroes are those that have ways to jump in and survive an aggressive dive. All dive heroes have gap closing abilities. Some have abilities that allow them to shield themselves (like kerrigan, Artanis and Chen), abilities that grant self heals (like thrall), as well as various other things. See below for a list of dive heroes. Dive heroes will have an easy time bypassing you, and attacking your back line, and non-dive heroes can be stopped.
Your goal in a team fight is to separate the dive heroes from the non-dive heroes, and you do so by physically positioning yourself between them. When you do this, the dive heroes will have a hard time landing a kill because it will basically be a situation of four of your team attacking one (or two) dive hero.
So let's say the enemy composition consists of
Kerrigan
Jaina
Diablo and
Raynor. Diablo and Kerrigan are both dive heroes. When they engage, the Jaina and Raynor will try to follow up. You can prevent them by standing in their way with
Frozen Tempest on and body blocking them. You can add an additional
Frostmourne Hungers to discourage them further from trying to move past you. With one or two seconds of body blocking, they would be too late to follow up and your team has probably already recuperated from the initial dive. In this case, I would throw a howling blast onto kerrigan and diablo just to make sure my team can survive the dive.
On maps with narrow passages such as
Cursed Hollow, this process of separating dive and non-dive heroes can be done easily. However, on large open battle fields, non-dive heroes can walk around you. If this is the case, you might have to reserve your howling blast for them instead of throwing it on the dive heroes.
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Aggressive Dive Heroes
These heroes will have a easy time getting past you. There isn't much you can do against them besides dropping your howling blast on them. If your assassins play well, they will be able to either drive off or kill the dive heroes as long as you keep the non-dive heroes away. |
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Non-Aggressive Dive Heroes
These heroes will also have a easy time getting past you, but they're not that dangerous to your back line. Don't bother using your howling blast on them. |
Shield Usages
First and foremost, you should never use both shield at the same time because you will not use up the entire shield from
Stoneskin with
Hardened Shield on, unless you're doing a 1v5.
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You should try to use your
Stoneskin early on in the fight so that if the fight lasts for a long time, you can have the chance to use it again. However, you don't want to use it too quickly such that you'll waste the healing of your death coil and army of the dead. Therefore, the key is to use it when your death coil is on cooldown, and army of the dead isn't enough to heal you to full health. Typically, as soon as you initiate a team fight, your health will be lowered pretty fast. It's not surprising to end up at 50% health after a few seconds of initiating. When this is the case, you want to use your stoneskin. With stoneskin active, you should still be sacrificing your ghouls to heal yourself. Once your stoneskin is gone, you should have around 75% health again.
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The perfect timing to use hardened shield is situational. This shield reduces your damage taken by 75% percent for four seconds, which means that the more damage you take while the shield is active, the more utility you gain from it. Therefore, you must predict in what situations your enemies will maximize their damage on you. There's three instances I can think of where enemies will do this.
- The first case is if you are entering into a very aggressive engage. Here, aggressive engage means you are charging into a group of 5, and diving directly into the back line hoping to wipe them out immediately with the help of your team mates. You should only be doing such aggressive engages if you are in a preponderant situation (see the section below).
- Another instance is if one of your enemy applies some sort of CC on you to allow their team to kill you. One obvious example is if
Diablo uses his
 Overpower on you followed with a
 Shadow Charge to push you into his team. Then, all 5 enemy will start pouring damage onto you. This is when you apply your hardened shield to survive. While the enemy tries to kill you, your team will have the chance to counter strike.
- The last case is if you haven't found a perfect chance to use your hardened shield all fight, and your health is dropping to 30%. Then, most enemies will think they can burst you down. So when you're low health, it's almost guaranteed that your hardened shield will be of great help. If you use your hardened shield in this situation, you should not be running away while hardened shield is active. You should damage your enemy with your
Frozen Tempest and auto attack (remember, with
Rune Tap, autoattacks heal you). This will lure them into targeting you, which will allow your team to counter strike.
These are only three good scenarios to use the shield. With more experience, you will be able to come up with more dynamic uses of the shield.
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Strategic chase and retreat: suicide versus absorbing damage
Previously, I've made made the point that you need be taking damage for your team. But this doesn't mean you should just stand there and let people kill you. In this section, I want to explain how to take
just enough damage to maintain front line control, but not so much that you die. The sections above explains how you should play when you are alive, this section explains how to stay alive.
The first thing you need to understand is that an enemy squishy hero that takes damage from your
Frozen Tempest, auto attack and
Frostmourne Hungers will not be able to stand their ground for very long (or else they will be so weakened that one of your assassins can burst them apart). This means that the enemy will have to run from you when you approach them with your
Frozen Tempest. If they are running, they are no longer dealing damage. So viewed from this perspective, dealing damage is actually a survival mechanism.
So returning to the previous point I made about separating dive heroes from non-dive heroes, you should not just stand in the non-dive heroes' way (in which case they'll be free to attack you), but actively chase them with your
Frozen Tempest. However, you only want to chase a little bit. I must stress "little bit" because if you run too far, the dive heroes can turn around and focus their fire on you instead and catch you insanely out of position. Then, when you've pushed the non-dive heroes far enough, you should start walking towards your team again. This will force the non-dive heroes to chase you, which also reduces the damage they deal to you. When you chase, you should always remember that you're not
Sonya, and that you won't get a kill by yourself. All you have to do is keep them away from your assassins.
Many times, you will have anywhere from 2 to 4 non-dive heroes that you have to pressure. The non-dive heroes will spread out when you try to chase them, and you're going to have to make a choice as to who to chase. Depending on the situation, you'll only be able to use the "chase and retreat" tactic on one or two heroes at max. Given this point, you should always be chasing an assassin to limit the damage they deal, and never chase a support hero.
This "chase and retreat" tactic is the key to playing Arthas because even with all your healing, you will still die too fast without limiting the damage output of at least one assassin. Using "chase and retreat" requires you to be confident. If you're not confident, you might be too afraid to chase, and you will let people freely damage you, kill you, and that will decrease your confidence even more, putting you into a downward loop of frustration.
Last words on surviving: know when to stop absorbing damage
Once you have no more ghouls from
Army of the Dead, and all of your shields are used up, and you're at 30% health, it's time to stop absorbing damage. If you've been using the chase and retreat tactic, and you're far from your team, you might have to stop absorbing damage even earlier and start walking back to safety.
When you stop absorbing damage, you want to try your best to auto attack something to get the healing from
Rune Tap. If you are at 30% health, you can still afford to throw auto attacks at the tank. When you do this, you're still technically in a bit of danger, but being attentive will allow you to run away before an enemy can kill you.
If you are at like 10% health, you still should not hearthstone to your base. Just sit in the back line of your team. From there, you can use your
Howling Blast to help your team.
After Winning A Team Fight
This section only applies if you take
Frozen Wastes at level 4.
Once you win a team fight, it's important to fully utilize it. If your teammates are all healthy after winning a team fight, you simply push. However, if they must heartstone to heal, then you should play as a specialist while they heal. As long as you have above 30% health and 25% mana after a team fight, you should not hearthstone back. The reason is that you can regenerate your health at an insane speed with
Regeneration Master,
Rune Tap, and
Death Coil combined. Having
Frozen Wastes will usually leave you with 30% to 50% mana after a typical team fight, so grabbing a drink at a healing fountain will give you enough mana for the next team fight.
Depending on the situation, you can either clear lanes to give your team more map control, or take camps (or at least get a head start on them). Doing either will give you more globes for your
Regeneration Master. If you decide to clear lanes, you don't need to fully kill every minion. I like to just get the regen globe, and then weaken the other minions to 40%, and then move on to the next lane to get more regen globes. Whenever you get near a healing fountain, grab a drink.
Using your abilities to play as a specialist
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Alternate from lane to lane to clear minions. Rotate your auto attacks on different minions to synergize with your
Frozen Tempest. Auto attacking will heal you.
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Use this to heal yourself.
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Turn this on when you reach a mob of minion. Turn it off once you leave.
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Use this on the minion that contains the globe. This should 1 hit KO the minion. You will also regenerate your mana.
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Taking camps
You can solo any camp by yourself if you have the health. It is recommended to solo siege camps (you will take no damage with the combined healing of regen master and rune tap). Soloing bruiser camps will take longer than it's worth, and leave you inconveniently weakened. I recommend just starting a bruiser, and then pinging the camp to have your team mates come help.
When taking camps, always alternate your auto attack on targets to synergize with your
Frozen Tempest
Laning Tips
General laning procedure
Generally in a 1v1 or 2v2 lane, you want to charge in with your
Frozen Tempest, deal a bit of damage to the minions, then get out before you take too much damage. You should use your
Frostmourne Hungers on the minion with the globe when you charge. If you're facing 2 alone, you wait until the enemy takes out your minions, and the enemy minions are approaching your towers. Then, you deal a bit of damage to the enemy minions as they walk to your tower. Take a drink from the fountain whenever your health is like 50%.
Laning against ranged assassins
Apply the "strategic chase and retreat" tactic discussed in the team fight section. Do not chase them so far such that you stop damaging their minions with
Frozen Tempest. You can also experiment using your full burst kit to scare the enemy off (only do this if they are not near their towers). Heal yourself with death coil if you don't use it for damage. Laning against mele assassins is pretty much the same idea, except easier.
Laning against tanks
You will beat most tanks in lane because your early game damage is quite high. Use your
Frozen Tempest, auto attack, and
Frostmourne Hungers to trade damage with tanks, and they should back off once they realize you deal more damage than them. The only tanks that you won't beat (or just aren't worth trading damage with) are those that can shield or heal themselves (
Johanna,
E.T.C.,
Tyrael). For these cases, you should just use the general laning procedure. Also pay attention to
Sonya, because she can easily out damage you. Use the general laning procedure against her.
Clearing zagara's creeps
Walk to the center of her creeps with
Frozen Tempest on to do this. If you are laning against her, you should at least be able to stop her creeps from spreading beyond half way between your towers and the enemy towers. You should also clear the creeps she puts in between lanes to make it easier for your teammate to come gank her. If you are not laning against her, you should go to her lane often to help clear her creeps because your
Frozen Tempest is so good for doing so.
General tanking tips
Seeking preponderance situations
A preponderance situation is either a situation of 5v4 or 5v3, or a situation where you know where the enemy is and the enemy doesn't know you're coming for them. While you will need to competently do 5v5s, even the best players will not win every even 5v5 they walk into. Therefore, anyone that wants to win should be actively looking for preponderance situations.
As a tank, you are in prime position to lead your team to a preponderance situation. Ideally tanks should be "the leader of the team" because they choose engages and are on the front line. Seeking preponderance situations of the first type (5v4 or 5v3) takes map awareness. If you're watching your minimap constantly, you'll know if an enemy is away and how long it should take them to arrive at the fight. Sometimes, enemies might trickle in one after the other when they revive (which is a sure way to lose a game). Whenever you see a chance for a 5v4 or 5v3, you should charge immediately at the enemy back line and apply your full burst kit. This is going to inspire your team to follow up (even if they didn't pay attention to the fact that it's a 5v4).
Seeking preponderance situations of the second type takes map awareness and smart thinking, which is almost like playing a chess game. Chances for this type of preponderance situation arise when your team have already finished clearing lanes of hostile mercenaries, but the enemy is still clearing up your mercenaries. Clearing out lanes allow your team to hide because the enemy no longer have vision of the lanes. If you can see where the enemies are (with vision from the mercenary they didn't clear yet) and the enemies can't see you, you can either hide in a bush to wait for them, or you can directly engage them and surprise them. With the element of surprise, even a 5v5 will most likely turn in your favor.
Taking advantage of preponderance situations requires self confidence about your game play and general judgments, and cooperation from your team mates.
Leading your team to push to victory
Sometimes, people forget that the way to win a game is to push. Therefore, they might have a perfect chance to win, but they get too scared too take damage from towers and forts. Many time, without a confident tank to lead a push, the squishy assassins will not push.
As a tank, your job is to lead your team to push your way to victory. Usually, if you have 2 enemies killed beyond level 16, you can definitely take at least 1 fort. Some enemies might attempt to over-aggresively defend the fort, and you might even get more kills because of that. When pushing, you should pay attention to how much health you and your team have as well as how much healing your healer can output. In most cases, if you have two 2 enemies killed, even if your whole team is at 50% health, you can take down a fort. Beyond level 20, you can even take down a keep with 2 enemy down. You should try your best not to hearth after winning a team fight (even if you or your team is oom because mana recharges) and push. You should rely on your healer to heal you up while you push.
Your job as a tank is to soak up the damage from towers and forts for your team.
Heroes of the Storm Build Guides
Icebound Fortitude is on the same tier, it's futile to try to run Arthas as a full tank like Muradin or Johanna. Even if you pick all the survivability talents at each tier, you won't be very tanky anymore. Arthas is now more of a bruiser, and the goal is to take out the enemy faster than they can take him out. Therefore,
Tychus,
Giant Killer melts you.
Abathur,
Tyrande, and
Arthas, then sindragosa is going to be a great choice. This is because during the two seconds that the slow is applied, your team will be able to shut down any squishy enemy heroes. Another scenario is if you want to use Sindragosa defensively to slow down enemy dive heroes. For this use, I suggest you go with a double tank composition. Usually, defensive use of Sindragosa is only effective if another tank initiates the team fight. Once the team fight is initiated, an enemy
Relentless is actually a better choice if the enemies have a lot of stuns AND a lot of spell damage. Don't take it if the enemy only has one spell damage hero, because you will be able to negate that damage with your heals.
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