Who is Thrall?
Thrall (birthname Go'el), son of Durotan, was the Warchief of the restored orcish Horde and ruler of the red land of Durotar in Kalimdor. Before the Cataclysm, he was Warchief of all the Horde, but temporarily gave leadership to Garrosh Hellscream in order to lead the Earthen Ring's effort with Farseer Nobundo against the Twilight's Hammer cult and elemental imbalance afflicting Azeroth.
In Heroes of the Storm,
Thrall is a melee assassin that utilizes high survivability and constant harass to beat his opponents.
Trait
D - Frostwolf Resilience
Frostwolf Resilience is the reason
Thrall has such survivability and sustain. This ability stacks 5 times and at the fifth stack heals you for an insane amount. When you play as
Thrall you need to keep track of your stacks at all times, but most importantly when you are about to initiate or join a fight. At this point, it's best to have 1-2 stacks, so if you get focused right away, you will have the option to heal by casting your
Chain Lightning and
Feral Spirit.
Basic Abilities
Q - Chain Lightning
Thrall depends on his
Chain Lightning for poke and constant harass in the lane or when he is low on HP in a teamfight. Try to use this ability as much as possible, because you get 3 stacks of
Frostwolf Resilience from it if you hit the maximum targets, but always be aware of your mana points.
W - Feral Spirit
This is one of the abilities you initiate a fight with. Try to root squishy targets first, like a carry or an assassin. If your team can follow up, it should be an easy kill.
E - Windfury
Windfury is your biggest heal and your biggest damage ability. It is also the only means of escape for
Thrall, so you need to use it cautiously. Try to use
Windfury when you know that you can get the maximum amount of melee hits on your target (for example after a stun).
Heroic Abilities
R - Sundering
This is your second form of initiation. If you see an opening on the enemy team, use this ability to take the positional advantage. If you hit a 5-man
Sundering, it's good, but if you can separate the carries from the rest of the enemy team and get a clean kill, it's better.
R - Earthquake
Earthquake is more of a support type ability. It utilizes positional advantage by movement, but it lacks
Sundering's damage. If your team needs to protect their carries and let the enemy team initiate on you, this is the go-to heroic ability.
Tips
To be successful with
Thrall, you need to find the balance between going in for a fight and getting out of it.
Thrall might be a very self-sustained hero, but you will get bursted down in teamfights. Positioning is key to winning. Try to stay beside your main tank hero and go in when you get the chance to kill someone important. Use your
Windfury wisely, both for killing someone and escaping. Keep track of your
Frostwolf Resilience at all times, so you will know when to expect a self-heal.
Level 1
YES:
Rabid Wolves
Rabid Wolves is usually better than any other talent here. It offers you more sustain and faster stacks every time you are using your
Feral Spirit.
SITUATIONAL:
Rolling Thunder
Rolling Thunder is mostly used for sustaining your mana pool. If you feel like you are going to be mana hungry in the matchup you are facing, you can use this talent to restore your mana. Still, it is not that reliable because it depends on you landing some auto attacks after using
Chain Lightning.
NO:
Block
Block does not offer not nearly as much survivability as
Rabid Wolves. You almost never pick this talent, except for the extreme circumstances you are facing a
Nova (if you are sure she will go for
Anti-Armor Shells that is).
NO:
Seasoned Marksman
The extra damage from Seasoned Marksman here is not worth losing sustain for and it doesn't offer that much to Thrall's playstyle, even in the late game.
Level 4
YES:
Envenom
Envenom is the safe choice here. It offers you that extra damage and burst you need to kill someone and it is usually a great counter to stealth heroes.
SITUATIONAL:
Mana Tide
You are usually choosing this talent for the same reasons you are choosing
Rolling Thunder. You get a little less mana back from it, but it is more reliable. And now that
Envenom received a minor nerf, it is picked more often than before.
NO:
Ride The Lightning
Two more enemies hit with Ride The Lightning is not even close to the damage
Envenom offers and it is not effective damage, so you can kill someone. Never pick this talent competitively.
NO:
Spirit Journey
I don't think this talent offers anything to
Thrall. If you can't land
Feral Spirit before, this talent won't change that.
Level 7
YES:
Wind Shear
Wind Shear is the absolute best talent here.
Windfury is your main source of damage, so a 4 second reduced cooldown on it, is pretty damn good.
NO:
Follow Through
Follow Through doesn't offer as big a damage increase as
Wind Shear because it depends on you landing auto attacks between spells. This talent is not worth picking.
NO:
Frostwolf's Grace
This talent offers you some extra heal, but it is not enough to make it better than
Wind Shear.
NO:
Stone Wolves
This talent is garbage. It adds 0.5 extra seconds to the root effect, which is nothing compared to other talents.
Level 10
YES:
Sundering
I usually go for Sundering as my heroic. It offers a really great initiation method. You want to hit it in a way that can separate the carries from the rest of their team, so your team can kill them first. Even if you can't do that, a 5-man stun with Sundering can usually win you the teamfight.
SITUATIONAL:
Earthquake
Earthquake is also a really good heroic, but it depends more on your team composition. It's one of the best crowd controls in the game and one of the best anti-initiation abilities. For example, if you have a
Sgt. Hammer on your team, Earthquake can give her time to kill the enemies, while in siege mode. It is also a great counter for
Illidan.
Level 13
YES:
Grace of Air
You mostly want to pick Grace of Air here, which gives you insane amounts of self-healing when you use your
Windfury. With this talent your survivability and sustain are almost doubled.
SITUATIONAL:
Spell Shield
Spell Shield is a generally good talent, but due to the
Frostwolf Resilience mechanism, it is not picked often here. You may pick it when the enemy team has high crowd control and stuns, so they can't burst you down.
NO:
Restless Wolves
The cooldown reduction from this talent is irrelevant. You mostly want to land
Feral Spirit at the start of the fight to get a clean and fast kill. After that, it doesn't matter if you can land another in half the time.
NO:
Giant Killer
Giant Killer has really bad synergy with the slow attack speed that
Thrall has, so it's not worth picking even when you are facing two tanks.
Level 16
YES:
Tempest Fury
This talent is the best in this tier and the reason
Thrall can burst people down (if you can land the third
Windfury hit that is). Except all that,
Windfury now refunds twice as many stacks of
Frostwolf Resilience for even more sustain and healing.
NO:
Forked Lighnting
A second
Chain Lightning doesn't offer nearly as much burst or sustain as the previous talent.
NO:
Ride The Wind
The increase in movement speed is not worth it, because it still won't help you land a
Windfury easier without a stun or a root.
NO:
Blood for Blood
Blood for Blood basically offers the same thing
Tempest Fury offers, but at a longer cooldown. That's why you don't see it picked often.
Level 20
YES:
Nexus Blades
I am usually going for Nexus Blades here, for the damage increase, but mostly for the slow. If you can land an auto attack on someone, their kiting potential becomes significantly decreased.
SITUATIONAL:
Bolt of the Storm
If you feel like you are getting targeted in teamfights and bursted down quickly, pick Bolt of the Storm. It is a generally good talent and a great escape mechanism when everyone tries to kill you.
NO:
Worldbreaker
You usually want to be near when you land your
Sundering, so this talent just offers anti-synergy. There is no reason to pick it over the other talents.
NO:
Earthen Shields
The shields are good, but you mostly want to use your
Earthquake for positional advantage. The two previous talents usually offer more than this one. You can pick this talent in the extreme situation that you have no supports in your team.
Even though
Thrall has fallen out of grace with the last nerf, the Sylvanas patch balanced out some of those nerfs.
Thrall is slowly but surely making a comeback in Hero League as well as in the competitive scene. This build is the most common in competitive play right now and here is the breakdown.
PROS
- High survivability and sustain both through
Rabid Wolves and
Windfury.
- Both heroic abilities are really good for different reasons each.
- Great potential at bursting and brawling against squishy targets.
CONS
- Depends on crowd control to land his burst damage.
- His escape mechanism through
Windfury is also his biggest damage.
- He is quite mana hungry, if he gives up his mana regeneration talents.
This build gets its power spikes at Level 4 with
Envenom in the early game and at Level 16 with
Tempest Fury in the late game, so you should keep an eye out for those two important talents and for the right time to pick a fight.
Variations
- The first and most important variation in this build is the Heroics. You need to pick the most suitable one, depending on your team composition and on the enemy team. Basically, as I said before, you are mostly using
Sundering when you want to kill one or two important targets from the enemy team, usually their carries or for a general damage ability and stun. On the other hand, if you want to counter the enemy initiation and protect important targets on your team
Earthquake is the way to go.
- The next variation depends on how well you can manage
Thrall's mana pool. If you believe that you will have mana problems, then I suggest switching out
Rabid Wolves for
Rolling Thunder (gives more mana back but depends on auto hits) or
Envenom for
Mana Tide (gives less mana back but it's more reliable).
- The last variation lies in the Level 20 talent.
Nexus Blades offers a good lockdown of your target with the slow and a significant damage increase. Although, if you feel like you are getting focused right away and you can't escape, I would definitely suggest going for
Bolt of the Storm. This talent offers a great escape mechanism in dire situations.
Youtube video soon to come...
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