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Hello,
my name is
RazyeLx and I am a
Grand-Master Kerrigan Main. I started 8 seasons ago in Silver and climbed with
Kerrigan into Master tier and now this is my 5th season as a Master player and right now I am in Grand-Master. During the 8 seasons I played more than
1 600 games with
61% win rate as
Kerrigan, most of the games were played in rankeds (I don't play quick-matches). Before I start with the in-depth talent explanation, let me show you some proves, that I am not lying.
SPACEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEMy Ranking so Far (10,5k = GrandMaster)
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SPACEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEGames and Win Rate with Kerrigan
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If you are more interested in my gameplay, you can follow me on my
YouTube Channel or
Twitch Channel.
In this guide I will write only about
Kerrigans talents. If you want guide how to play
Kerrigan, then I can recommend you my guide, that I wrote in the past:
[Master] Kerrigan - Combo Build.
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SPACEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEFace me, coward!
SPACEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELEVEL 1
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On level 1 there are only 2 viable talents (
Sharpened Blades and
Block). When choosing between these 2 talents you always have to look at enemy team and ask yourself which talent helps you the most. But most of the time you will want to take
Block because the damage prevented is not small and it can give you 1-2 more seconds in team fight, allowing you to do 1 more combo. Also when you are forced into solo-laning,
Block is the talent you want to pick. Of course
Kerrigan is an assassin, that should gang people like
Genji, but that doesn't mean that Kerrigan is a bad solo-laner. But there are situations where
Sharpened Blades is better.
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Example: Enemy team has
Alarak,
Chromie,
Lt. Morales,
Garrosh,
Zeratul. The whole enemy team is focused on ability power, they do not use AA (Auto-Attacks) too often so
Block won't prevent much damage, you will either get one-shoted or you one-shot them. And +25 % damage on combo for
Chromie/
Lt. Morales? That can literally one-shot them. So don't just pick
Block blindly every game, every time look at enemy team and ask yourself what is better:
killing them faster or surviving longer?
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The last talent
Siphoning Impact is not viable at all. Forget about this talent. Why? Because in order to get the sustain from the talent, you have to use
Ravage, that costs mana,
Kerrigan is already insanely mana hungry, so what's the point of having full HP when you have 0 mana? You will have to go back to base anyway and besides, the sustain from
Block is better anyway. I prepared a flowchart which should help you with choosing the right talent on level 1 (see below).
SPACEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWHAT TO PICK ON LEVEL 1 FLOWCHART
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SPACEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELEVEL 4
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At level 4 there is 1 talent that is exceptionally better than others (
Fury of the Swarm) and 3 talents that are not bad, but compared to
Fury of the Swarm they just fall behind.
Fury of the Swarm gives you AoE, which will help you in laning, taking camps, making huge AoE combos and so on. The reason why it is so strong is because this talent synergies witch level 13 talent
Double Strike and you can get AoE crits, improving your damage by a lot. There is no better talent here than
Fury of the Swarm.
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Clean Kill improves your next
Ravage damage by 25 %, but the thing is that most of the times you will use
Ravage as engage and even when you kill the target by
Ravage, you usually already won the teamfight so the +25 % is not needed, you could get far more damage with the AoE crits from
Fury of the Swarm by this point.
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Psionic Pulse can be good, but once you master
Kerrigan and know how to use the level 13
Double Strike talent to its maximum potential (see
my guide) you will never get more damage from this talent than you will get from
Fury of the Swarm.
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SPACEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELEVEL 7
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At level 7 there is only 1 good talent and that is
Bladed Momentum. Why? Because with this talent you are removing your weakness (high CD on all spells) and it is overall better because you jump in, do your combo and in few sec you can jump again and repeat another combo. Without this talent you would be forced into one-trick-pony
Kerrigan meaning that you jump in, do the combo and that's it, then you die and you pray that the team do the rest. That's not what you want, is it?
We are here to carry the game, not to be carried.
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Other talent that can be useful is
Assimilation Mastery, giving you very good sustain, but you are still left with high CDs on all abilities and after few games, you will realize, how good
Bladed Momentum is.
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SPACEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELEVEL 10
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Maelstrom is obvious choice. It gives you fast shield, gives you some ranged damage for running enemies and it is just better. But there are some exceptions. For example on
Chromie or
Lunara
Summon Ultralisk is really good pick, because they can't kill it easily and they are running from it (and not doing damage to your team),
buuuut I would pick
Maelstrom vs them anyway as you can kill them faster and
Summon Ultralisk die way too fast if enemy team focuses it.
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You can use
Summon Ultralisk also for double soaking and stuff like that, but if you want to be serious with
Kerrigan and use her to maximum potential, you don't have time for that. Your job is to one shot important targets and for that you need every damage upgrade possible.
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SPACEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELEVEL 13
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At level 13 there is only 1 choice.
Double Strike is such huge talent upgrade for you, that anything else is just thrown from the window. This talent basically doubles your damage, if you know how to use it (takes some time before you get it in the hand). This talent gives you after every ability you use a critical strike. So the ideal thing is to:
use an ability - AA - another ability - AA.
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An example of combo with everything:
- jump with
Ravage,
- AA (triggering
Double Strike) + use
Essence for Essence,
- predict the enemy movement and put down before the enemy
Impaling Blades,
- pull the running enemy to
Impaling Blades with
Primal Grasp,
- AA (triggering
Double Strike),
- activate
Maelstrom,
- AA,
- repeat (more info in
my guide).
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There is nothing more to say for level 13. You are basically asked:
Do you want more range on
Ravage, doubling your damage or do you want more movement speed? As an assassin that needs to kill important targets as fast as possible, I think the choice is obvious. Also, as I mentioned earlier, this talent synergies with level 4
Fury of the Swarm.
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SPACEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELEVEL 16
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At level 16 you have two choices again. Usually people pick
Aggressive Defense because it gives you more sustain, but the right choice in my opinion is
Essence for Essence, because it helps you with bursting the important target. It also enables you a way how to finish-off hard to kill tanks (like
Arthas,
Varian,
Garrosh) and gives you fast defense (protecting you from burst) and it gives you a ranged attack.
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I am talking here about huge experience. I played 500+ games with
Aggressive Defense, then I switched to
Essence for Essence and my gameplay improved a lot, so from me:
Essence for Essence is the pick here.
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Overdrive can be good too, but it is a huge gamble. If you miss your combo, you just lost most of your mana and did nothing. Compared to the other two talents,
Overdrive just falls behind.
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SPACEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELEVEL 20
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On level 20 you have two options (unless you went for
Summon Ultralisk, then you have 3, but we are not doing that). I personally prefer
Nexus Blades. With this talent you will be able to 1v1 anyone and thanks to the slow effect, you will be hitting much more combos (slower targets are easier to hit).
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Another talent that you need to consider on level 20 is
Psionic Shift. The main reason why this talent is great is because it gives you a way out, when you got caught and most importantly, you can make a surprise teleport combo. This is especially needed at high MMR and Pro plays, because at this level, every player knows how to dodge a combo. Unless you are unpredictable or lucky, you will not hit many combos against Pro players.
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That's where
Psionic Shift comes in handy as you teleport, you can take them in surprise and hit a monster combo. But unless I play against TOP players, I don't pick this talent at all. The
+20 % damage on EVERY AA (synergies with level 4
Fury of the Swarm and level 13
Double Strike talents) and getting slow as a bonus is just insane upgrade.
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Omegastorm is not an option. Even if you are getting focused and die to enemy team way too fast and you are thinking that
Omegastorm might be the pick for you, this talent will not give you enough survivability. Rather take the
Psionic Shift if you need some survivability. Here is another flowchart for picking level 20 talent for
Kerrigan.
SPACEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWHAT TO PICK ON LEVEL 20 FLOWCHART
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