1. Introduction
2. TL;DR
3. Rank Disclaimer
4. Basic Abilities and Basic Tactics
5. Talent Ranking Explained
6. Talents
   • Level 1
   • Level 4
   • Level 7
   • Level 10
   • Level 13
   • Level 16
   • Level 20
7. Combos Explained
8. Team Fight Strategies
9. Map Strategies, hints and timers
10. Counter Playing Kael'thas
    
11. Revision Notes

I am Sango Cross of SangoProductions213, and I am proud to finally have time to get back to work on making guides, particularly pertaining to my favorite hero, Kael'thas, whom I have racked up more than 300 games with. I will discuss mostly what he has, and thus when/where/why to pick it, rather than lamenting over the things he is now missing because of this change, or how they seemed intent on removing talent synergy.

I would like to thank Axonn_0 from Reddit for suggesting I add in notes about synergies. Also, if you enjoyed (or didn't), then rating and telling me why would be helpful for making this guide better.

Kael'thas just got buffed, so here's a new video showing off the buff. I have played for several days (not neccesarily consecutively) since this video and lost a grand total of one game as Kael on the new buff. I had a close call, which has been uploaded on my channel, because that was fun, but I won't put it here, because it's too long to be useful as a part of a guide (although I go over the merits of the talents I choose in that video still but...whatever). Play Video

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His defensive options were stripped HEAVILY in his nerf. No easy reveal with Clairvoyance, no Bolt of the Storm, no increased speed of Gravity Lapse, a weaker Arcane Barrier, no increased range of Flamestrike (from his talent, but in the buff, they gave it a small base range increase), and Arcane Barrier's talent tier now conflicts with Fel Infusion, his only other defensive talent option now. Like holy ****. They were really determined to make sure his only option to keep himself alive was to position, and hope the enemy didn't flank or dive. "Wait! No! Sylvanus! We can talk this out!"

But then they gave Kael'thas a massive freaking buff. As you can see in the introduction's video. I've yet to lose a game as Kael'thas. Raw freaking numbers, and now he is above the "OP" level of average winrate already. ..by quite a bit... Like wow. Still so little talent synergy, but you've just got massive numbers.




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One final thing to note: My opinions are based on being rank 1. I convinced my brother to buy kael'thas so that I could try out a rank 36 game....and it was freaking silly. I did this because I kept getting comments that the trap talents weren't so bad. No one would give me their rank when I asked but... so to get the information, I had to test it myself. Indeed, at rank 36, people DO NOT spread out. Even when they are visibly dead from living bomb, they still ran aside their team.

Kael is OP at this rank, even his trap talents...assuming you aren't equally skilled as them. If you are actually at this rank, I'd still recommend not picking up Convection.

But, as I said above, the balance has been shifted from needing Kael to play good to needing the enemies to play poorly. So, by all means pick up Master of Flames if you want. Pick up Burned Flesh if you want. They are traps because the enemy spread out, and counterplay Kael at rank 1.
(note: Once you move past rank 1 and in to masters, Master of Flames is quite nice, likely due to the team comps you're picking Kael'thas with already, which already enable him...and the fact that the rest of the level 20 talents aren't great.)

With that said, the majority of what I say applies to all ranks. Just, not what I say about how the enemy acts.



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Remember your fighting and trading is Cooldown-base, also called Burst. That means you go in, do your thing, and duck out before they can respond. Only stay to auto attack (with very weak autos) if you are positive you are safe.

Verdant Spheres is your trait. It makes your other abilities even better. Will be referred to as VS occasionally. It has a really short cooldown (6 seconds), so it's great. Its cooldown starts after you use it, not after it's been activated. IE. If you hit your D ( Verdant Spheres) it won't go on CD until you empower one of your other abilities. So only use it just before empowering an ability. You gain so much flexibility and control by not preemptively activating this...and then having to spend an empowered Gravity Lapse on one person because Zeratul hopped on you.

Flamestrike is your Q ability. After a brief delay, does a sizable amount of damage. It's hard to land though, so it's best used as a zoning tool to keep your enemies from running away or capping an objective (which means they either stay and die, or run in to your Flamestrike and die). You can fairly easily outrange turrets, which makes for interesting siege situations. Using this right underneath a stunned target can ensure damage. After the latest buff, flamestrike does full damage without being empowered, which effectively gives you a free Living Bomb...which has also been sizably buffed. With Verdant Spheres, this ability's Area of Effect is increased by 50%. That is huge! It's now harder to dodge. It also increases your area denial because...well, it's affecting more area. The empowered Q is also very good for destroying minion waves.

Living Bomb is your W ability and burns your target, then makes them explode. The basic ability was buffed quite well and deals some serious damage now. After the PTR nerf, this now automatically chains to all nearby heroes. You'd think that was impressive...but at best it's going to be a great synergy with ETC. In every other situation, the enemies will just spread out a little and avoid the 3-second-delayed explosion. Don't use this without using Verdant Spheres, unless you just absolutely need the damage right then and there (you can probably wait though), for many reasons. With Verdant Spheres, it becomes literally free harass. No mana. No cooldown. The VS goes on cooldown, but its CD is about 1/2 of what Living Bomb's CD is. It is pretty great. Not to mention, since W doesn't have a cooldown when used with your trait, you effectively use the trait's cooldown instead of the regular one (which is much longer), if you only use it with VS active. However, there are times when the burst you need for a situation is worth it to spend Living Bomb without VS. Usually while trying to kill a hero 1v1, or during a gank, when you don't have the luxury of time and just need to pour on damage, or you're about to die. Burst phases of team fights (discussed near the bottom of the guide) are almost always over before the Living Bomb explodes, so you'd still want to hold on to the Living Bomb cool down so you can get more overall damage (because of lower CD) by empowering it. In team fights, I'd highly recommend empowering this over any other ability, if your sole objective is to shovel out damage. You can't proc it instantly anymore, but this is the only ability where you effectively gain damage (due to getting a second cast) by empowering it. Note: If you hit someone with Living Bomb, and then hit someone who's also in range to do so, you basically remove your area of control you generate with Living Bomb because they won't spread between the two of them, so keep that in mind.

Gravity Lapse is your E ability which sends out a line that will stun 1 person. It's great for catching people out, or saving your hide...or if you are feeling generous, saving that of a team mate. It's got a slow missile speed, and you can't improve it anymore, so keep that in mind. With Verdant Spheres...well....it can hit more people in a narrow line. This isn't really going to come up often. It can also sometimes be used to bypass minions and stun them, but it only passes through 2 before it gives up and won't chase the hero. It is better to simply get in a better position. However, you do gain an extra .5 seconds on the stun if you empower it... It probably still isn't worth it though, unless you can get the magical catch of 2+ heroes. Important thing to note is that this ability, while it stuns most everything, it will not stun (and thus will pass through) boss-like NPCs, such as the garden terror that gives seeds, as well as Xul's Frost Mage ult, which seems to be a unique interaction. This also means it will pass through them without counting against the number of targets you can stun.

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First off, I make the ranking based off of how it will apply to every situation, regardless of skill, or how the game is going, or whom you're up against. Anything that modifies the ability to be higher or lower ranking will be explained on a case-by-case basis. Also, the ranking is about the relative strength to what's in the talent tier, rather than an absolute "this is op" or "this is well balanced, and a healthy talent".

pastarific from Reddit suggested a change in the color code, and was supported by others in that suggestion, so sure.

Blue This is the best ability. No matter what the situation, you should pick this.
Green This is a great ability. It's pretty solid.
Yellow This is mostly situational (perhaps even underwhelming), but it isn't bad.
Orange This is...not so good. Has fewer situations in which it is usable, and/or those situations aren't exactly obvious to spot.
Red It's a trap! Run~~



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The Team Fight tag I have under the talents details how they change your approach to team fights. And the Synergies tag speaks on the ...you guessed it, synergies of the talent with others.

There are a lot of notes in these talents, and especially with the new Team Fight section which discusses how it changes your team fight, I feel it might be leading to bloating. I need feedback if this amount of information is what is wanted, or if I should do something else.


Convection: As was previously, this isn't neccesarily a trap because it's *bad*. Instead, it's a trap because it sounds good but strips you of critical systems you need in the game. In this case, it's raw defense that you lose by going with convection. And this is the ONLY talent tier with ANY defense. You need defense. However, unlike previous convection, this one is also a gamble in that if you die, you lose all your stacks...
Synergy: with Fury of the Sunwell, you can hit a target twice (no ****?). This could potentially double your rate of collection, and you're getting double value per cast of Flamestrike. Of course, you shouldn't be taking Convection at all, but hey, here it is. Screw you.
Team Fight: This has no significant impact on how you play a team fight. At best you are tempted to directly hit people more often, which is actually a detriment, since it is best used for controlling an area, although for the less feeble of mind, this just means your zone control is better. So yeah, no significant effect.

Fel Infusion: This got a very slight buff. It's basically supposed to work as a half and half talent of offense and defense. Too bad you simply want as much defense as possible. Of course, you can't be zoned out of this healing, and it's always present. So, if the enemy team is a bunch of early game heroes, take this, as you won't have time to collect Arcane Barrier stacks. It's not as good burst-mitigation as arcane barrier, but it provides reasonable sustain. Not great, just reasonable. However, I'm finding more and more as I play Kael'thas in this patch, it's all about the sustain, and less about burst-mitigation. Especially with how small the shield is nowadays.
Synergy:With Twin Spheres, you can get health twice.
Team Fight: It's just an added effect for what you're already doing. Could allow you to stay longer in a brawl, or in lane.

Mana Addict: This thing has been nerfed over and over again... well, the Arcane Barrier portion of it has been. Now it's only got 100% of your max mana as a shield, but it's bundled with its natural companion, Mana Addict, and at level 1, so might be a slight buff. However... you have *no* other defensive options at all. This means it doesn't matter that its talent tier was reduced. It just straight up has less power, and that's what you care about. It does require a deal of diligence to get arcane barrier in a timely fashion, and some maps hate orb collecting.
At this point, I might call it the actual offensive talent that eventually gives you defensive returns in the late game, but still. The main draw is the mana. The shield is just so weak now. And the more I play, I'm just not finding the extra mana that appealing any more. Sure, even on Battlefield of Eternity, you can have infinite mana for spamming damage against the immortal, but you don't really need it.
Synergy: For direct synergies, it...basically only synergizes with Mana Tap because it's increasing your maximum mana, and that restores 4% of your maximum mana.
Team Fight: You get more of a mana pool, which means you can cast more freely once the fight happens, getting more poking, and more spells within the Brawl phase. No significant impact on Burst fights....except for once you get the shield.




Nether Wind: Wow, just wow. Normally I would call anything that increases your range as really good, but...the base missile speed is so slow...and now you can not increase it. Gravity Lapse is also a long cooldown CC that is your only means of peeling for yourself or escaping. I'm just not seeing a situation where the range would help you without the speed, because the range only exacerbated the issue, taking nearly 1 to 1.5 seconds to reach the end of the range. That's far too unreliable a use for your only CC and effective escape in your kit, especially for this patch. And the mana return is really meaningless, as you only get it once, regardless of how many you hit.
Synergies: None. Go away.
Team Fight: Well...it could help with catching or engaging. But, as mentioned, it's slow at the out edges. You might get lucky though, but don't count on it. All-in-all, no significant changes.

Energy Roil: This is underwhelming because it can only reduce the CD by 7 seconds, and only if you hit something. It reduces the cooldown of the aforementioned only cc and escape in your kit, so long as you use it as you should. That's great. It's still not something that I'd recommend to newbies, but it's a solid choice if you've got a good handle on Kael. Do note: this only reduces the cooldown by 7 seconds if you hit at least one hero, not by more if you hit more heroes.
Synergies: (this one specifically was suggested by Axonn_0) This makes Gravity Crush less of a risk to use, because of reducing the cool down. It also enables you to get the damage bonus more often. You still have to all-in someone to make the damage bonus worthwhile, but it's still a synergy. One that probably pushes this and Gravity Crush up a tier.
Team Fight: Well, it actually changes a whole lot. It's a bunch of CDR, which means you can use it offensively even more, or keep it for safety. You are also granted greater freedom to use it offensively since if you do it correctly, you will have it defensively when you need it. And more than can be briefly mentioned.
Warning: According to HotSLogs statistics, this talent sucks. I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps it's because of what I said about it requiring you to use your only defensive tool for offense to get value out of it?

Mana Tap: Surprisingly, I found I really liked this talent. I don't tend to gravitate towards mana-based talents unless the hero has serious mana problems. However, this along with Mana Addict, it was literally impossible for me to go OOM. I could not spam enough. Given that Kael is all about zone-control now (kind of was before, but at least he could burst a group with Chain Bomb), and his damage is much less reliable, I found that being able to always be applying that zone, no matter what, was a huge boon.
However, you could stand to have enough regeneration without Mana Addict. You don't have truly infinite spam without it, but it's a reliable way to get mana back with D + W, and thus stay in fights for longer than normal.
Synergies: You get extra mana from Mana Addict.
Team Fight: Not a truly significant change. If you took mana addict, you already had plenty of mana for team fights. If you didn't this isn't going to instantly make you have infinite mana (though it'd be easier). It's primary impact is in the lane, where you can just spam to your heart's content, and not be crippled come next objective.



Burned Flesh: Sigh. The pick rate on hotslogs makes me sad. Even in masters, which I really don't understand. It's got like the lowest average winrate! I guess it's the added threat, and thus makes the control even better? I've tried this a couple times. 0% win rate, except on aram. You almost never get any actual value out of it. People are already avoiding flame strike like the plague. I DON'T GET IT!
No.

Gravity Crush: This is situational because it's...well, it's forcing you to use your CC offensively to get stuff out of the ability, and you have to all-in them in order to make it worth. And guess what? It's using a skill shot. That means you'll miss occasionally, and that sucks. It's just risky and will leave you vulnerable. This reminds me quite heavily of the original Convection, but this at least has a wider reaching effect than that and isn't in the same talent tier as critical utility...it is a higher talent tier though, and the easier and more reliable option is the very next one.
With all that said, its buff made it so it's...kinda worth. But I definitely feel not having Sunfire Enchantment when I miss more than I feel having Gravity Crush when I hit.
Synergy: Already discussed under Energy Roil.
Team Fight: It's kind of forcing you to use Gravity Crush offensively to get value out of it. I don't appreciate this, as you can gather.

Sunfire Enchantment: Can you believe it? Even after being preemptively nerfed...this is the best talent in the tier? Not particularly great, just as before, but when your competition is this....well... yeah. Turns your auto attack in to a spell. You've got ways to scale spell power. That's nice. It also ignore Block and similar effects. It procs spell shield, allowing your real spells to deal full damage.
Synergy: Same as every other Verdant Spheres talent.
Team Fight: You should get an attack in at least once each time you use verdant spheres, if it is safe. It's not always safe. Of course, you're already attacking if it's truly safe. I'm tempted to say it's not significant, but one could argue it's encouragement to take a bit more of a risk to attack, since it's so much more damage.


Note: Kael's ultimates aren't "great". (so much so, his average win rate actually drops from his sensible level 7 talents to his ults, which is rather rare).

Phoenix ...is the only ultimate you have. I assure you. It does semi-decent damage to a single target (basically), but it lasts a while, gives you vision of the area, and tells the enemies "OOO, look, I'm a circle! Fear me! Fear me and my insignificant damage!" Oddly enough, it still works. It works decently for dismounting chasing enemies. It does have a low cooldown, so use it whenever you want a little extra damage, or to ward off an area.
Team Fight: I already discussed this in my Team Fight Strategy, and in the basic description.

Pyroblast To be honest? I'm still leaning on the edge of saying "It's a trap" but...I've seen it burst squishies from 90% health. You still run in to the problem where it's slow (giving anyone with damage reduction or shields, or heals a chance to react), requires a long ask cast time to pull off (giving anyone with damage or cc to react...so everyone...). It does, however, end up with people running like chickens with their heads cut off instead of them killing you though for some reason...even at rank 1. "OMG! This unstoppable force is chasing me! Must run!" No you dumb ask, you can't do anything about it anyway! Running doesn't help!
Note: This is his single worst win rate talent, even among his level 1 talents. If that doesn't speak for the weakness of this, I don't know what does. But people still hold it true to their hearts. Like Triple Tap.
Team Fight: I can not give a confident answer. I lack the experience. It, does, as I said, basically remove someone from the fight...if you ever find a way to safely cast it.



Ew....we got the Lunara treatment. Thanks Obama. We totally want to spec in to Living Bomb for every build we go for.
Synergies: Well.... there's only one Living bomb talent not in this talent tier. Take a guess. They aren't particularly synergistic, so this is most....******** it I didn't want to remember the "Weakness of Flames". Anyway, those others are most synergistic with Fission Bomb because slightly easier spreads.

Pyromaniac: Despite the nerf, is perhaps the best talent at this tier. I mean, the nerf is warranted because it doesn't have to compete against Chain Bomb now. Not to mention, you now potentially could get bonus CDR if your enemies act like reflarbs and clump up. Basically, every second that your living bomb is on someone, you reduce the CD of your basic abilities by 1 second. So basically halving the CD of all your abilities, unless you empower W in to another W, or again, they clump up, in which case you gain your CDs back even faster. I still prefer to only empower W if you are harassing, or trying to get mana back in the early game with Mana Tap, but yeah, it's...possible.
Synergies: You cast more, so you need more mana to take full benefit of it. As such, Mana Tap and Mana Addict both work to maximize your benefit from this.
Team Fight: Basically no real difference. You just cast things more.

Backdraft: This is really meh. They nerfed it from live by 20%, though they put it a talent tier lower. It...still doesn't make up for the fact that it really doesn't feel impactful. At least on live, you could instantly proc the slow. Now you have to wait 3 seconds for a mere 30% slow. Not significant and way too long. People proved me wrong with Backdraft on live. But after this nerf...I don't think it's going to survive. I'd rate it lower if I wasn't proved wrong with live version.
Team Fight: No significant difference.

Fission Bomb: Also a very bleh talent. 20% range isn't really all that noticeable, and it still suffers from the 3 second delay before its benefits kick in. Maybe if you are fighting on the Cursed Hollow, and noticing that people are standing just a little too far apart to spread, but not far enough to be safe, then take it. Else, it's really not worth it, especially compared to Pyromaniac.
Team Fight: No active difference. You just now get a larger area that you hope the enemy will stand in for 3 seconds.


Awesome! This talent tier is actually really nice.

Fury of the Sunwell: As some of you may know was my favored talent on this tier even during the Chain Bomb era. It just got an arguable buff. It no longer goes in to hiding after the first explosion (thus letting down the enemies' guard to then explode on them), and it denies the area for 0.5 fewer seconds, but it now does the second explosion quicker. So yeah. This is your most reliable source of Zone Control. May as well effectively double it.
Synergies: None. There are no good Flamestrike talents that synergise with this.
Team Fight: No significant difference. You just now get a more effective zone of control.

Sun King's Fury: Is a great little talent. Think back to the level 7 talents. This is basically 3 to 4 Sunfire Enchantments (aside from not being a spell), assuming the guy you cast living bomb on doesn't run like a chicken with its head cut off...away from you. It can also stack well with Gravity Crush, as this actually causes your autos to deal a rather significant amount of damage, and you were needing to burst them down anyway, if you took that talent.
This allows you to do that very well...again, assuming they don't just run. But, if they run, they aren't in the fight, so that's a win. Alternatively, since you likely have fewer defensive options than they do...they'll probably just tank the hits you get in, and kill you immediately. Yeah. This is a great talent, but you telegraph whom you are attacking, and auto attacks are the shortest range thing you can do. High risk. High Reward. Only take when they have shown that they can't touch you.
Synergy: Technically synergizes with Weakness of Flame and Fission Bomb....but....don't. It also synergizes excessively well Gravity Crush, if you picked that up. Not in any particular way, just that this deals a lot of damage, and Gravity Crush multiplies it.
Team Fight: It encourages riskier behavior to get more attacks in on the target with Living Bomb. It also means you might want to change your targets from the best zoning target to the one that you are most likely to be able to auto safely for the duration - often the tank.

Twin Spheres: Hell yeah! So many options. Not to mention, the trait is one of the few things that Kael'thas has which actually has talents at nearly every talent tier. Blizz seemed to go out of their way to make sure other talents that affected the same ability could not be chosen in the same build. I've got a trolly build that takes this and Fel Infusion at level 1. It's not as viable (for reasons already mentioned), and takes too long to ramp up but it looks cool.
Synergies: Only the obvious ones. There are indirect synergies though which could technically be every single talent, but....that's getting a bit excessive for this little excerpt.
Team Fight: Dude. Screw off. There are so many differences here I could not detail them all. Just take the above combos and add another Verdant Spheres.

Get wrecked.

Rebirth is solidly decent. Mostly for the double duration. The repositioning could be cool if the enemies are doing stupid stuff to prioritize running out of the circle, but the damage tends to be insignificant. At best it might help to rush a core, unless you tend to just really screw up your phoenix positioning. That said, there's nothing else really competing for the slot now, since Bolt of the Storm is gone, so this would probably be my go-to pick most of the time.
Team Fight: Little difference. It can help cover a retreat better now. I've not really seen an entire team fight shift out of the circle (although it makes individuals less likely to go in), so the repositioning aspect really isn't going to change your team fights.

Presence Of Mind is...bad. If you've already got Pyroblast, then...it does nothing for your damage. You may decrease your CD by 25 seconds for the one hero you hit...which is insignificant. (They are going to run away either way...for whatever reason. Guess they think they can out run it??) You won't get in to fights often enough even with base Cooldown. People respawn too slowly, and Pyroblast requires too much preparation and too perfect a position to be usable that often...but it also doesn't come off CD quick enough to use twice in a fight. So it's kinda a lame duck...

Arcane Power is something I used to swear by in my lower ELO games (around 2200), because I hate mana. I played and loved DawnGate because it had absolutely n/a mana (also its "rune" system was really cool), and entirely balanced around cooldowns. Getting back free mana, as well as getting the bonus for the spells that you needed that mana for, was amazing. Hell, if you pick up Pyroblast, you want to pick this talent to make it actually deal some type of damage.
Of course, with the build that I present to you, it's impossible for you to run out of mana, if you collect even a modicum of regen globes. So....you get 15% bonus damage. That's decent. It's going to help in burstier team fights, but I think, all considered, a longer duration phoenix is probably better because more overall damage, and greater zone control for objectives, since it's threatening them with that oh so laughable damage for longer.
Team Fight: You want to unload rather than zone with your initial set of spells now, including Sunfire Enchantment. This will not affect Poke phase.

Master of Flames: Just...just don't. 3 seconds between spreads between heroes only is long enough. With this, they need to stay together for a full 6 seconds. It's never going to happen. Maybe if this also allowed you to cast on allies? That might actually make it really useful.
I've played Kael for weeks since his rework. There's only been one time where this was actually, visibly worth taking on a non-aram map, but even then, it wouldn't have killed anyone, and their ETC was just trolling the entire game.




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Kael, at least the way I play him, isn't really a combo hero. Rather, he's a zone controller, but there are some combos he does have. Some more obvious than others. Further, talents can change these. For Instance, taking Sunfire Enchantment means you'll often want to add in an auto attack when safe to do so.








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This is mostly talking about the type of team fight that can go on, and how to respond to them, rather than how to initiate them, as you aren't really an initiator. However, with the risky Engage Combo, you can try and force a Brawl or Burst fight. Also, Team Fights are sort of like a mob-mentality thing and I don't have enough experience manipulating it to tell you guys how to do so. Best you can do is ping and otherwise communicate with your team.
Fights are most likely going to break out if there's something to gain by fighting, like an objective, or boss. That is, unless they were low because of boss, then they are likely going to try and run, if the boss is more than 25% hp. (If the boss is below 25% hp, regardless of them about to die, or the enemy coming in, they will reliably split half and half - with one half either running or attacking the enemy team futily, and dying, and the other half attacking the boss so the enemy can take it, fresh from their corpses.)







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(Work in Progress)
All camps spawn at 2 minutes. Boss Respawns every 4 minutes.
Overview: This is a decently sized map, but with two lanes (mid and bot) that are basically right next to each other, while top is isolated. This makes gather globes on this map rather easy.

Strategy: People also tend to be very...stubborn when it comes to standing on a point if your team is on it. Use that to get direct hits in on them. Or if they are running from the shrines, that also tends to be an easy hit because the shrines only have so many ways out. Also, do not stand on the shrine unless you *really* have to, or you are positive enemies are not there, because of having no mobility, and there only being so many ways for you to get out.

If your team lost the shrines, you can still stall quite well with empowered Flamestrike and Gravity Lapse, which both have decent range, as well as Phoenix when you get to level 10. Once you have your ult, phoenix can easily deny dragon knight for a long time, or help secure a shrine.

Talents Impact: Nothing really changes. Mana Addict becomes better if you run between bot and mid. Fury of the Sunwell also makes your stalling even better because now it's denying the cap for 1.5 rather than 1 second. (before the change, it denied the cap for 2 full seconds, which is why I said it was an "arguable" buff) Phoenix makes stalling excessively good, and can help immensively with capping the shrines.

Timers: First Shrines: 1:15
Shrines will become active 2 minutes after the last dragon died.
Overview: The Battlefield of Eternity is actually a fairly nebulous map for Kael'thas. I've found that you really want to spam a lot on this map, and for that you need mana. But because of its low number of regen globes, you probably aren't going to be getting Arcane Barrier if you pick up Mana Addict. So you either don't contribute meaningfully to killing the immortals, take up Mana Addict and (effectively) not have any defensive talents now, or you blow your mana to kill the immortal, and have to run if they defend.

This map objective kinda sucks for Kael'thas. It becomes easier as the game progresses, and you get more powerful talents like Sun King's Fury, which can effectively give you a mana-less dps on an undefended immortal, or Fury of the Sunwell, which gives double the effectiveness from casting Flamestrike.

Team Fights: This is probably one of the better maps for teamfighting as Kael'thas, because of how claustrophobically closed in the area you have to fight in is. With your suite of AoE which can actively deny large chunks of area (especially with phoenix), it can be really annoying to fight against you, and equally as easy to hit people.

Talents impact: If your team can protect you, or if you are really good ((especially after this upcoming patch which will buff your Flamestrike range)), you can pick up the more offensive (especially on this map) Mana Addict relatively safely due to being able to deny so much area, and being able to output damage on immortals is nice. Else, pick up Fel Infusion.

Burned Flesh becomes rather viable on this map because of how close-quarters everything is, and so you might actually hit more than one person, if you empower flamestrike, even if you're just using it as area-denial.

Fission Bomb might move up one tier, again, because this is such a tight map, and so it's easier to spread bombs, especially with Fission Bomb. It would still be a tough sell compared to Pyromaniac's CDR for shutting down immortals, but it's likely to be competitive.

Strategy: As I said, deny the area as much as you can; it's pretty easy here. When no team fights are happening, try and burn down the immortal as fast as possible...if you picked up Mana Addict and Mana Tap, else just auto and empower W it.

Also, take mercs right before immortals spawn to force your enemy to spend time on them instead of the immortal, buying you a lead, and a moral hit to the enemy. If you've got a team that can quickly kill the bruisers, try and coordinate them to kill it at the halfway point where immortals swap positions for the same reason, but also so you're making optimal use of your time instead of waiting.

Timers: First Immortal Spawn Time: 1:45
Immortal respawns 1:45 after the victor's Immortal (the one walking down the lane) is killed.

Team Fight Area Statement: This map is very similar to Battlefield of Eternity in that its team fighting area is extremely claustrophobic. So, look at my description there so I don't have to repeat the same stuff regarding the size of the fighting area.

Tribute Spawn: I was going to explain it here, but it is just so complicated, I suggest looking at a map guide instead.
Talents Impact: As Battlefield of Eternity, except that it's easier to get globes. Fury of the Sunwell is also better on this map because of capture denial for an extra 0.5 seconds per cast.

Strategy: Prevent them from capping the tribute with Flamestrike and Phoenix, which will tend to be safe. Also see Battlefield of Eternity. Oh. And don't waste time on Boss during a curse, even...no, ESPECIALLY, if you just wiped their team. You are wasting so much time trying to kill it, giving them a chance to respawn and defend. You, 9 times out of 10, will get more done by pushing with the curse.

Curse Timers: First tribute spawns 2:30 give or take 20 seconds
Curse times are random throughout the game.




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I made a video about this, but you can read below for the abbreviated versions of the tips. I will likely dedicate a whole guide to the intricacies of countering Kael'thas, and just substitute that in for this section, but that's in the future. This bit is not including his "counters", which are already included in the threats section (though could be expanded upon), and just tips that any character can use against Kael. Play Video
#1: Listen for the Living Bomb
- You can turn up the game sounds, and turn off any background music if you need to.
- If you hear the sizzling of Living Bomb, that means it's on your screen.

#2: Watch your Health Bar and "Don't Die Like A *****" (as Stonewall008 would say)
- When under the effects of a Damage Over Time, a part of your health bar is shaded, representing what your health would be like after the DoT finishes (including Living Bomb's , assuming you don't heal (it doesn't even assume regeneration).
- If your entire Health Bar is faded out, that means you're going to die (unless you get healed). So, make your death worth something.
- Don't just run, taking yourself out of the fight before you even die, and then just die to the DoT.
- And most of all, don't run alongside your teammates with Living Bomb on you, especially if you are already dead to Living Bomb. (Unless you would die if you didn't, and you don't put them in noticeable danger by spreading it.)

#3 Pyroblast
- You've got 2 seconds after he starts casting it to interrupt him. He can't move. He's squishy. And if he's targeting a non-tank, then he's rather far forward. It should be easy.
- If it's already launched, running won't do anything. You're dead one way or the other, so as above, try and make your death worth something by throwing out a few more spells or attacks before it hits.
- Spell shield basically gives Pyroblast a big F-U since....well, it negates the entire worth of it.
- Shields, such as from Tassadar or Storm Shield, also are reliable for helping to live through it.
- Li-Ming's blink can cancel Pyroblast.

#4 Move around
- Kael = 2 skill shots.
- Moving around = hard to hit skill shots.
- Builds good practice vs 80-90% of the rest of the cast of Heroes of the Storm

#5 Tanks
- These can generally just ignore Kael's zones of control, so long as you've got a reason to (like to get to Kael'thas), because the damage compared to your health is not incredibly significant.
- This is not to say "stand in the zones of control and take free damage", but simply "don't be deterred from what you're doing because he placed a scary circle in your way.

#6 Squishies
- You generally want to pay close attention to Kael's attempts at controlling zones because they are, infact rather dangerous compared to your health.
- (Requires good knowledge of relative damages) If you can kill Kael'thas (or accomplish whatever goal you were looking to do before he had laid down the zones of control) without dying to his spells, then go ahead and ignore them, do what you need to, and get out.

#7 Phoenix
- Phoenix prioritizes, in this order, {Heroes, Lowest Health Enemy}.
--- This means if there's a Hero #1 at 2000 hp, and Hero #2 at 1900 hp standing in the zone, it will hit Hero #2.
--- If there are 3 minions, but there's one with the lowest health, it will hit the one with the lowest health.
--- If there is one minion, and one hero, it will hit the hero.
- Use this priority to soak the Phoenix's hits when it's safe to do so.
- This basically turns the massive Phoenix's area in to just the area around your character, which is incredibly significant.
--- This would let your team turn in (or otherwise capture map objectives), even under a Phoenix's very scary circle, because you are tanking it. This can save immortals. And so much more.
- Don't soak the hits needlessly, or when it's risky to do so.





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April 23: Updated builds to remove Mana Addict from the recommendations.

April 20: Updated Intro. Updated threats to include Tracer. Updated Convection's notes about the meta.

April 18: Added "How to Counterplay". Worked on the Maps section.

April 17: Updated threats. Created a "7 tips to counter Kael'thas" video, to be uploaded tomorrow.

April 16: Updated the intro. Updated the Living Bomb entry under Basic Abilities and Tactics. Updated everything in the Talents Section. Updated the TL;DR. Fixed bad Engrish in the disclaimer. Added more "Hoverables".

April 13: Added a new harass tactic that was introduced when Living Bomb was given auto-chain. Formatted the Map section to look good. Updated the video to be up to date with the new Buffs. Rewrote the TL;DR to accommodate the buff. Updated basic abilities and tactics. Updated Combos. Will progress with the rest of the guide.
Consolidated the Change Log so that March updates were grouped in to one item. Might flip the change log so that the newest updates are at the top. Fixed the maps not loading properly. Flipped the change log.
I won't bother with changing the threats, as they are supposed to be relative to each other anyway, and...well..Kael won't stay this buffed for long.

April 12: added a video discussing the proposed buffs to Kael'thas. Added notes to be elaborated on once the buffs go through, and I get to test them. Messed with the treats as well. Added section for maps, including BoE, DS, and CH. More are planned.
******** it! Hero Fire needs to stop changing how these anchors work. Fixed the broken anchors so that the Table of Contents works correctly....well...tried to. Looks rather ugly though.

April 4 (happy birthday!): More threats. Updated threats. Massive updates to talents to reflect new data. Removed the "Riskier Build" because of the massive lack of performance, according to HotSLogs, and the fact that I don't like it enough to recommend. Reorganized the guide so the talents come earlier. Fixed a derp-up in the combos section.

April 1 (no, not a joke): added some threats. More are planned.

March 23 - 31: Added Synergies. Made the Guide. (clearly in this order) Added a link to PTR talent calculator. Adjusted Color scheme for Talent Tier List. Fixed basic spelling errors. Added Combos. Added Team Fight Strategies. Finally figured out anchors. Added hover-overs, or whatever, to abilities in combos section.
Split Team Fight and Combos. Added synergy for specifically Pyromaniac. Updated Talents. Added hover overs. Removed placeholder messages meant to wait until HF updated to the new talents. Formatted Team Fight Section better. Also added new details to Team Fight section. Added more situational Talents.
Added note about Sun King's Fury being high risk, high reward. Changed the video in the intro. Changed impression of Energy Roil to reflect the results of my testing. Added note about Nether Wind also not increasing mana return for hitting multiple heroes.