RECENT CHANGES (BY PATCH)

05/17/16 (Chromie patch) - reviewed; no significant changes 04/07/16 (Dehaka patch) - reviewed; no significant changes 01/13/16 (Greymane patch) - reviewed; no significant changes 10/07/15 (Lt. Morales patch) - reviewed; some ability changes (see notes below) 6/2/15 (Johanna patch and game launch) - reviewed guide. 5/29/15 (Kael'thas patch) - started this guide.

Build Disclaimer: Don't let me tell you how to play this Hero. Play him how you play him best! There are many Heroes and many builds that can be viable in the right hands. This is just one guide amongst many and is my take on this Hero. Have fun, and enjoy! If you want to talk shop, I can often be found playing with friend and steamer Kennigma on twitch.tv/kennigma.

NAME Stitches, Terror of Darkshire CLASS Warrior SUB-CLASS Warrior stuff: utility, sorta tanky, sorta bruiser MY DIFFICULTY RATING Medium, but only due to landing skill shot hooks ATTACK DISTANCE Melee ACTUAL FIGHT DISTANCE Hugging distance MOBILITY Slow, lumbering COMPETITIVE? Yes if you land hooks like a beast, not really if you can't LORE: Stitches comes from the early days of World of Warcraft. As players leveled up their chosen characters, they would travel into the world zone of Duskwood, meant to cater to players of level 20 to 25. Now, roads in WoW are typically relatively safe places to travel; monsters did not roam across them very often. In Duskwood, just one main road bisected the zone, leading from the village of Darkshire on the eastern edge of the zone to exit out the south and west ends. This road saw many travelers questing merrily on their way in the, well, spooky zone of Duskwood filled with spiders, wolves, glowing eyes, and perpetually darkened forests. And most of the time the main road was pretty quiet. But not always. Every player who quested in Duskwood was in for a surprise: As they trundled along the main road in relative safety, they would suddenly see a hulking figure appear nearly right in front of them. This figure would be huge and grotesque with a level that was just a red icon with a skull in it surrounded by elite-status engravings, signifying a named monster that was extremely dangerous and well above the player's level. And ambling right towards them. Stitches was the terror of Darkshire. He made short work of the Night Watch (NPC guards that patrolled the road), and there were often many skeletons of dead players littering the road and outskirts of Darkshire. It was often a massacre, as just 1-2 hits would kill an adventurer. Most players back in the early days did not have high level alts to help kill Stitches, and other players that matched the level 35 (elite) Stitches would have long since traveled away from Duskwood (and even so, Stitches seemed more like a boss-level 35 elite). Stitches claimed many player lives, and still holds a nostalgic place in the hearts of WoW old-schoolers. In Heroes, Stitches is a warrior and is placed pretty solidly with one scarred foot in the tank world and the other in the bruiser warrior world. His trademark move is his ranged skill shot hook, which pulls hooked enemies into melee range. Stitches overall is pretty easy to play, but pretty hard to master. His usefulness resides in his ability to set up plays with his hook. He's tanky, but not really a tank, and he can do some damage, but isn't really that great at doing it. His utility is limited to some slow talents and the hook and body blocking. If Stitches lives and dies by the Hook success, he goes from wannabe into master by being successful with his body blocks. Stitches, more than other tanks, really needs to work on his body blocking technique, especially if he uses and abuses Gorge to displace enemy Heroes behind him. He needs to move quickly and slow enemies down so that he can body block and allow his team to mete out the damage. Lt. Morales patch updates: General Notes: Stitches had significant changes made that make him far better. His health pool is much larger as the game goes on, and his abilities are more mana efficient and sometimes have lower cooldowns. His talents get a few details changed, but really, his builds and talents didn't change much at all. Big improvements to bring Stitches back to viability, but nothing that really changes his playstyle at all. Good patch!

(Q) Hook Cooldown: 16 seconds A signature skill shot that hooks the first enemy it encounters and pulls them into melee range of you. Will hook minions and mercs and will stop when hitting an enemy structure. Landing this skill shot will make or break your success and enjoyment on Stitches.

(W) Slam Cooldown: 8 seconds An AoE frontal cone of damage. That's about it! Low cooldown means you get to use this very often, and is your main spammed ability.

(E) Devour Cooldown: 20 seconds Devour will heal Stitches slightly while also doing damage. Relatively low cooldown means you typically save this until you've taken some damage. The heal and cooldown can be improved with talents.

(Trait) Vile Gas Adds some damage to Stitches' output, best used if you can gently back up and cause enemy Heroes to advanced into it towards you. Not something you need to kite them through, but just tease yourself backwards.

LET'S TALK ABOUT BUILDS
Stitches was king in the technical alpha, but during much of the beta, he was nerfed into oblivion and was stuck there. Until the Lt. Morales patch! Stitches got a really nice max health buff and options to work with that stat. This came at the expense of some hp regen talents that many other warrior tanks rely upon, but this is a good trade-off. It ends up making maybe 75% of his talents somewhat useful depending on your playstyle or what you need in a particular comp, from straight tank, to adding some damage and slow utility, to beefing up your Hook for insane plays. His damage is still not very high, but as a piece of meat in the middle of a team fight, he's big and juicy and fun again. Even some previous terrible talents like Indigestion might be interesting again as skillshot fodder.

BUILD: STITCHES DO TANK

Picks	Hungry For More	Amplified Healing	Last Bite	Gorge	Relentless	Stoneskin	Hardened Shield
Alts	Dampen Magic		Tenderizer	Putrid Bile	Mega Smash	Pulverize	Bolt of the Storm	Regen Bile

Stitches has a lot of options now for his tanky build, and it takes a slightly different emphasis than other warrior tanks, since Stitches typically sets aside hp regen in favor of raw max hp numbers, and abilities/talents that play off that increasing percentage of that max hp. Hungry for More further improves his max hp value. And this helps feed higher numbers for Devour and Stoneskin. Last Bite will allow you to use Devour more often as long as your bite target dies within a few seconds of your bite. Relentless, Hardened Shield, and Amplified Healing are all typical tank talents to snap up. If you don't fear any slows or stuns (CC) from the enemy team, you can pick up Pulverize at level 16 to do some massive slowing on enemies hit by Slam, hopefully setting your team up for some damage plays. Tenderizer is also an option for a similar reason. Both of these abilities not only apply slows to make plays, but also act as peels when needed, in addition to Stitches' big body and Hook. Also, always keep Fishing Hook in mind at level 16, as your main game-changing play is a surprise Hook on a priority target, so increasing that range can make for even more ridiculous plays. There's little more satisfying than a blind, max range hook landing on a target, bringing them close for your team to delete them from the game. And don't overlook the fact that you can use Hook at close range to get someone off your healer or back line.


BUILD: STITCHES DO DAMAGE

Picks	Heavy Slam	Putrid Ground	Tenderizer	Gorge	Mega Smash	Pulverize	Bolt of the Storm
Alts				Putrid Bile	Relentless	Fishing Hook	Regen Bile

This is essentially a slam build, taking all of the Slam talents. You get to use Slam pretty regularly due to its low cooldown. The heroic is situational; if you feel like you can make plays with Gorge and Hook and/or Bolt of the Storm, certainly pick it up. But if you feel like you need to kite enemy Heroes or retreat a lot or need extra heals, pick up Putrid Bile and possibly Regenerative Bile for assistance. Fishing Hook is always a great talent in any build that can spare the point at level 16, as the extra distance can make plays and will cause the enemy team to adjust their team fight style to accommodate your hooks.

Chew Your Food [ not recommended ] - Gives Stitches a chance to heal after taking some damage. Situational in needing someone nearby to chomp, but that will usually happen anyway as Stitches sticks in the front lines of team fights. This ability is not compelling in the early game, but will scale much better by the late game, especially when paired with Amplified Healing. You might also prioritize this higher against a burst damage team. Ultimately, though, this competes with other really good talents at this level.

Dampen Magic [ situational ] - Typically, this ability is ok on tanks as it will mitigate some incoming basic attack damage. But Stitches is actually hurting more for raw health and healing, and as such, this talent is less interesting than picking up Hungry for More.

Hungry for More [ good ] - This talent helps your health pool issues. If you feel like you won't be able to gather many Regen Globes, Chew Your Food will likely be better, but if you find yourself in a strong lane or with access to golem/terror Regen Globes on the map mechanics, this can be just fine. You might also prioritize this if you're up against a more sustained damage team. Increasing your max hp will help make Stoneskin and Devour more potent.

Heavy Slam [ situational ] - This talent really determines whether you're doing a tanky build or a damage build. For tanks, there are other better choices at this tier, and for damage, this is pretty much a must pick.

Amplified Healing [ good ] - For a tanky build, this is the talent to pick up. It improves Chew Your Food or Regeneration Master from level 1, and possibly Regenerative Bile if you pick it up at level 20. This will also help out your Support friends heal Stitches up.

Mercenary Lord [ not recommended ] - There really are no situations where Stitches should pick up this talent; even if he wants to tank bosses or merc camps or creep, he doesn't really need any further health help. In fact, Stitches already is more mana than health bound when not in team fights, so this won't impact anything.

Vile Cleaver [ not recommended ] - Add your trait onto basic attacks. If you're not going with a Slam build for DPS, you'll probably pick this up for basic attack DPS. But not really a tank choice.

Putrid Ground [ not recommended ] - Add your trait onto Slam ability hits. If you're going for a Slam build for DPS, you'll probably pick this up for added DPS on your most-used ability. But not really a tank choice.

Savor the Flavor [ situational ] - Getting up to 100 hp regen is a pretty sweet deal on Stitches by the late game team fights. This can help increase that chance, but you have to be realistic and say this is situational in being able to land a Devour on a Hero on cooldown every 30 seconds in the game. In a 20 minute game, that's 40 applications for 80 hp regen, with more if you took Amplified Healing. But this does mean you almost certainly need to constantly engage the enemy, and constantly use Devour, even at inopportune times, such as when you already are at full health, or have a healer nearby, or are at low mana. Potentially this could be excellent, but you've got to really pursue it. I suggest playing around with this, but I feel like Last Bite gives more reliable return.

Last Bite [ good ] - This talent will trigger if the target or your Devour dies by any means within 3 seconds, and will drop the Devour cooldown significantly. Considering this is a key talent and Stitches wants to use it at any chance possible, this talent is a great pickup now. Chomp a minion wave every 5 seconds for significant healing!

Tenderizer [ situational ] - This ability gives basic attacks a slow. This keeps enemies hooked by Stitches even more in range of your own damage and that of your team. All around a good pickup at this level for any build.

Toxic Gas [ not recommended ] - An interesting talent, but there aren't really any scenarios where this might be useful. Maybe someday Vile Gas will do something useful like dampen healing or slow, but until then, this doesn't add much to Stitches.

Putrid Bile [ situational ] - This heroic is great for escape or when rolling with a disengage team, i.e. a team that likes to poke and disengage to get the enemy team to pursue you. Mostly, though, it's taken as a defense escape due to the speed increase. Otherwise, Stitches does have escape issues.

Gorge [ good ] - This is a great talent that can be used to take an enemy Hero out of the fight for a little bit, bring them back into your damage dealers for a quick kill, and can synergize that displacement with things like Hook to grab someone at range, Gorge to swallow them, and Bolt of the Storm to teleport a long ways away from their team. Should be a go-to unless you fit the playstyle desires of Putrid Bile. Be careful with Gorge, though. It's frustrating if a damage dealer unloads on a target that is being gorged by Stitches. I've seen Stitches actually accidentally save enemy Heroes and even lead to a turnaround in a fight after an poorly-timed Gorge.

Relentless [ good ] - This is really the only defensive talent at this tier, but thankfully it's useful in many situations against teams that want to CC Stitches to nullify his Hook displacement or body blocking.

Mega Smash [ situational ] - Typically this is a damage dealing talent, but when Stitches doesn't need Relentless to deal with enemy CC, he may as well take this to add some more damage output for his team. Besides, the big slam effect is scary looking!

Indigestion [ not recommended ] - Really a nearly useless talent. The Retchling cannot be controlled and isn't all that powerful; he dies pretty quickly in late game team fights. His only usefulness is being a meatshield for ability skill shots, but that's really about it. This talent should never be picked up.

Helping Hand [ not recommended ] - It sounds cool to be able to save your friends. But honestly, this is a very disruptive talent to your own team, even in organized situations. Teammates typically aren't looking for saving shots like this, Stitches still has to successfully recognize and execute situations to use Helping Hand, and you just can't plan or set these things up with any reliability. I don't advocate for this talent.

Pulverize [ good ] - Don't be fooled by the Slam icon into thinking this is a damage build talent. Not only does the cooldown get lower on his most-used ability, but now you can slow everything hit by it. Excellent utility for a warrior who wants to control the enemy Heroes and keep them in range of the damage of your back line. If you feel like you don't need Stoneskin to survive, this is your second choice.

Fishing Hook [ situational ] - Increasing the distance of Hook is a good thing if you want to land some amazing grabs on unsuspecting Heroes. Still, you have to be good with Hook to justify passing up Pulverize, but if you can land them, this talent really moves Stitches as near to a tier 1 Hero as he'll get right now. Unfortunately, I prefer to play a little bit safer, and I usually pick the sure thing in Pulverize.

Shish Kabob [ not recommended ] - A situational ability where you need to hit 2 targets. While this can be somewhat common with late game team fights, sometimes this actually helps the enemy Heroes engage on your team, as now two will be in close instead of just one Hero. One Hero in your team is called overextended. Two or more is called an all-out engagement. I wouldn't look at this talent except in highly organized team play, but even then you'll likely want Fishing Hook or Pulverize instead.

Stoneskin [ good ] - The key to Stitches' tanking is his high max hp levels, and [{Stoneskin]] plays right into that by working off a percentage of his max hp. If you're playing the tank role, this is usually going to be your first pick at this tier as it improves your survivability quite a bit.

Regenerative Bile [ not recommended ] - If you've picked up Putrid Bile you will probably value this talent pretty highly. But honestly, I prefer other styles of play.

Hungry Hungry Stitches [ not recommended ] - Kind of like Shish Kabob can cause a team fight to erupt, so can this talent. I'm not a big fan of this talent; it's cute, but I don't find there to be a ton of benefit in it unless there is some absolute hard follow-up from your team to a) damage the leftover Heroes, and b) pounce on the regurgitated Heroes.

Hardened Shield [ good ] - Start a team fight, become the center of the action, and ignore 75% of the incoming damage for 4 seconds? Ummm, yeah!

Bolt of the Storm [ situational ] - Always useful for escape, but honestly think about this: Hook a distant enemy. Gorge them. Bolt of the Storm back deep away from the enemy team. Disgorge and destroy. Honestly, the best displace and forced overextend of the game. This is why you master the "god hands."

GENERAL PLAYSTYLE Stitches is a lumbering brute. Try to mount up as much as possible so you can get into the middle of the fights quicker. Always look for chances to land your Hook grab, not just juicy positioning by the enemy, but also opportunity for your team to follow up on the grab. A grab with no team follow-up is a bit of a waste of time. Always look to pair up with a buddy on your team; you can lane and kill creep alone, but you can't do a ton of healing, damage, or be very useful alone. Stitches depends heavily on, a) landing grabs, b) body-blocking and displacement, c) healing and damage from buddies, and d) staying alive as long as possible. A GOOD STITCHES... ...will land key Hooks that lead to kills. Doesn't need to be many, but a key hook or two can set up map momentum for 40-90 seconds. ...will do good damage while minimizing over-extending into team fights, and peeling or bodyblocking for his supports and assassins. EARLY GAME As the game begins, before you even pick your first talent, check out whether you're the only tank or front-line Hero on your team, to see if you should go tank or damage. Also, check out the other team and start identifying people you'd like to land a grab on. Tyrande, Sylvanas, Azmodan, Zagara and others that cannot easily get away or punish you early are great targets. Others like Zeratul, Valla, Falstad, and Tychus should only be grabbed after you've seen them spend their escape ability. Heroes like Uther or Muradin will likely just stand there and happily trade with you, then get away with impunity. Hopefully you can lane with a healer, because if you do, you can pretty much outlast any other solo or pair of enemy Heroes in your lane. You might find yourself bullied, but once you and your healer decide to hard engage, you can throw down with anyone. Be sure to watch your and your healer's mana pools though, and hearth back as needed. Save your real output for key moments, but do try to start practicing some nice Hook grabs and start showing the enemy team that they need to respect you and position accordingly. Best if you're on voice comms with your lane buddy so you can call out grabs and bursts. Unfortunately, Stitches can't chase anyone down very well, nor escape when overextending, so watch your positioning and try not to get caught too far out. Always look for opportunities to body block poor positioning by the enemy. (Note: I love laning with a Brightwing; drop a Polymorph which usually surprises the enemy, slip just behind them to body block, use Hook as a way to keep them from escaping. Punish, brutally.) Always help out with map objectives and bosses; you're the tank, you *need* to be present and up front! MID GAME Start taking control of team fights and getting a feel for how your team wants to play. By now, you should have Hook targets in mind any time a fight erupts, and an idea of who you want to protect on your team should someone dive deep. Stick with your team and do everything they want to do. A Stitches out alone is a lonely, sad Stitches. LATE GAME/TEAM FIGHTS Try to snag a Hook on a key Hero as often as you can get. Body block for kills, distract assassins off your squishies, Slam and slow everyone you can with Pulerverize, and help out your healer with Devour any chance you have a good deal of health to regain. Absolutely don't pursue unless your team follows; you still lack for escapes, and blowing a Bolt of the Storm or Putrid Bile just so you and you alone can escape is a poor play. Stitches is all about position and engage! PLAYING AGAINST A Stitches roaming alone is a Stitches looking to be punished, so punish him. Kite him as you wish, since without a Hook grab, he has no lasting pursuit. Otherwise, always be aware of his positioning and your own position in relation to the straight-line obstacles between you and him. If you're being targeted regularly, keep escapes handy. Unless Stitches has picked Gorge and is actively using it to separate enemy Heroes, you can probably prioritize Stitches very low on the kill order. Beware, though, a Pulverize Stitches with a wombo combo team comp ready to burst out punishment during the one big slow moment.

ABOUT ME I'm an aggressively casual player looking to climb the ranks and enjoy my free time in Heroes of the Storm. If you want to talk shop, I can often be found playing with friend and steamer Kennigma on twitch.tv/kennigma. Please comment and let me know what works and what doesn't!