Thrall Build Guide : Thrall To End Them All :: Heroes of the Storm (HotS) Strategy Builds

Thrall

Build: Slow, Heal, Win, Repeat

Level 1

Level 4

Level 7

Level 10

Level 13

Level 16

Level 20

Threats to Thrall with this build

Threat

Low

High

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Threat		Notes
1		No Threat
2		No Threat
3	Arthas	Let him slow you, he will lose that 1v1 every time.
3	Tyrande	Dodge her stun, land yours, and its over.
4	Nova	If you can see her blur, hit her with "Feral Spirits" and ruin her day.
4	Jaina	A battle of slow vs slow, usually Thrall will win because his abilities cool down much quicker and as long as you don't stand in her AoE you will be fine.
4	Thrall	Most people are trying to run "damage" Thrall. He doesn't stand a chance against the constant skill barrage you throw at him, including better self-heal
5	Falstad	Falstad effectively has "Windfury"'s ability to increase movement speed, so unless you land a slow he is good at getting away.
6		No Threat
7	Valla	In a 2v2 she can be taken down, but 1v1 is hopeless as her damage output far exceeds Thrall's healing.
7	Tyrael	Tyraels ability to shield himself and deal damage is similar to Thrall. The only difference is Thrall's ult is useless against Tyrael 1v1, where his will help him with the fight.
8	Chen	Chen has more health, his ult can effectively turn a 1v1 to a 1v3 in his favor, and he hops around like a kangaroo so slows are less effective. Steer clear.
9	Illidan	Slows don't work on Illidan because he will jump to you, 1v1 will never win.
10		No Threat

The way Thrall was meant to be played Top

Thrall is another self-sufficient melee character like Tyrael. He has incredible potential for slows and self-healing. You don't want to build Thrall for straight damage because it wastes his incredible talent.

The talent gains 1 stack every time you damage an enemy with an ability. After accumulating 5 stacks, it heals Thrall for around 10% of his total hp.

The idea around the skills picked is maximize skill damage ticks to gain stacks quickly.

"Wind Shear" is a no brainer selection for the first pick. "Windfury" allows thrall to attack 3 times at an increased speed, each of those attacks counts as a tick for his talent. This combos excellently with "Grace of Air" meaning that with one use of "Windfury", you will accumulate 6 ticks (or a full 5 + 1) essentially healing yourself for 10% total life, moving faster, and pumping out damage faster.

Next choice is "Ride the Lightning". This is a tough pick because while "Spirit Journey" has incredible potential for root, the extra 2 enemies hit with "Chain Lightning" is better. These additional 2 enemies will count as ticks as well granting 3 ticks and about as much AoE (Area of Effect) as Thrall is allowed. This skill would lead you to want to pick "Forked Lightning" in tier 6, but "Blood for Blood" is more effective for a combo slow (with "Feral Spirit" and "Earthquake" he has incredible slow) and it heals for 15% of the enemies total health (which is usually higher than Thrall's seeing as how he is an assassin), where as an additional use of "Chain Lightning" from "Forked Lightning" would only grant 3/5 ticks for 10% hp gain.

In my opinion, the most important skill to take is "Battle Momentum". This is for 2 reasons, 1 being that we want to reduce cooldowns as much as possible for continuous skill damage resulting in self heals, and 2 that "Windfury" increases basic attack speed. That means that when you use "Windfury" with "Battle Momentum", the 3 hits will not only grant 3 ticks for his trait, but will also reduce cooldowns by 1.5 seconds.

Finally Thrall's ultimate. There has been much debate over which is best but I think it is an obvious pick. While "Earthquake" doesn't deal any damage, it has an INCREDIBLE range, slowing the enemy team for insane damage. There is no need to get the second upgrade for it at tier 7, instead teleport is a better call. A good combo is in a team fight, run in the group and use "Earthquake" then use "Bolt of the Storm" out. The only time I would chose Sundering (and I really mean the ONLY time) would be on the Tribute map or the Bay. It would only be used as an interrupt because the stun is not very effective. Sure a 1.5 second stun sounds great, but it blasts all the enemies to the side so any AoE on the stun will not work, unlike "Earthquake" where they are slowed to basically a stun.

TL:DR

Thrall is NOT supposed to be built around damage, instead he is an assassin that is self-sufficient with heals (to a degree) and slows enemies with insane chase-down potential.

Tier 1: "Wind Shear" because cooldown reduce on Thrall's best skill is OP given his trait
Tier 2: "Ride the Lightning" because more enemies hit = more ticks for trait = more healing (also, semi-AoE)
Tier 3: "Battle Momentum" is a MUST HAVE reducing cooldowns is essential for survivability and damage output
Tier 4: "Earthquake" much better for team fights, don't be afraid to use it on a 1v1 or 2v2
Tier 5: "Grace of Air" because "Windfury" is Thrall's best skill and more trait ticks = more health
Tier 6: "Blood for Blood" much better than the other options, more slow and heal potential
Tier 7: "Bolt of the Storm" because teleport is great get-away with slows, and shielding allies with "Earthquake" is just not enough value (usually the other team runs in the "Earthquake" so shield is rarely valuable)

Just remember, "Windfury" can be used as a get-away. Being an assassin hero, Thrall has low hp so be careful. Slowing enemies while you run is also incredibly useful. Thrall should not be going solo anywhere on the map, he uses slows and chase-down but with this build his damage output is not as high as Valla's or Nova's. In addition, "Chain Lightning" is at its best when you can hit multiple targets, so going 1v1 is usually not going to work out in Thrall's favor due to the lack of value from "Chain Lightning", therefore, resulting in a lack of ticks for his trait and a slow self-heal.

Be a team player with Thrall, don't let his title of "Assassin" throw you.

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