I've been looking for a new go-to build for TLV since the latest nerfs hit and I've had serious success with this build. It focuses on the obligatory 3 lane soak, but diverges from the norm somewhat in that it focuses heavily on mercenaries and minimizes activated abilities to help give you the time to properly control your Vikings.
The basic idea is to use
Viking Bribery stacks in combination with
Mercenary Lord to get as many Mercenaries working for you as possible with as much presence as possible.
Hunka' Burning Olaf and
Fury of the Storm help with wave-clearing while
Erik the Swift and
Large and In Charge give some very useful utilities for initiating, interrupting and escaping.
Combining these talents with
Play Again! can feel just plain broken as you have huge uptime. Just remember to keep your team split up, or at the very least keep Erik on his own (if you can keep him alive)
Viking Bribery is your bread and butter, making soaking all three lanes that much sweeter. Every couple of minutes you'll be able to grab Siege with no extra effort, or take Bruisers with only 1 or 2 Vikings.
Erik the Swift gives Erik some much needed survivability. When you see an enemy coming to kill you in lane, clicking erik behind a tower puts him back to full health just from the run. I use this regularly to run erik from a precarious spot in lane to a nearby Merc camp, bribe it and run back with full health.
Mercenary Lord doesn't see much play but I think that's an underestimation of the value of this talent. As TLV you can't expect to be a force to be reckoned with if you've only got 1/3 of a hero in each lane. However, combining all the camps you can get with +50% damage in all lanes, can lead to +150$ pushing potential across lanes. You don't even need to put yourself in harms way, just stand back and watch the Mercenaries earn their keep! (No pun intended)
Play Again! has been increasing since the nerfs to
Ragnarok 'n' Roll! but because I've always been a splitsoak TLV player it's my long-time favourite. When you take this talent, it's important not to group up your Vikings. Using
Play Again! can allow you to transport/revive your Vikings to any lane, move Erik to an objective then call in backup, jump on an enemy out of position or even positioning Erik then calling Olaf in to stun an enemy allowing an ally to escape or turning the tides on an unexpecting foe. The biggest tip I can give here is whenever you use
Play Again!, move erik somewhere else just in case you lose Olaf and Baleog. You can keep grabbing those sweet sweet bribe stacks and be putting on some serious pressure elsewhere.
Hunka' Burning Olaf gives Olaf the ability to clear waves much more effectively which overall increases your push capacity and bribe stacks. Other talents at this level are good, but I prefer to minimize my activated abilities to give my focus to hero control.
Large and In Charge again gives Olaf some great utility in teamfights, provides some much needed CC and allows for some really cheeky interrupts (I'm looking at you Strafing Valla).
Fury of the Storm magnifies your lane presence significantly. It allows a pair of vikings to wipe a wave or push back lanes in no time. Correctly paired with
Play Again! and
Viking Bribery your biggest problem will be spending your bribe stacks efficiently.
Quick Comment () View Comments
You need to log in before commenting.