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NAME |
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Xul, Priest of Rathma (Necromancer) |
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CLASS |
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Specialist |
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SUB-CLASS |
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Counter Specialist* |
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MY DIFFICULTY RATING |
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Somewhat difficult; has a melee-intensive kit that is tricky to wield |
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ATTACK DISTANCE |
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Melee and short-mid range |
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ACTUAL FIGHT DISTANCE |
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Pretty much melee range |
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MOBILITY |
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low with no escapes/gap closers; relies on slows or ally help |
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COMPETITIVE? |
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We shall have to see, but he's a counter to some things |
Xul comes to the Nexus as the long-awaited Diablo 2 Necromancer class character. He is a specialist, meaning he's has a slightly odd set of abilities that are probably most effective at pushing lanes and sieging down structures. His trait raises skeletons every time a nearby minion dies, and it goes to push a lane. This really turns creep waves around quick, as just a for strikes will weaken every minion, and they cascade into death once one falls. This gets even more dramatic with Corpse Explosion as each raised skeleton dies. Quite truly, whether Xul is full on pushing one lane or just skipping amongst all lanes to keep enemy pressure high, his push potential is possibly the greatest to date.
But, Xul is not just a pushing monster. He's a melee team fighter as well. First, he's an active counter to various setups with his ability to slow auto attack speeds, punish melee assassins with reduced speed and healing, or chunk down warriors with health percentage-based attacks. Second, he does have some burst potential on either a group of Heroes with his AoE strikes, scythe, and even a piercing bone spear, or on a single target made vulnerable to more damage and rooted with bone prison. Don't underestimate Xul wading into a team fight if your team is clumped up. I think only ranged assassin mages can threaten so much damage to a full group on their own!
It should also be mentioned that at level 20, Xul gains access to a brand new ability not seen before in the Nexus: healing reduction on
 Mortal Wound. Targets hit by his
 Spectral Scythe will have their healing received reduced by 75% for 4 seconds. This is potentially very significant for healers to play around.
* So, what did I mean up above by saying Xul is a "Counter Specialist?" Basically, I feel that Xul is not just a specialist lane pusher, but also a Hero designed to counter-play others. He doesn't want to wade into battle first; he wants to move in when the Heroes he counters wade in, namely melee assassins/warriors who dive in. Or he can wait for the squishy flankers to make an appear. He's best played waiting for his particular targets to commit, and then he counter-commits against them. In draft, you don't build around him so much as you pick him to hard counter other picks. (That said, he's OP enough right now that you may as well first pick him, as we don't collectively know his own counters yet! This makes him a terror right now in QM, since he's strong even when blindly paired against a random team.)
On the downside, most of Xul's kit requires him to be in either melee or mid-range in order to be effective. But he's not a warrior, so he doesn't get much protection beyond a temporary bone shield from incoming damage. So he'll still require a warrior tank to act as his meat shield. And unlike most melee Assassins, he has no real quick way to dive into a team fight or strike quickly. But if he is skirting the edges of melee combat, he can throw down hard when the opportunity presents itself.
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(Q) Spectral Scythe
Cooldown: 8 seconds | Reverse skill shot, where Xul conjures his bone scythe at a location, and after 1 second it flies to Xul, damaging anything in its path. The return trajectory will follow Xul if he moves. |
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(W) Cursed Strikes
Cooldown: 15 seconds | Activate to cause basic attacks over the next 4 seconds to provide frontal AoE damage and apply an attack speed debuff of 50% for 2 seconds. This can cause other curse effects with the right talent choices. You can get about 5 auto attacks with
Cursed Strikes active. The frontal range is pretty nice, and reaches probably twice the normal melee range in a semi-circle arc. |
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(E) Bone Prison
Cooldown: 12 seconds | A targeted root that takes 2 seconds to land on the target Hero, and lasts 2 seconds. The 2-second window allows the targeted enemy to move, but the Bone Prison will still root them. The cast itself has a relatively close range, so it's not a reliable way to lock down someone in the back line. Look out for
 Cleanse removing this long root. And this is just a root, not a stun or a silence, meaning the target enemy can still attack or cast abilities. |
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(1) Bone Armor
Cooldown: 30 seconds | Provides a 3 second shield for 25% of Xul's max health. This is further configured via the level 1 talent pick. |
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(Trait) Raise Skeleton
Cooldown: 10 seconds | When Xul is near a minion that dies, it is immediately raised back up as a friendly Skeletal Warrior for 15 seconds (or until killed) which will attack nearby enemies and push nearby lanes. Maximum of 4 Skeletal Warriors can be raised at one time. If a fifth is triggered, the oldest (or weakest?) remaining one falls apart. |
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LET'S TALK ABOUT BUILDS
Builds are actually really difficult to formulate on
 Xul, because he has many tools that work on their own and entirely depend on nuances in the enemy team composition. He can single someone out with
Bone Prison and
 Amplify Damage and
 Bone Spear, or go more AoE damage with
Cursed Strikes or
 Poison Nova, or slow auto-attackers down with
 Shade and
 Weaken, or abuse his ability to slow people by piling on
 Executioner. If there are healers present,
Mortal Wound and
 Flowing Wounds become amazing, but without heals present and against ranged,
Bone Spear looks better, or against heavy warrior comps, maybe
 Call of the Grave. Just about the only true build is his push build. Beyond that, you can mix and match a lot.
BUILD: PUSH
Xul is a specialist, and that means he should be good at pushing. This build looks to snowball creep waves on themselves and push into structures as quickly as possible. You can even leave a lane and move to another one and still get 15 seconds of skeleton support, which is nice.
 Corpse Explosion and
 Skeleton Mastery help skeletons deal more siege damage. Wave clear really is never a problem.
Level 1 is pretty subjective. Sometimes I like the normal
Bone Armor cooldown, so I look to
 Shackler . But sometimes
Shade works nicely against a
 Zagara or
 Raynor who really can punish early lanes with auto attacks. And let's face it, when someone comes for me later in the game to gank me off a lane, they are guaranteed to augment their abilities with auto attacks, making
Shade useful for surviving to 1v1 or flee. For better team fighting participation later in the game,
 Backlash can still work out just fine.
Levels 4 and 7 showcase mana and health regen talents to benefit
Raise Skeleton use, and they're really cool and worth it to sustain your snowball push. But, don't overlook having more utility and damage at your disposal. At level 7 you can pick up
Weaken in a push build and basically make life miserable for anyone trying to 1v1 or gank you out of a lane. At level 4,
 Jailors will add to your skeleton damage, and actually can also add to your damage output 1v1. Don't underestimate your ability to 1v1 ability to chase off a gank, especially since these talents will be part of your pre-10 lane defense posture.
For a heroic, I sometimes like taking
 Skeletal Mages to help me flee from someone coming to push me off a lane. Drop this down in the way along with a
Bone Prison, and I should be able to flee from most single gank attempts. But let's be honest here;
Skeletal Mages is somewhat underwhelming most of the time, and
Poison Nova damage out of nowhere makes pretty much anyone panic, either in 1v1 lane gank attempts or during late game team fights.
After level 16, you should always stick near your 6 skeletons from
Skeleton Mastery when pushing. You can surprisingly stand your ground against many Heroes who come to gank you. Drop Jailors for more damage and meatshields to block skillshots, and you might not need to retreat as much as other specialists.
Bone Spear adds a nice chunk of damage as well.
For clearing waves, try to use as little mana as possible. All you need to do is kill one minion, and things snowball from there.
Spectral Scythe can hit all the minions, but I find doing a couple hits from
Cursed Strikes pulverizes the wave much better for my time and mana outlay.
I've included
Executioner as a possible level 16 choice. If
Skeleton Mastery doesn't feel like it adds much more, this build with
Shackler shouldn't have much problem with adding uptime on
Executioner to kill things every quicker, particularly enemy/neutral mercs.
* To get this icon to work on HeroesFire, use: TragOuls-Essence.
BUILD: BURST
I actually find this to be a very fun build when I don't want to do anything else. The point is to get to
Amplify Damage and just punish anyone around you with a combination of damage that amounts to quite a bit to various nearby actors in a small period of time. Basically walk to your tank who is engaging 2 or more enemy Heroes, start up
Bone Armor, enclose one in
Bone Prison with
Amplify Damage. Wait for the prison to land, and then
Poison Nova,
Bone Spear, and
Cursed Strikes as
Backlash explodes. It's pretty sweet, even against a lone tank who starts eating the max hp percentage attacks. Hopefully the combination of your healer,
Bone Armor, and
 Harvest Vitality will keep you alive.
Even with
Poison Nova on cooldown,
Backlash,
Amplify Damage,
 Giant's Curse, and
Bone Spear make for a very mean clump of damage going down right in the middle of a team fight. It honestly feels a lot like
 Jaina dropping all of her abilities on a group or as part of a wombo combo.
Jailors isn't a talent that feels great to me, and doesn't seem to synergize with anything other than
Amplify Damage, but I don't have a better choice at that tier anyway.
 Death's Reach can be ok, but for maximizing damage, I'd just like to see how the extra skeletons do for now. If I don't need the extra healing from
Harvest Vitality, then
Weaken works well to frustrate pretty much any Hero trying to auto attack in some damage after ability use.
BUILD: ANTI-HEALERThe point of this build is to get up to
Mortal Wound at level 20, and be as effective with it as possible during the late game team fights that will arise. We want to reduce healing on 1 or more targets while also pushing out some damage that will get the healer behind. Our own survival isn't a big deal, as we hope to swing a team fight quickly once we enter it.
Flowing Wounds will drop
Spectral Scythe cooldown to 4 seconds, which is exactly as long as
Mortal Wound lasts, so we can keep this up as long as we're alive and have mana.
Death's Reach will help us achieve hits.
 Decrepify will keep targets somewhat near us so we can land
Backlash and
Poison Nova on targets. This should make more healers get pretty far behind the healing curve.
Are there other options for talents here? Level 16 and level 20 are probably going to be mandatory, as is level 4. Otherwise I can see
Giant's Curse at 13 being an ok pick for a melee-heavy enemy comp, or
Harvest Vitality for some added sustain. Level 1 is pretty flexible as well, such as
Shackler against a very ranged, poke comp, or
Shade if you need to live through some auto-attack burst, but I think I'll mostly prefer
Backlash unless I'm more of an off-tank than damage dealer. Of note,
Shade is a good alternate choice to stay alive through the random basic attacks that get thrown out during team fights, and the longer you stay alive, the longer you can keep
Mortal Wound up.
BUILD: ANTI-WARRIORSThis build is looking to specifically target and delete a high hp tank or two. We want to land
Amplify Damage via
Bone Prison on the tank, and as they become vulnerable, land our percentage-based damage in
Backlash (
Bone Prison),
Poison Nova, and
Giant's Curse (
Cursed Strikes). Levels 1 and 4 are pretty flexible. And just to show the versatility if there is a burst healer on the enemy team ready to boost the warrior(s) back up,
Mortal Wound can help keep their health low, rather than boosting up
Poison Nova with
Call of the Grave.
Weaken will slow down their auto attacks (usually the bulk of a tank's damage) and slow down their back line auto attackers.
BUILD: ANTI-MELEE ASSASSIN
Xul's base kit comes with
Cursed Strikes which reduce auto-attack speeds, specifically tailored to slow down auto-attackers who are in his range. It makes sense that we have a build that expands on this to be very anti-melee assassin, all of whom rely to an extent on their auto attacks to finish someone off. I also include move speed slowing for
Spectral Scythe and the avoidance of auto attacks from
Shade. Lots of these talents choices can be changed around, especially if the auto attackers are not melee assassins but rather ranged assassins/specialists.
Bone Spear still helps bring some additional damage and range to the kit.
BUILD: EXECUTIONER SUSTAIN
When the talents were first revealed, one of the first things to jump out was
Executioner at level 16 along with the ability to do his own slows and roots and not rely on someone else to do it (kinda like
 Valla with
 Frost Shot). This build looks to abuse slows to keep
Executioner active while also providing some sustain for a longer fight that features more auto attacks in between waiting on cooldowns.
Bone Armor is left on its default cooldown by avoiding
Shade. We then get slows via
Shackler and
Decrepify. We stay alive using
Harvest Vitality and the shield from our
Bone Armor.
This probably will double a bit as an off-tank sort of build, though how tanky Xul can be is pretty debatable. Against someone with minions that die regularly,
 Rathma's Blessing might be interesting, but sadly competes directly against
Harvest Vitality at level 7.
Skeletal Mages might even be useful for the slows in this build, but it's still hard to pick against
Poison Nova.
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Backlash [ good ] - When bone armor expires (either via duration or by absorbing damage), nearby enemies take 15% of their max hp as damage. This is an excellent talent, and should be the default choice at this tier, as you can almost always land this on at least one Hero during a team fight, and
Xul really does need to be close enough for this to hit to do anything else of value. I need to test if
Amplify Damage will actually increase this. But otherwise, this talent will be a must for any bursty build. |
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Shackler [ situational ] - While Bone Armor is active, nearby enemies are slowed by 30% for 1s. This should go great paired with
Executioner later on. While nice, the area of effect isn't huge and the duration isn't long. Think of this like an
 Arthas
 Frozen Tempest at max slow (stacked for 6 seconds). It could be ok, but might be situational. Note that this only works as long as the shield is active, so if the enemy team knocks the shield off quickly, this effect goes away. I'm marking this as situational for now, but it might just end up decidedly worse than the other two in all situations, though. |
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Shade [ good ] - While active, you evade all basic attacks, but the cooldown of Bone Armor is increased by 10 seconds (to 40 seconds). This applies to tower and minions attacks! Looks useful against teams with heavy auto attackers who will be focusing on Xul for some reason. This can help you bully your lane in the early game (I mean, this *is* a level 1 talent), though, and might be most useful in a pure pushing build. It does also appear that this talent is a bit bugged and can block other things like Nova's
 Triple Tap shots! This talent is really about deciding if you can eat the extra 10s cooldown. And in a push build, I think that's ok. For other builds that are more team fight oriented, keep in mind that an extra 10 seconds isn't really all that long (this is less than 60s talents, which always seem to be up for the next team fight), and there are lots of auto attacks that get thrown into team fights in between ability cooldowns. So there will always be value in this talent as every Hero has auto attack damage that they throw out. Note that this only works as long as the shield is active, so if the enemy team knocks the shield off quickly (using ability damage), this effect goes away. This means, let's say you're up against
Raynor, wait to pop
Shade until
 Penetrating Round is spent, then laugh at him. There's also tons of counter-play with this talent as well, for instance popping right after an ability can thwart all sorts of benefits like
 Follow Through on some assassins. |
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Jailors [ good ] - Bone Prison also summons 2 skeletal warriors that damage the bone prison target. These skeletons will last 15 seconds, but they are easily killed with one auto attack (keeping in mind that
Bone Prison is just a root, meaning someone can still swing at the jailors, which spawn in melee range. This might be nice to just add a little burst to a pure burst build, and the added damage does at least help in 1v1 skirmishes. Note that this does proc
 Trag'Oul's Essence and
Rathma's Blessing as raised skeletons! |
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Trag'Oul's Essence [ situational ] - Whenever Raise Skeleton triggers it restores mana. Seems like a good talent for a push build, and as your wave of skellies rolls on, this should be able to snowball a bit. I have to look closer, but I think this procs even when a skeleton "dies" as you rez a fifth, sixth, or more skellies. However, for a push build, don't overlook taking another talent here to help out, as the mana restore isn't that big of a deal. (Note: to get this icon to work on HeroesFire, use: TragOuls-Essence.) |
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Harvest Vitality [ situational ] -
Cursed Strikes heal you for each Hero hit. This could be useful when no healer is present, or when playing Xul as an off-tank to help your healer out. You get about 5 strikes with
Cursed Strikes active, which can mean pretty nice chunks of healing during a hectic melee-ranged fight. Note that this is only against Heroes, so is not appropriate in a push build. |
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Weaken [ good ] -
Cursed Strikes attack speed slow is increased to 75%. As a targeted attack speed slow, this can be a killer talent to lay down on a key melee auto-attacker like
 Illidan or
 Thrall. If you can close on a ranged auto-attacker (and maybe keep them in range with a slowing effect), this can really neuter their panic damage. I have yet to try this against a
Thrall to see if this is a counter to
 Windfury or not. Otherwise, this talent works great in 1v1 skirmishes as well as team fights to not just slow down enemy attacks, but add to you and your team's survivability. |
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Rathma's Blessing [ situational ] - Gain health whenever a skeleton is summoned. Seems like a good talent for a push build, and as your wave of skellies rolls on, this should be able to snowball a bit. I have to look closer, but I think this procs even when a skeleton "dies" as you rez a fifth, sixth, or more skellies. However, for a push build, don't overlook taking another talent here to help out, as the health restore isn't that big of a deal. |
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Poison Nova [ good ] - Large ranged AoE poison with cooldown of 90 seconds. The poison lasts 10 seconds (like Envenom), so a busy sustain healer can help their team recover a bit quicker. It will be interesting to see how this Heroic holds up, as Xul does need to get into position to make use of this AoE, and he has no real ability to suddenly spring into a crowd. Quite honestly, wading into a team fight with
Cursed Strikes,
Amplify Damage on a
Bone Prison target,
Bone Armor with
Backlash ready to proc...and then dropping
Poison Nova into it? You have some serious burst damage being dropped down. It's really scary! |
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Skeletal Mages [ situational ] - Summons a 15 second wall of 4 Skeletal Mages that can be walked through, but will damage and slow nearby enemies by 30%. Cooldown 70 seconds. Much like
Thrall's
 Earthquake, this talent has uses and when used is almost always nice, but it's not a killer utility and does somewhat seem underwhelming when you're not being slowed by it. An added benefit against newbies: not everyone knows you can walk through it! Still, I find this hard to recommend over
Poison Nova is most situations. On maps with tight spaces and objective zones to fight around (Battlefield of Eternity comes to mind), this can be pretty good to cast on choke points; either commit to a slow advance, or retreat through the slow with my team on your back. And on the plus side,
Poison Nova requires positioning that can be hard to achieve, but
Skeletal Mages can always be placed where you want it. |
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Decrepify [ good ] -
Spectral Scythe slows enemies by 40% for 3 seconds. This is a good talent to keep Heroes in your range, to chase someone down, or to escape someone chasing you. Works best with
Death's Reach at level 4. I'd go with this against a really heavy ranged poke comp. |
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Giant's Curse [ good ] -
Cursed Strikes deal an additional 2% of an enemy Hero's max hp.
Cursed Strikes is a pretty fast ability which can hit 5 times which equates to 10% damage on each Hero. On the downside,
Cursed Strikes has a 15 second cooldown, meaning this is nice in bursts only. However, that burst of damage onto multiple Heroes, who are almost certainly high hp warriors and tanks, is still some serious damage to absorb. |
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Corpse Explosion [ situational ] - Skeletal Warriors explode on death. This is really good on a push build, and should cause
Xul to be the fastest pusher in the game. |
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Executioner [ good ] - Basic attacks against slowed, rooted, stunned targets is increased. Xul can slow people and also get
Executioner? Sweet! This talent synergizes with the heroic
Skeletal Mages,
Bone Prison root,
Shackler at level 1 which adds AoE slow to
Bone Armor,
Decrepify at level 13 which adds slow to
Cursed Strikes,
 Raised Mage at level 20 which adds slow to enemies near enemy Hero deaths. That's lots of opportunity to improve damage at will and may just give Xul some improved sustain. You'd think this could add to his burst potential, but this talent competes with
Amplify Damage for that slot. |
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Flowing Wounds [ good ] - Reduces
Spectral Scythe cooldown by 4 seconds if it hits an enemy Hero. It shouldn't be too hard to hit a Hero with this shot, which should make
Spectral Scythe available every 4 seconds for some spammabilty. This might synergize really well with
Mortal Wound at level 20 for some seriously reduced group healing. This would be wicked against heavy melee comps. |
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Amplify Damage [ good ] - Enemies rooted by
Bone Prison become Vulnerable for 2 seconds. I actually really like this talent. I like
Bone Prison since I typically run solo queues, and it's very difficult to capitalize on stun chains or to pile damage onto a vulnerable target, as so many stuns have no animation or time for you to respond. But
Bone Prison has a visual 2s wind-up, so everyone can see the target and be assured the target will be stunned and vulnerable. That's pretty nice. The downside is the small range of
Bone Prison. But that's kind of ok, since, once rooted, you need to be in melee range to really lay the burst down on the target, including things like
Poison Nova. |
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Skeleton Mastery [ situational ] - Increases maximum Skeletal Warrior count to 6 and increases their damage by 100%. This talent is good for a pure push build, but for anything else, the other talents at this tier are better. |
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Call of the Grave [ situational ] - Enemies his with poison now also take an additional 1% of their maximum hp per second as damage. Since the poison damage lasts 10 seconds (much like Envenom), this means an additional 10% hp loss for every Hero hit. That's really not bad and can really put a healer behind to bait out a
 Tranquility or
 Shadowstalk. This gets better against a team of high health melee-ranged Heroes. Still, I find
Bone Spear on a 10 seconds cooldown to be more reliable unless I specifically am going up against several high hp Heroes. |
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Raised Mage [ not recommended ] - Increases Frost Mage slow to 50%. And when a nearby enemy Hero dies, a Frost Mage will rise from their corpse and attack (and slow) nearby enemies. This Frost Mage is immobile and only lasts 4 seconds and won't turn a team fight. Unsure how this talent will play out yet, but it sounds like a "win more" talent, as you have to score a takedown to get the raised mage effect, which probably means you're already winning or on the verge of winning a team fight. However, this does work at any time, not just when the heroic is active. Pairs well with
Executioner, but otherwise other talents at this tier are too nice to pass up. Now, if this talent made the wall impassable... |
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Mortal Wound [ good ] - Enemies hit by
Spectral Scythe receive 75% reduced healing for 4 seconds. This is a potentially awesome ability and the first of its kind in HotS. If there are no healers on the other team (can be typical for Quick Match), then this talent drops in value. Works great with a full Scythe build, especially with
Flowing Wounds at 16, which will reduce
Spectral Scythe cooldown to 4 seconds on a Hero hit, which is just how long this affect lasts!
Mortal Wound will cause a popped
 Divine Palm to heal for very little. There is another way to look at this, too: Rather than preventing damage, what you've effectively done is damage output worth 75% of incoming heals on potentially more than 1 Hero. For example, Ancestral Heal hitting a target for just 25% of the main heal is just like you did that damage all at once right after a full heal. That's pretty crazy. |
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Bone Spear [ good ] - Ranged attack that deals damage to enemies in a line with a cooldown of only 10 seconds. This ability costs no mana! This looks to be a great pick if you don't see a use for
Mortal Wound and the enemy is not tank heavy and begging to be hit with
Call of the Grave on top of
Poison Nova. In fact, if you don't need those two, then likely you're facing a poke heavy comp of assassins, which means the added ranged attack of
Bone Spear could be a nice late addition to Xul's kit. Synergizes well with
Amplify Damage on a target. Even if they get out of your melee range, you can still drop damage on them. This is always going to be a good pick at this tier. |
DRAFT: PICKING XUL
For the moment, the community is unsure how to actually counter-play the counter-player himself, so
Xul is a good pick for pretty much any comp right now. That should change as we get used to playing opposite him. So feel free to first pick
Xul if you want to, but mostly you want to wait and use
Xul to counter pretty much anything on the enemy team.
Right now,
Xul will eat dive comps for dinner and still be hungry. The more meat on the front lines, the better as well!
He also pushes lanes extremely well, against pretty much anyone. Note that
 Pufferfish from
 Murky will be automatically targeted and destroyed by skeletons from
Raise Skeleton!
I will note, also, that he synergizes very well with many Heroes. For instance,
Bone Prison +
 Purifier Beam by
 Artanis. Or
 Stim Drone from
 Lt. Morales. Or pretty much anything else that can follow-up on
Bone Prison on a single target, which honestly can be pretty much all damage dealers, to be honest, especially bursty ones. Even
 Nazeebo gets better with
Xul around due to
 Zombie Wall follow-up. May be a great counter to most any healer, particularly
 Kharazim who will be up front in melee range and dependent on auto-attacks.
DRAFT: COUNTER PICKING XUL / PLAYING AGAINST XUL
Burst mages and stuns will still eat
Xul alive, but that is true about pretty much anyone who isn't careful or has some healer/team help. Heroes like
Jaina,
 Kael'thas, or
 Li-Ming can burst him from afar pretty nicely. While he can use
Shade to avoid basic attacks for brief moments, he has no ability damage mitigation like the warrior class Heroes. Anyone with a quick disengage once they get tagged with an incoming
Bone Prison (like
Valla or
 Greymane or
Kharazim) makes life harder for
Xul.
 Li Li with
 Shake It Off might be a decent counter, and Blinding Winds actually hurts his
Cursed Strikes hits.
Stuns can also wreck his game if your team can capitalize on the brief moment
Xul will be unable to initiate his hard combination of abilities.
 Anub'arak and
 E.T.C. can fill this role nicely. Web Wrap from
Anub'arak also neutralizes him.
 Falstad and
 Lunara are good counters due to their mobility and ranged ability damage.
 Johanna looks like a good counter-pick tank against
Xul. She can blind curing
Cursed Strikes and break out of
Bone Prison pretty well. Ranged lane-bullies can still see success if they are careful to avoid flank surprises.
The main point, though, is to look out for a
Xul wading into the middle of a team fight. Like an
E.T.C. with
 Mosh Pit up, he's clearly looking to hard pop his abilities.
In the early game,
Xul can be tough to out-push, but he can be bullied directly with ranged attacks and just making sure you are not caught from the bushes.
Xul is dangerous if he can catch you by surprise in lane from the side and lay down hurt before you can reciprocate or flee. Ranged damage and kiting still work wonders here, so a
Valla or
Zagara or
Raynor can still see success opposite
Xul in the early lanes.
Like any split pusher, he should be attended to and chased off a lane, but the speed at which he can clear a wave is insane and you end up really just chasing him from lane to lane and not really stopping his gameplan. To counter his skeleton-bolstered minion waves, your team should also have someone who can clear those waves efficiently.
GENERAL PLAYSTYLE
Xul should have two major playstyles: push or team fight. Pushing is pretty much the same as most other lane pushers: push your lane, kill things, damage structures, and run away from the inevitable ganks. Unlike some others, however,
Xul can bully his lane pretty well early on.
Otherwise,
Xul will be looking to sneak into team fights at key moments after the tank engages, and catch people in melee range or out of position for some damage and utility. Later in the game, he becomes very versatile against a range of team comps, able to do single target burst, group percentage-based chunks, AoE slow-acting damage, slow groups of enemies down, and even reduce healing on one or more Heroes for devastating effects.
His abilities have long cooldowns for the most part, so expect to land plenty auto attack damage, as long as you're not spending your time either dead or kited.
Xul also has tons of synergy with other Heroes. His
Bone Prison is clearly seen on targets and gives plenty of time for others to pile damage or CC onto the same target. It's also a pretty long root at 2 seconds. He can reduce healing to counter big team fight saves like
Divine Palm and Ancestral Heal. He'll slow enemy targets so everyone else can chew them up.
A GOOD NECROMANCER...
...balances the great being...and picks talents to counter the enemy team rather than follow a build
...does not dive into team fights until his perfect moment to do so
...peels for his team as needed with
Bone Prison and slows
...protects his team against melee dives
...uses the correct abilities in the correct order for the enemy being targeted
...will time
Bone Armor for defensive benefit (shield/evasion) and offensive utility (explosion/slow)
...somehow keeps lanes pushed while not being caught out alone, pressuring the enemy core
EARLY GAME
Xul should be laning and pushing hard against any other solo laner. It's still to be seen, but it's common expectation that
Xul could take over from
Thrall and
Zagara as the best early game lane bullies. But this does mean he'll be a target for the roaming gank squad as he, like
Zagara, have few tricks to escape ganks. That said, he's not immune to solo bullies in lane. Ranged attackers like
Valla or
Raynor or maybe even
Zagara on creep may still have success kiting him and pecking away at range, as
Xul lacks for gap closers.
I really prefer to use
Cursed Strikes and save mana by not using
Spectral Scythe unless I'm bullying someone away. Multiple hits from
Cursed Strikes will easily take care of waves, and will chunk down towers/walls.
Shade can protect against structure shots, so you can stand in fort range a lot more than other specialists, in between creep waves.
If you're pushing walls early and the enemy is backed up, use
Cursed Strikes to hit them if they're standing just behind their walls. If they're pushing you back or you're laning against a bold diver, try to bait them into a dive on you and
Bone Prison them in your tower range.
MID GAME
During the mid-game, around the time you get your heroic, you'll want to figure out if you should safely push lanes a lot, or spend more time in team fights. You should also have a good feel, by now, how team fights are going so you know what talents to pick later on. Ultimately, keep doing what you've been doing, push lanes as much as possible, and avoid dying.
Xul is very good at killing a creep wave and then moving on to another lane safely, letting his skeletons continue the push for another 15 seconds (plus
Corpse Explosion if you take it). In team fights, start to position yourself opposite your key targets that you counter very well (especially anything melee).
Poison Nova hitting 2+ Heroes will wreck a healer's fight and immediately get them very far behind. The pressure that
Xul can put on a team is pretty intense, and probably only matched by mage assassins.
Xul can claim merc camps about as decently as a normal Hero. If he builds for
Executioner the camps get a little quicker to fall, but ultimately he is just ok in the jungle. Note that Bruiser or Shaman camps will die and thus feed Raise Skeleon, but Siege Giants will not.
LATE GAME/TEAM FIGHTS
Like all melee who are not tanks, you don't want to be the first one entering a team fight. You want to flank and come in from the sides while still mounted and drop all your damage and utility as needed before the enemy team can react or retreat. By now, you should know what enemy Heroes you particularly counter, and should continue to wait until they commit before committing yourself. Don't let a tank or a dive assassin bait you out and waste your abilities cooldowns as they slip away out of range.
If you pick up
Bone Spear at level 20, start getting used to using it. It's a bit strange to get a brand new ability key opened up this late in the game, and it's easy to not be used to having it. Use it often! It's free and a stupidly short cooldown with a good chunk of damage output. | 
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! | |
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