

Base Stats

Hi there, ChaosOS again. Today's article is on our new healer, Stukov. As a reminder , Healers constitute the current "support" label minus Tyrande and Tassadar, and are the "Solo Supports" capable of healing an entire team. Stukov's hero spotlight can be found here . If you're looking for an analysis on the initial PTR changes check out last week's blogpost found here This article was written based on Stukov's PTR numbers. Today's patch will feature changes relative to the PTR patch ("Orange text"), such as the confirmed Anub'arak changes. If any of this orange text affects Stukov I will update this article ASAP. For the orange text that applies to other heroes, I will write up an analysis and post it Wednesday 7/12. On the PTR there was a bug involving Stukov's level 4 quest "Vigorous Reuptake" that was granting the 50% bonus healing baseline. I assume that bug will be fixed in the live build, so I did not incorporate it into the calculations below.Credit again goes to redditors dizzyMongoose and Ahli for their spreadsheet and explaining how to view the HOTS XMLs respectively.Finally, today's spreadsheet that I used for the below calculations: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1SWkKyuIScyNGDfjKyxW5a6Zry9WaH_FCvl_Va117_fk . All numbers below, as per usual, are the base "level 0" stats unless otherwise noted.

HP: 1682 health

AD: 262 (131 with Spine Launcher) damage

AS: 0.67 attacks per second

Attack Period: 1.5 seconds

Attack Range: 1.5 (5.5 with Spine Launcher)

Stukov’s base HP is astonishingly low for a melee support. His base HP is identical to Malfurion’s, but his kit promotes him to play more aggressively, positioning to work in melee attacks and channel his Lurking Arm. All three of the other melee supports (Kharazim, Rehgar, and Uther) have significantly more base HP

Hero HP Increase on Stukov Uther 2156 28.18% Rehgar 2050 21.88% Kharazim 1950 15.93% Stukov 1682

This ties into the next point, about Stukov’s basic attacks. His attack damage is the highest in the game by a large margin, 53.22% higher than the runner up of Ragnaros’ at 171. His attack speed also sets a new record for the slowest in the game, at 0.67 attacks per second (Attack period of 1.5 seconds). The previous record holder was Leoric at 0.77 attacks per second (Attack period of 1.4 seconds). This works out to Stukov having the third highest base auto DPS in the game, sitting only behind pilot D.Va and Tychus. This does not account for passives that increase basic attacks such as Valla’s Hatred or Zul’jin’s Berserker, skills that provide DPS increases such as Illidan’s sweeping strikes, or AA enhancing talents such as Seasoned Marksman.

The combination of relatively low base HP but high DPS requires Stukov players to carefully balance the risk-reward of closing into melee range for a basic attack. As we will explore later, Stukov can easily heal himself without sacrificing healing on his allies, but the low base HP and lack of defensive talents makes Stukov exceptionally vulnerable to burst and CC chains.

While normally I would save talent breakdown for later, the level 1 talent Spine Launcher is relevant to Stukov’s AA talk. Spine launcher adds a 20%, 1 second slow to his basic attacks and adds 4 range (1.5 to 5.5), but cuts his attack damage from 262 to 131. This talent makes Stukov’s DPS comparable to the likes of Medivh, Lt. Morales, and Rexxar. This talent is an option to even out the risk-reward calculation of Stukov’s basic attacks, providing decent damage and a minor CC at safe range but giving up the massive damage his regular basic attacks provide. The slow mostly just compensates for the animation time on Stukov’s attack, only having 67% uptime and slowing for a very minor amount.

As a final note, Stukov’s basic attack range and scaling are both normal at 1.5 and 4% respectively.

QD Healing Mechanics

Stukov’s healing comes from two abilities: Healing Pathogen and Bio-Kill Switch. Healing Pathogen is a Heal over Time (HOT) effect that heals 240 health over 4.5 seconds. More specifically, it heals for 40 hp every 0.75 seconds for a total of a total of 6 times. Each time the HOT “ticks”, it searches for an ally in 6 range who has not been affected by this cast of Healing Pathogen and applies the HOT to them. The cast range (7) slightly outranges the spread range, so you will need to move closer to the target to get the HOT to spread back to you. The spread also has a small travel time, meaning a healing pathogen spread amongst a team will all tick at slight delays relative to each other. A basic model for the spread in a crowded team with 5 members is as follows:

Action Total time elapsed Targets applied Total Healing Initial Cast 0 seconds 1 0 First spread 0.75 seconds 2 40 Second spread 1.5 seconds 4 120 Third spread 2.25 seconds 5 280



The important thing to take away from this is that Stukov’s Healing Pathogen takes a while to take effect because it does not tick instantly, something that is compounded by how many targets it ends up effecting and the relatively long duration of the HOT. The third spread is the halfway point on the original HOT, so in a reasonably clustered teamfight your Healing Pathogen will have fully spread after it passes the 6:00 mark on the original target.

Bio-Kill switch does the majority of Stukov’s healing. By pressing D Stukov can end all healing pathogens on his allies to instantly heal them for 500 HP. This number is greater than the total healing of the HOT, so even if you detonate before the first tick of healing happens on a target they are still healed for more than if you let the HOT run its course. If you are trying to maximize overall healing on a target, you want to detonate in the last 0.75 seconds before the last tick of the effect. This will heal the target for 700 HP, as you get the first five ticks (40*5)=200 plus the 500 detonation heal. There is an audio cue to these last 0.75 seconds to help you, listen for the pitch to rise and increase in volume. If you are instead looking at the timer above their head watch for the healing number to pop up right after it passes the 9:00 mark on the circle.

Combining the mechanics of Healing Pathogen and Bio-Kill switch to maximize teamwide healing is difficult. Assuming your team is reasonably clumped you have from after the third tick of healing up to the sixth tick of healing to detonate on your entire team. This gives you just over a 2 second window to press D, requiring balancing the additional healing from the 2 additional ticks against the necessity of the burst heal. Furthermore, some situations will not allow you to wait for the full spread to detonate. One trick here is if you detonate while the spread projectile is mid-air the new target will get the HOT and continue to spread. Baseline this isn’t very useful, but is relevant with some later talents. A final consideration is that stuns and silences will prevent Stukov from activating Bio-Kill Switch, meaning a cleverly timed Wailing Arrow or Hammer of Justice could prevent Stukov from getting critical heals off.

How Stukov’s healing compares

Stukov is our 10th healer, filling the coveted “Solo Support” role. I will use three standards for evaluating healers: Burst healing, Sustained healing, and Mana efficiency. Burst healing is important for helping allies who are getting focused by the enemy team, and is measured by the amount of healing a healer can output in 2 seconds. Sustained healing is the healing output in a long teamfight, measured by the total healing a hero outputs with all spells divided by each spell’s cooldown. Mana efficiency is the long-term sustain provided by a hero, measured by the amount of healing provided per point of mana consumed.

Stukov’s strongest aspect is his mana efficiency. Healing Pathogen only costs 30 mana and is on a 10 second cooldown, while Bio-Kill Switch costs no mana at all. Starting from level 1, Stukov can use Healing Pathogen on cooldown without having net mana consumption. This alone makes Stukov a powerful choice for Braxis Holdout, as efficient healing is one of the most important traits in the long laning phase.

By the numbers, Stukov’s second strongest aspect is his raw burst healing. Bio-kill switch is a large amount of raw healing, and with a single tick of Healing Pathogen Stukov can match Uther for burst healing. However, the raw numbers here do not tell the full story. Uther’s healing gives 25 armor for 2 seconds, a 33% EHP boost, and is backed up by powerful anti-burst talents like Guardian of Ancient Kings and Divine Shield. We will get more into Stukov’s talents later, but suffice to say they lack the anti-CC and mitigation you would expect out of a burst healer.

Stukov’s sustained healing using just Healing Pathogen is in the top half, but only barely. Healing Pathogen spreads its healing out amongst an entire team rather than focusing it on 2 or 3 people, so the messier the teamfight the more value it can accrue. However, those healing numbers do not include Bio-Kill switch, which can function as a high value teamwide heal if it is used on 4 or 5 targets. As a brief attempt at modelling Bio-Kill switch I will give a minimum healing value for detonation as soon as it spreads to 4 targets, and a maximum for waiting until the last tick on the first target. The minimum value is (80+40+4*500)=2120 healing, and the maximum value is (200+160+120*2+4*500)=2600 healing. However, Bio-Kill Switch can only be used every other use of Healing Pathogen, so in a 20 seconds period Stukov minimum heals (2120+240*4)=3080 hp over 20 seconds, or 154 HPS, and at maximum heals (2600+240*4)=3560 hp over 20 seconds, or 178 HPS. This catapults Stukov well ahead of Lucio and Malfurion, but still behind Lt. Morales and a fully juiced Auriel. However, not every teamfight will allow Stukov to get a full spread of Healing Pathogen, instead requiring an earlier detonation. Thus, Stukov's healing throughput and effectiveness will depend on his ability to balance allowing Healing Pathogen to spread against the immediate needs of his teammates' health pools.

Overall, Stukov’s healing numbers are very strong baseline. The only healer that can hope to compete with his raw numbers is a fully juiced Auriel with maximum charge, but Stukov’s healing is significantly less conditional compared to Auriel's reliance on a battery. However, the mechanics of Bio-kill switch require the Stukov player to carefully weigh the balance of burst healing versus waiting for the teamwide detonation. Finally, as a side note, Li Li's healing numbers are just awful. Second worst burst healing, second worst sustained healing, and the worst mana efficiency in the game. While she probably deserves a throughput drop due to her ease of use, the little panda suffers too much from mana problems.

WED Utility and damage

Stukov’s kit comes equipped with a slow and a silence. Weighted Pustule is a low damage spell that does 20 damage on impact, slows for 3 seconds, and then 80 more damage. The slow effect on Weighted Pustule starts off at 5% and ramps up an additional 5% slow every 0.3125 seconds. This is equivalent to (just shy of) an 80% slow for 1 second, or a 26.5% slow for 3 seconds. Costing 50 mana and having a cooldown of 10 seconds, Weighted Pustule costs 5 mana per second to use on cooldown.

Bio-Kill Switch not only enhances Healing Pathogen, but also works with Weighted Pustule. The detonation deals a bonus 100 damage and slows by 70% for 2 seconds. The increasing slow on Weighted Pustule means if you want to maximize the amount of slowing done you should wait until the very end to detonate. Bio-Kill Switch, as shown above, is an important part of Stukov’s healing, and the Weighted Pustule detonation does very little by comparison. This is not strictly an either-or proposition though, as Bio-Kill Switch will detonate all Healing Pathogens and Weighted Pustules. What this does mean though is unless you are getting a pick with no chance of a retribution kill you should not be using Bio-Kill Switch only to detonate weighted pustule. A final consideration is that Healing Pathogen has a significantly longer duration than Weighted Pustule (4.5 seconds versus 3), meaning that you should cast Healing Pathogen first to let it spread, then cast Weighted Pustule, allowing max applications before detonation.

Lurking Arm is a long range AOE CC that lets Stukov disrupt teamfights and siege up. Lurking Arm does 36 damage every .25 seconds, or 144 damage per second. For a Stukov doing mercenary camps, Lurking Arm on a single target does 82.44% of the damage his basic attacks, meaning once a camp gets down to a single mercenary it is more optimal to cancel Lurking Arm and instead use basic attacks. The cooldown on Lurking Arm starts when it is cancelled, meaning that once Stukov cancels the arm there is an 8 second window where he does not have access to his powerful silence. The 60 mana cost is noticeable but mostly exists to prevent using Lurking Arm just to harass.

Talents

Blizzard continues to make talent trees with lots of incomparables, however Stukov’s is a bit easier to draw some conclusions from than Malthael. The level 1 talents are all playstyle defining, each suggesting a different build. Levels 4 and 16 emphasize Stukov’s ability to aid his allies, while 7 and 13 enhance his offensive power. For the talent analysis below I won't go over every single talent, as many talents are self-explanatory and don't have any interesting mathematical considerations.

An important consideration for the Weighted Pustule oriented talents at level 1 is both encourage utilizing Weighted Pustule frequently even if the slow won’t gain any value. This can put some strain on Stukov’s mana if he is also having to use his heal on cooldown. Furthermore, Poppin’ Pustules incentivizes using Bio-Kill switch to detonate Weighted Pustule, creating windows of vulnerability where Stukov is missing his main burst heal.

Level 4

One Good Spread at level 4 drops the cooldown on Healing Pathogen to 8 seconds and acts as a full mana refund. This talent is appealing partially because it lines up your third Healing Pathogen cast with a second use of Bio-Kill Switch, but it also functions as a 25% HPS increase for Healing Pathogen spam. The mana refund can also be considered equivalent to 3 MPS, but Stukov’s mana costs are so low it seems unlikely that the mana would be too significant.

Top Off is a way for Stukov to further enhance his sustain. Top Off increases each tick of Healing Pathogen from 40 to 60 on the initial target if they are above 60% HP. Given that Stukov already has a lot of sustain, it seems overkill to pick up additional sustain unless you are concerned with an opposing poke composition.

Biotic Armor provides a significant amount of physical armor to the original target of Healing Pathogen. 50 physical armor for 4.5 seconds is one of the most powerful armor buffs in the game, however using Bio-Kill switch will end the buff if the target takes a spike of damage and needs the additional healing.

Vigorous Reuptake is a moderately difficult quest that increases the base healing on Bio-Kill Switch from 500 to 750, adding an enormous amount of healing to Stukov once he detonates 50 Healing Pathogens. This healing is so significant that unless your team is going to be split the entire map (Such as on Warhead Junction), the quest reward seems to outcompete every other talent on the tier.

Level 7

The Long Pitch , going through the PTR XML file, does not in fact add 100% range to Weighted Pustule. Instead, it increases the range from 11.5 to 19.75, an increase of 8.25 or 71.7%. Given that the margin of error is significantly more than something like Stukov’s model size it is unclear why the talent does not actually add 100% more range.

Within My Reach increases the range of Lurking Arm from 10 to 15, allowing Stukov to outrange almost anything (Such as Sgt. Hammer) with his Lurking Arm.

It Hungers reduces the cooldown of Lurking Arm by .5 seconds every time it hits a hero, up to 6.5. Because Lurking Arm only goes on cooldown once it ends, this reduces the cooldown to a low of 1.5 seconds. You need a total of (6.5/.5)=13 hero hits to reach the maximum cooldown reduction. Given the tick period of 0.25 seconds, against a single hero it takes 3.25 seconds to reach the maximum cooldown reduction. One caution with this talent is that it can significantly increase Stukov’s mana consumption, as Lurking Arm has the highest mana cost out of Stukov’s basic abilities.

Targeted Excision is a very powerful talent on this tier that reduces the cooldown of Bio-Kill Switch to 5 seconds if you detonate a single Weighted Pustule and any number of Healing Pathogens. This talent is not sufficient to act on its own, as Weighted Pustule and Healing Pathogen both have a base cooldown of 10 seconds, meaning you won’t be able to fully capitalize on the reduced cooldown. One important synergy is Fetid Touch at level 1, which can reduce the cooldown of Weighted Pustule down to 5 seconds, allowing a continuous chain of Weighted Pustule+Bio-Kill Switch.

Level 13

Reactive Ballistospores at provides a safety measure for Stukov that punishes enemies who focus him. This talent synergizes best with Poppin’ Pustules at level 1, and has anti-synergy with Targeted Excision at level 7. Not only is the reset not as powerful on a 5 second cooldown relative to a 16 second cooldown, but the mass application of Weighted Pustule prevents utilizing the cooldown reduction.

Low Blow is a significant damage upgrade for Lurking Arm, increasing the damage per tick from 36 to 90, but the ability does not naturally lend itself to use as a finisher.

Lingering Spines has a significant amount of synergy with the reduced cooldown talent at level 7, not only providing more cooldown reduction if you haven’t reached the cap but also means you can have 100% uptime on Lurking Arm if you have reached the cap.

Virulent Reaction is a powerful talent that reduces an enemy hero’s options to using basic attacks while Stukov channels Lurking Arm. Upgrading from a 70% slow to a root allows Bio-Kill switch to absolutely shut down a mobile assassin like Genji if they get caught in the Lurking Arm.

Level 16

Superstrain gives Stukov some much-needed burst mitigation. A 250 heal whenever an ally is stunned is nothing to sneeze at, and the effect has no internal cooldown. If the enemy team has AOE stuns such as Johanna’s Condemn or Diablo’s Apocalypse, Superstrain can add a huge amount of healing across a teamfight, outperforming Pox Populi on any targets hit by even a single stun.

Universal Carrier allows Stukov to permanently keep a Healing Pathogen running so long as he keeps an ally within 6 range of him. This talent effectively treats Healing Pathogen as a fresh cast whenever it goes to Stukov, and makes it so Stukov can always receive the Healing Pathogen so long as he is not currently affected. This talent impacts Stukov's sustained healing, increasing uptime but decreasing effectiveness. The effective uptime from Universal Carrier is (6/7)=85.71%, as you miss a tick of healing when the Healing Pathogen is reapplied. The 60% cut reduces the tick value from 40 to 16, working out to (16/.75 seconds per tick)=21.33 healing per second while Healing Pathogen is running, for an overall of (21.33*6/7)=~18.3 healing per second. Base Healing Pathogen works out to (240 healing/10 second cooldown)=24 healing per second. Thus, Universal Carrier by itself is a 23.81% reduction in HPS and should generally not be taken. However, I will later go over a build that can use the continual spread feature to an advantage.

Pox Populi effectively adds 48% bonus healing to Bio-Kill Switch, spread over 4.5 seconds. This talent has some synergy with Top Off and Biotic Armor, extending the duration of the bonus healing or armor on the original target. This talent does not synergize with Targeted Excision, as the refreshed Healing Pathogen will expire before Bio-Kill Switch becomes available again.

Eye Infection is a bit out of place on the level 16 tier, adding 40 damage to the expiration of Weighted Pustule. This damage increase is overall insignificant, and instead the focus should be on the blind. If the enemy team heavily features basic attackers then the blind effect could completely shut down their DPS, however in any regularly mixed composition the added healing from the other talents at this tier will out-compete the conditional blinds on Eye Infection. Even against a Valla+Illidan composition the difficulty in landing Weighted Pustule should discourage picking this talent against the reliable healing provided by other talents here. Also, the blind does not become AOE if you have the completed Poppin’ Pustules quest.

Level 20

Controlled Chaos, in short, is a bad talent. While it does increase the range of Flailing Swipe to always be 11 rather than 5, then 8, then 11, it adds some major drawbacks. The 1 second cast time is punishing given that the talent does not add any knockback range, the 3 second internal cooldown makes it worse as a hard disengage, and the overall cooldown to be fully refreshed goes from 80 seconds to 120. Each charge has a cooldown of 40 seconds, meaning that to get all 3 back it takes 120. I would genuinely consider this talent a downgrade compared to the base version of Flailing Swipe

Talent Summary

Stukov : E Build Stukov Growing Infestation Lurking Arm's area expands by 50% over 2.5 seconds and increases the cooldown by 5 seconds. Biotic Armor Healing Pathogen grants 50 Physical Armor to its initial target while active on them. It Hungers Each time an enemy Hero is hit by Lurking Arm, reduce its cooldown by 0.5 seconds, up to 6.5 seconds, and restore 10 Mana. Massive Shove Extend Stukov's arm. If it hits an enemy Hero, they are rapidly shoved until they collide with terrain, taking 190 damage. Stukov gains 50 Armor while shoving an enemy. Lingering Spines Lurking Arm persists for 1.5 seconds after it is canceled. Pox Populi Bio-Kill Switch no longer removes Healing Pathogen and instead extends its duration by 3 seconds. Push Comes To Shove Massive Shove travels 25% faster. If Massive Shove pushes a target for more than 1.25 seconds, its cooldown is reduced by 15 seconds.

Stukov : Bio-Kill Switch Spam Fetid Touch Quest: Hit Heroes with Weighted Pustule. Reward: After hitting 15Heroes, reduce the cooldown of Weighted Pustule by 2.5 seconds. Reward: After hitting 30Heroes, reduce the cooldown of Weighted Pustule by an additional 2.5 seconds and remove its Mana cost. Vigorous Reuptake Quest: Detonate 50 Healing Pathogens with Bio-Kill Switch. Reward: Increase Bio-Kill Switch's healing by 40%. Targeted Excision Detonating exactly 1 Weighted Pustule (but any number of Healing Pathogens) with Bio-Kill Switch reduces the cooldown of Bio-Kill Switch to 5 seconds and other Basic Attack abilities by 1.5 seconds. Massive Shove Extend Stukov's arm. If it hits an enemy Hero, they are rapidly shoved until they collide with terrain, taking 190 damage. Stukov gains 50 Armor while shoving an enemy. Virulent Reaction Detonating a Weighted Pustule on an enemy who is inside of Lurking Arm Roots them for 2 seconds. Universal Carrier Healing Pathogen can continually spread through Stukov, but its healing is reduced by 50%. Push Comes To Shove Massive Shove travels 25% faster. If Massive Shove pushes a target for more than 1.25 seconds, its cooldown is reduced by 15 seconds.

Final Thoughts

Stukov's talents provide a variety of options, with some complicated synergies. I've provided two builds below as starting places for exploring the character. The first build is centered around Lurking Arm and utilizes the synergies between the talents to continually zone the opposition. The second is centered around Targeted Excision, building to use Bio-Kill Switch to heal Stukov's entire team for massive amounts of health every 5 seconds.This build combines Growing Infestation, It Hungers, and Lingering Spines to continuously create highly damaging zones of silence. The level 4 talent is flexible and is not particularly important. The level 16 talent should generally be Pox Populi, but Superstrain is a viable alternative if you are facing many stuns.This build is the high skillcap one. Featuring quests at level 1 and 4, and Targeted Excision at 7, this build will probably be the one high level Stukov players use. The main bundle of synergy comes between Fetid Touch and Targeted Excision. Once completed, Fetid Touch reduces Weighted Pustule to a 5 second cooldown. This allows you to cast a Weighted Pustule, and if it hits exactly one target, detonate to put the entire combo on only a 5 second cooldown. This enables every single Healing Pathogen to benefit from the Bio-Kill Switch detonation. Vigorous Reuptake synergizes with this build by increasing the value of every Bio-Kill Swtich activation by 50%. Virulent Reaction is the preferred talent at level 13 because you will consistently have Bio-Kill switch available to root whoever you tag with Weighted Pustule.Universal Carrier is the preferred talent at 16, despite it being a nerf to Healing Pathogen's output, for two reasons. First, you can have Healing Pathogen off cooldown when you use your first detonation in a teamfight, allowing you to recast Healing Pathogen and have it applied to all your allies when Bio-Kill switch comes back off cooldown. Second, the trick with detonating while the spread projectile is mid-air is much more relevant here. If you detonate while a spread projectile is mid-air you won’t lose the current Healing Pathogen, allowing you to re-spread Healing Pathogen throughout your team without using the cooldown. This trick can allow up to 3 Bio-Kill Switch detonations over the span of 10 seconds, outputting 1500 healing (2250 with Vigorous Reuptake completed) to each member of your team. Practicing the mechanics of this will be difficult, but can allow Stukov to output truly broken amounts of team-wide healing.Stukov is a powerful healer who can output large amounts of healing for his entire team while providing powerful CC through his Lurking Arm. The Targeted Excision build epitomizes the balancing act of his Bio-Kill Switch, requiring the Stukov Player to juggle multiple HOTs and DOTs to maximise throughput. I expect Stukov's winrate to climb significantly in his first several weeks as players learn to play him.