I am Sango Cross of SangoProductions213 , and I am proud to finally have time to get back to work on making guides, particularly pertaining to my favorite hero, Kael'thas, whom I have racked up more than 300 games with. I will discuss mostly what he has, and thus when/where/why to pick it, rather than lamenting over the things he is now missing because of this change, or how they seemed intent on removing talent synergy.I would like to thank Axonn_0 from Reddit for suggesting I add in notes about synergies. Also, if you enjoyed (or didn't), then rating and telling me why would be helpful for making this guide better.Kael'thas just got buffed, so here's a new video showing off the buff. I have played for several days (not neccesarily consecutively) since this video and lost a grand total of one game as Kael on the new buff. I had a close call, which has been uploaded on my channel, because that was fun, but I won't put it here, because it's too long to be useful as a part of a guide (although I go over the merits of the talents I choose in that video still but...whatever).

His defensive options were stripped HEAVILY in his nerf. No easy reveal with Clairvoyance, no Bolt of the Storm, no increased speed of Gravity Lapse, a weaker Arcane Barrier, no increased range of Flamestrike (from his talent, but in the buff, they gave it a small base range increase), and Arcane Barrier's talent tier now conflicts with Fel Infusion, his only other defensive talent option now. Like holy ****. They were really determined to make sure his only option to keep himself alive was to position, and hope the enemy didn't flank or dive. "Wait! No! Sylvanus! We can talk this out!"But then they gave Kael'thas a massive freaking buff. As you can see in the introduction's video. I've yet to lose a game as Kael'thas. Raw freaking numbers, and now he is above the "OP" level of average winrate already. ..by quite a bit... Like wow. Still so little talent synergy, but you've just got massive numbers.

One final thing to note: My opinions are based on being rank 1. I convinced my brother to buy kael'thas so that I could try out a rank 36 game....and it was freaking silly. I did this because I kept getting comments that the trap talents weren't so bad. No one would give me their rank when I asked but... so to get the information, I had to test it myself. Indeed, at rank 36, people DO NOT spread out. Even when they are visibly dead from living bomb, they still ran aside their team.Kael is OP at this rank, even his trap talents...assuming you aren't equally skilled as them. If you are actually at this rank, I'd still recommend not picking up Convection.But, as I said above, the balance has been shifted from needing Kael to play good to needing the enemies to play poorly. So, by all means pick upif you want. Pick upif you want. They are traps because the enemy spread out, and counterplay Kael at rank 1.(note: Once you move past rank 1 and in to masters, Master of Flames is quite nice, likely due to the team comps you're picking Kael'thas with already, which already enable him...and the fact that the rest of the level 20 talents aren't great.)With that said, the majority of what I say applies to all ranks. Just, not what I say about how the enemy acts.

More advanced tactic for harassing in lane (or before a fight): Mount up, usethen hit the enemy with a, and walk out. Most of the time they can't avoid you, and your W's range makes it easy to get out without taking any damage.An even better way to harass in lane is to watch for low minions (often those that just survived a flame strike. Wait for your enemy to come to those minions, and then launch an empoweredon the low minion to hit them with the explosion damage, which instantly procs a chained Living Bomb on them, effectively letting you double the explosion damage of your living bomb.

First off, I make the ranking based off of how it will apply to every situation, regardless of skill, or how the game is going, or whom you're up against. Anything that modifies the ability to be higher or lower ranking will be explained on a case-by-case basis. Also, the ranking is about the relative strength to what's in the talent tier, rather than an absolute "this is op" or "this is well balanced, and a healthy talent".pastarific from Reddit suggested a change in the color code, and was supported by others in that suggestion, so sure.This is the best ability. No matter what the situation, you should pick this.This is a great ability. It's pretty solid.This is mostly situational (perhaps even underwhelming), but it isn't bad.This is...not so good. Has fewer situations in which it is usable, and/or those situations aren't exactly obvious to spot.It's a trap! Run~~

Convection : As was previously, this isn't neccesarily a trap because it's *bad*.

Fel Infusion : This got a very slight buff.

Quoted: On maps where your average speed of regen globe acquisition is slow, this might be chosen above Mana Addict, especially if you seek to get the Twin Spheres talent mentioned above.

Mana Addict : This thing has been nerfed over and over again

Quoted: Where you can't collect this drops a tier. However, counter to that, I'd say this rises to a Green (great) talent on the Battlefield of Eternity, AND you have a decent team with 2 melee or one really sticky melee and support. This is because you get so much damage out on the immortals by having infinite mana (and thus not needing to save mana for potential team fights).

Nether Wind : Wow, just wow.

Energy Roil : This is underwhelming because it can only reduce the CD by 7 seconds, and only if you hit something.

Mana Tap : Surprisingly, I found I really liked this talent.

Gravity Crush : This is situational because it's

Sunfire Enchantment : Can you believe it?

...is the only ultimate you have. I assure you.

To be honest?

Pyromaniac : Despite the nerf, is perhaps the best talent at this tier.

Quoted: Note: it's a good deal harder to get maximum benefit if you don't have the mana talents...at the very least Mana Tap. If you don't have Mana Tap, then this drops a good tier. If you don't have either, it drops 2 tiers.

This is really meh.

Also a very bleh talent.

Quoted: Moves up a tier on close-quarters maps like Cursed Hollow and Battlefield of Eternity. Still not great.

Fury of the Sunwell : As some of you may know was my favored talent on this tier even during the Chain Bomb era.

Quoted: This becomes better if you are on a map with a lane-pushing objective that doesn't really move (like Haunted Mines, or Battlefield of Eternity), because of how great, how fantastic, this is against immobile objectives. However, the next talent might actually be better against some of those same objectives so this doesn't actually push it up a tier (not to mention I don't think that'd get it to Blue anyway).

Sun King's Fury : Is a great little talent.

Quoted: This might be borderline broken against lane-pushing objectives, if the enemy team isn't pushing with them for whatever reason....but that's a pretty big if and is unlikely to come up this late in the game. On the Garden Terror map though, the Garden Terror very often places a plant within an easily defensible position for you (between the gate and the keep), and lets you attack it for free. That's likely to change as people get used to the changes to Garden Terror, but for now that makes it great for countering it.

Twin Spheres : Hell yeah! So many options.

Rebirth is solidly decent.

is...bad.

is something I used to swear by in my lower ELO games

Thetag I have under the talents details how they change your approach to team fights. And thetag speaks on the ...you guessed it, synergies of the talent with others.There are a lot of notes in these talents, and especially with the new Team Fight section which discusses how it changes your team fight, I feel it might be leading to bloating. I need feedback if this amount of information is what is wanted, or if I should do something else.Instead, it's a trap because it sounds good but strips you of critical systems you need in the game. In this case, it's raw defense that you lose by going with convection. And this is the ONLY talent tier with ANY defense. You need defense. However, unlike previous convection, this one is also a gamble in that if you die, you lose all your stacks...: with Fury of the Sunwell, you can hit a target twice (no ****?). This could potentially double your rate of collection, and you're getting double value per cast of Flamestrike. Of course, you shouldn't be taking Convection at all, but hey, here it is. Screw you.This has no significant impact on how you play a team fight. At best you are tempted to directly hit people more often, which is actually a detriment, since it is best used for controlling an area, although for the less feeble of mind, this just means your zone control is better. So yeah, no significant effect.It's basically supposed to work as a half and half talent of offense and defense. Too bad you simply want as much defense as possible. Of course, you can't be zoned out of this healing, and it's always present. So, if the enemy team is a bunch of early game heroes, take this, as you won't have time to collect Arcane Barrier stacks. It's not as good burst-mitigation as arcane barrier, but it provides reasonable sustain. Not great, just reasonable. However, I'm finding more and more as I play Kael'thas in this patch, it's all about the sustain, and less about burst-mitigation. Especially with how small the shield is nowadays.With Twin Spheres, you can get health twice.It's just an added effect for what you're already doing. Could allow you to stay longer in a brawl, or in lane.... well, the Arcane Barrier portion of it has been. Now it's only got 100% of your max mana as a shield, but it's bundled with its natural companion, Mana Addict, and at level 1, so might be a slight buff. However... you have *no* other defensive options at all. This means it doesn't matter that its talent tier was reduced. It just straight up has less power, and that's what you care about. It does require a deal of diligence to get arcane barrier in a timely fashion, and some maps hate orb collecting.At this point, I might call it the actual offensive talent that eventually gives you defensive returns in the late game, but still. The main draw is the mana. The shield is just so weak now. And the more I play, I'm just not finding the extra mana that appealing any more. Sure, even on Battlefield of Eternity, you can have infinite mana for spamming damage against the immortal, but you don't really need it.For direct synergies, it...basically only synergizes with Mana Tap because it's increasing your maximum mana, and that restores 4% of your maximum mana.You get more of a mana pool, which means you can cast more freely once the fight happens, getting more poking, and more spells within the Brawl phase. No significant impact on Burst fights....except for once you get the shield.Normally I would call anything that increases your range as really good, but...the base missile speed is so slow...and now you can not increase it. Gravity Lapse is also a long cooldown CC that is your only means of peeling for yourself or escaping. I'm just not seeing a situation where the range would help you without the speed, because the range only exacerbated the issue, taking nearly 1 to 1.5 seconds to reach the end of the range. That's far too unreliable a use for your only CC and effective escape in your kit, especially for this patch. And the mana return is really meaningless, as you only get it once, regardless of how many you hit.None. Go away.Well...it could help with catching or engaging. But, as mentioned, it's slow at the out edges. You might get lucky though, but don't count on it. All-in-all, no significant changes.It reduces the cooldown of the aforementioned only cc and escape in your kit, so long as you use it as you should. That's great. It's still not something that I'd recommend to newbies, but it's a solid choice if you've got a good handle on Kael. Do note: this only reduces the cooldown by 7 seconds if you hit at least one hero, not by more if you hit more heroes.(this one specifically was suggested by Axonn_0) This makes Gravity Crush less of a risk to use, because of reducing the cool down. It also enables you to get the damage bonus more often. You still have to all-in someone to make the damage bonus worthwhile, but it's still a synergy. One that probably pushes this and Gravity Crush up a tier.Well, it actually changes a whole lot. It's a bunch of CDR, which means you can use it offensively even more, or keep it for safety. You are also granted greater freedom to use it offensively since if you do it correctly, you will have it defensively when you need it. And more than can be briefly mentioned.According to HotSLogs statistics, this talent sucks. I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps it's because of what I said about it requiring you to use your only defensive tool for offense to get value out of it?I don't tend to gravitate towards mana-based talents unless the hero has serious mana problems. However, this along with Mana Addict, it was literally impossible for me to go OOM. I could not spam enough. Given that Kael is all about zone-control now (kind of was before, but at least he could burst a group with Chain Bomb), and his damage is much less reliable, I found that being able to always be applying that zone, no matter what, was aboon.However, you could stand to have enough regeneration without Mana Addict. You don't have truly infinite spam without it, but it's a reliable way to get mana back with D + W, and thus stay in fights for longer than normal.: You get extra mana from Mana Addict.Not a truly significant change. If you took mana addict, you already had plenty of mana for team fights. If you didn't this isn't going to instantly make you have infinite mana (though it'd be easier). It's primary impact is in the lane, where you can just spam to your heart's content, and not be crippled come next objective.The pick rate on hotslogs makes me sad. Even in masters, which I really don't understand. It's got like the lowest average winrate! I guess it's the added threat, and thus makes the control even better? I've tried this a couple times. 0% win rate, except on aram. You almost never get any actual value out of it. People are already avoiding flame strike like the plague. I DON'T GET IT!...well, it's forcing you to use your CC offensively to get stuff out of the ability, and youto all-in them in order to make it worth. And guess what? It's using a skill shot. That means you'll miss occasionally, and that sucks. It's just risky and will leave you vulnerable. This reminds me quite heavily of the original Convection, but this at least has a wider reaching effect than that and isn't in the same talent tier as critical utility...it is a higher talent tier though, and the easier and more reliable option is the very next one.With all that said, its buff made it so it's...kinda worth. But I definitely feel not having Sunfire Enchantment when I miss more than I feel having Gravity Crush when I hit.Already discussed under Energy Roil.It's kind of forcing you to useoffensively to get value out of it. I don't appreciate this, as you can gather.Even after being preemptively nerfed...this is the best talent in the tier? Not particularly great, just as before, but when your competition is this....well... yeah. Turns your auto attack in to a spell. You've got ways to scale spell power. That's nice. It also ignore Block and similar effects. It procs spell shield, allowing your real spells to deal full damage.Same as every other Verdant Spheres talent.You should get an attack in at least once each time you use verdant spheres, if it is safe. It's not always safe. Of course, you're already attacking if it's truly safe. I'm tempted to say it's not significant, but one could argue it's encouragement to take a bit more of a risk to attack, since it's so much more damage.Note: Kael's ultimates aren't "great". (so much so, his average win rate actually drops from his sensible level 7 talents to his ults, which is rather rare).It does semi-decent damage to a single target (basically), but it lasts a while, gives you vision of the area, and tells the enemies "OOO, look, I'm a circle! Fear me! Fear me and my insignificant damage!" Oddly enough, it still works. It works decently for dismounting chasing enemies. It does have a low cooldown, so use it whenever you want a little extra damage, or to ward off an area.I already discussed this in my Team Fight Strategy, and in the basic description.I'm still leaning on the edge of saying "It's a trap" but...I've seen it burst squishies from 90% health. You still run in to the problem where it's slow (giving anyone with damage reduction or shields, or heals a chance to react), requires a long ask cast time to pull off (giving anyone with damage or cc to react...so everyone...). It does, however, end up with people running like chickens with their heads cut off instead of them killing you though for some reason...even at rank 1. "OMG! This unstoppable force is chasing me! Must run!" No you dumb ask, you can't do anything about it anyway! Running doesn't help!This is his single worst win rate talent, even among his level 1 talents. If that doesn't speak for the weakness of this, I don't know what does. But people still hold it true to their hearts. Like Triple Tap.I can not give a confident answer. I lack the experience. It, does, as I said, basically remove someone from the fight...if you ever find a way to safely cast it.Ew....we got the Lunara treatment. Thanks Obama. We totally want to spec in to Living Bomb for every build we go for.Well.... there's only one Living bomb talent not in this talent tier. Take a guess. They aren't particularly synergistic, so this is most....******** it I didn't want to remember the "Weakness of Flames". Anyway, those others are most synergistic with Fission Bomb because slightly easier spreads.I mean, the nerf is warranted because it doesn't have to compete against Chain Bomb now. Not to mention, you now potentially could get bonus CDR if your enemies act like reflarbs and clump up. Basically, every second that your living bomb is on someone, you reduce the CD of your basic abilities by 1 second. So basically halving the CD of all your abilities, unless you empower W in to another W, or again, they clump up, in which case you gain your CDs back even faster. I still prefer to only empower W if you are harassing, or trying to get mana back in the early game with Mana Tap, but yeah, it's...possible.You cast more, so you need more mana to take full benefit of it. As such, Mana Tap and Mana Addict both work to maximize your benefit from this.Basically no real difference. You just cast things more.They nerfed it from live by 20%, though they put it a talent tier lower. It...still doesn't make up for the fact that it really doesn't feel impactful. At least on live, you could instantly proc the slow. Now you have to wait 3 seconds for a mere 30% slow. Not significant and way too long. People proved me wrong with Backdraft on live. But after this nerf...I don't think it's going to survive. I'd rate it lower if I wasn't proved wrong with live version.No significant difference.20% range isn't really all that noticeable, and it still suffers from the 3 second delay before its benefits kick in. Maybe if you are fighting on the Cursed Hollow, and noticing that people are standing just a little too far apart to spread, but not far enough to be safe, then take it. Else, it's really not worth it, especially compared to Pyromaniac.No active difference. You just now get a larger area that you hope the enemy will stand in for 3 seconds.Awesome! This talent tier is actually really nice.It just got an arguable buff. It no longer goes in to hiding after the first explosion (thus letting down the enemies' guard to then explode on them), and it denies the area for 0.5 fewer seconds, but it now does the second explosion quicker. So yeah. This is your most reliable source of Zone Control. May as well effectively double it.None. There are no good Flamestrike talents that synergise with this.No significant difference. You just now get a more effective zone of control.Think back to the level 7 talents. This is basically 3 to 4 Sunfire Enchantments (aside from not being a spell), assuming the guy you cast living bomb on doesn't run like a chicken with its head cut off...away from you. It can also stack well with Gravity Crush, as this actually causes your autos to deal a rather significant amount of damage, and you were needing to burst them down anyway, if you took that talent.This allows you to do that very well...again, assuming they don't just run. But, if they run, they aren't in the fight, so that's a win. Alternatively, since you likely have fewer defensive options than they do...they'll probably just tank the hits you get in, and kill you immediately. Yeah. This is a great talent, but you telegraph whom you are attacking, and auto attacks are the shortest range thing you can do. High risk. High Reward. Only take when they have shown that they can't touch you.Technically synergizes with Weakness of Flame and Fission Bomb....but....don't. It also synergizes excessively well Gravity Crush, if you picked that up. Not in any particular way, just that this deals a lot of damage, and Gravity Crush multiplies it.It encourages riskier behavior to get more attacks in on the target with Living Bomb. It also means you might want to change your targets from the best zoning target to the one that you are most likely to be able to auto safely for the duration - often the tank.Not to mention, the trait is one of the few things that Kael'thas has which actually has talents at nearly every talent tier. Blizz seemed to go out of their way to make sure other talents that affected the same ability could not be chosen in the same build. I've got a trolly build that takes this and Fel Infusion at level 1. It's not as viable (for reasons already mentioned), and takes too long to ramp up but it looks cool.Only the obvious ones. There are indirect synergies though which could technically be every single talent, but....that's getting a bit excessive for this little excerpt.Dude. Screw off. There are so many differences here I could not detail them all. Just take the above combos and add anotherGet wrecked.Mostly for the double duration. The repositioning could be cool if the enemies are doing stupid stuff to prioritize running out of the circle, but the damage tends to be insignificant. At best it might help to rush a core, unless you tend to just really screw up your phoenix positioning. That said, there's nothing else really competing for the slot now, since Bolt of the Storm is gone, so this would probably be my go-to pick most of the time.Little difference. It can help cover a retreat better now. I've not really seen an entire team fight shift out of the circle (although it makes individuals less likely to go in), so the repositioning aspect really isn't going to change your team fights.If you've already got Pyroblast, then...it does nothing for your damage. You may decrease your CD by 25 seconds for the one hero you hit...which is insignificant. (They are going to run away either way...for whatever reason. Guess they think they can out run it??) You won't get in to fights often enough even with base Cooldown. People respawn too slowly, and Pyroblast requires too much preparation and too perfect a position to be usable that often...but it also doesn't come off CD quick enough to use twice in a fight. So it's kinda a lame duck...(around 2200), because I hate mana. I played and loved DawnGate because it had absolutely n/a mana (also its "rune" system was really cool), and entirely balanced around cooldowns. Getting back free mana, as well as getting the bonus for the spells that you needed that mana for, was amazing. Hell, if you pick up Pyroblast, you want to pick this talent to make it actually deal some type of damage.Of course, with the build that I present to you, it's impossible for you to run out of mana, if you collect even a modicum of regen globes. So....you get 15% bonus damage. That's decent. It's going to help in burstier team fights, but I think, all considered, a longer duration phoenix is probably better because more overall damage, and greater zone control for objectives, since it's threatening them with that oh so laughable damage for longer.You want to unload rather than zone with your initial set of spells now, including Sunfire Enchantment. This will not affect Poke phase.3 seconds between spreads between heroes only is long enough. With this, they need to stay together for a full 6 seconds. It's never going to happen. Maybe if this also allowed you to cast on allies? That might actually make it really useful.I've played Kael for weeks since his rework. There's only beentime where this was actually, visibly worth taking on a non-aram map, but even then, it wouldn't have killed anyone, and their ETC was just trolling the entire game.