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I wrote this up as a post for general discussion, but then I thought that we haven't really had an in-depth discussion of what comps to use gul'dan in, how to play him in general, etc, etc. So feel free to leave any thoughts you have on him as well--- this post is just a thought dump on my part.
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So, I was thinking the other night about Gul'dan and what makes him special. I've been playing him a lot over the last two days in QM and unranked draft--- but not enough to make me convinced he is good. But he does feel fun, I will say that.
Things that make him special:
* Amazing MAP sustain. If you play him right, you never have to back to base for mana or health. Ever. * Utility--- enough that I'll put this in a second list. * Positioning punishment. Corruption is a difficult skill shot to use effectively. At first I was trying to use it the same way I would use Gall's bouncy ball, but I learned quickly that this is incorrect. Gall's ability is on a short cooldown and is spammable. Corruption is on a relatively long cooldown, so you need to read opponent movements when using it. When you are up against a character who you know wants to run in, cast something, then run away(nazeebo, for instance), that is when corruption pays off in lane: getting multiple hits on it(or even all three hits) can easily chunk someone for what feels like half their healthbar. * Siege--- Corruption is an ability with a long cooldown, and you frequently don't want to be in the thick of fights or else the enemy team will just jump on you and kill you. This is where rain of destruction comes into play. By simply backing off and casting this spell, you have enough damage on an area to where an enemy team NEEDS to back off or move forward just to get out of the spell. Last night I even had an amusing moment where I cast this over a tribute on cursed hollow. My entire team died during the fight, but then the final moments of this spell killed two enemy teammates, and by moving in I was able to 1v1 the remaining teammate easily with drain life.
All of this adds up to a very unique mage which I think was very well designed. Let's talk about some utility that I've found:
* Drain life- This spell allows you to tank bosses for your team. * Drain life- Allows you to have infinite sustain in poke wars in maps where enemy minions are always around. One enemy minion has enough hp to let you gain a full cycle of drain life, so every enemy minion or skeleton on the map is a health pack. * Fel Flame- Great for clearing creep * Fel Flame- Great for checking bushes for enemies * Fel Flame- Great for clearing chromie time traps * Horrify: Great for stunning lone-divers like illidan * Horrify: Great for canceling ETC moshes * Rain of Destruction: Great for punishing poke teams who can't hard-dive. Especially good against hammer/medic comps, as it out-ranges hammer and deals enough random damage that medic can't keep up with it all. * Horrify: Works in a pinch for saving allies who are getting collapsed on.
The greatest drawback to him is that his only form of peel is in his ult(horrify) and level 20(demonic circle). Gul'dan has nothing in his basic kits that at least minorly cc enemies or speeds himself up in some way. The only other character in the game I can think of like this is Artanis, and he obviously is built to be on the front lines. (well, Zag is close--- but creep gives move speed buff now). Gul'dan really isn't built to be on the front lines, though. This weakness is an extremely large weakness, and is likely the reason for his low winrrate--- he is both dependent on excellent positioning himself as well as dependent on enemy teams not being able to dive him. Not being dived on when you are this vulnerable makes you very dependent on ally peel and enemy ineptitude.
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I didn't really mention it in the OP, but I should also add that Gul'Dan is a lot of fun to play. The mana management of his character is very different from other characters in a way that I didn't think would add much to the table. But, the mini-game of "who can I snack on to replenish my mana next?" makes you feel quite like a vampire looking for a snack. Also, using drain life to kill someone is very satisfying. (And also quite easy--- it's a non-skillshot after all, so whenever you see someone low you can just latch it onto them and watch them frantically try to get out of your range. I killed many illidans and thralls this way yesterday.)
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No CC = not good
sad but true
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Yeah the other big weakness is that Drain Life makes you a sitting duck for any skill shots, and dodging them leaves you waiting for a long cool down before you can try again. He has good damage and great wave clear though. His highest win rate builds were all corruption based at least prior to yesterday and if you don't hit your corruptions in meaningful ways then he won't win.
Horrify is one of the best CC's in the game. I do think they should change Curse of Exhaustion to slow as soon as it hits instead of after the dot wears off and that would help him a ton even if they had to lower the slow amount significantly.
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On July 29 2016 03:00 karazax wrote: Yeah the other big weakness is that Drain Life makes you a sitting duck for any skill shots, and dodging them leaves you waiting for a long cool down before you can try again. He has good damage and great wave clear though. His highest win rate builds were all corruption based at least prior to yesterday and if you don't hit your corruptions in meaningful ways then he won't win.
Yeah totally agreed--- notice that I didn't mention using drain life on enemies during teamfights. What I find myself doing is stepping away from the fight for a few seconds to drain a minion safely, then returning to the fight. That isn't always possible on all maps. The one exception is finishing people off. Fel flame + drain life can take out the last 5-10% of a heroes' health bar, and killing someone can be worth being exposed for a second or two.
Horrify is one of the best CC's in the game. I do think they should change Curse of Exhaustion to slow as soon as it hits instead of after the dot wears off and that would help him a ton even if they had to lower the slow amount significantly.
Really both ults are quite good in the right contexts. Though, if the enemy team drafted appropriately horrify should be the better option. [in a way, the choice here is similar to falstad's gust vs hinterlands blast choice]
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On July 29 2016 02:18 Ej_ wrote: No CC = not good
sad but true
In base kit, yeah. But a good Horrify can equal one or two picks easy. Like a good Gust engage, you can win the fight before it even starts, which in the lategame can straight up mean gg.
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On July 29 2016 04:52 Larkin wrote:In base kit, yeah. But a good Horrify can equal one or two picks easy. Like a good Gust engage, you can win the fight before it even starts, which in the lategame can straight up mean gg.
Though it should be said--- landing a good gust is much easier than landing a good horrify. A good horrify is maybe as easy as landing a good force wall. But imagine only being able to cast force wall once every 80 seconds instead of its currently spammable iteration.
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On July 29 2016 02:18 Ej_ wrote: No CC = not good
sad but true Li-Ming and Lunara disagree with you.
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Just random thoughts.
His main weaknesses are lack of cc (horrify is great but if you need it as a life saver its kinda like escaping with metamorphosis, not ideal) and lack of mobility. Self sustain is an advantage but it must be taken into account that he is a sitting duck using drain life.
Otherwise he is complete, pretty much good at everything else.
His role overlaps a bit with a Kael'thas, he cannot dive the enemy team but he can hit the backline with corruption (flamestrike) and zone out anything with Fel Flame (living bomb), unfortunately, no gravity lapse.
I think he works best with teams with good cc that can peel and set targets for him. its also great if someone has burst damage (like a melee assassin) since he got tons of damage but its all sustained. Against him, cc and dive potential are hard counters, if he cannot drain life he also cannot run, cc and run, or burst down the diver, so he is dead.
He is not scared of Johanna and Muradin, that cannot kill him by themselves, since zoning him out is a bit unnefective, corruption has a very long range. ETC and Anub are dangerous assuming there is follow up for the hard cc.
Overall, he works nicely in the place of Lunara or Kaelthas (they are not so close, i just think they overlap on similar points with Guldan). If your team is diving and not getting dived, its also good for him.
I think he works on 2 themes. Dive hard teams. Kinda like those comps with Illidan Uther Tassadar Tyrael Kaelthas. He is the Kaelthas not diving but forcing the other team to do something about it with 4 people with double invulnerable sitting on their faces. Other possibility is double tank vs double tank poke wars, with no melee assassin on the other side, kinda like a Lunara that outdamages any kind of self sustain and rekts everyone on prolongued battles. Guldan just need to stay alive for long enough.
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On July 29 2016 07:04 Ramiz1989 wrote:Li-Ming and Lunara disagree with you.
Lunara has a slow (which is crowd control) and a soft escape. Li-Ming got the super escape.
Imo the issue with Gul'dan is that he is bad against coordinated teams (in ranked you will have a Muradin staring you down denying you from doing anything), and he is bad with uncoordinated teams since they don't benefit from your tankyness against dives.
They need to rework his life drain, or he will always be bad.
He has some nice combo potential with whoever the hope angel is that is coming soon. Auriel !
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Comp-wise what are you guys feeling? A comp with a strong front-line(double warrior or warrior/assassin) seems pretty standard these days, and bans on better options(KT?) are fairly common. Seems like a HL meta this guy should be thriving in. Typically when I see someone draft gul'dan on my team I like to draft rehgar. Since it takes so much effort to dive gul'dan and he keeps himself alive for a little bit when getting dived, I found that ancestrals are quite easy to hit on him.
Also, what about maps? In my limited plays I've found that he is something of a lane bully early on in the game. On dragon shire I also found him able to bully control points quite nicely since his corruption is basically the area of the control point.
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I find that horrify is a much better tool used offensively, it's like both sylvanas heroics combined (wailing+mind control) as when used correctly you'll have the enemy you wanted running straight into your hands. As soon as you see a priority target from the enemy team in range for the Horrify at a correct angle you just instantly throw it, and have a teammate nearby follow-up and blow that person up, and after that the enemy team just sits and cries being in a 4v5 or worse without their key teamfight heroes.
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Comp wise: So hard to tell but i guess good peels and also a healer such as reghar, uther is good for him. Target heals and strong heroics. Ehm, also, heroes that kinda clump enemies is good for guldan for his E skill and his horrifie.
Lvl1 talent, I really like the extra range on drain life. Makes it alot easier to use it in fights and also in the lane. Without it i feel kinda helpless vs greymane in lane for example but with it i can atleast not get pushed back as much. When i take this talent i usually also take the synergy at Lvl7 for it. It actually does nice damage.
If the enemy have lets say, muradin+KT and no other stun or harddive. I dont see much of a problem using drainlife in fights with the extra range talent.
I like those talents the most but they do much less damage i feel. Deponding on HOW much you actually can use it in teamfights.¨
Iam experimenting with the lvl13 talent, extra heal on drainlife also since the 30% max health is nerfed.
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On July 30 2016 00:08 MotherFox wrote: Comp-wise what are you guys feeling? A comp with a strong front-line(double warrior or warrior/assassin) seems pretty standard these days, and bans on better options(KT?) are fairly common. Seems like a HL meta this guy should be thriving in. Typically when I see someone draft gul'dan on my team I like to draft rehgar. Since it takes so much effort to dive gul'dan and he keeps himself alive for a little bit when getting dived, I found that ancestrals are quite easy to hit on him.
Also, what about maps? In my limited plays I've found that he is something of a lane bully early on in the game. On dragon shire I also found him able to bully control points quite nicely since his corruption is basically the area of the control point.
Actually, yeah, i think he should be thriving on this meta. So he is just underpowered. I believe heroes like him benefit from burst heals, of course, but he also needs those big numbers to keep his health bar in check (malf, morales).
I don't have a whole lot of experience on specific situations (drafting healer with Guldan on team) but i would guess Kharazim. On a side note, i dislike hunger for power, my poorly informed guess is that the winrate in hotslogs comes from poor coordination and teams without healers. Health globes, healing fontains and actually being healed are extra strong on Guldan.
For maps, Guldan with rain of destruction on tomb of the spider Queen is a beast, both for the lane bully potential and zone control abilities. Agreed on your points on Dragon Shire too.
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I have played tons of gul'dan since he got out, or atleast especially after his buff. Iam like lvl 13 now with him, although i have stimpack up like almost 100%.
The drainlife heal on 13 feels kinda bad. It works every 10sec and for it to last the full duration, since he is vulnerable to dive comps the healthstone just brings that extra burst protection which drainlife doesnt. I think you need atleast two drainlifes to be higher than healthstone so i dont like this talent.
In solo lane against zagara i have tried full drainlife build except at 13. Since you can kill zagaras minions and at the same time reduce the cooldown by 7 second if killed, makes You have a really good uptime when doing this, at the same time you can clear zagaras creap very nicely.
Anyway, i saw someone else play gul'dan the other day and the build he did was "new" to me. So i tried it myself and it feels really powerful.
lvl1: extra radius on his Q lvl4: Trait Lvl7: more power, less healing from allies lvl10: I like rain of destruction here but fear is probably more allaround better. Lv13: Healthstone Lvl16: Extra power from q
The damage is quite insane. The 10% extra radius on his Q makes it feel kinda safeproof. Deponds which warriors you face i presume. Against johanna for example, gul'dan feels very good.
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