Introduction Top
Hello everyone and welcome to my very first guide.
I'm sharing this guide because I had a good experience with it.
I developed it by playing Zeratul a fair amount of times and it seems to be effective.
Of course, every hero can be played on a different way. This is my way and I hope that at least some of you find it amusing.
What you need to know first Top
This build is based on pure damage, leaving you less escape abilities.
I know that many builds are based on his blink ability.
So be prepared to exchange that higher bit of mobility for a lot more damage.
You can expect:
- High damage building up
- To leave your enemies no opening of escaping
- To turn the game with your unexpected amount of damage
What you need to take into consideration:
- Blink is not optimized therefore you have a lower mobility
Breakdown of the abilities Top
Why are we taking this build and how can it be strong?
I'll be explaining them right here.
The passive on this skill will help you to build up damage.
In the beginning of the game this will not be really strong but if you follow the guide correctly, you should be able to deal at least around 25-30 more damage late game. Sounds like it isn't much right? But combined with the other builds, you'll understand.
Here we go. Your next attack will deal 75% more damage. Combined with Seasoned Marksman it will multiply your damage even more. So the higher damage you get on Seasoned Marksman, the more you'll deal on your first hit.
Another skill to increase the amount of damage you deal. By casting an ability, your damage increases again by 40%. Count this up with
Focused Attack. Depending on how you use it, your first attack could deal at least 115% more damage. And that's not all. If you cast one or more skills you'll keep improving your damage by 40%.
Why Void Prison? You'd think
Shadow Assault would help you out even more with dealing damage right? In this case we pick Void Prison for two reasons: Your lesser mobility. Void Prison can be a life saver when you having troubles to escape. Secondary, to simply "trap" the enemy. If executed well, you can isolate your enemy and finish off one enemy before he gets to enter your void prison. Also useful for when someone is trying to escape.
Here we go. Remember that back there we already had 115% on the first strike? Your first strike will now deal at least 140% more damage. Following up, you have 5 seconds of 25% more damage. You need to combine this with the
Follow Through ability to increase your basic attack damage by at least 65% per hit.
This ensures you to deal so much damage on your target that is forced to escape or to do something stupid.
This one is up next for two reasons.
First reason is to have a double cast. The deal here is that you should cast -- attack -- cast -- attack.
This will make perfect usage of your
Follow Through skill and increases your damage by 40% for each hit.
If done well, you can have a few hits dealing 65% more damage together with
Assassin's Blade. Doing twice the Double Bombs on the same target will also deal more damage. See how the damage is forming with this build?
And of course we end it with Nexus Blades. The awesome slow on hit gives no chance for your target to get away. Not to mention another increase of 20% damage when attacking! Let's do the calculations. Your first hit will deal now 160% damage if
Focused Attack is active and together with
Follow Through once casting a skill.
Following up, you'll deal by default 20% damage and +25% more for 5 seconds of
Assassin's Blade.
Combine this with
Follow Through and you'll deal around 85% more damage once engaging.
Now, looking back at Seasoned Marksman, you'll understand the extra amount of damage it generates.
At the end of the game you should at least have +20 damage. I'm pretty sure that you understand how much more damage you deal once a bonus of 20 gets multiplied by 160% or even 45%.
First phase of the game Top
The first phase of the game is simple.
Kill enemy heroes whenever you can.
This means that you should not take unnecessary risks by jumping in here and there.
If there is a
Murky or
Abathur then you try to spot their positions and take them down.
Sometimes it's also an option to focus
Nova and shut her down quickly.
Otherwise then that, you should be in lane or leech the minion kills.
Roaming is allowed but as said above, make sure that you'll guarantee a kill.
I'll be explaining why. By picking
Seasoned Marksman you'll build up damage.
This damage will become greater and greater, helping you to deal a lot more damage late game.
Killing an enemy hero also awards you with extra bonus damage. Killing an amount of minions will grant you bonus damage. I suppose you get what I mean here.
Middle phase of the game Top
Let's say that we are the point that Void Prison is ready.
You should be able to kill your enemies more easy now.
use the Seasoned Marksman,
Focused Attack and
Follow Through in a correct way to score kills.
Use your
Void Prison to escape, secure kills or separate the enemy team.
You can also use
Void Prison to block attacks on your allies, to prevent them from killing a building or to simply troll someone (which we shouldn't do :D).
Remember that with every ability you use, you build up more basic attack damage because of
Follow Through.
End phase of the game Top
Beginning here I assume you got level 20 or higher.
You should have
Assassin's Blade,
Double Bombs and Nexus Blade.
This means that the full build is complete and time to wreck some heroes.
Basically you should be able to burst down a lot of heroes which are assassins, specialists or support.
Bursting a warrior is possible but will be harder.
It is important to always focus the back of the enemy team where most of the times assassins are dealing their damage.
You can easily use
Void Prison in battles to prevent them coming at you and to secure more kills.
Say that
The Butcher is coming at you with his
Ruthless Onslaught. You can prevent this by using it.
Another example of using
Void Prison would be isolating the ultimate of
Li Li or
Malfurion. This prevents them from healing their whole team and gives your team a good advantage.
Playing the damage Top
This section will be for short explaining how you should be playing Zeratul, based on the above information.
It is in the end important that you engage on the right moments and to make sure they won't catch you.
Careful when killing an enemy hero who is alone
When you have no vision over other heroes from the enemy team then they might be close to him or her.
It is always better to play more defensive instead of offensive.
Focusing the enemy
1) Assassin's
You'll be having one of the highest damage outputs so make sure to kill heroes who are hurting your allies.
2) Specialists and Supports
Depending on who's the better target, take down either one of them. It is possible that it is easier for you to kill them before an assassin (damage output) and that's no problem. A hero down is a hero down and counts in team battles greatly.
3) Warriors
Depending how tanky the enemy hero is you'll need to decide your situation. Engage if he's isolated from his team and when your team is around you. If not, don't. Warriors can be nasty and keep you busy while their team arrives to secure a kill on you.
Use your invisibility
Being invisible is a great add for your hero.
Use this to surprise other heroes and instantly kill them.
But I can not say this enough: care that they won't catch you! In the end, they can still see you moving around if they want to. Use bushes as well, this will make it harder for them to track you.
Steal enemy camps
If you are scouting around at the enemy's their camp it is possible that you catch someone doing camps.
Kill the enemy hero if he almost killed the last camp minion and grab the camp.
If the rest of his team is near and would come then use
Void Prison to avoid them and run off after.
Keep Calm
Exactly! That's where a lot of players make a mistake.
Many players think that the game is over when it's not. Please, don't be such a person and play the game until it's over. Don't let others influence you and keep trying. Sometimes it is hard to keep your mouth shut against people flaming you. But you know what? Press tab and mute the person. End of the story ;-)!
The style you prefer
The rest is up to you.
Try this build out now you know about it and see how you can develop it for yourself.
It's also a matter of experience and insight of course. It is even possible that you create an even better strategy out of it. So I really hope this guide was useful for some of you.
The end Top
This was my "small" guide about
Zeratul.
I hope you enjoyed it.
If you found this useful or want to play with me to learn more then you can find me at
Wyrm Gnosis.
Send me a PM there and I'll be ready to roll with you.
Secondary you can also add me on battle.net: XaR#2994.
I'm open for suggestions and feedback.
Please, keep it nice. Discuss parts and don't flame or rage.
Make sure that you tried this build a few times before doing so!
Many thanks for reading and hoping to see you soon!
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