Kael'thas was one of the first real heroes to be seen as truly broken in Heroes, and for a long time, players assumed he would eventually be getting a rework due to his lack of changes. This never ended up happening, nor was it ever guaranteed. As-is, he's a fairly one-note hero, who has a somewhat linear playstyle but some very satisfying abilities.
Paint Points
- Low level players tend to find Living Bomb and Pyroblast very frustrating to play against, while higher level players tend to find them lacking, so any direct buffs/nerfs will invariably upset one side.
- Trait's design is ill-fitting on Kael'thas, who has a very direct playstyle that only makes token use out of Verdant Spheres.
- Has Must-pick Talents and Trap Talents.
Goals
- Accept that Ardent Spheres, while an incredible concept, does not gel with Kael'thas as a combo hero.
- Adjust Living Bomb to still be powerful, but require more risktaking.
- Adjust his heroics to make the moves more even across all skill levels.
I want to note that I
adore the concept behind
Verdant Spheres. The ability to have one cast of an ability take a completely different form is extremely interesting, and stands to make almost any hero a lot more cerebral, as you get to choose which of your abilities will be the biggest slice of your power pie. Similar traits and talents, such as those of Yrel or Uther, have been most great for encouraging players to think about how they want to engage certain situations.
Sadly a trait as dynamic and flexible as Verdant Spheres is more of an afterthought when applied to Kael'thas. It's not that it gets no use, it's just that it's probably it should be an absolute gamechanger of a trait.
I really wanted to try and make a rework that would encourage making Verdant Spheres the core of the character, but in the end, I decided on stripping it away, as it made more sense to remove the thing that was working the
least, rather than adjust everything else around it and make the hero unrecognisable.
When it comes down to it, Arcane Barrier is more vital to Kael'thas as a hero than Verdant Spheres is.
Heroes of the Storm Build Guides
KT's trait is what makes him an interesting and difficult hero and, since it's a hero i tend to play as much as possible despite the fact it is difficult to draft on my diamond/low master games, i would like to develop my opinion:
- KT isn't a combo mage, his trait enables him to permanently alternate and decides wether you want to poke/PvE with your Q and W and keep E as a defensive tool, or if you wanna followup your team's engage with D/E and targeted damages.
-D offer much more variety than what you seems to think. Of course the pattern D/W to PvE and poke early ; D/Q to poke mid/late ; D/E to followup and kill in teamfight works well, but as you play you discover more and more sequences (with Backdraft you can D/W>E>W>Q, there's the classic D/Q>E>W mindgame, with Twin Sphere you gain super satisfying and fun D/E>Q>D/W>W combos...) and realize the cliché pattern isn't always optimal and leave room to thrilling decisions.
-Beyond the fact removing Verdant Sphere make the hero super monodimentionnal. I do not feel the potential of fun and decisional skills of Arcane Barrier, it seems it juste offers tankyness on a hero whose main counterplay was his fragility and immobility. And while the current Arcana Barrier nullity dives with a quite lenghthy CD, that version seems way too forgiving. That speel works en Medusa in DotA because she wants to maximize every since of her stats to become an unstopable late-game autoattacking war-machine, here on KT i do not think it fits his fantasy.
There's a skill expression issue with Pyro and Bomb tho you are completely right, and it's talents also are quite unsatisfying.
You definitely makes me wanna try to thinks about it :)
While I do think a lot is lost in removing KT's Verdant Spheres, your response really only reinforced my stance that it's a poor fit for him.
I will also note the things I do like about KT, though, that I tried my best not to touch:
I will be adjusting Arcane Barrier with time. I might give it functionality more akin to current KT (perhaps a big cooldown that uses current mana as shields, but losing shields means losing mana) and try to add more talents that make switching more critical. Still, aside from keeping it as a talent (or maybe moving it to R2?), I think Verdant Spheres can't its full potential on KT without changing everything about KT.