Heroes of the Storm Build Concept: Kel'Thuzad [Complete Concept]

Talents - Level 1

Conjurer’s Pursuit - [Generic Passive]

“Increases mana regeneration by 0.5. Every 3 regeneration globes gathered increases your mana regeneration by 0.25.”

The Inevitable Scourge - [Scourge Augment]
“Reduces the cooldown of Scourge by 15 seconds. If cast upon a non-hero or non-boss mercenary, the cooldown is reduced by an additional 15 seconds.”

No Man’s Land – [Desecrated Ground Augment]
“Desecrated Ground heals you, all Undead Minions and Abominations for 3 (+2 per hero level) health per second. Additionally once the duration of Desecrated Ground ends, the ground remains corrupted permanently, retaining this healing effect and the extended minion duration bonus but none of the other basic effects or talented effects. This corrupted ground lasts until you cast Desecrated Ground at a new location.”

Scourge Nova – [Plague Nova Augment]
“Targets killed by Plague Nova will resurrect as Undead Minions. Plague Nova applies a plague to all targets hit, dealing 9 (+6 per hero level, including level 1) damage over 3 seconds. Targets that die under the effects of this plague resurrect as Undead Minions.”

Souless Mob – [Generic Passive]
“You and your Undead Minions deal 10% more damage to structures and minions with basic attacks. Your Abominations deal 25% more damage to structures and minions with basic attacks.”

Talents - Level 4

Patron of the Dark Arts – [Scourge Augment]

“Your Plague Nova now summons a warrior-type Undead Minion at the location, Icy Grasp summons an archer-type Undead Minion by your side and Desecrated Ground summons a mage-type Undead minion by your side.”

Lich’s Finger – [Generic Passive]
“Your basic attacks now apply a plague to the target, dealing 12 (+3 per hero level, including level 1) damage over 3 seconds. Targets that die under the effects of this plague resurrect as Undead Minions.”

Grip of Northrend – [Icy Grasp Augment]
“Increases the maximum range of Icy Grasp by 1, and allows Icy Grasp to deal up to 100% additional damage based upon distance from target.”

Bone Shield – [Generic Active]
“Shields all Undead Minions and Abominations for 60 (+20 per hero level, including level 1) damage for up to 4 seconds. Whilst the shield holds, the Undead Minions benefit from any healing or regeneration you receive, receiving an identical amount themselves. Costs 40 mana and has a cooldown of 15 seconds.”

Naxxramas Calling – [Generic Active]
“After channeling for 1.5 seconds, teleports you and all active Undead Minions and Abominations to the targeted friendly fort, tower or core. 60 second cooldown.”

Talents - Level 7

Wandering Plague – [Scourge Augment]

“If Scourge is present on an enemy minion or mercenary when they die, it will jump to the closest, lowest health enemy target within 4 range. This instantly places a full duration Scourge upon this target.”

Necrotic Exchange – [Plague Nova Augment]
“Plague Nova now heals all Undead Minions and Abominations within the target area for 75% of the damage amount, and may also heal you for 50% of the original damage amount.”

Ruin – [Desecrated Ground Augment]
“Enemy heroes who enter Desecrated Ground will take 25% additional damage for up to 2 seconds, applying once per cast. Enemy structures, minions and mercenaries will take 25% more damage so long as they remain within the Desecrated Ground.”

Shattering Frost – [Ice Grasp Augment]
“When Icy Grasp hits a target, an explosion of sharp ice will burst from the target, dealing 15 (+4 per hero level, including level 1) damage to the primary target and all enemies within a small area around the target and slowing them by 30% for 1.5 seconds. For each target beyond the primary target who is damaged by this aoe effect, the cooldown of Icy Grasp is reduced by 0.5 seconds.”

Dark Ritual – [Generic Active]
“Sacrifice the targeted friendly Undead Minion or Abomination, causing you to gain 54 (+9 per hero level, including level 1) health and 45 mana over 3 seconds; during this time your basic ability cooldowns cool down twice as fast. Sacrificing an Abomination increases the health and mana gained from Dark Ritual by 300%. When sacrificed the Abomination explodes in a large cloud of vile gas, enemies caught in the cloud are afflicted with your Scourge trait.
4 second cooldown.”

Talents - Level 13

Roll the Bones – [Scourge Augment]

“Increases the duration of all Undead Minions by 75%. Undead Minions that die prematurely reduce the cooldown of Scourge by 0.5 seconds.”

Piercing Cold – [Icy Grasp Augment]
“Icy Grasp can now pass through targets hit, hitting up to 2 additional targets.”

Plague Upon the Land – [Plague Nova Augment]
“Increases the radius of Plague Nova by 25%. Plague Nova will cause Desecrated Ground to extend from beneath the cast area lasting up to 5 seconds. This Desecrated Ground is identical to your cast ability, benefitting from all talents except No Man’s Land, and may exist at the same time as Desecrated Ground cast from this ability.”

Raise Dead – [Generic Active]
“Summons an Undead Minion of each type at your cursor’s location. 25 second cooldown."

Talents - Level 16

Might of the Scourge – [Scourge Augment]

“Enemy deaths near your Undead Minions increase their maximum health and attack damage by 1%, stacking up to 30 times. Whenever a new Undead Minion is created through a plague, all nearby Undead Minions have their duration increased by 1 second, up to a maximum of 5 additional seconds maximum per Undead Minion’s lifetime.”

Grip of the Dead – [Desecrated Ground Augment]
“Whenever an enemy target first encounters Desecrated Ground, they are rooted in place for 1.5 seconds and receive 24 (+9 damage per hero level, including level 1) damage over the duration. Can only afflict a target once per encounter with Desecrated Ground.”

Frost Armour – [Icy Grasp Augment]
“Icy Grasp grants you, your Undead Minions and Abominations a shield of 75 (+10 per hero level, including level 1) for each target damaged by the spear lasting up to 3 seconds. Enemies who damage these shields have their attack, movement speeds and cooldown refreshes slowed by 50% for 1.5 seconds.”

Pandemic – [Plague Nova Augment]
“Plague Nova can now hold up to 2 charges.”

The Plaguemaster – [Scourge Augment]
“Increases the damage dealt by Scourge and all of the periodic damage stemming from any of your talented and minion plague effects by 30%.”

Talents - Level 20

Endless Scourge – [Death and Decay Augment]

“Death and Decay now heals all Undead Minions and Abominations within the area for 9 (+8 per hero level, including level 1) health a second. Each time an Undead Minion is healed in this manner, their duration is increased by 2 seconds. Any Undead Minions that die or expire within the area are resurrected 1 second later at full health and duration. This can only occur once per Undead Minion.”

Pounds of Flesh – [Abomination Augment]
“Abomination now lasts up to 45 seconds and receives 0.5% more maximum health and damage per stack of Flesh upon being summoned. Additionally the disease cloud applies a stacking slow each time it damages an enemy, up to a maximum of 15% slow. Sacrificing an Abomination with Dark Ritual now reduces the cooldown of Abomination by 25 seconds and refunds 50% of the flesh consumed when it was summoned.”

Master Necromancer – [Scourge Augment]
“Any ability or trait that would raise a Skeletal Undead Minion will now raise an empowered minion instead. Empowered minions have 75% more health than their Skeletal counterparts, deal 75% more damage and the damage of their Minion Plague is increased by 50%. They take 10% less damage from structures and deal 10% more damage to structures. They additionally have specific bonuses.

Skeletal Warriors become Ghouls, which move 30% more quickly and their basic attacks slow the target’s movement speed by 5%, stacking up to 5 times and lasting 4 seconds.

Skeletal Archers become Nerubian Crypt Fiends. Crypt Fiends burrow and move underground when not attacking, which makes them invisible, invulnerable, recover 5% of their maximum health a second and their duration expires 4 times as slowly until they surface. Additionally their attack range is increased by 20%.

Skeletal Magi become Val’Kyr. Every fourth basic attack the Val’Kyr pulse an unholy aura around them which heals all Undead Minions for 7.5% of their maximum health and extends their duration by 2 seconds.”

Bolt of the Storm – [Generic Active]
“Teleport to target location a small distance away. 40 second cooldown.”

Skin Concepts

Basic Skin: Kel'Thuzad resembles a lich from the WCIII and WoW universe.

Master Skin: Kel'Thuzad appears like his final Naxxramas appearance, chains, icy horns, larger collar etc.

Necromancer Kel'Thuzad [Legendary Skin]: Kel'Thuzad appears as his human necromancer form from WCIII. This would be a completely new model with a new voiceover and altered appearances to certain abilities.
Scourge: Skeletal minion would be reskinned to have more basic textures, resembling more closely the WCIII skeletons.
Desecrated Ground: Creates blight, similar to the blight from WCIII.
Death and Decay: Has the appearance of the spell from WCIII.
Abominations: Reskinned to look more basic, a la WCIII.
Master Necromancer: All minions reskinned to resemble more closely their WCIII forms, Val'Kyr are transformed into Obsidian Statues instead.

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(2) |

I've seen many Kel'Thuzad concepts on here, and one thing I wanted to stray from is making the raising of undead minions passive (as pretty much all of them do) as this is unimaginative play, and is too rewarding for little conscious effort.

The idea that Kel simply needs to be on a lane to get undead minions would make him too powerful. Tying the building of a scourge army to active ability use means Kel has to make a concentrated effort to manage and maintain his minions.

Plus it allows more counterplay. If you disturb a Kel who is focusing a lane you'll impair his minion generation (unless he ignores you to focus on the lane, in which case he can easily be killed) whereas if the ability is passive, he loses no minion gains by deciding to focus you instead, aside from the minions on lane may die more slowly. The idea behind this method of scourge generation is that (like the lore plague) if left unchecked it can become quite difficult to deal with, but if managed and culled early it's much more manageable. This is why Kel's minions can seem quite powerful, because he needs to invest quite a bit of effort in keeping their numbers up via generation abilities and maintenance abilities.

So you need to decide with talents, will you go PvE route, picking talents that make generating an army easier, and last longer? This is great for siege and lane dominance, but minions won't path off the lane, so has poor teamfight potential.

Or will you pick talents that make you better at teamfighting? This build has less methods of generating minions and sustaining them for longer, so their ability to make an impact on a lane without your continued presence is weakened greatly.

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wrote:

by Kobold101:
"This sounds like it might be a tad OP, but it does seem rather interesting. I've always liked minion based Heroes."
To make Kel'Thuzzad more minion based, his passive could be "Whenever a minion dies around Kel'Thuzzad, summon a Skeleton. Whenever a Hero dies around Kel'Thuzzad, summon an Abomination. Whenever a building is destroyed around Kel'Thuzzad, summon a Necropolis.
All the Necropolis would do is spawn a Skeleton every 4 seconds.

That COULD work.

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(2) |

Yeah the numbers would need real work to make it balanced. Numbers have never been my strong suit when it comes to concepts, there's a fine line between minion heroes being too underwhelming or too strong.

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This sounds like it might be a tad OP, but it does seem rather interesting. I've always liked minion based Heroes

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Kel'Thuzad [Complete Concept] by BoomTheBear

Kel'Thuzad [Complete Concept]