So below I will go over all the talent choices and their reasoning as well as secondary picks. Remember this is a bruiser build so I am making choices based off of that. However it's important to note that not every game is the same so it will require you to change up a talent here or there as the game takes shape.
Reanimation - This is an absolutely amazing talent that can and should be used in most maps and situations. Not only do you get stacking health regen but this effective also applies while in
Undying form. That means you will come back to life faster and faster as the game goes on. Excellent talent overall!
 OTHER TALENT OPTIONS
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Hopelessness - While this talent can be very useful, depending on the situation it can sometimes be hard to take this over
 Reanimation. On maps where globes are hard to come by like
Haunted Mines then this talent can really shine. However when going the full drain build, this talent actually can be pretty powerful. |
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Block - This can be a very useful talent if the enemy team has 2 or more good auto attackers. It can provide a good amount of damage reduction which is always nice. You probably want to use this talent on maps like Haunted Mines where you won't be obtaining many health globes. |
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Mana Thirst - Clearly the weakest talent on this tier, it provides you with better sustain in the early game while you are in lane. Thing is that
Leoric's Q already can smash a wave into the ground making it pretty easy to clear. You can't spam his talents so mana problems shouldn't be that much of an issue. |
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Hardened Bones - This is a great talent that will keep you alive a lot longer than the enemy team expects. In lane you can use this while
Drain Hope is active on an enemy and steal more life than they can dish out. Out of lane this will provide you with the extra defense you need in case you need to escape or give you enough time to live until your skills are ready to be used again. Overall very solid talent and recommend it in most of your games.
Paralyzing Rage - This talent tier has so many good options depending on the situation but I always find myself choosing
Paralyzing Rage the most. The 60% slow helps you control the battlefield better and allows you to keep
Drain Hope on a target longer. Overall a solid talent and can be considered 1A in this talent tier.
March of the Black King - In my honest opinion this is the better of the 2 heroic abilities available to
Leoric. First it provides you with extra sustain healing you for 7% of your max health per enemy hit per swing. Second if you talent into
Death March at level 20 you get a free enemy team wide
Drain Hope which is actually insane. Last but not least, once you learn when to use
March of the Black King effectively, you'll be able to do pretty good damage as well, especially to squish targets. Try using this ability when the enemy team is some what locked down or when you have a great flank. If you are being targeted in a team fight and you can't escape it might be better to actually save it till you revive due to the rather long cool down. Don't forget you are unstoppable while using this ability which can help you brute force you way into / out of certain situations.
Crushing Hope - In a talent tier that provides you with so many choices, I find myself coming back to this one the most. That extra 10% damage on a target is unexpected and is absolutely fantastic when the enemy team has high health targets. So if the enemy is running double warrior you are going to have a hay day against them. This tier really is flexible and there is almost no bad talent to choose from.
Consume Vitality - This is another talent tier where we have options. (Thank you Blizzard for build diversity!) I like taking this talent the most because it provides you extra sustain while you are alive. It may not seem like much but this can add up in extended team fights.
Let's not forget while you are in
Undying mode that each time you swing, the heal helps you recover faster making you resurrect even sooner than you should be. And yes this includes whenever your swing hits minions. Solid talent for
Leoric overall.
Death March - So this is the talent you've been waiting for and when used right, it can be one of the most ridiculous Heroic upgrades in the game. When
March of the Black King finishes it's final swing, you will apply the base version of
Drain Hope to all nearby enemies in a fairly large radius. If you can apply this to two + enemies you not only become really hard to kill, but you will do up to 25% of an enemies max health AND heal yourself for 25% of your max health per target. Of course if you aren't good at landing your
March of the Black King then this isn't as good. Consider this 1A in this talent tier.
When you think of warriors you usually think how can I tank better and stay alive / peel.
Leoric however is an entirely different animal. He might be the first true bruiser in the game. While heroes like
Sonya try to fulfill this role, they just don't have to the tools to stay alive long enough to do their damage.
While you don't need to have amazing mechanics to do damage with
Leoric, there are still a few things you should know to maximize the DPS potential of this character. Below I will list a few rotations / tricks for you to not only stay alive, but to do the most damage possible.
Auto -> Q -> Auto - This is
Leoric's most basic combo. He has the slowest attack speed in the game so you are able to weave your
Skeletal Swing's in between auto attacks in order to do the most damage.
Basic Rotation 2 |
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Auto -> Q -> Auto -> W -> Auto - So here we weave
Drain Hope into the rotation. You really have two options. If you want to apply the drain immediately after
Skeletal Swing you can but I usually like to try and get in an auto attack before applying it. Especially after you hit level 7 and grab the extra slow on your swing.
Basic Rotation 3 |
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Auto -> Q -> Auto -> W -> E - So this rotation is quite versatile, especially after you pick up a few talents later on. You can apply the slow from
Skeletal Swing, Auto Attack,
Drain Hope, and
Wraith Walk to do a lot of damage to a single target while taking far less upon yourself. You can also
Wraith Walk while
Drain Hope is active to keep a close distance so the entire duration is applied. Remember your body is a mere tool for your terror.
Heroic Rotation 1 (Team Fighting) |
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Auto -> Q -> Auto -> W -> R - Okay so this is a good rotation to use if you already have more than a few targets rather close together / locked up. You want to make sure to apply your
Drain Hope before you start your march for maximum damage / sustain potential. Remember you don't want to swing your hammer wildly so you have to be patient when deciding to use
March of the Black King. Use it too early you may just put yourself in a very bad spot and use it too late, you may just end up whiffing every swing. Remember practice makes perfect!
Heroic Rotation 2 (Team Fighting) |
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Auto -> Q -> W -> E -> R - So this is another variation I like to often use but again requires a lot of practice and game knowledge. Sometimes when team fights break out you may get focused a bit and instead of marching away from your team, you can use this instead. Here we use
Wraith Walk to not only reduce the damage we take for a brief moment but you can position your ghost behind the enemy team allowing you to use
March of the Black King back in to your own team. This allows you to stay close with your team and allows you to sustain a lot, and if the enemy team doesn't scatter, you will hit them for pretty massive damage.
Now again when using
March of the Black King it's important to remember that this is a very slow moving heroic ability. You almost always want to wait till a fight has matured or some lock down has already been secured. Your goal is to always try and use it when you will be able to hit a more than 1 swing on more than 1 target.
You will want to avoid using
March of the Black King on targets like
Zeratul,
Illidan,
Tassadar and
Valla until they have used their mobility skills or are locked down by another skill. The same rule applies when you are using
Entomb as it suffers from same problems.
Level 16+ Alternative Rotation 1 (Team Fighting) |
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Level 16+ Alternative Rotation 2 (Team Fighting) |
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Level 16+ Alternative Rotation 3 (Flexible Fights) |
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Level 16+ Alternative Rotation 4 (Maximum DPS) |
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So here I've listed quite a few different options for you if you decide to take
Renewed Swing at 16. All of these rotations have their different uses and it will be up to your skill level to decide when it's best to do so.
The first two rotations are aimed at beginning of team fights or when you have a few targets with no escapes lined up. Not only do they keep the enemy slowed, but it allows you to punish the highest health target with
Drain Hope while you
March of the Black King through the enemy team at the same time. This can be really punishing if you manage to hit a few of their more squishy targets.
The idea behind the third rotation is to slow your target(s), apply your
Drain Hope for sustain / damage and use
Wraith Walk to re-position yourself to a place where your second
Skeletal Swing will continue the slow CC train. From there you can decide to use
March of the Black King if it will be effective or just continue to auto attack until the fight develops even more.
When you just need that DPS now, the final rotation should take care of that for you. You apply the slow from
Skeletal Swing followed by
Drain Hope then a second swing +
March of the Black King to do as much damage as possible as quick as possible. The slow from your
Skeletal Swing should be able to keep your enemies within range to get a full
March of the Black King off. You then have the option to just auto attack or use
Wraith Walk to again re-position yourself if needed.
Alright now that you know a lot about
Leoric and his abilities, it's time to put them to good use. Listed below are general map specific guides on how to play him. Remember a lot of different things can happen in a match but the aim here is to set you on the right path in order to succeed.
Your early game is actually quite incredible, especially on maps like
Cursed Hollow and
Dragon Shire as your
Undying passive allows you to respawn where your ghost is standing. Try to collect as many globes as possible and look to bully your opponents out of lane, especially enemy warriors. Remember you want to soak as much XP as possible until you hit 10. Remind your teammates about this as well so you don't fall behind on that front.
So in the mid game you still want to try and collect as many globes as possible so you can continue to stack health regen. However you need to be showing up to almost all the objectives so you can take advantage of your bruiser status and if it comes to it, your
Undying passive. Remember if you do fall, continue to use your abilities and provide vision for your team so they can see where the enemy is at. Also you are a decent in the jungle so you can start to do those as well if there isn't anything else going on and you have soak in all 3 lanes.
Ah what exactly does a late game
Leoric do? Well continue to be a bully and disruptive. At this stage of the game usually you are down to just keeps (or less) and are constantly moving as a 5 man team. So much depends on your team composition and if you are the solo warrior, you should focus on tank busting. Apply
Drain Hope and deter the enemy tank. You are extremely good at crushing their front line because of how
Drain Hope works. If you are in a multi warrior group, then you can focus on disrupting the enemy team and get to their back line to apply pressure.
Remember to keep an eye out for potential objectives and make sure your map awareness is sound so you don't get picked off. It is very important for your team to be in close proximity of each other when the enemy is alive.
When you are dead make sure you continue to apply slows and use
Drain Hope on enemies to resurrect faster. Remember you can literally have a 25 - 30 second death timer which is actually huge. Especially if you are the only one to die in a fight.
This is a very interesting battleground for
Leoric and in general. Much of the game will be centered around the middle of the map and with your
Undying passive, you should have some what of an early advantage.
It's important to note that the first few Immortals are rather weak so even if you lose it's not the end of the world. While there isn't an exact "Meta" for this map yet, I believe the best strategy early on is to have 1 or 2 heroes soaking a lane while you defend your Immortal. Being able to gain XP and gain levels while all that ruckus is going on mid is invaluable. You being
Leoric can actually do this very quickly. Mount up, run to a lane, use
Skeletal Swing and then run back to mid.
Remember if you die to use your
Undying passive to scout out the region and provide vision for your team.
Also note that when an Immortal finally gets defeated that the shield it receives is based on how much damage your team did to it. It will also drop two health globes if your team manages to defeat one mid so don't forget to pick those up! When the Immortal arrives to your lane it will start using a ranged attack, but soon as you pop it shields, it will engage in melee range. Keep in mind that the Immortal will still retain it's stunning capabilities so just don't get caught in it or is can mean an easy death.
Every team seems to fight over smiley face tower at the start of the game. You kind of want to make sure somebody on your team goes bot lane to start soaking up that XP. You can be that guy but I think you are more effective in the top part of the map bullying the enemy team.
First set of coins come up at 50 seconds so try to have your team at the chests before the fighting starts. Apply
Drain Hope to the target with the highest base health and just start swinging away at anything you can get your hammer on. Remember if you die you resurrect extremely fast early game so make sure to abuse this fact. Yes you aren't
Murky so you don't want to die a lot but if it's going to happen you might as well make use of it.
Try and take all the little camps as soon as they are up and you make for a good coin holder thanks in large part of your
Wraith Walk.
When you are ahead with the coins you don't need to fight as much as the enemy. So try and make sure when you engage is beneficial to you and your team. Force the enemy to come to you where you can pounce on them and punish for their over aggressiveness.
Leoric is an absolute monster on this map, especially early on. Your
Undying passive makes you a nuisance early and you only continue to get stronger from here.
The most important thing to note is that giving up an idol isn't always a bad thing. If your team is out of position when an idol spawns it's not worth going in to die one by one for an idol. This is even more true if this is their first or second idol in the new rotation.
Keep in mind early on the fights can really get drawn out due to the reduced death timers, however because you are
Leoric you should have an advantage because you respawn where your ghost is.
As the game progresses you will want to try and wipe the enemy and take the Boss on either side of the map. If you are in a position to take your Boss, head on down to the enemies if it's still up and contest it / take it. It causes a major problem for them as having a boss pounding on their gates while at the same time fighting over theirs causes a lot of pressure.
As
Leoric this map favors you because you can travel a good distance with
Wraith Walk and there are a lot of tight corridors where you can land your
Skeletal Swing's or
March of the Black King fairly easy. Use this to your advantage to push the pace.
*Note
Drain Hope will NOT take 25% of a Dragon Knights health.*
This is definitely one of
Leoric's stronger maps. You can really fit into any lane but you are probably better off used in the top or bottom lane. This map is all about shrine control and you need to be able to hold at least one most of the time.
It's okay to just hold one lane while you have a normal laning phase until things open up. It's a heavily roaming focused map as each team tries to out rotate the enemy in order to take control of the shrines. If you manage to hold a shrine and wipe the enemy lane, don't be afraid to roam to another lane to apply pressure there too.
If no team seems to be able to take both shrines and summon the Dragon Knight, you may want to sort of stack one side and take some mercenary camps. What this does is add even more pressure to a lane forcing teams to answer to your push and alleviate some pressure on a particular shrine. Your best bet to apply this pressure is bot lane due to it having 3 camps. However you can do the same thing top lane just not as effective with your bruiser camp.
You are also an excellent candidate to take control of the Dragon Knight if called upon though sometimes it's better you stay out of it if your team needs that extra warrior on the battlefield.
Leoric can be effective in any of the 3 lanes so choose what is best for your teams needs.
When it's night time try to take all the little seeds as quickly as possible.
Skeletal Swing is very effective at accomplishing this. From there see where your team is at and try to group up to take a big horror. It's okay to trade out horrors if you aren't in a position to fight the enemy.
As soon as the night time phase is over you can start a few mercenary camps to apply passive pressure. Your game plan will change if either your or the enemy team has acquired a Plant Terror. Early on the Plant Terror is better used to run lane to lane and just pot them up. You don't really have the health to team fight or sustain much damage till much later.
You are once again a good candidate to take the reigns of a Plant Terror so don't feel bad for taking it. Mid - Late game you can use the Terror to team fight, push, defend, or even deny the enemy from acquiring the precious seeds needed to spawn their own Plant Terror. The Terrors polymorph ability is extremely strong, and when used right will make or break a team fight between teams.
*Note
Drain Hope will NOT take 25% of a Plant Terrors health.*
Leoric is extremely strong on this map. His
Undying passive is invaluable early on and can help provide you the control needed to snow ball the game in your favor.
Once again I believe you are better served in the upper part of the map, especially due to the fact the first two shrines always spawn mid and top, followed by the third shrine always spawning bot lane.
This is a very big map so it can be hard to work as a team in Solo Queues but you want to try and keep control of at least 1 shrine. Trading is usually never a bad thing, however if you want to be more aggressive, then
Leoric can suit this very well due to his passive.
Keep an eye out for when your team is on a top shrine, the enemy is on a bot shrine, and the boss is still up. They may try to sneak that in while the shrines are firing off shots.
If you are in position to take mercenary camps before the shrines spawn then do as the added pressure can mean a keep early which will help you get to the all important level 10 faster.
Your first order of business is to capture your watch tower to gain vision over the area. Note it's not really worth dying for it, so if you get out numbered or things go bad just back off.
Make sure your team is sending 4 heroes to the lane where your Grave Golem is pushing unless the enemy team has a
Sylvanas or more than double your push strength.
When the mines come up focus on skulls and try to avoid the skirmishes. Your
Skeletal Swing is especially effective at clearing those minions. Try to get your team to all enter at the same point and spread out and collect as many skulls as you can. You want to do this for the first two mine openings. If everything goes well you should get 35 - 40 skulls and you can just exit the mines. The big guy down there isn't important early on.
When you exit the mines for the first few times, try and capture the enemies siege camp, then head on over and take yours. Make sure you don't actually cap yours until the Grave Golems have actually passed your gates. The reason you do this is so the siege camp can do damage to the Grave Golem behind the safety of your walls.
Now it's almost always better to push with your Grave Golem if you have 40 skulls or more. This map awards aggressiveness so you need to take advantage of this fact. Again the only times you want to defend is if the enemy team has
Sylvanas, the enemy team have much stronger pushing heroes, or if you lose most of the skulls in the mines.
You will basically repeat this process until you get huge Grave Golems or wipe the enemy team to push for victory.
The name of the game here is gank, and gank often. As
Leoric you want to hover between the two top lanes.
Early on you can just lane like normal or try to push the wave, collect the gems, and try to apply a gank to a close lane. Your
Wraith Walk is especially effective in both securing and denying kills upon yourself or enemy team.
At 50 gems you will spawn your web weavers so turn in early and often as you want to try and get that first push as it usually results in the destruction of the enemies frontal fortifications in multiple lanes. This is huge because this is a gank / pressure heavy map that awards aggressiveness and if you can reach level 10 first, it will set you up much better for the rest of the game.
It's not advisable to do the boss till mid to late game unless you have a huge early advantage. It's usually not worth the risk / reward. However if you can time the boss just before you get a turn in this maneuver can be quite devastating all but guaranteeing you a Fort / Keep.
Just remember when you or any of your team is holding a significant amount of gems you don't want to be getting into poor engagements. Unlike the Doubloons on
Blackheart's Bay, the gems will despawn after 5 seconds in which case you will lose them permanently.
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