General Style

The main concept to this build, is zoning and disruption. To position aggressively and prevent the opponents from executing their game plan.

It can be difficult to know when you can play aggressively without the CC to back it up, so it requires good game knowledge to execute properly. At it's core, this build is incredibly simple, so it is perfect for an overall experienced player, but not a frequent Stitches user.

Stitches' large health pool, and self-healing, can allow him to run interference in almost any team composition, meaning any shields, heals or crowd control that your teammates provide can be used elsewhere, while Stitches mostly fends for himself.

This build does not focus on Hook at all, it is of course a great tool for dragging stragglers back, or peeling for your backline, however it is not the main focus.


When To Run Zoning Stitches

To zone with Stitches, you need to have something to protect. Fragile ranged Heroes, such as Valla or Raynor are susceptible to being stunned and collapsed upon. This is where Stitches can step in and shut down the advance of the opponents. With body-blocking and Putrid Bile's slow, you can give your backline time to gather themselves, and take down the melee enemies, while Stitches zones the ranged away.

Do NOT run full tank Stitches if your team is predominantly melee. With no hard crowd control of his own, Stitches cannot stop a fellow melee Hero from being focused down. You need to be the kiters, not the kited.

Passive - Vile Gas Vile Gas drops a puddle of poison whenever you are damaged. Needless to say this is most effective when standing in the middle of the enemy team, so that they are on top of that puddle.

Q - Hook Hook is always going to have a potential game-changing aspect to it. Pulling a high priority target into your team can immediately win a fight and provide a massive boost to your chances of overall victory. However, that does not have to be the primary function of Stitches, nor should it be. A zoning Stitches will try to position himself in the middle of the enemy team, so Hook will mostly be limited to catching a low health fleeing target, or pulling a target away from your backline, to ease up the pressure on them.

W - Slam Another bit-part spell in this build is Slam. This guide doesn't take any of the talents that buff Slam, so it is relegated to simply being a minor AoE spell.

E - Devour Devour is an incredibly important spell to this build, and from Level 7 and onwards, using it on the correct targets can make or break your life as a tank. Last Bite can bring the cooldown of Devour from 20 seconds, down to 5, hugely increasing your self-sustain. Use this on minions if possible, due to the bonus damage it has vs minions.

R - Putrid Bile To zone effectively, you need more than just physical presence. Putrid Bile allows you to split the enemy team with a damaging slow. This can cut off escape routes, or prevent enemy carries from ever getting into the fight. For these reasons, I take this over Gorge, as the single target pick style is not what we're looking for here.

Level 1 Hungry for More will permanently increase your maximum health pool by 30 for every regen globe you pick up. This adds up quickly, and if you're aim is to get as tanky as possible, then this far out-weighs the other level 1 options.
NOTE: When choosing this talent, be sure to stick around for the globe from a minion wave/mercenary camp/objective, they're vital to your effective tankiness.

Level 4To be as unbearably tanky as possible, Amplified Healing will increase the healing received from Devour, Healing Fountains, regen globes, and from other Heroes by 30%. This, in combination with your ever increasing health pool, thanks to Hungry for More, will make you extremely difficult to kill off.

Level 7 Devour heals for 20% of your maximum health (26% with Amplified Healing), and taking Last Bite can knock it's cooldown to just 5 seconds, if you use the skill correctly. It deals massive damage to minions, so where possible you should look to Devour a minion during a fight to heal yourself, and keep the cooldown low. There is not much extra benefit to using this ability on an enemy Hero beyond the small amount of damage, so unless the enemy you use it on is about to die within 3 seconds, save Devour for minions.

Level 10Either of these abilities can function well depending on your team composition. However, in the case of going full tank, I opt for Putrid Bile. Your aim in teamfights is to get in the faces of the enemy carries, and disrupt their ability to do damage as much as possible. Putrid Bile offers fantastic utility to achieve that. Position yourself inbetween the opponent's melee line and ranged line, and just be a huge zoning nuisance.

Level 13Without a doubt, Relentless provides you with the best tools to perform the zoning role for your team. Having built so incredibly tanky so far, your opponent's only hope of dealing with you is to crowd control you, and try to get at your backline quickly. Relentless is going to make doing that much less effective for them.

Level 16At level 16, you already have all the tools you need to perform your role. So you have a choice between being even tankier, Stoneskin, or taking a little more utility, Pulverize. The latter reduces the cooldown of your Slam, to 6 seconds, and adds a 1 second 75% slow. This can add an extra layer to your zoning capabilities. Whereas Stoneskin provides you with a 5 second shield for 30% of your maximum health, which will be rather substantial by this point in the game. I believe having at least one of the activatable shields is very useful to have. Your decision here will affect the final talent choice.

Level 20Again, we have a decision between tankiness, Hardened Shield, or utility, Regenerative Bile. As I stated previously, I like to have one of these tanky shields from the final talents, and I find the benefits of Regenerative Bile outweigh that of Pulverize.
Bolt of the Storm does not benefit a zoning Stitches, as you have no high impact spells worthy of jumping in for. The movement speed from Putrid Bile + Regenerative Bile will give you all the mobility you require.