For most of the time I recall, the big reason to pick Gul’dan was W build into Horrify combos. However since other ‘mage’ heroes provide similar/better waveclear, merc control, cc, and they don’t have a team-sabotaging effect on mana sustain, I think he tends to fall out of favor by being a liability more often than not.
Lately, when I see Gul’dan, they build around Life drain – as it minimizes his resource mini-game – but I don’t think I’ve really seen, or considered incentive for, picking Q build. Looking over HeroesProfile, he has a lot of talents that don’t get picked much, and a key part of that is many of his talents do do similar things, but some are ‘better’ for particular builds. While I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets a valla-like rework, I do think some simple changes could be done to help his talent variety:
Switch the goals of his lvl 1 quests
Hitting enemies with Q reduces his mana costs
Collecting globes increases the range of his spells (at least q and e)
E’s mana reduction is redundant since Drain life minimizes the costs of Life Tap whereas the Q build is very spam heavy and demands better mana management. Switching their boons should open up other talent interactions that help the pick variety.
Change Consume Soul (lvl 4 talent) into an active point-click damage.
Instead of instantly killing a minion, it could deal half damage to a target, heal for the damage dealt, but double that healing if the target dies from, or shortly within the duration of taking the damage. The damage component can still work on pve targets, but that little extra bit of damage sets it apart from the other talents as more than just ‘another Life Tap mitigation’
Condense his lvl 13 into 3 talents.
Dark bargain is baseline armor that temporarily increases with hitting an enemy with Q, but adds respawn timer.
Lifedrain as is.
Healthstone (rename imo) increases Gul’dan’s max HP and has an active self-heal effect. It could be based on % of missing HP (so only conditionally healing as much as it does now) or it could be flat, but trigger additional healing at low hp (this form means it heals more with +spell power)
That should help even out some of the opportunity cost (or appeal) of some of these talents in conjunction with other talents.
Obviously min/max trends are likely to still prevail, but if Q talents bolster spell spam and E talents get sustain/range, then it enables better choices on where one excel rather than one doing what the other would do, but better.
Very good points, I have long been a critic of Gul’dan’s talent tree potential even after the rework.
Don’t get me wrong, Life Drain build is pretty good now but it’s absolutely horrible in a sense as well because the spell roots you which as a squishy glass cannon, is inherently bad.
His Q build has been terrible for a long time, Rampant Hellfire is a serious power spike but it just comes too late at 16 to be worth building into Q.
Sure you’re rooting yourself, but you also deal heavy damage, heal yourself while slowing the enemy by 40%. I wouldn’t call him a glass-canon. Hammer is also rooting herself in D-mode, but she don’t get the heal or slow.
A liability? Guldan is the only sustain damage mage. There is no other one that does it better than him. Most mages are burst ones, with long CDs like KT or KTZ. The only exception is orhpea with her Q. But that depends on her hitting the target and getting a reset.
If you draft guldan as a mage in burst comp, then sure he is a liability. But if you want in your comp a constant damage that does not stop until something is dead then he is a perfect choice. Not to mention that Horrify is one of the best heroics in the game.
Do you use warhead junction nukes in teamfights? Do you know anyone who does? Yeah me neither.
RoD is basically a warhead nuke in Guldans pocket
It’s an extremely potent siege ult akin to demonic invasion. Using it to bolster a push with the objective is a very effective use of it as the limited space you have to walk inside a fort pretty much guarantees each meteor will either hit a hero or a structure.
Don’t get me started on how good it is against the core
I play Guldan with Corruption build and manage very well with it (not to mention the fear ult). It is no easy build to play with but I find it to be very efficient when you know how to play it and have a good feeling with it.
As a matter of fact, some consider the Life Drain build so mandatory because they see all other players use it. Then they immediately give me toxic remarks full of “lol” and “OK game lost” or “WTH is that build”. Then they realise another build than the mainstream they have learned to brainlessly consider as the only one, can actually work good, and they just silence themselves.
The only constant mechanics and difficulty with GD is life-mana balancing. That is his trait and the player just has to know how to deal with it.
Against average teams, they often cant combo well enough against such target, which makes guldan survive. But against well competetive teams, its just a bad idea to self root. They will ensure to either repeatedly interupt him, or burst out such significant damage, that even with guldans heal and slow, he still dies.
Hammer has the range and a knockback to protect herself. And can talent into an unstoppable. This gives her a much better chance at escaping.
Hammer is often countered by 2 diffirent aspects:
Your team can push harder than hammer. (either by having double lane pressure, or very good fort dive potential). This generaly is the most effective since it forces hammer into a defensive position.
Your team becomes a dive comp involving 2 heroes that can get close and lock down hammer (making her unstoppable and knockback ineffective). These comps also work for the remaining 4 heroes on that. But in this case you often end up chasing hammer which is less effective. Although objective wise this might be stronger as it is aimed towards instant killing. (dont worry much about medivh on hammers side, medivh and hammer often dont synergize well, so he cant constantly prevent burst - and if he can, he obviously takes priority over hammer, which with such comp is easy enough).
Main problem is that you just need to W for 1 sec to get instantly blown up by a smart team. But sure, for 99% of the playerbase, this won’t happen, so whatever.
Gonna let you in a secret here,
but your ignorance and unwillingness to read is not my concern and it has little bearing regarding what I wrote particular to gul’dan.
Once you get past reading sentences in full, you can then work on paragraphs and tying all the other thoughts together on your own. I can’t magically make you read better, and your capacity to read things through is something you should do instead of pretending someone can magically fix it for you.
If you’re not sure what “other mages” i mean, then I suggest playing the game more or hitting up a Try Me mode and hitting up some mercs or test dummies on those clears and mana tension. Your ignorance has little else to do for a suggestion on sprucing up gul’dans talent stagnation.
I have hoped others noticed the incentive/need --lack of– to talent into Q, but I was only skimming over suggestion-based topics rather than feedback ones.
I figure since he’s had some evident talent stagnation for awhile, he’d bound to be on the blocks for change at some point and getting some dialogue/suggestions about what people like, or don’t like in regards to potential changes to help offer a point of perspective for the devs.
In other words, you don’t have any arguments (you can’t even provide your own vision of “mages” in game), instead only trying to insult anyone who disagrees with you. I couldn’t expect less from someon who thinks Gul’Dan is a liability. I’d ask if you achieved atleast diamond, solo, but i already reported you, so i won’t.
I like this suggestion and I agree with you that Q build needs something to make it a more attractive pick. As for his E quest I wouldnt mind some change, though I get it’s already powerful. They could slightly lower the amount of heroes you need to hit with it, or give it a 5% extra spell power on its completion.
The reward currently for Q is a radius increase, rather than range. I think you could still keep a reduced Q radius increase and the mana cost reduction you suggested without making it too strong.
I really like Gildan, but I agree, Q build is kinda weak (I’ve never taken it because I get plenty of success out of the other two, so maybe I’m missing something).
Though I only play QM so choose however you want to interpret this.
I am always aiming to go Corruption build because the damage output is really high in a clash and the structure damage on the six splooshes is crazy. But I only go E build if I think there’s reliable cc I can follow up on.
But in QM when there’s no tank (or reliable follow up cc, then I go W).
Both are good imo.
Guldan’s waveclear is really good but an additional benefit is that due to life drain / life tap, you don’t ever really need to go back to the fountain, which has lots of benefits.
And Horrify is so good it’s…scary.
So I wouldn’t mind some changes to Q talents, but I’m fine with every other aspect of his kit.
I also hate playing fotm heroes, so if they buff him, I hope it’s not too crazy (like Valla).
I don’t have an “argument” because that doesn’t accomplish anything.
I don’t need to define “mages” because its a transitionary overgeneralization as a small piece of a collective whole.
You’re whinging, haven’t read anything through, are missing the intent and point of the topic in favor of superficial fixations that do not generate a discussion beyond your own ego.
You are so far behind the curve, the only thing I can functionally do is point out what you’re not doing and hope you actually do it, otherwise you’re so far off base it isn’t worth dealing with you because regardless of how much you want to overvalue your ignorance, you don’t make any changes to the game: the devs do. If you don’t know the difference between a dev and yourself, then that isn’t something I can fix for you either.
At a fundamental level, I don’t need to do anything else to the topic now that the suggestion is out there. If you don’t understand that, and you’re unwilling to read AND fault others for your bupkis, then that’s all on you cuz I can’t magically transmit understanding and honesty to your brain, let alone motivate you to actually use them.
Otherwise, congrats, you bumped the topic and got two replies that put more effort and thought into them than you put into your angry farce.
Interesting, not a Gul’dan player, so don’t have anything meaningful to comment. But, seeing that his health sustain build has become meta in a meta where Blizzard just constantly slops on self sustain onto every hero and stopped caring about mana tension again, it totally makes sense.
