Any tips on playing Garrosh against long range poke?

General Discussion
1

I find that Garrosh is probably the hardest tank to play. I’ve over 50% win rate on all other tanks except Garrosh, who I’m trying to learn to play right now.

So my first few games, I thought his throw was click and drag, so I could never get it right lol… but then I looked up a video and played him in try mode and got down the throw into ground slam combo pretty well.

I was finally able to get in 2 QM games where I got a few nice kills by throwing people into towers and barely died.

But then, I just had a game against Junkrat, Li Ming, and Kael’thas. These heroes have never given me trouble as any other tanks. But as Garrosh, I could never close the distance to even damage them at all without losing over half of my health.

What’s the best way to play Garrosh when all the ranged assassins are focusing you?

Or is this a matter of draft? Only draft Garrosh when other team doesn’t have super high range assassins and don’t lock him as the first pick?

Our draft was:
Garrosh, Anduin, Malthael, Tracer, Sonya
vs.
Li Ming, Kael’thas, Junkrat, Muradin, Alexstrasza
drafted in this order.

Basically, all game, Junkrat was extremely good at zoning with grenades, so our whole team had trouble getting into position. Then, sometimes I can get close enough to Kael’thas or Muradin to throw and stun them, but right after that, they stun me and I’m dead. What’s the best way to deal with this, or did they just out-draft us? Should I have picked tank later and drafted Stitches instead to deal with the poke mages?

2

Pro tip: throw your assassin ally(ies) at those pokers and let them take care of it.

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3

1- juke everything unless you take a hit to save a low life ally.
2- engage from bushes, non braindeads won’t get Q’ed unless you anticipate.
3- with earth shatter you can throw a minion/ally on them to stun and Q you won’t be able to E them but it applies pressure

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4

If you want to get in close, it’s best to use bushes to your advantage. You’re going to have to have the element of surprise to close that gap. For Junkrat and Liming, it helps to have warlords challenge since they can’t use any escapes during that taunt time frame.

Then, the use of Q is variable as sometimes, you want to use it to engage and sometimes, you want to use it after you’ve thrown someone. Using Q on KT to engage is good because KT doesn’t have an escape and you can dodge the cc but with junkrat and li ming, using the Q after the throw is best because you want them to be slowed while they’re in a compromised position.

Even if they reposition, they will still be slowed shortly after repositioning since their escapes aren’t cleanses. Also, at level 20, you get cd reduction on warlord’s challenge which is great if you have a team that follows up on your taunts and kills the target (CDR only happens if target dies while taunted).

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5

Thanks. I did do that once, I threw either Malthael or Tracer and got one kill that way, but the rest of the time, it’s hard to get close to the right target, either enemies or allies due to Junkrat zoning us so hard. I’m not sure if this Junkrat is just a way higher level skill player than I’m used to playing against or if Junkrat counters Garrosh harder than other tanks due to lack of mobility. Garrosh’s unstoppable cooldown is longer than Johanna’s, doesn’t last as long, and doesn’t give you a shield.

The map was Hanamura btw. Bush is not always available near objective. I was thinking that I can throw enemies into each other then stun multiple enemies while they are clustered at objective, but looking back, was it the wrong draft for the map?

I was able to actually get in a few Taunts against Junkrat and Kael’thas, but by that time, the rest of my team was already dying/dead themselves. A few times, I was able to pull off combos to get one of the enemy assassins down to low health, but by then, the enemy team was just finishing up wiping out the rest of my team, so nobody was around to finish them off.

I think we were all a bit out classed, but I’m wondering if we drafted wrong too. Since on Hanamura, if your team isn’t around to finish people off, you can’t just let the towers do the killing for you. In the games I’ve done well as Garrosh, I mostly just kept on getting tower/fort/keep kills. The objective is too far away from towers, so is Hanamura is bad map for Garrosh?

And on this topic, what are the best and worst maps for each tank?
So far, I think Johanna is great on maps where you need wave clear or 3 lane maps where you sometimes need to double soak. Stitches and Garrosh are great on Towers of Doom, where you can throw or pull + gorge people into the area around your core to kill them. Diablo is great on maps where there are plenty of obstacles for stuns and somewhat weak on Hanamura. Muradin is great on BoE for racing and Dragon Shire for jumping from lane to lane.

6

I dont play garrosh myself, but have played with 2 garrosh players,
even against high damage, there basic gameplay is to keep moving to avoid skillshots, and kill minions so our minions shiled garrosh for some time from skillshots. and have our assasins keep poking from behind garosh,

but , the garrosh i played with, was ALWAYS ready , he would capitalize on EVERY opportunity, if anyone dive go got near, slam-stun, throw bak,

but did not engage much,
a Pre-meditated slam-stun-throw , will NOT work ,
but u shud b quick to do it whenever u hav chance,
u shud know the range of ur slam-stun,

with a few games, u wil get idea :slight_smile:

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7

I can land the throw-slam-taunt combo when people get into my range and I can survive if I can quickly retreat back to tower range.

Is the problem here that the enemy team had 3 assassins that can poke and we had none? We basically had Malthael and Tracer suicide jump back line to get kills with mixed success. Maybe I should have gone Tyrael to jump with them or Stitches to pull them in instead?

I feel like Johanna, Stitches, Diablo, ETC, Anub, and Muradin can work with just about any draft, but Tyrael and Garrosh can really suffer if the enemy team has high CC for Tyrael or high zoning for Garrosh.

It seems like for Tyrael and Garrosh, when the draft and the map is right, they can contribute to far more kills than any other tanks, but when things don’t fit, they are nearly useless. The question is what is the best situation to draft them?

8

tyrael can survive still, with his sword throwing n jumping bak, can act as a mini poke, but wont do much,

garrosh cant do much,
but yes, if u reallly want to have fun,

couple garrosh with stitches with one mage n one mele assasin n a healer,

you hav no idea how frustrating it wil b for the enemy
a pull+throw bak into your towers, trapped n killed :smiley:

i was lucky to b in tht setup once, was Li Ming,
we had 5 kills before the first spawn of tribute, lol,

but ya, in late game it bcomz a bit of issue , unless ur assasins r doing gud job, n ur healer keeps u alive to soak for long

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9

also, the way u say u were playing,
ur healer should b focused on you at all times,
coz ur assasins seemed well protected behind u,

and, malth n tracer couldnt do much,
with garrosh, if u hav a gud autoattacker, like reynor, greymane AND a gud range damage like hanzo li ming, orphea to keep poking, then thts ur perfect setup

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10

Well, there’s your problem. Garrosh by himself needs a competent team since his kit revolves around setting up your team and not yourself. If your team is getting poked to death, they should probably learn to dodge skill shots and not spread living bomb.

Your comp had potential to win but it just seems like Tracer couldn’t get the job done in assassinating the squishies and I think Malthael was a bad pick since there are only 2 lanes and only 1 tanky guy on their team.

Also, you have 2 heroes that require a team to set them up: Tracer and Malthael since they’re risky heroes otherwise. That means, you’re forced to spend more time saving those 2 rather than setting up kills like you’re supposed to.

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11

I see. Our Tracer, Malthael, and Sonya are basically one tricks who only play them. While our healer and I are more flexible with our choices. So knowing this, how could we have drafted better for Hanamura?

12

Anduin was a good choice to pull them out of trouble but a Mal’ganis or an Anubarak would have been better tank choices if they’re insistent on one tricking.

With Mal’ganis or Anubarak, you could disrupt the enemy team to set up tracer and Malthael and have Anduin pull people out if they become compromised.

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13

Haha, the two heroes I don’t own and aren’t on free rotation.

Out of Stitches, Diablo, Tyrael, or Johanna, which do you think would have been the best choice here?

14

I would say Stitches, Diablo, or Johanna.

Diablo has good peel potential and is a burly tank so he could easily disrupt enemies and put their squishies on the defensive because he can deal decent damage.

Stitches is good but depends on your capacity to hook people. If you’re good with hooks, you could easily set up kills for your team or hook teammates from danger.

Johanna’s W is kind of disruptive and she has a slow on her Q. Additionally, her survivability is good and you could take the falling sword ult to either use it as an escape or a gap closer. However, I imagine the W would mostly affect Li-ming and KT because their junkrat would be further away but if you had the enemy team’s attention, it would set Tracer up for a flank and you’d have the survivability to carry it out.

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15

i agree with ayeziza,

its not much of ur fault of garrosh play,

with li ming n kt, you would b forced to fall bak every time you try engage,

and though malt has a decent damage, u cant expect him to jump in the middle to do damage, n tracer can only do damage for a short time before he had to pull bak,

unless li ming n kt r found away from their team, n ur tracer is good to dodge skillshots, hes useless

2 Likes
16

Thanks.

I’m most comfortable on Stitches and Johanna. I wanted to get more familiar with other heroes, but I guess that was the wrong draft to try it. I find that Diablo, Stitches, and Johanna are generally safe to draft early on, nothing really counters them AFAIK and they seem to fit into most compositions. Not so true for Tyrael and Garrosh? I like playing Tyrael and Garrosh, they are fun to play, but I find it difficult to draft them properly. Tyrael is actually a bit easier, since he can be off tank/solo laner, but Garrosh can’t even be played like that.

17

no, thts wrong, u can pick garrosh in the start,
but make sure andiun is banned , coz he wil pull his ally back when u throw him to ur team, but anduin cant pull back as often as u can throw someone into ur team,

with garosh, u need a long range poke, li ming, orphea hanzo ,
if u had a decent orphea instead of tracer, you would hav seen a huge difference,

garrosh is a very good tank, u just need to make sure u hav the right assasins for him to add value

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18

Problem with Tyrael is that he’s like a poke tank (he might be labeled as a bruiser? Haven’t checked). he’s not very tanky so he has to smartly weave in and out of combat with his teleport and his W shields himself and his allies but the value is diminished if you’re in the deep end and not in range to grant shields to allies. He works great with melee assassins, tanks, or bruisers that are following up with you.

Garrosh is more team dependent. He’s definitely draftable in most comps but his main job is to set your team up with an advantage. However, when you put 2 risky heroes on his team, he would spend more time peeling for his allies than setting up your team which means that the success of the game is reliant on those 2 risky dps. If one of them was playing something more reliable, you may have pulled it off.

I think Malthael was just an awful pick for that map and comp.

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19

Ok, so enemy team first picked Li Ming, then we got Garrosh and Anduin… so that was the right move so far.

After that they picked Junkrat and Kael’thas.

But we shouldn’t have gone Malthael + Tracer, and should have gone Orphea + Hanzo instead?

So if we did that instead, the game could have gone a lot differently?

20

I think Hanzo would have been great into their squishies, especially with Dragon’s Arrow and then have Tracer flank around and disrupt/kill junkrat.

Malthael was just 0/10 pick for that map and comp.

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