Hewwo. Level 494 KTZ main here to help you with all your lich-related needs. I’ve got close to a 62% WR with him in QM.
So from what I am understanding , you are not having problems with executing his abilities, but being effective in situations that involve no front line?
So here’s the thing about Kel’thuzad: He is very, very dependent on his front line in order to be effective. Without them, he will struggle as he requires getting dangerously close to perform his combos. Getting caught also happens more frequently and since you have no escape until 20 you’re likely going to die with no peels. Additionally, they can also serve to help set enemies up for you to combo. I never, ever play KTZ without a tank or a bruiser hero on my team. You’ll much more frequently have a bad time if you do.
My advice would be to do the same: Do not ever play Kel’thuzad without a tank or bruiser hero on your team.
As for dive heroes, well KTZ’s most common counters are dive heroes and often requires his team to protect him from them. However, you cannot anticipate going up against dive heroes in QM as you would a draft game. What I like to do in these situations is go one of two of my “anti-dive builds”.
Now, I say “anti-dive”, but in reality against most of his biggest counters, and especially against the people that really know how to ruin his day, these builds will only serve to help mitigate their impact and increase your chances of survival.
With that said, here are the two builds:
The “Melt it down if it comes near me” build [T1211324,KelThuzad]
This is the one I most commonly take when I’m countered by most things. I always take it against Medivh for example.
The “Get the $#%@ away from me” build [T2321323,KelThuzad]
I mostly only take this when I see Genji, Zeratul or Tracer.
Sometimes I’ll deviate a bit from each if the need arises, like taking Armor against Illidan in a Q build, but those are generally my go-to builds against my counters.
The most important aspect of these two builds is Frost Blast, Kel’thuzad’s point-and-click root. Many people assume that if they just pop their only Unstoppable or cleanse after I’ve used my chain, they’re safe. This ult helps solve that by increasing the amount of get-out-of-jail cards they need to escape. Tracer used Recall? With full stacks, if she’s still close enough she’s dead. If you’re skilled enough, with the right timing you can also use Frost Blast to force her to recall so that you can combo her from her recall location, since the rest of your abilities should still be off cooldown.
Being smart about when to use it is very important, as there are many things that can negate it altogether. Typically you’ll want to try and wait or bait out their get-out-of-jail cards. However, it has a fairly low cooldown for an ultimate which leaves a lot of freedom for when you decide to use it, even if it’s just to escape. It won’t usually help kill a very good Zeratul (he’ll just teleport like 3 screens away before it hits him), but if you pop it quick enough it will at least get him off of you for the time being so you can potentially survive.