Kel'thuzad, the Lich of Un-Fun

Learn sidesteps from the sidestepking?

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Stop whining and learn to play already. You won’t get anywhere when you don’t improve your game. iT caN’t bE My fAulT tHat I’m sTucK in bRonZe 5 foR tHe laSt 5 yEarS. It’S aLl tHe gAmeS faUlt!!1!!11!

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He needs to finish his quest first. Don’t go 5 man brain afk deathball at the start of the match and scatter through the lanes. If he moves to a different lane, avoid him and swap.
Make him useless for a long as possible, build a gigantic macro advantage due to effectively playing 5v4.5 and then win the game because they cannot come back in time.

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ARAM. All Raynor and Malfurion.

Yeah, those false copyright strikes do hit pretty hard.

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Sounds nice, but I would swap Malf with Morales, so you can more easily determine who is the more skillful player. Malf pushes the asymetric balance too much.

Ye better quit the game when you see KTZ these days. This game got so many rage quitters/draft dodgers anyway.

I have said it so many times now but gonna say it again. Those complainers just want this game dumped down to his own skill lvl so he dont have to worry about anything.

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To all those who yell “learn to play”:
This should not be the quality benchmark by which heroes need to be designed.

A good design in a highly tactical / strategic game is about a dialogue of interesting responses. And skill is about mastering these “replies” against the enemy, e.g. knowing the best response in each situation.

KT takes away a lot of this dialogue, because as I originally said, he is too binary.
There are many situations in which you don’t have the opportunity to react to KT, e.g. when he set up a spike in a bush and just chains you from there.

That is called being outplayed.

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But in a lot of cases, it really is the benchmark. One thing I highly recommend is to play KTZ for a couple of matches yourself, even if it is just AI or ARAM, to get a feel for his kit and how to better play against it. His range is much shorter than a lot of people expect, and a ton of things can mess up hitting chains. One of my favorite tricks when tanking against him is when I see him hit me with the first chain, which he will often do since I am the only thing in range, is to try and angle some sort of terrain between me and my most vulnerable back line team mate. Even just clipping any sort of object will interfere with his chain, and therefor his combo.

When I play a back line hero, I keep terrain in mind so I can duck behind something as soon as I see the first chain go out. Also note, once his chain is on CD, he is a sitting duck with no self-defenses or any sort of mobility. Once that is down, jump him.

I definitely agree, getting smashed into fine particles by a perfect KTZ combo is maddening, but there are a few tricks you can use against him. A lot of this can be learned by using the hero yourself to get a better picture of his weaknesses, that you can then exploit.

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Nabbing a dive, strong spell counters or good displacement (Garrosh or Stitches come to mind) shouldn’t be hard. If KTZ has last picked into you having none of those, you’re kind of open to more than just him; virtually any mage will be able to put pressure on you really hard, because you lack tools to trivialize the distance. Instead, the distance between you two is a huge obstacle for you and a great defense for them.

Sadly, while I agree that KTZ is a hard customer, he also relies on his all in and if he misses W and E he can really only poke at you-- a slow moving skillshot with windup that’s minion blocked.

One ult is a slow moving projectile and the other has a big windup, after the QWE. Both Rs are pretty much followups, he won’t bust a 1v1 out on its head. Close range Frost Blasts seem to be uncommon enough too.

About all I’d agree on is his passive is a bit stifling as it’s basically just a matter of time. But if he could be gated out of it hard, like KT’s convection talent, then he’d feel the opposite problem where as soon as someone can dive he’s cooked goose.

I have a really hard time with KT because my skill is trash tier…but hey I’m trying and I want to get better with him.

I actually really like the idea behind the hero and I agree with what others have said, he’s easy enough to draft against and counter if people are paying attention. I think the fact that he’s so all or nothing makes him interesting. The wombo-chain-combo is also hard as hell to land IMO against mobile characters but when you do pull it off and KO someone I find it more rewarding than plinking someone with Tyrande or some other weak pest of a hero.

Anyhow, just my 2 cents. Overall, I think KT is a blast.

List of tanks that can hard counter ktz if played well: johanna, anubarak, etc, muradin, tyrael

List of tanks that work fine against ktz garrosh

List of tanks who instalose to ktz: arthas

Not sure where to place mei, malganis, and blaze but im thinking 2nd caregory. Also yea instaloss is an exaggeration but lets not pretend that maintank arthas has many answers to ktz until 20. His lack of mobility even at that point make him a great chain target to give him early stacks. Point is i could only think of one tank which would give ktz an easy win. He doesn’t need to be “hard countered” in draft but the tanks cannot afford to play safe defending backline and ignore him as they are required to do against other heroes.

It shouldn’t be a major part in deciding the outcome of the match.

This reasoning is so dumb.
You think Johanna and Tyreal are the same now that Johanna doesn’t have base physical armor and Tyrael doesn’t have base ability armor?
Heroes can be different without being super specialized and niche.
Anub’arak’s beetles can still provide cover against skill shots, if he times his abilities well, but they don’t make skillshot based heroes useless nor does this make them useless against auto-attack heroes.
Would Anub be boring if his W just gave more shields rather than spell armor, or would it just help him compete with Joh a bit better.
I think the latter.

Yet several people have said “you don’t like him, draft his counter”

Asymetric balance is fine, great even.

No I want the game to be improved.
Lower skill floors, and higher skill ceilings.
The outcome of the match should be more determined by individual skill, but fights shouldn’t end instantly if one mistake is made.

But now you’re missing half the point.
If someone knows how to respond to KTZ he becomes useless, which is also a problem.
It’s not just about him being too strong, it’s about him being too strong in his ideal situations, and too useless outside of his ideal situations.
And that’s why Hammer is stupid too.

And once again you ignore the part before he finishes the quest. KT is about getting the stacks or not. I described it in detail above, but you didn’t even comment.

This is entirely fair.

But that dosen’t mean KTZ needs a nerf. Quite frankly, he needs a buff so that he has some functionality outside of combo.

It shoudn’t be the deciding part on who wins the match, but it also shouldn’t be as minor as to where you can literally pick anything you want without a consequence. Drafts should be meaningful, which is why we need picks and counterpicks.
For example mages like KTZ and KT thrive against low mobility comps, that can’t pressure them. Drafting accordingly in this scenario will make the game much easier for you. Of course even if you don’t, you won’t automatically lose, but it will be much harder for you to pull through.

It was intentionally hyperbolic to show you how ridiculous a generalist trend can be. Making every hero pickable in every situation is dumbing down the game. Building smart teamcomps based on the map and the enemy picks is a core mechanic of this game and a long time motivation for veteran players as they can make use of their experience.

I agree, but you have to walk the line between them being too specialized
and them becoming boring generalists. I would for example personally consider Cassias and Tassadars Rework a failure in that regard. Both are now good for everything assassins without big weaknesses (Tassadar is diveable, but so are other mages). Heroes like KTZ or Malthael have more distinct strengths and weaknesses and you have to think wether it is smart to draft them or not.

Of course no hero should make another obsolete, and to my knowledge no hero currently does. But certain heroes make it harder for others to shine, which is absolutly fine and a good showcase of asymetric balance.

I disagree. It would take away from the hero, who is supposed to be a squishy tank and a mage counter. If anything I would rather nerf Johanna who is too much of a good-in-every-scenario tank. Either that or buff the rest of the tank squad, excluding ETC, who is similary good in every scenario.

KTZ is countered by anything that also counters squishy immobile backliners. Anything that denies his CC and/or burst damage also works. Those aren’t specific to him tho, he is just a more extreme case of it, so those counters are also more effective on him. A lot of healers have a cleanse, or burst protection. There are a lot of bruiser that can dive deep and pressure him. If he is picked early you can also pick an additional melee assasin to further pressure him. You can also play around him ingame, by brawling less frequently and denying his stacks for a longer time.

Then you shouldn’t have a problem with clear picks and counterpicks in draft, cause that is the core of asymetric balance.

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In the sense of deciding how your team will play.
Draft a lot of difficult to aim aoes and you might want to play hit and run with minions.
Draft a lot of melee and you might have to do surprise attacks from bushes.
Draft should determine how you want your team to play.

Well you missed the mark, it illustrated nothing.

They must be pretty bad if that’s what they base their skill on.

“supposed to” according to…???

Well you can’t mean that. Because you just said being a generalist who is good in numerous situations is bad.
And since that is what Jo and ETC are, you can’t want other heroes to be buffed to their level.
But that’s what I want.
Like imagine if Garrosh throw had reduced cooldown if he threw minions.
That alone could open up a fair amount of options for him.
True it’d lower one of his weaknesses a bit, being able to evade the throw by hiding among minions, but more often people just rely on not being near him anyway.

I’m ok with soft counters, or counters that have a back and forth between the two heroes where they each counter eachother depending on the exact situation.
I don’t like very hard counters, or situations where people feel you MUST counter.
Ideally you should be drafting toward your strategy, and taking your opponent’s strategy into account.
You shouldn’t be drafting to sh** all over your opponent’s strategy, as that takes fun out of the game.
White/Blue in Magic The Gathering is the absolute worst.