Lvl 1 on big maps pale horse
The rest may differ on the one you will be facing.
Against mobile I like deaths reach, vs poke I like “fear the reaper”
Lvl 4 Black harvest on smaller maps, die alone on maps where 1v1’s are more endorsed (like top lane on dragon shire)
Lvl 7 Massacre
You want as many marks to spread chaos trough their formation or to escape/ engage
Lvl 10: Tormented souls
13: Inevitable end / Soul siphon
Soul siphon if you need more healing, but you will notice that troughout the match. Just ask yourself “is the cc my main source of damage taken” or do I need extra self healing
16: Soul collector
I know many think mortality, but Deathwing is a reverse Garrosh, you only need to have his first armor plate removed and he is quite squichy, and this talent helps you beat him when he is trying to escape with cataclysm
20: No one can stop death
Free respawn, if you make a mistake you can come back
Also you can play more risky, if you take 2 down at the price of yourself its a win because you come back
The strategy
Maintain a mark on him all time, When deathwing casts Molten Flame , you go behind him. And try to bodyblock if he escapes, this is quite easy because of his size
Your main task is to remove 1 armor stack and your team will do the rest.
It is a team effort to take him down.
When he “sneezes” / uses Earth Shatter its a predictable animation if you cant dodge it , use your self cleanse.
You need to keep doing damage on him in order to prevent his dragonflight, if you have trouble with this, pick up Black harvest
He fears you more then you do him. Use this to your advantage
You are more mobile then him, use this to catch him off his guard
while im thankful for this post, maybe its better to teach us how to play WITH deathwing, not against, since ive heared he is underpowered especially against 1v 1s
Personally i found memento mori to be a far better counter to deathwing with the trait build, as he can not be healed by allies, making the damage stick.
Thats because the amount of counters he has.
His windups and large hitbox make him vulnerable to most skillshots heroes and high mobility heroes.
His large HP pool and armor is completely ignored by % damage heroes, the fact that he’s unable to be healed makes it much worse for him.
Also his enormous hitbox makes terrain-creating heroes much more powerful against him, like Nazeebo, Leoric and Tassadar.
He’s stronger when facing CC dependent heroes, like Alarak, Garrosh, ETC, Anub-arak and also sitting ducks or nearly immobile heroes like Hammer.
He’s capable of dealing a massive amount of damage IF(A really big if) he manages to land a considerable amount of molten flame into his enemies, he surely feels a lot like a Bruiser considering his windups and extremely telegraphed abilities make nearly impossible for him to peel his backline (or sometimes himself) against high mobility heroes, also giving him a hard time to force into objectives.
Deathwing I faced stay in teamfights and only takes the solo lanes briefly. They lack mobility to split push so the best thing is do a lot of macro.
Memento mori bonus comes too late, you can do great dmg with Soul collector + it gives great range to finish off far away damage and gives that sweet extra substain.
Every time I take it I am like “If I took any other talent he was already dead”
I really disagree with the butcher analogy made earlier. Yes both dw and b require a team to work around them to really be effective and they each have strong counters, butcher can be absolutely nullified at high levels of play and is destroyed by his counters while deathwing’s make him more manageable fort he enemy team. Locking butcher into johanna uther is a much bigger loss than dw into a tychus malthael. DW’s global, high dmg, and early ultimates give him immense power that isnt just “aa till dead”. So far ive had two games with him and as the one tanking for him the enemy’s counters (greymane game 1 and tychus game 2) did absolutely nothing bc i used them to setup stuns. Thats why i like this original post bc countering dw is not as easy as locking 1 counter and requires “team effort”. He doesnt fit my playstyle but i adore his presence.