Zul’jin got some buffs to some of his underpicked and underperforming talents in this past patch.
These buffs are deceptively significant, and open up a lot of new build flexibility for Zul’jin. So I figured it’d be a decent idea to draw up a new talent/build guide for Zul’jin accounting for these buffs.
Zul’jin has 3 main builds – Q (Grievous Throw), AA/Trait (Berserker), and W (Twin Cleave) – each with distinct roles and slight variations.
Grievous Throw Build
Q Build is has the most clearly-defined and simply explained role – Tank shredding. The super-high sustained single-target damage this build brings to the table is great against enemies you can count on hanging around and taking that level of punishment it without just killing you back or kiting you out.
This build is a very damage-focused build. It can pump out WAY more single-target damage than either of the other builds, but it lacks a bit of the utility the other builds bring. It also requires just a bit more skill than his normal AA build, since you have to land your Q on your intended target before attacking them.
Level 1 - Boneslicer
Boneslicer causes Grievous Throw to pierce all targets, restoring 15 mana per hero hit, and removes the 3-proc cap.
Baseline, Grievous Throw’s bonus damage is limited to the first 3 attacks against a marked target. Boneslicer removing that limit makes it the cornerstone of Q build.
Level 4 - Variable
This level is flexible.
Amani Hide grants 15 armor during Amani Rage and reduces its cooldown by 10 seconds. This is my preferred talent, simply because it means more damage and sustain at the same time.
Voodoo Shuffle passively reduces the cooldown and mana cost of Regeneration by 40%, and can be activated once every 10 seconds. This talent can be very useful if the enemy team has a lot of slows/roots or poke.
Troll’s Blood increases Regeneration’s healing by 25% (7.5% of his max health) and restores 10% max mana after a full channel. This isn’t bad, but I find it rarely provides the value that Amani Hide or Voodoo Shuffle does.
Level 7 - Vicious Assault
Vicious Assault increases Grievous Throw’s bonus damage from +50% to +95% and increases the duration of the mark from 6 seconds to 9.
Nearly doubling your basic attack damage against marked targets is a big deal. Additionally, Grievous Throw’s cooldown is 8 seconds, so a 9 second duration means you can have 100% mark uptime, which synergizes great with Boneslicer removing the 3-proc limit.
Level 10 - Taz’dingo
Taz’dingo allows you to pump out much more damage at low health much more safely, so it synergizes amazingly with the sheer DPS Q build brings. It also makes you harder to kill, which is always a plus on a hero with as limited self-peel as Zul’jin has.
Since Guillotine does not synergize with Q build, it’s not really worth picking here unless the enemy team keeps getting away with ~20% health and they can’t kill you anyway.
Level 13 - Eye of Zul’jin
Eye of Zul’jin gives you 6% movement speed every time you attack an enemy hero, up to 30%. That makes this talent amazing for kiting and chasing enemies. For example, you can keep up with a fleeing target, attacking the whole way, once you’ve stacked the speed buff up. It makes it very hard to escape from Zul’jin.
Ensnare could also be an okay choice here, especially since you aren’t punished as heavily if you miss it anymore. I’d still recommend Eye of Zul’jin, though.
Level 16 - No Mercy
Previously, No Mercy’s armor ignoring effect was only worth picking if you were up against heroes with a lot of armor to ignore, such as ETC or Garrosh. Now that it deals 2% health damage as well, this is going to be very strong against all Tanks due to his high attack speed.
Level 20 - Amani Resilience
Amani Resilience is basically a must-pick if you take Taz’dingo, no matter your build. Extending the duration of Taz’dingo by 1 second and instantly healing you for half the damage you deal while it’s active is very strong, and it’s not uncommon for me to find myself returning to nearly-full health if the enemy team doesn’t chain-CC me or run away.
Berserker Build
AA/Trait Build is typically best for dealing with Rangers and Melee Assassins. Keeping your opponents at a distance and wearing them down faster than they can chip you down is something this build excels at. There are few Rangers and Melee Assassins that can handle an AA/Trait build Zul’jin, just because of his range and sheer DPS.
Level 1 - Headhunter or Recklessness
With the recent buff to Recklessness causing it to grant double YWA? stacks while below half health, it is now a viable level 1 talent. If you want to stack quickly but don’t expect to be dived too often (and so aren’t too worried about staying below half health), then this talent is a solid pick.
Headhunter is almost always good. The universal bonus damage is useful even if you’ve only gotten 4 of the 5 stacks (which is +8% damage of all types), and if you complete the quest you get an extra 1.1 attack range, bringing your maximum total up to 7.7, which is 40% higher than most other ranged heroes.
Rather than listing the situations I would pick it in, it’d be easier to list the one I wouldn’t – if one or more of them are/can be very hard to kill (i.e. Abathur, Medivh, Zeratul, or TLV). Denying you that last stack makes Headhunter effectively half a talent, and can also cause you to tilt a little bit and take greater risks to get that last stack.
Level 4 - Variable
Same as with Q build, this level is flexible.
Again, I prefer Amani Hide for the extra flexibility, but Voodoo Shuffle is also a decent pick depending on comps.
Level 7 - Ferocity
Ferocity increases the attack speed bonus of Berserker by 40% – that is, you gain an additional 0.4% bonus attack speed for every 1% of your missing health, bringing you up to 1.4% per 1% missing health. Nothing fancy here, just more DPS being more DPS. Just be careful how this interacts with Berserker’s active effect.
Level 10 - Taz’dingo
Taz’dingo is a must-pick with this build, for 2 reasons, both revolving around Ferocity.
The first is that Ferocity increases your attack speed more the lower you are on health. The longer you can remain at lower levels of health, the more damage you’ll do. This synergizes great with Taz’dingo for obvious reasons.
The second is that Ferocity anti-synergizes with Berserker’s active effect, since attacking faster while it is active means you’re dealing more self-damage. As a result, you have to be more careful with your trait active while lower on health if you don’t have Taz’dingo available to save you at a moment’s notice.
Level 13 - Eye of Zul’jin
Eye of Zul’jin is even better with this build than with Q build, since you’ll be pausing to make attacks more often while moving and therefore you’ll need that movement speed bonus even more to keep up.
Additionally, Ensnare doesn’t synergize very well with such low-burst build. Unlike with the other 2 builds, you don’t have much burst damage, so that short lockdown won’t help as much here.
Level 16 - Let the Killing Begin
Let the Killing Begin increases Zul’jin’s attack speed by 5% every time he kills an enemy, up to 40%, and killing a hero grants the full bonus instantly. This stacks additively with Berserker, meaning Zul’jin can reach a ludicrous 280% total attack speed (3.5 attacks/sec) during Taz’dingo.
If you find yourself up against TLV, Murky, or D.Va, this is the ideal talent, since even D.Va’s mech counts as a takedown for this talent’s purposes.
Alternatively, if you haven’t finished You Want Axe? by this point, you could pick Wrong Place, Wrong Time to help you finish it and add a bit of burst to your kit. It doesn’t synergize particularly well with anything else in this build, but it’s a strong talent on its own nonetheless, so it’s often worth considering if you find yourself low on stacks late-game.
Level 20 -
Amani Resilience. Again, if you pick Taz’dingo, this is a must-pick. A Surprise for Ya’ is neat and all with this build, but Amani Resilience is just too valuable to pass up, especially against decent players who know to try to wait out Taz’dingo.
Twin Cleave Build
W Build is mainly Zul’jin’s skirmish and poke build, and is his anti-Mage build. Zul’jin often struggles against most Mages due to their range and burst lending more to fire-and-forget playstyles. He struggles to catch them to AA them consistently, especially without getting hit by their abilities in return. This forces him to fight fire with fire and play like a mage himself, using longer-ranged burst damage to wear them down and zone them out.
Level 1 - Recklessness
With Recklessness’ buff, it’s basically become go-to for this build. Stacking faster to reach that second revolution on Twin Cleave is the name of the game with W build.
Level 4 - Variable
Yet again, this level is flexible.
However, if you plan to pick Guillotine, I would strongly recommend picking Amani Hide, even more than for either of the other builds. Being able to reduce your health by half more often gives you a lot more leeway with when you cast Guillotine.
Level 7 - Arcanite Axes
Arcanite Axes is the reason you want to complete YWA? ASAP and why Recklessness’ buff is such a big deal. Every time you hit an enemy with Twin Cleave, it’s damage is increased by 0.75. Since Twin Cleave throws 2 axes, you can get as much as 1.5 bonus damage per hero hit with each cast.
Once you complete YWA? and get Twin Cleave’s second revolution, double the potential hits means double the potential stacks. The earlier you get that second revolution, the earlier you’ll be stacking twice as fast. By the end of the game, your Twin Cleaves will be doing some serious damage.
Level 10 - Variable
Taz’dingo is always a reliable pick. It doesn’t synergize as well with this build as it does with the Q or AA/Trait builds, but it works just fine if you think you’re going to be on the brink of death a lot.
Guillotine is my preferred pick with this build. Between the bonus spell power you’ll almost always have from Recklessness whenever you cast it and the standoffish and skirmishy nature of this build, Guillotine is great for securing long-range kills, or at the very least landing a meaty chunk of damage on the enemy backline during teamfights.
Also, make sure you always pop Amani Hide right before casting this ability if you can. That ensures it will always do at least 50% bonus damage.
This ult does take a lot of practice to get used to landing it. I’d recommend you not try this ult for the first time in Ranked play unless you want to get flamed for missing most or all of them.
Level 13 - Variable
Eye of Zul’jin is just such a good talent, it’s competitive even when you wouldn’t expect it to be part of this build.
That being said, Lacerate has always deceptively strong as part of W build, and its recent buff has only made it even better. An up to 50% AoE slow lasting for 2.5 seconds is nothing to scoff at on its own, but that’s just the half of this talent.
If you have YWA? completed, that slow often helps pin enemies hit in place long enough for the second revolution to hit them again, dealing more damage and granting more stacks of Arcanite Axes. And since that second set of hits reapplies the slow, you’ll often find that this slow effectively lasts upwards of 3.5 seconds in total.
But wait, there’s more. While your target is slowed for so long, they’re much easier to land Guillotine on. That’s a Big Oof.
Ensnare is also decent here if you picked Guillotine. Locking someone down long enough to hit them with your 1>W>R combo is gonna put them in a world of hurt. I don’t find it as valuable as Lacerate, though.
Level 16 - Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Wrong Place, Wrong Time is basically a must-pick with this build. The bonus damage at Twin Cleave’s apex hitting twice combined with the extra damage from Arcanite Axes is just too good to pass up. Additionally, this talent helps you continue stacking YWA? in the late-game, so your AA damage won’t be falling too far behind as well.
Level 20 - Amani Resilience or Buzzsaw.
Again, Amani Resilience is must-pick if you take Taz’dingo. Additionally, this upgrade single-handedly makes up for Taz’dingo’s own lack of synergy with this build – with the AoE potential of this build, a single well placed cast of Twin Cleave can instantly refill your healthbar. Aim for the the minions.
If you picked Guillotine, pick Buzzsaw. It’s just so strong. It deals 75% damage to all enemies in a line beyond where it lands and heals you to full if you kill a hero with it.
One of the most fun things you can do with Buzzsaw, if you aim it properly, is hit enemy players multiple times with the same cast – it can hit the same target once every 0.5 seconds so long as they remain within its AoE. I once landed a 3-hit Buzzsaw on a Hammer who was boosting away with it and it killed her from just below full health. #Feelsgoodman.
That should cover all the builds. I’m very happy with these buffs, though I think they might have been a bit excessive.