So, you wanna torture yourself and play the Lost Boiz in Quick Match… Let me give you a quick rundown on talents.
Level 1:
Olaf the Stout is likely the safest choice. Gives Olaf a lot more beef, enabling him to help in teamfights much more safely, get globes, and peel with both the reliable slowing charge as well as with the stun on 16. It also helps when you inevitably group up to gank a squishy in a lane or group post-16 to win a game-winning teamfight. Hard to go wrong with this.
Spy Games is the only good choice on two lane maps, particularly BoE and Hanamura. Erik will often be parked and “takeover” the lane whenever Baelog gets poked down, as well as help with Immortal/Payload when those spawn in. Having basically doubled damage adds up a lot of damage, which can output a LOT of damage. Only reason this is worse on three lane maps is that stealth directly interferes with XP soak unless you are directly micro’ing him 24/7 which often isn’t an option. Situational, but really good.
Viking Bribery is actually much more situational than you might expect. Often times, your Vikings will be outpressured by the enemy solo laners and forced to soak behind the gate and retroactively scoop-up XP globes, which loses a LOT of Bribe stacks over time. Still, being able to quickly steal an enemy camp can be game-winning. Situational, only pick if you won’t get bursted down by characters like Kerrigan or Imperius in the solo lane.
Explosive Attacks is kind of win more. It isn’t impactful unless Baleog can be in a lane alone for an extended time without any threat of death, and in that scenario, Viking Bribery will give you more PvE threat AND more split-push potential. Skip out on this one.
Level 4:
Pain Don’t Hurt is good on paper, but in practice only serves to maintain HP while afk soaking as Balelog. It fails even at this though as soon as catapults are introduced, as they vastly out damage the self-heal that Bale gets from this talent. In addition, the 40% he gains against enemy heroes doesn’t do much either and doesn’t help his squishiness in the solo lane, so you’ll need to be just as watchful as you would normally. Again, this talent is a miss.
Erik the Swift is really, REALLY good. The Health Regen plus the movespeed makes Erik nearly impossible to catch unless he’s directly facing an Illidan, Kerrigan, or is CC’d. This talent (in combination with Jump!, the default talent on 13) essentially makes Erik a ranged Murky, which is as annoying as it sounds. Unless you know you’ll gain great value from Mercenary Lord, this talent is a must-pick.
It’s a Sabotage is garbage. You’ll get more DPS from any other talent on the tier (surviving an otherwise lethal scenario is gained DPS), and without the ammo drain mechanic this is a very small DOT on a very large health pool. Erik has much more important things to do than afk siege structures anyways. Pass.
Mercenary Lord is really good (even without Bribery), and the Armor you gain basically ensures that a Viking will never die from chip damage from minions and catapults, allowing you to do less micro’ing when those are around. In addition, it allows Vikings to solo Brusier Camps at 4 (when grouped) and in some cases (with good micro) solo Bosses as soon as Level 10. In addition, parking say, Olaf, near a group of siege giants can lead to an utterly massive amount of siege damage very quickly. (Fun fact, did you know that friendly placed Turrets are buffed by Mercenary Lord? You can contribute a ton of damage in a teamfight by camping near one of these.) Situational, but can be very good if you don’t need Erik the Swift to poke objectives.
Level 7:
PSA!!! The Baleog build is hot flaming garbage. Not only do Vikings not gain any meaningful survivability to Burst OR AOE, they also lose all the benefits of the build as soon as a single Vikings die or is out of range. Even in cases where you need to teamfight as Vikings, both Spin to Win! and Norse Force are strictly superior choices. Never EVER pick Baleog the Fierce. EVER.
Spin to Win! is a fantastic ability with many practical uses. Adding ~250 damage (with level 7 scaling) per Viking on a single character can quickly kill most characters, and even adding ~125 damage on mercs or such can quickly speed up whatever Vikings is doing at the particular moment. Default pick.
Norse Force is decent defensive utility, but you need to answer a few questions before picking it.
- Will the burst damage from Spin to Win! be able to kill an over-exposed solo laner?
- Will the burst damage from Spin to Win! make a big difference in a late game teamfight?
- Will I be expected to team fight at some point to win the game?
- Are there less than three characters that can kill a singular Viking in less than 1 second.
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you should not pick Norse Force. However, there are a few scenarios where Norse Force is the correct pick.
- The enemy team is too tanky for Spin to Win! to secure kills. This only really happens when the enemy team has 4 or more bruisers/tanks or other characters you can’t engage on (such as Butcher, Illidan, or Kerrigan) who can also safely peel you off of their healer/squishy mage (E.T.C, Johnna, and such tanks).
- The enemy solo laners are particularly dangerous and proactively check bushes. Think a Li-Ming who checks bushes with Wave of Force, or a good Imperius. Norse Force is the only way to stay alive in such a scenario and grouping is NEVER a good option
- You will never be teamfighting and are on a heavy macro map such as BHB or Warhead Junction, and thus need as much protection to save your over-extending Vikings as possible.
If you are in TWO of the Three of the scenarios, Norse Force can be a situational pick. Otherwise, stick with Spin to Win!
Level 10:
Guys, it’s Play Again! Don’t pick Boat.
Level 13:
Hunka’ Burning Olaf is good on paper, heavily increasing the DPS output of your lowest DPS viking is a good idea. However, losing out on either Jump! which can save your bacon, or Nordic Attack Squad which adds a lot more damage in those end-game teamfights. Unfortunately pass, despite the fact that this talent is objectively good. Jump is just too important, and Nordic Attack Squad adds more priority target damage.
Jump! is Vikings’ only safe escape option and boy howdy is it a good escape tool. In combination with sprint, this makes every Viking as safe as Murky which is a godsend. It can save an out of place Viking, can save you late-game from a big AOE, can save a Viking from Pyroblast or a jump from Zeratul, etc. Default pick.
Nordic Attack Squad is only a good choice when playing with Norse Force and play against a number of bruisers/tanks who can’t threaten you with scary burst damage. If you absolutely need damage in a teamfight later on, this can be a situational talent, but only if Jump! is unnecessary (which, let’s be honest, it is necessary the vast majority of games)
Level 16:
Large and In Charge is 100% Viking’s biggest power spike. Giving your team access to a point and click stun on an 8 second cooldown is very, VERY powerful. In addition, this gives you setup to get a big Spin to Win off, and can peel when you get stuffed out of position, sacrificing Olaf for the lives of the other Vikings. Very good talent, Must pick in basically every scenario.
Impatience is a Virtue isn’t necessarily bad, but can’t compete at all in teamfights with Large and In Charge. Pass.
64 KB Marathon is only useful in one scenario–you are never participating in teamfights and instead constantly over-pushing lanes with Vikings and need another get-away tool in combination with Jump and Norse Force. Still, even here, Stun might serve better if you ever group Vikings with Play Again as peel for the other two Vikings. VERY Situational.
Executioner buffs your incredibly bad sustained DPS… into still really bad sustained DPS. Never pick this talent.
Level 20:
Don’t pick Boat
Checkpoint Reached is useful in literally two scenarios:
- You get absolutely zero value from passively pressuring lanes (Towers of Doom post 20, against like, a Ragnaros or something)
- You are making a desperation push onto Core right as you hit 20 (Core is below 25%, or you are trying to keep enemy team far away from a boss camp or something similar).
I think I’ve personally picked it only twice. VERY situational.
The Sequel! reduces your death timers from 60 to 30 seconds. You have Play Again. Nope.
Fury of the Storm does a lot of things, speeds up camping, speeds up waveclear for all vikings, adds respectable ~70 damage per five seconds on a priority target or ~180 damage on Mercs/Monsters and is the default pick.
TLDR: [1222214] is by far the most reliable build, with [2222214] working better on two lane maps, and Bribery and Merc Lord as pickable alternatives against less burst heavy comps.