You pick Malthael on large maps. He can soak like a champ and roam fast enough to help gank, be there for obj, and things like that. Plus he can take camps pretty easily, and relatively quickly too.
Overall I think Malthael is better at soaking, dueling in lane, rotating, but he can still be pretty good in team fights. Even though Leo is better in fights (according to others, I’ve never played Leo) , Malthael is not far behind. Malthael suffers from blinds a lot more though, since that’s mainly how he uses his trait. Without his trait, he’s useless. He also suffers more from CC until level 16, Leo doesn’t.
I’d say if there’s a lot of CC and blinds/dodges, go for Leo.
Any other situation, Malthael is great.
I play both, and both can have a hard time against Artanis in the pure solo (Braxis) . But I’d rather have Leo than Mathael. Malth can’t do much againsr Artanis. He’ll stand on the beacon and dare me to take it from him, and I can’t. Malthael will run out of mana before Artanis runs out of shields and auto attacks.
As long as the Art player doesn’t pick “Psionic Synergy” at 4. You’d have to mess up in a really weird way to lose. (Though you probably want “Chrono surge” too)
On other maps, Malth will have an edge because he will outsoak Art, but Leoric would outsoak him too.
Against Varian though, I do prefer Malth. If you know what you’re doing (And I do), you destroy him.
I beleive Malthael is actually one of the slowest heroes at taking siege giants. AGainst bruisers you can solo them at 4, but it’ll cost you all your health.
While it is true both can have an issue facetanking Artanis, Malthael has an advantage where he can kite and poke the big protoss, and whittle him down that way. Alternatively, Malthael can go take a camp or something while Artanis slowly, very slowly, clears the wave. Leo has no choice but to just keep killing minions while Artanis does whatever he likes.
You have to make the bruiser camp warriors body block each other. If you just stand there of course you’re going to lose all of your health. No one can take a bruiser camp at level 4 without taking damage. Almost everyone is going to either hearth or tap the fountain after a camp at level 4 so I don’t think that’s something he struggles with, especially since every other hero is in the same boat or worse.
Well, I doesn’t quite work out that way for me. Varian and Artanis are both melee. I can beat Varian avoiding his damage while I deal mine, and eventually he has to back off or die, and his wave clear sucks.
If I try the same thing against Artanis (a good Artanis) It wont work. Art’s W range is very close to Malth’s W, If I W on him, he gets free AA’S on me, and if I W on a minion, he can catch me with Twin blades. I have to melee the minions so he’ll get shots on me no matter what.
Even if he’s not optimal and I find a way to to zone him out (Whch is almost impossible) Art can blade dash to catch XP globes at range, so I can never deny him xp like I would another hero.
Plus, If I go take a bruiser camp, it’s not fast, so it’ll be obvious, and I’ll be REALLY low health halfway through it. Artanis can 100% take it from me (and he should). It’s totally worth losing some xp to steal a brsuiser camp and potentially kill Malth at the same time.
Malthael has one of the lowest healthpool of all bruisers.
You have no way of bursting the mage merc, so the spell armor reduces your Q damage by 40% for most of that fight.
You do’t have to take my word for it. Check it in try mode and see how much health you have left when you’re done.
They are right, though. One trick to taking bruisers on heroes like Malthael, Greymane, and the like is to path such that the melee mercs block each other so you take less damage. Sometimes, you can actually get one of them to path so they never hit you!
Normally though, you just sort of stutter-step back and forth at the back of the camp and you will take a lot less damage.
Edit:
Artanis can! Well, technically I have to take damage down to 75% HP so my trait kicks in, but any decent Artanis will have shields up 100% of the time while taking camps after level 4.
I’ve played Malthael quite a bit actually, I already know. That’s why I’m saying it.
Oh I know. His trait is so good, which is why he’s a good laner too.
My point wasn’t to say Malthael was the only one who can, but just that he can just as much as one else in his class, if not better. I wonder how Leo is when taking camps.
Oh, my point was that Artanis does not lose any HP taking bruisers after 4. Leo’s camp taking is better after his last buffs, but he is still extremely slow at it.
AH, found it. This is my health at Lvl 4 in try mode after taking the camp.I have about 40% left. I never checked late game, But Malth doesn’t scale very well when it comes to mercs.
Hey, more of a general melee hero question than a Malthael specific one, but how on earth do I judge when to go in? “Going in” is somewhat of a weird concept for me, since I can already somewhat gauge good times to be aggressive (i.e. enemy team is down on resources, like we got an early pick leading us to level 10 first, we should pick a fight), but as far as actually flinging myself into the enemy team during said fights, it feels hard to do that without taking more damage than my Q can sustain me with, and using W as an escape feels very clunky since you have to be behind something already to TP away from it. It sounds like Malthael shines moreso in macro than teamfights, which is fine, I enjoy macro play - but teamfight skills are still good to have.
During team fights, you generally want to go in if:
Your Tank CC’ed a target.
Your enemies have used most of/all their CC.
You have your escape off cool down and you have a chance to deal a lot of damage.
You can secure a kill.
For Malthael specifically, you want to focus on #2.
I’d have to do it again because in my example my minions were scaled. They would have dealt 12% more damage than yours, though I’m not sure it if took much longer to kill them.
It wouldn’t normally be possible to fight lvl 1 minions at lvl 4 however. So the results won’t be representative. Though in both cases, you pretty much want to be full health and mana. (But for some reason I ended up with more mana than you, I can’t figure out why, at lvl 4 we both had the same total)
Their health is still 3030 and their basic attack damage is still 47. Unless its not showing the scaling for the camps. But when I set the level to 1, and then to 4, it doesn’t increase the health or the damage of the camp minions. Weird.
Press E to get a mark
Then go in when they are clumped up
They will spread out to avoid you so you must AA on 1 enemy who you will follow and press E to the other enemy
Then on your next W cooldown you have 2 targets to choose from.
Ps. Lvl 7 massacare is a great pick if your learning and mostly my go to talent
It’s not the level that scales them. Mercs scale based on time. So mine were scaled based on however long it took for Arthas to get to Lvl 4.
FYI, merc camps scale for every minute passed, and the stats are locked when you engage the merc camp, not when you cap it. So if it’s say 1:56, you should wait the 4 seconds before starting the camp. It’s not much but, min / max. (Though you can cheat by letting it leash, then killing the last one, but it may not be worth the time if you’re not bribing.)
I remember I was testing other stuff before doing the bruisers. Like the time it took to take siege giants, and how many Q’s I needed to kill Arthas when he was in “Last Rites” range. (2 if you’re wondering, so you save mana by not using Last rites)
Oh okay that makes sense. I thought they scaled based on the level. But the time scaling make more sense. Either way, level 4 isn’t when people take camps anyway, I don’t think anyone can even get level 4 in one minute, which is when camps initially spawn. Malthael could even solo them at level 1, you’ll just have to B afterwards, but still.
No hero at level 4 or sooner can leave unscathed. Even Artanis, although Hoku’s demonstration is pretty impressive lol. Usually when people get the early camps they either pre tap, take them as a team, or B afterward. I don’t think anyone would take the camp then head to the objective right after, not this early in the game at least. Some can’t even take them alone. Varian can’t until 4, but definitely not before. Thing is, Malthael can. Can Leoric get camps right when they spawn?
If you’re comparing Leoric vs Malthael, I’m interested to see which hero would complete a bruiser camp faster, or leave with more health.
That’s interesting, however the point of LR is to just instantly win a fight or erase a hero, especially slippery heroes like Zera, Li Ming, Sylvanas, etc…
In longer games, 20 grants him healing and that can turn the fight sometimes. I guess if you’re tight on mana this would be ideal, but if you’re just going to hold LR and not use it, just pick TS.
I beleive Leo can take it at 4 with Kneel peasants. But it takes longer than Malthael. And he also loses a lot of health. Hogger will lose a decent amount of health too. But he takes it fast enough that it doesn’t matter. It’s unlikely someone will have time to come interrupt you so it’s not much of a risk.
FyI. Greymane can also take it at Lvl 4, but he has to be full health.
If you’re in the solo and you get someone in kill range before the obj. I usually hold LR so I have it for the obj. Btw, I tested a lot of heroes. And Malthael needs two Q’s to kill everything I’ve tested. Whether it’s tank or assassin.
