Introduction
Thrall is a “”“melee”“” bruiser who specializes in being a middle man of the team while still benefit while still able to apply damage as he zones, played mostly in 2 situations such as the 4-man and the solo lane, he specializes in zoning capabilities that benefit him and his team.
He also houses the most (literally in a good way) broken heroic in the game “Earthquake”, by level 20 you define the majority of the fights while being the largest threat, for many reasons that I’ll discuss further down below. But even beyond that, both of his heroics are extraordinary in defining a lot of playstyles that can flex into potential wins through disrupting your opponents in continuous chaos with his Lightning, Fire, Wind and Earth abilities.
He can play between melee and poke, and flex between both positions whenever is needed and his root allows to follow up or start engages that would help in securing 1 or many kills.
Allies and Enemies
Thrall biggest struggles is he’s not the best in kiting in 1v1s and would be out matched and even entirely avoided in the process, leaving him only to be able to poke, heroes like Lunara and Arthas are hell to face and will refrain from avoiding them at all cost, leaving you to poking only.
Thrall’s potential lies in his huge impact in team fights and anyone who can follow up on his zoning and anyone who has the potential to enable with his abilities will benefit far more than anyone, he plays the middle of the team and his focus is to disrupt a lot so others can follow up and vice versa.
Abilities
Frostwolf Resilience
Dealing damage with Abilities grants 1 stack of Frostwolf Resilience. At 5 stacks, you are instantly healed for 223 Health.
Your primary source of sustain.
- Chain Lightning will give you up to 4 potential stacks per lightning.
- Feral Spirit will give a stack for each target hit, throw it on minions or the zerg wave and it will trigger your trait once or multiple times.
- Windfury will give you 3 stacks for the 3 empowered hits.
- Sundering, same with Feral Spirit.
- Earthquake gives a stack for each hero hit up to 3 times.
Chain Lightning
40 Mana | Cooldown: 7 seconds
Shock an enemy with lightning, dealing 162 damage. The lightning then bounces 3 times to nearby enemies, dealing 81 damage to each enemy hit.
Your poke damage that is beneficial for many reasons, but has a side effect of RNG, as in the damage bounces randomly after hitting the primary target, but its poke damage, and poke damage on Thrall is nice, it also gives 4 stacks on 7 seconds cooldown, which is nice too, spam it on minions to clear or to hit many heroes to allow for quite the benefit.
Feral Spirit
40 Mana | Cooldown: 12 seconds
Send out a Feral Spirit that deals 153 damage to enemies in its path and Roots Heroes hit for 1 second. Each Hero hit increases the distance traveled by 25%.
- Can hit vulnerable targets, benefiting from giving trait stacks and increasing the range.
Your only form of Pierce AoE damage, the more it hits the more stacks you get, for each hero hit it will increase the range by 25% which could benefit in hitting more targets in the process, overall do not count on the range increase but when it happens it could save you or benefit in getting more targets locked.
Windfury
60 Mana | Cooldown: 12 seconds
Increase Thrall’s Movement Speed by 30% for 4 seconds. His next 3 Basic Attacks occur 100% faster and generate stacks of Frostwolf Resilience.
- Resets his AA to hit instantly, allowing you to chain 2 hits in quick succession.
- Grants trait stacks even if blinded or misses.
Your form of mobility, Thrall benefits from this for many reasons, from disengaging to dashing into action and get a few hits really quickly and allow for some interesting talents to instigate for farther benefit for the damage it applies. Use it to avoid damage or close the gap on locked targets with your Feral Spirit and watch as your hammer do some punishing damage.
75 Mana | Cooldown: 70 seconds
After 0.5 seconds, sunder the earth in a long line, dealing 290 damage and shoving enemies to the side, Stunning them for 1 second.
Very powerful heroic for many reasons that get downed upon due it being competing with an overly strong heroic option and allows for Thrall to play a rather interesting playstyle some people call it “Tank Thrall” as in he brings the benefit of creating the engage himself for his entire team!
But this is one benefit, the other benefit it gives you 100% guarantee hit with your Feral Spirit, with an ability that causes a lot of chaos by spreading the enemy, this could isolate for kills that are important, simply cast Sundering and then quickly look for the nearest stun target and immediately throw Feral Spirit to chain your root for easy lockdown on them unless the enemy have a form of cleanse (by level 7) this will be VERY PUNISHING for whoever got hit.
The other benefit is chaining crowd control on a target that requires the extra CC, that sundering hit does a lot of damage and in the process will benefit in getting the kill you’ve been needing.
Earthquake
90 Mana | Cooldown: 100 seconds
After 0.5 seconds, summon a massive Earthquake that pulses every 4 seconds. Each pulse lasts 2 seconds, slowing all enemies in the area by 50%, and deals 50 damage to enemy Heroes. Does 3 pulses.
Accelerates his sustain and zoning capabilities by quite a lot, for each heroic hit you get a stack, if you hit all 5 you will instigate your trait pretty much every pulse, its a lot of sustain for you and benefits your team in being a very disruptive heroic, 50% slow that lasts for ~1(?) second each. By level 20 it is considered one of the S tier heroics in the game due a very powerful upgrade that applies shields for up to 45% of you and your allies Max HP, turning high health bar tanks harder to kill.
Builds
= Main Pick
= Optional
= Very Situational
4-Man Build
→ Echo of the Elements
→ Mana Tide | Feral Resilience | Frostwolf Pack
→ Ancestral Wrath | Follow Through
→ Earthquake | Sundering
→ Frostwolf’s Grace | Spirit Shield
→ Thunderstorm | Alpha Wolf
→ Earthen Shields | Wind Rush | Worldbreaker
4-Man is a short term for which a hero plays in a team made of 4 heroes (one of them is you) with the 5th playing offlaner, in this format you rotate for kill opportunities and causing map pressure and getting camps as necessary, this build tries to focus on Thrall being effective in this situation, do note that a lot of these talents are very flexible and depends on what you face, there’s not a direct “what is right” because personally, he’s really good in flexing depending on the situation too and honestly getting creative with this build is quite a lot of choices, especially choices that don’t require other talents to be enabled hard for them to be effective.
Get creative and see what is needed in the situation you face, I’ll further explain talents in the talent breakdown section.
Solo Lane Build
→ Rolling Thunder
→ Mana Tide | Feral Resilience
→ Ancestral Wrath | Follow Through
→ Earthquake | Sundering
→ Frostwolf’s Grace
→ Alpha Wolf | Tempest Fury
→ Earthen Shields | Wind Rush
Build that helps Thrall in solo situations, most of his healing will be quite effective due to Rolling Thunder now bouncing to 5 targets, meaning you are triggering your trait every time, and the ability to get a stack for each target hit, if its heroic he steals 3% of their Max HP, this results in a lot of sustain all from one ability.
His other talents help him flex into facing whatever solo lane they are fighting against, which will help a lot in contesting heroes he otherwise could not.
ARAM build
→ Crash Lightning
→ Mana Tide | Feral Resilience
→ Ancestral Wrath
→ Earthquake
→ Frostwolf’s Grace | Spirit Sheild
→ Thunderstorm
→ Earthen Shields
It empowers your poking potential in the endless team fights of ARAM, followed by staying to your true potential in support your allies, use Anscetral Wrath to pressure a target and just keep poking, I should clarify that Thrall is more than a poke hero and playing him like a Q-Bot is only limiting his potential of damage which he could provide tremendously.
Talents Breakdown
= Highly recommended
= Situational
= Very Situational
= Not recommended
Level 1
Versitile and effective in a lot of situations while also being extremely easy to finish, in roughly average 2 - 4 minutes into the game, the best strategy to finish it quick is to weaken all backline minions while the front being weakened by your minions, then Q and use your E to improve your AA speed to click the low HP targets that were hit, this talent also mentions heroes, which also includes summoned heroics like Nova Decoy and Samuro’s clones and of course, the heroes themselves.
One thing to note is the second stack also allows for more effective usage in many different cases, first of all Thunderstorm stacks faster and having a second stack meaning the cooldown keeps running while having 1 stack, meaning it enables spammability for an ability that costs 20 mana when finished and allows for more direct damage it can be squeezed in any build you go, it also improves sustain as effectively you can have up to 8 stacks instead of 4.
On paper, increases damage, but this ability is really underwhelming and I would heavily refrain from ever thinking in picking this at all, the prioritize heroes (despite still being random between heroes) is nice but the only concern for that is when minion are in the equation, this doesn’t happen in Objective fights, additionally Thrall should not focus on increasing the spread of his damage because it means nothing in the long run, as a burst bruiser his objective is to focus the damage on a single target, Crash Lightning doesn’t do this, it doesn’t increase your damage to that target, Echo of the Elements does this by doubling the DPS while Rolling Thunder make you deal % damage that also heals, the “priority target” reward will only be effective far in the late game, if you even finish it, but overall you suffer in sustain which Thrall benefits a lot from the other talents.
An argument can be made that you can cast Crash Lightning to a target NEXT to the one you are prioritizing for increased damage but this is inconsistent strategy and will deal far less damage than Echo of the Elements where you cast it twice in the row on the same target (538 vs 710!).
Good for the offlane and solo lane combat, the benefit of getting even MORE Frostwolf Stack helps Thrall to effectively get 10 stacks per Q, and hitting heroic targets allows you to heal for that hit, its a lot of healing spread around a lot of things but it can help you take fights you otherwise could not, Thrall is known to struggle against other Bruisers, but this talent can help him to change the tide in his favor.
Level 4
The physical armor stacks are uncapped, can go from 2 stacks to all of the sudden 10 if you hit more, but this talent is insane out of the burst stack amount gained, 4 stacks is a lot and you will end up trigger your trait multiple times, sometimes even saving your life just for rooting 3 - 4 targets (+3 heal procs), as usual, the physical armor part is niche against certain fast AA heroes like Tracer, Genji, Lucio, Tychus and Zarya, so be careful to not pick this carelessly, but the benefit of the burst heal is strong and should be mentioned.
Don’t pick this in the off/solo lane please!!! This talent is niche, really niche, and requires that the targets you are facing are willing to continue combating a lot, something like a melee comp that tries to deathball on your team comp, normally Feral Resilience benefit is perfect in this situation but the continuous root could help a lot in such circumstances to slow or stop enemies from ever contesting your team, if this quest is never finished, you LITERALLY don’t have a level 4, so be careful.
You likely won’t have to worry about mana anymore with this, but its also very no brainer and safe, reduces all cooldowns by 0.5 seconds is meh, but if you can proc your trait multiple times the benefit could become valuable, this benefits from level 13 Frostwolf’s Grace in triggering your trait, which allows for more cooldown reduction and restore mana free of charge.
Level 7
- Gives 2 extra stacks after hitting the 3 empowered attacks, resulting by average 5 stacks per E cast.
- Movement speed does not stack.
Similar case like Crash Lightning but surprisingly… not as bad as I expected, the benefit of the quest completion is insane if not threatening for the enemy to reach a state like this, of course pick this if you are clearly going to finish this, please consider this talent doesn’t benefit a lot from other talents and its prioritized for the movement speed that allows you to be one annoying fast orc that just cannot be get rid of, if not hard to contest due passive movement increase.
- Doesn’t generate trait stacks.
Point and click, helps in making tanks or certain targets super easy to face because of the amount of healing you get from stealing 15% of their health over 5 seconds, its very beneficial, some targets like Stitches and Diablo would be contesting the healing received from your trait due to their massive health pools giving similar value, its pretty strong in any situation regardless and mainly used to put a lot of pressure on a tank.
Powerful but situational in the sense that you need to burst down squishes, but this also helps in contesting in the solo lane better by empowering your overall damage, it benefits from any ability cast, including to your level 13 trait cast and even heroic casts, so you can spread your abilities around to get a lot of beneficial damage increase that is super helpful.
Level 10
IMO, Both heroics are good, but IMO Earthquake is probably too good, at least due its level 20 being extremely strong power spike. I’d say Earthquake is a very recommended heroic in comparison to Sundering, but Sundering still has a place, I’ll break Sundering down for its usefulness here.
Also not known anywhere but both of his heroics cannot be interrupted no matter what.
One strategy is to use Sundering followed by your W for a guaranteed root, that way you can focus a lot on one target all because you stunned them, which could guarantee kills on squishes and allow to turn the tide, the other case is to use it as a follow up.
Sundering also enables a “tank thrall” playstyle in which he becomes a second tank in the form of creating the map pressure using his Sundering heroic, use it to pressure and follow up on other CC and even straight up initiate the fight, by 20 on a 30 seconds cooldown you may end up using it every fight and or twice with the addition of separating the hero with a wall could compromise the enemy team into a few kills in your favor.
Sundering effectively can cause havoc that shouldn’t be looked down upon through its ability to separate teams into a divided group, especially when they clump up, it can cause so much disruption that you could squeeze a kill as needed, like a lot of the Stun-Ranged-Knockback heroics it can be used to interrupt other heroes from channel abilities and allow it to deny powerful heroics.
Level 13
Terrible and would only be valuable by level 20 with Elemental Momentum giving the ability to trigger this a little bit more frequently and assumes you will be melee-ing a lot as Thrall, it competes with better options that are more useful in more situations, the end result is 6 stacks instead of 3, 10 instead of 5 with Tempest Fury, effectively causing 2 potential Trait activations by average.
On paper it has the potential to out heal your Frostwolf’s Grace past 16 and even more past 20, so the value is only valuable once the late game reached which could be risky, it also could cause a tunnel vision effect where you rely too much on this talent that you may end up taking more damage than needed.
Potential 99.999% of increased healing on a talent that can be activated any time you want, both in and out of combat, this talent is very flexible and reliable, when you activate it, it is also considered like your Trait was just triggered completely for free which effects other talents like Mana Tide and Ancestral Wrath, allowing you to restore potential health, mana and charges that could play importance later on in other fights, on a 15 seconds cooldown, its VERY spammable even if full HP and out of combat, go take a merc camp and just use your abilities on it and the trait and you could potentially get around ~4 trait activations and restoring mana, cooldowns and readying up Ancestral Wrath for the next fight.
An actually stronger version of Spell Shield, in the form that it lasts 4 seconds instead of 3 seconds but on a longer cooldown, however this talent cooldown gets reduced by 10 each time your trait activates, meaning you can have an average 25 seconds readying time with at best 15 seconds and if it ever happens every… 5 seconds?
Point is, activate your trait a lot and it will be a better Spell Shield, don’t activate it in the next 45 seconds and it will be worst, so if you are out of combat, better spam your Q on minions and stuff to prepare it for the next fight.
Overall, nothing to be said, its a unique Spell Shield that has conditions and should be picked if you are facing heavy spell casters.
Level 16
Good burst from using all your E result in a ~41% increase in total damage dealt to a target, this gets affected by talents like Maelstrom Weapon on 7 which grants even more stacks, upping the potential from 5 to 7 per cast, this is the best option to burst down squishes that are overextending with a basic attack that hits like a truck baseline it can help in finishing targets that are rooted, do not pick this if your targets are tanky as there’s a different talent that does a similar job against armored and high health targets.
Primary pick in majority of situations because it empowers an ability that can be spammed from a safe position, when it reaches 40% slow it becomes stronger and make you deal more direct damage in fights, it also allows you to contest some ranged heroes that are being a nuance to reach and allow for easier hits with your root ability, his poke becomes dangerous to contest.
The situational case is that you lose stacks if you hit the same target, IMO don’t care about this much, if the target is low HP and allows you to FINISH it with your Q (due to Echo of the Elements) that Q still benefits from all the stacks before being removed, if it means a kill can happen, why be concerned? The slow lasts for 2 seconds, 4 seconds of potential 40% slow is a lot for some targets to handle. You will still get those back again quite easily, did I mention the safe distance your Q can be casted from?
Thrall having the all of sudden potential to shred some of the tankiest targets out there because he can squeeze over 15% of Max HP as damage, cast W then empower your AA with your E and watch as you deal around 15% of their HP, add Ancestral Wrath and that’s 30% of Max HP as damage, add Wind Rush and you may squeeze a few more % on the target, it’s a lot of true damage that cannot be reduced due being percentage that isn’t even considering the flat damage you deal, it’s a lot of burst potential and a good power spike for Thrall and the best part it doesn’t inherently rely on other talents to synergy with meaning you can safely squeeze it in many builds with very little concern.
Level 20
- Can cancel the impassable rift earlier.
It’s fine, the impassable rift could be useful but it comes in late game to a point there’s probably a way to counter such gimmick with some heroes, but against certain comps this could be a nightmare for them, additionally it could be counter productive for the impassible rift if not used correctly so be good with your positioning and aim to get the most out of it, the CDR is great but by level 20 all it takes is one fight to decide who is the winner, but if it prolongs quite a lot, then it could get the value needed, you might also squeeze another one if the fight lasts more than 30 seconds.
This is also considered the final talent in the play style of “Tank Thrall” in which you can initiate fights for your tank or the way around, separating targets and causing havoc that could force the enemy to use important heroics.
S tier heroic upgrade that gives value superior to Storm Shield (20% max HP shield for everyone), OP as hell that makes your team extremely hard to kill because each hero has 45% your and allies max HP as shield, spread around couple of seconds, easily game decider and make you the highest priority on the team for allies and the enemy.
If you pick Earthquake it’s hard to decide anything else than this upgrade, its a massive power spike.
Combine this with Tempest Fury on 16 to give you 3.75 seconds of CDR, tends to be very mana costly but it doesn’t hurt having everything prepared all the time right? Not to mention the potential damage, the heroic CDR is ok but for long cooldowns by level 20 it barely suffice picking it for such choice, need it badly for Sundering? Just pick Worldbreaker it already reduce it by 40 seconds.
No, can barely compete with the other talents on the same tier in damage and CC, Wind Rush is too good to pass for the utility and Earthen Shields is too hard to pass.
Chaining two Windfury in the row can help in finishing targets by doubling the burst from your E, it can squeeze more damage with Alpha Wolf combined and is flexible for its utility in enable better escape, the downside its 80 seconds instead of 70 for Bolt of the Storm, but that’s very little of a concern, use it wisely and it could end fights, or allow you to dodge damage and turn the fight in your favor.
Closure
Thrall is a powerful bruiser but his place gets contested by bruisers meant for the off lane where he would struggle due to his weak wave clear potential and getting out soaked, he is very good in team fights and helping enabling a lot of heroes in many cases through his abilities and talents while housing very strong heroics.
