I’ve had really great success with his chain lightning quest in 4 man comps this season but man playing thrall in solo lane sucks. He just can’t trade well anymore against heroes like dehaka, malthael, or imperius. Laning against rexxar is okay because you can get alot of maeltstrom stacks but until that power spike kicks in you’ll be soaking the lane and can’t get the point control (dragonshire, braxis, camps on hanamura). As icon indicates i’m a thrall main and normally use w build bc i rarely miss.
How can thrall have a super bad matchup against heroes he can poke to the end of times without going to melee range where they could have a chance against him ever?
Especially imperius who clears like a snail with high mana costs that thrall laughs at with mana tide talent.
I am no thrall player and not a solo laner either but i don’t really see how can those three have an easy time to thrall who can poke.
Could i ask what build are you using? What is maelstorm?
4 Likes
It takes about 4 minutes for a really good thrall to finish the q quest and get 2 charges to poke. Also his biggest issue is commitment. If thrall tries to contest objective, even if he can take it he doesn’t have the health of an imperius or dehaka to survive a gank. In a 1v1 they easily beat thrall until he gets quest and even then its a close fight where he has to wittle their health down to get a decent fight. Thrall also has mana issues which is why people pick up mana tide but that also comes at level 4. But his main issue is that he comes online at level 7 when it’s probably too late to help his team win a control point and is now playing from behind. Maelstrom weapon is basically seasoned marksmen but stacks when he auto attacks with movement speed.
Every one of those laners also come online at 4 and 7.
And while they can sit on point better until you get ancestral wrath you can force them to move away by clearing their waves and have them either keep the point or lose xp which will benefit you in the longer run.
While he does not dominate completely a lane( which no laner can really do right now) he does not have a miserable time plus he does not have the pressure of being screwed hard if he misses drag, drain or charge with point and click Q and go through minions W.
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Just take the two charges for Q at 1 and poke them to madness.
Thrall has nice burst for a sololaner so go in, deal your burst but don’t stay to trade blows.
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Nowadays you don’t have to win a lane, you just have to soak it safely. Don’t fokus on bullying the other sololaner away, fokus on the minions, avoid getting dmg (even if it ends with you only spamming Q, till they are in your tower range). I see no problem in getting the EotE quest a little later in the game, if you instead weren’t forced out of your lane. Safe mana by using only AA and Q to clear the waves. Keep E to escape a gank or (if the option arises - knock the other sololaner on the head without getting much dmg yourself). W quest will be completed fast enough if you only use the ability in teamfights and not in lane.
I always take EotE, FP, AW, (either heroic), F’sG, storm (rarely Alpha, the poke is just more viable generally), and Bolt - haven’t manaproblems often; fokus on getting at least every of your own globes, if possible those of the enemy.
1 Like
Take Rolling Thunder then.
Take Rolling Thunder, but also know that Mana Tide lets you heal more often as well.
Definitely. Sure a good Feral Spirit into Windfury on the enemy hero will do some damage, but Feral on a minion wave will heal you a good amount.
Taking Frostwolf Pack is meant to be high risk, high reward, and sometimes you just shouldn’t take that risk.
Especially if you’re soloing against someone like Dehaka who can completely ruin it by burrowing.
You’ll probably have low damage if you use Windfury to escape rather than do damage, but who cares if you soak properly instead of die.
I’ll only take Maelstrom if the team comps suggest it’s a good idea.
All 3 of his level 7s are use-able, but there’s a reason Ancestral has a dominating pick rate, there are just more situations where you can safely benefit from it.
2 Likes
Thrall solo laning issues?
Are we even playing the same game?
You go the following:
- lvl 1 --> Echo of the Elements --> due to lvl 7 and 16 talents
- lvl 4 --> Mana Tide --> hard to get OOM
- lvl 7 --> Ancestral Wrath --> 15% max HP damage and heal? Dehaka can you know what
- lvl 10 --> depends, I prefer quake do to shield it gives on 20
- lvl 13 --> Frostwolf’s Grace --> more healing in addition to trait and Ancestral Wrath.15 sec CD
- lvl 16 --> Thunderstorm --> 40% slow on your Q with 2 charges thanks to 1st quest. Also +25% damage to Q.
- lvl 20 --> depends, but Earthen Shields gives you 15% max HP shields for whole team every 4 sec three times
I don’t think I ever lost solo lane with this build.
You heal to infinity, poke your enemies away and due to lvl 7, it’s easy to force a tanky enemy to go back.
4 Likes
I like double lightning, mana tide, follow through on thrall. So you can q, attack, q, attack, w, attack, e, attack (or in another order). It does a lot of dmg in 1v1 imo
Pretty much this.
Thrall should always go this build for both solo lane or 4 man, unless it’s something like volskaya and you can change your 1 to crash lightning, but that’s it. Some really specific times you can go W quest at 4, but mana tide is just better in so many ways, and even if you go W at 4 you still go Q at 16, otherwise just pick another hero that do better at killing tanks.
Crash lightning also good on bofe and hanamura. Level 16 is very open ended the passive on alphawolf also justifies it vs other groups. After 16 isnt the issue though. Pre-7 i accept your points though. Will probably resort to poking and waveclear rather than direct engage until they have to
Thrall is such an annoying solo laner to play against. i would prefer any other hero but not that one like comon self healing and also mana recovery and insane dmg when he get to you? i only ever played him for gold i never played thrall but i did to lvl him up and i stomped whoever get’s in my lane.
i go the exact same build as Lastai mentioned to you and seriously it’s just so good not even imperius can deal with me as long as i don’t facetank him of course. poke for days!!!
Level 16 is Q 99% of the time for sure. With crash lightning it does amazing burst damage. With Echo it does amazing sustained damage + extra slows, which helps you get good engages with W.
16 is probably Thrall’s biggest power spike with Thunderstorm. This is when your damage goes up pretty high.
Sure W at 16 feels nice and all especially with W quest at 4, but that’s not why you pick Thrall. Thrall’s job is usually to poke poke poke with Q and then follow up with a W + E and R. He can die pretty fast, so that’s why we build him with Echo + mana tide + ancestral + frostwolf’s grace, and then thunderstorm just synergizes too well with all that.
If you go W at 4 and 16, you have no sustain at all and you just usually die. And then you have no real poke because you took W at 4 and 16, so your main source of damage is actually going in and W + E.
All that said, W at 4 and 16 is not bad, but it’s really really niche build against really specific comps, and in that situation you are probably much better taking someone like Tychus, Leoric, Malthael if you want % damage.
Also, Crash is not good on Hanamura because, even though you have 2 lanes and you can stack it easily, fights are always far away from your fort (and your fountain) so you really need the sustain from Echo.
Hotslogs master-plat show that 16q is picked around half the time and its a must pick if you go with crash lightning so if you take those cases out its picked a 3rd of the time. Doesn’t increase your sustain whatsoever and it has a lower winrate than alpha. Thats not to say it shouldnt be picked just that its nowhere near a mustpick. I cant say anything about hanamura other than the fact that rn i have a nearly 100% winrate as thrall in plat this season there and i always pick crash. With manatide and the low cost of q youre not that mana hungry especially with globes from camps. Anyways for other maps If you get w quest at 4 that also becomes a powerful poke with 7 second cooldown and decent dmg. Slow is good but 25% increased dmg on q is very little compared to extra root and consistent %dmg. Not to mention the fact that w is a good source of waveclear/stacking your trait.
Hotslogs is really bad, don’t trust it. Also trust more what HGC taught us last year and tournaments this year than anything. Even in GM people troll pick and meme a lot nowadays, so you really want to look for those players who play the game at the highest level and optimal play. If you ask them, they will say that thunderstorm is the go to most of the time and W is really niche.
I never said it did though. I said that Echo + mana tide + Ancestral + frostwolf’s grace is what gives you the most sustain to stay in fights and don’t get killed. It also gives you amazing cdr. Frostwolf’s grace procs your trait which procs mana tide and also gives ancestral stacks. These 4 talents just complement each other so well in a really amazing way. Now, why not just pick Thunderstorm at 16 and make your Qs even more powerful so you just poke the enemy down even before you engage? Why take W that doesn’t do anything to the build?
Because you’re a good Thrall. Like, Cris GM#1 in EU was playing meme heroes with meme builds (like probius with talents that are never picked) and he was winning because he is that good of a player. You can play Thrall with ANY talent and you will probably win just because you are a good Thrall, but that doesn’t mean you are playing him optimally.
But you don’t want to poke with W and do damage. W is your main follow up tool. If you are just throwing it to poke, you won’t have it up when it matters. Q is your poke ability (and with thunderstorm at 16 you just chunk people down for a nice W + E + ancestral to finish them.
It’s actually a HUGE damage and a really powerful poke tool before the fight starts. The slows also help your tank find a good engage. In the end you don’t even need extra root and % damage because you are already chunking people really hard with double Qs (that get cdr from mana tide) + thunderstorm. You really just go in to follow up with W and E. Also the biggest downside of W at 4 and 16 is that you have to commit. You only really get value if you W go in and actually AA the enemy, but if the enemy is smart they just focus you down really fast. Commiting with Thrall is really scary because, even though he has a lot of sustain, he is not beefy enough to survive a burst focused engage, and if you W + E someone you have no way to retreat because you just used your E, and if you don’t use your E to maximize the value from alpha wolf, why did you even pick alpha wolf in the first place.
So is mana tide. The cdr is actually really good. Not to mention the fact that if you take W at 4, you lose one of your waveclear tools early game, and because Thrall doesn’t have much waveclear, you just put yourself behind. You pick W at 4 you can’t use it to waveclear until you complete it, it’s really bad, while mana tide just gives you a really good sustain to trade better into other solo laners.
You do you man, but just saying that if you are having trouble in the solo lane with Thrall it might be for a reason, and I wrote lots of them. It doesn’t hurt to go and try to change your playstyle a bit.
One last thing, I love Thrall in the 4 man and I think he fits better like that, but he is still really amazing in the solo lane.
My first thought was Cursed Hollow.
Braxxis if you aren’t solo laning.
If you complete it, on maps like Infernal Shrines you can get a fair amount of healing off the little monsters, since his trait does not require you to hit heroes.
Also Feral Resilience is situational, but the 3 times multiplier for Frostwolf Resilience stacks nicely with Ancestral, if the map and comps are good for it. Though I don’t think it’d be broken if it were 5 times, its pick rate could use a bit of help.
Yeah but if you went Frostwolf it’s to play a more defensive supporting role. Calling out targets for your allies, and going for the combo on anyone who tries to dive.
If you want to play a super aggressive bruiser, there are better options in my opinion.
Thrall, like Jaina, likes to poke just a bit, and wait for the right moment.
2 Likes
admittingly do not use resiliance as much as i should. Thats one of the good things about thrall is that all of his talents are viable picks.