Arthas is a tank, but, like Tyrael, he doesn’t have the same oomph players expect from their front line. Most tanks have initiating comboes to chain to a group or isolate a single target to focus, and Arthas doesn’t have either. If he roots something, by the time he can walk up to the target, they’ll be free and can just combo on him instead; similarly, he doesn’t have scary heroic abilities to secure kills; he either has a heroic for providing the sustain he lacks compared to other tanks, or he has sylvanas trait on a longer cooldown. And his cast animations are on the slow side without any unstoppable mechanism to help his already limited cc function.
So, as a base-line comparison, he already feels weaker, but it doesn’t help that his talent tree is out of sync compared to other tanks: many get their sustain/mitigation talents early (1 or 4), and he gets his at 7. Several tanks also have a second wave of heal/mitigation but the closet for arthas would by at 20. On top of that, his lvl 16/20 talents aren’t as defining a choice as some tanks.
So overall, he can feel like he’s already behind in lvls compared to other tanks, is outright missing a talent tier (lacking quest/free baseline passive,) has to wait later in the game to catch-up, and then still falls behind late on his 16/20. Most tanks have some sort of escape ability to get out of a bind – even stitches has had adjustments to improve his ability to get out of fights – and Arthas is lacking on that too.
So, he’s arguably been power-creeped out of his position and could use some of the adjustments other tanks have been getting to bring him back up to par.
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Im starting to get the impression that arthas is really misunderstood. Dont get me wrong, he could use a bit of help but hes not the raging dumpster fire ppl are making him out to be.
Im especiany confused as to why syndragosa is being so discounted.
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thats why his trait gives mana
I just dont think 50 mana is worth about 9% of your health as a tank. Especially when its your only baseline heal and you have to choose between that and doing more damage.
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Agreed
Swapping 7 and 4 sounds like a really great idea to help Arthas and his sustain.
Whilst true (and useful) i wouldn’t want Arthas to have mobility. Lack of mobility is an intended character weakness and really goes with his lore. I loved that Halls of Reflection dungeon in WoW where you have to run from arthas who’s slowly walking up to you. Get too close…dead.
Yea i never understood why they added that bonus 50% heal. The main reason why you went Q build is to be more offensive with your Qs. When they buffed his self cast it took that offensive away.
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This is how I want arthas to be. Slow and kitable but if he ever does catch you, hes got some hardcore stats to kill you and probably the guys next to you with.
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Arthas is a pretty funny guy. His “identity” is seen as “Anti AA” for obvious reasons, but he isn’t bad against mages and what not due to perma slowing people as long as he’s close and can be hard to get away from.
For some heroes this means guaranteed doom if he catches you, even if you’re at 100%.
And for your allied heroes, a target being slogged down by Arthas is easy pickings.
Sindragosa is also amazing. Using it either as a teamfight tool, especially with level 20 upgrade, or simply as a “Team push with objective”, can be a very strong way to start a fight.
Like Waterlong said, I don’t get why people look down on him so.
Arthas is also probably one the strongest “Duelist tanks” in the game.
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He’s not a bad tank. Most people just put him in a neat box because they like putting things in neat boxes. Anyway here’s an example.
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My favourite build is the D build. By level 16 each D can do about 600 damage.
Land your root > casually walk up > Apply 50% slow from level 13 talent to ensure they cant run far > Double D them for 1200 damage total.
That’s about 2/3rds of their health in a nice burst window allowing an ally to finish off the rest.
Arthas is powerful in being good in sticking to targets because of how his aura works, any melee is easily here hard stuck and forced to attack or force their allies to use expensive abilities such as anduin’s pull, he peels really well with his slow and can even behave as a ability soaker with his zombies army.
He’s not bad but also he’s not impressive if he cannot reach the target which he mostly does with melee heroes, in comparison Blaze can hard stun engage into ranged heroes and even poke damage or slow from oil.
Also Arthas root quest turn his to something pretty gross, roots anything in it’s path can do wonders especially with the armor reduction on level 13
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A lot of why I think Arthas is niche is because of mobility creep. He’s slow and lumbering himself and his root does nothing to help him against mobiles because it simply doesnt last long enough IMO for him to really get on someone and actually be scary. Like say look at Malfurion - that is a root long enough that even if enemy team has no other CC follow up, it is still quite scary because of how long it lasts. Just imagine if Arthas’ Root was like Malfurions’. He could get in, get a hit or two in, stack some slow and maybe even Dealth Coil before that person can move again. An extra half or three-quarter of a second can make a big difference in a game where things happen quickly.
Edit: his root also takes time to reach a target so he doesn’t get the benefit of instantly locking a person down like Malfurion could with a precisely placed E.
A lot people try to put a positive spin on things, but the reality is that Arthas is comfortably the worst main tank in the game, across all levels.
According to hotsprofiles his current winrate is 43.6%, 2nd lowest from the bottom, which is trash tier. Unlike some other low winrate heroes such as medivh who scale incredibly well with players skill, Arthas is linear and doesn’t have any real ways of outplaying his opponents. All of his CC is exceptionally easy to dodge.
So yeah there is absolutely never a situation where MT arthas is better than the competition. Even for attack speed slow you are better off going with the AS reduction talents on muradin.
No point arguing, the stats speak for themselves.
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[What is exactly Arthas role?]
Mascot. That’s pretty much it. I wish he was disabled from the game so my team mates couldn’t pick him.
Two Arthas picks in SL yesterday, two losses.
Frost Presence (lvl 1 W) lacks behind the other talents in the early game and it’s usually picked for being the MT.
To be more competitive, the talent needs to be better by reducing the quest requirements. I’d say 5 heroes hit less for each quests.
He’s not a main/solo tank, he’s a side or off tank.
There are main tanks like Johanna, Muradin, Diablo, ETC, Anub… and then there are tanks like Varian, Arthas, Blaze, Tyrael who can do well as a main tank with another strong front line, or be an offlane tank.
Picking Arthas with another tank is very viable since his survivability is high and he can counter other offlanes such as Varian or Artanis. His CC can also complement the main tank’s CC in fights. I wouldn’t classify him as a bruiser though.
He could be replaced with just about any tank in every circumstance. There’s no point to casting root ability when you are in melee range as the enemy who allowed this to happen is most likely willing to fight. If you happen to freeze someone at range, you waste time walking up to them. Some other tank might instead more hastily or instantly intercept the enemy and stun them instead.
Other problem with Arthas is pure frustration between choosing when to engage and when to stay back. Much like Kerrigan, once you’re in, you’re not going home without a bloodied nose, because you don’t have a panic button to falicitate retreat. Whereas many other tanks have very effective methods of either dealing damage or debuffing the enemy team from range. Arthas can at best maintain vision on one player for bonus 2 seconds with his Coil since the damage is completely insigignificant.
He’s not complete garbage, but comparing him to other tanks is like comparing Malfurion to Whitemane, both are pretty decent but one has a big flaw design of not being able to effectively heal the team without enemy interaction and on top of everything, is subject to losing half of her output to blinds or attack speed slow, whereas Malfurion has only Moonfire to worry about. Both play mostly the same, but why would you ever pick the one that is more inconvenient (unless there’s drastic differences with balance tuning).
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Or better yet. Just make it baseline.
Or rework the hero already. Having one slow skillshot for both engage and peel is not a good thing.
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Q-build with Army of the dead gives him great sustain and against a melee heavy team he is bonkers, otherwise yeah he will struggles, because he has no good engage tool. Sadly he don’t has Deathgrip like Deathknights in WoW…lol joke it would be broken.
E-build is also very nice, but I prefer Q-build in most cases, because the range poke is nice.
Blaze can do most of what arthas can over the course of the game while doing a number of other things like clearing waves, engaging, escaping, disengaging and dealing damage/poke more conveniently. In any circumstance where a person considers Arthas they could just pick Blaze if he’s available and bring more to a team in most other cases.
Blaze not only outclasses Arthas, but is also entirely capable of comfortably filling any role on any team because Incinerator Gauntlets is completely insane and not to mention how laning against him almost always results with you being outsustained and losing a small tower or two because of how ridiculous baseline Crossfire is.
