Like 90% of all tassadars I see take electric fence and black hole and I can’t understand it. They even take them when there’s no healer or tank from random match-making. Reworked tass struggles most with mobility and survivability, not damage or cc.
Electric fence grants a 35% slow and slight damage to enemies next to your wall
vs
Gain a constantly refreshing shield so long as you damage people
Basically Dragonstrike but it has a wonky pull mechanic and stun
vs
Gain a burst shield, better auto attacks, and at level 20 become a raid boss
With other questionable talents, I can see how people like them. Orb range at 7 for Li-ming is good in aram and low ranks. Lorenado is hilarious and is similar in goal to Stay Awhile. However, there doesn’t seem to be any comparison between the options for tassadar. Not only are they subpar talents, there are competing talents that shore up his weaknesses so much. Does anyone know why these became the meta picks for levels 4 and 10? Is there something I’m missing/am I just playing tass wrong? Did a streamer say they were best? I mostly play qm and aram nowadays and I hope that ranked tassadars don’t fall prey to this pattern.
Electric fence both slows and deals nice dmg for faster killing if you trap anyone
Tassadar is never meant to be a duelist, just take Q talents much better then AA build
Sure true but I feel a wall should be enough. Q at one and shield at 4 makes it super easy to keep up. I feel like unless the enemy team is NEVER diving or pressuring you, its not worth it to get a little more slow and damage.
The level 4 shield has been a tiny bit overnerfed, from 3 to 2, maybe around 2.3-2.5 would be the sweet spot. Or merely adjusting one (cap) without the other (regen per second).
The idea is indeed to catch people. Also I think some streamers noted it to be best, for more damage. Maybe wombo combo potential included.
Black Hole is really nice if you can aim it. Best as a combo: ETC, Gazlowe, name your game. Combined with psionic storms it can be really powerful.
Archon is good but the level 10 version is a bit subpar. Usually by the time it would get useful, it already expires. It’s more of a defense spell to escape moderate ganks, and as such enable pushing. Although I prefer using it, it doesn’t synergize well with D build otherwise, since it replaces the beam and ensures full charge. Although it isn’t great for Q build either. It’s more about complementing the playstyle.
Ultimately I see D Tassadars doing well, but it’s a long game. Something like Vile Infection. Play the map to ensure 20, then go win.
Except when your team isn’t on board, forces a retreat, and you are the weakling self for the objective, that you lose.
TL,DR: The talents you ask about are team player, combo talents. They show up as 3rd best winrate build as a Q build variation. Using Shadow Walk.
Level 4 talents can probably be a bit of personal preference.
I like electric fence, and to some extent, black hole because my goal as tassadar is put out obscene pve and good pvp damage from a very safe difference while providing wall utility.
The slow and extra damage on electric fence can turn a wall in from a mild inconvenience to a kill threat.
Archon can do really good damage, but it feels like opposing players know the ability well enough now to play around it.
Shield is perfectly fine though, it really varies on what you are being on combat, for example Q quest gives charge for free so the shield can be outside of the need of AA and the healing is noticable and nice.
Keep in mind if you hit 3 targets you are max charge, archon also max charge his trait. It’s not as difficult to maintain either.
I was going to say something similar. EF is fine but black hole is getting picked up below masters bc archon got nerfed. It never lands and when it does it knocks back heroes out of everyone else’s shot.
Personally, I find that the controlling ult is almost always better. Thou can save yourself, the team, create synergy for the team. And the Archon can be taken in those cases when Zeratul, Tracer, Genji are against thou. That is, from my point of view, the Archon is needed only in those rare cases when one enemy hero, by itself, poses an immediate threat to thou personally.
the shield is nice yep,
but i usually go full storm build tass so i’m never really in need of the shield anyway
since i’m a safe distance from the enemies.
and the extra dmg from the wall (and how it keeps enemies in the storm for an extra tick or two)
is very nice, plus i love it at 20 with the wall upgrade for poke!
and i like the utility of black hole, i’ve saved allies from a fair few moshes/lambs with it!
This is true 85% of the time.
Look at Mosh Pit over Stage Dive
Warlord’s Challenge to Decimate
Blessed Shield or Falling Sword
Isolation and Adaptation
However, Black Hole just has such a long cast animation and slow travel speed that it’s just not reliable enough on it’s own. Theoretically it’s fine in maps with a lot of narrow areas to catch people in or if you follow up slows with it but most games you just won’t see the kinds of value you get out of Archon.
It’s good for playmaking but Archon is consistent and easy to use.
However it was mainly taken for that huge 40% shield. Since it got nerfed pretty significantly, I started taking black hole and found it very efficient vs melee heavy teams. If they dive you hard, you can stun them almost immediately, follow with buffed Q from lvl 1 talent and use wall to lock them in one place for your team to follow and kill or you to disengage.
With Q build you dont need archon AA that much anyway as your Q is on very low CD and deals huge damage.
The thing is, I personally prefer the AA build. And this is a rather risky type of game. Therefore, the slow flight speed of the black hole is not a problem - usually in my position the distance to the enemies is small and they simply do not have time to dodge.
