Zeratul’s Talents

General Discussion
1

Greetings! English is not my native language, so there might be some inaccuracies.

I really hope that HOTS will return, and this thought inspired me to imagine how heroes could be changed. Anyway, during my reflections, things got a bit out of hand, and I would like to share my ideas on how to redesign Zeratul’s talents.

I’ve edited it 8 times (now 9 :joy:); I think it looks really good now, so I’ll call it done

Talents:

1 lvl:
Relentless Chase (new)
Increases the duration of Vorpal Blade by 2 sec
Teleporting to an enemy with Vorpal Blade grants Zeratul 10% increased Movement Speed for 5 seconds

Shadow Hunter (updated)
Quest: Each Regeneration Globe collected reduces the mana cost of Blink by 3, up to 45.
Reward: After collecting 15 Globes, each Basic Attack reduces the cooldown of Blink by 1 sec.

Move Unseen (updated)
Reduces the cooldown of Permanent Cloak by 1.5 sec. While cloaked, Zeratul moves 20% faster (Bonus does not work on mount)

4 lvl:
Greater Cleave (old level 1 talent + slightly weakened level 4 talent)

Increases Cleave radius by 35% and its damage by 20%

Psionic Strength (Updated)
Increases damage to heroes by 15%.

Darkness Descends (Updated)
Increases Basic Attack Speed by 30%.

Each Basic Attack against enemies increases Basic Attack Speed by 6% for 3 seconds, up to 30%

7 lvl:
Wormhole (unchanged)
After using Blink, a mark remains at the cast location for 4 sec. You can return to it by pressing Blink again with a 0.75 sec delay.

Seeker in the Dark (unchanged)
Increases Singularity Spike detonation delay by 50%. Re-activating teleports Zeratul to the marked target and grants 30% Movement Speed for 3 sec.

Warp Skirmisher (new)

*Reduces Vorpal Blade cooldown by 10 sec
Increases Movement Speed by 20% (does not stack with Creeping Shadows and does not increase Mount Movement Speed)

10 lvl:
Might of the Nerazim (Updated)
Cooldown: 20 sec.
On activation, re-casts the last used Basic Ability, but without talent effects and dealing only 50% of base damage.

Passive: Increases Basic Attack damage by 10%

Note: With these changes, I want to redistribute the Ultimate’s damage bonus to other talents, so that the Ultimate still provides extra damage, but players can choose the second Ultimate more often without losing significant damage.

Void Prison (unchanged)
Cooldown: 100 sec.
Freezes time in the targeted area for 5 sec for everyone inside. Does not affect Zeratul.

13 lvl:
Shroud of Adun (updated)
While cloaked, Zeratul gains a shield that absorbs damage equal to 25% of his max health for 3 sec.

Mending Strikes (unchanged)
Basic Attacks heal for 35% of the damage dealt.

Vorpal Shield (new)
Casting Vorpal Blade grants Zeratul 40 Spell Armor for 3 seconds

16 lvl:
Master Warp-Blade (unchanged)
Every 3rd Basic Attack on the same target deals 125% damage.

Void Slash (Updated)
If Cleave hits more than one enemy Hero, it deals 50% increased damage and reduces its cooldown by 3 sec

Sentenced to Death (Updated)
Deal 30% increased damage to enemies while they are marked or Slowed by Singularity Spike.

Void Strike (new)

After using any ability, the next Basic Attack within 6 sec deals +50% damage.

20 lvl:
Twilight Falls (Updated)
Might of the Nerazim resets the cooldown of all Basic Abilities.
You can choose on the extra panel which ability the ultimate will copy

Unwavering Pressure (unchanged)

Singularity Spike no longer costs Mana

Basic Attacks against enemies reduce its cooldown by 1.25 seconds, double versus Heroes (2.5 seconds)

Shadow Stride (Updated)

Casting Vorpal Blade grants Zeratul a Shield that absorbs up to 260 (+4% per level) damage for 3 seconds.

Passive: Vorpal Blade gains a 2nd charge

Shadow Mending (unchanged)
Heals for 60% of the ability damage dealt to heroes.

Void Blade (new)
Once every 6 seconds, Zeratul’s Basic Attack deals 75% increased damage and steals 70 Mana from the target

2
  1. What is punishing blade? vorpal blade??
  2. You literally nerf one instance of his mobility on 1, good, you proceed to double his mobility further down the lane AND 20% RANGE (lol), this is insanity.
  3. Shroud of Adun 40% of your max health is so crazy, the talent was already ok for a hero that is all about going in and leaving immediately afterwards.

Zeratul is already the best hypermobile hero right now, you cannot just casually increase it further while also buffing his damage numbers, he’s already crazy in the right hands despite being useless early game before level 7.

2 Likes
3

I play a lot of Zeratul, and have since the alpha. Most of these scale too much. If not countered, he’d be able to destroy faster. And if countered, he’d still be able to escape and try again in a few short seconds.

1 Like
4

Thanks for the comment, you’re right. That was 3/3. I think I’ll edit the post again — I’m really interested in answers like this.

I have no doubt that Zeratul is a very strong hero. My goal isn’t to buff him — I just want every talent the hero has to actually be present in the game, not just in theory, and not used only in a couple of games out of a hundred. The talent choices aren’t that flexible. For example, with Greymane all the talents look very interesting, while Zeratul has some that are almost never picked.

I’m new to the game, but I’ve spent some time playing, and you know how many Zeratuls I’ve seen using Void Prison? Around 4 (over 3 years of playing).

And if we talk about a build focused on enhancing Cleave — compared to builds that allow you to kill one, or sometimes more, heroes solo, it looks like a dead build.

Or the build through Singularity Spike: if summed up — yes, it’s very strong, but the burst damage increase is more in situations where you manage to land only 2, occasionally 3 hits and then leave. But it’s insanely dependent on an ability with a 12-second cooldown, and as a result, the total damage from other purely assassination builds is only about 100–200 damage higher, so the question is — what’s the point of all this?

And I’d also like to know why Shroud of Adun is considered so strong in the current game — it didn’t seem that way to me. A couple of examples of its use would be interesting.

5

One thing to keep in mind is that there are big differences in Zeratul played in solo queue QM, SL, or in organized play. Void Prison is used frequently when you are on a team that is building for combos. Void Prison + Diablo’s Apocalypse + AoE damage like a Jaina can put an entire enemy team out of commission. In that case, you may in fact be building into Q Zeratul, so you can help soak faster to 10, as well as contribute AoE of your own.

Although competitive leagues are by far the minority of the player base, it is pretty much how heroes were designed and balanced. I play in the Nexus Gaming Series, which just started Season 20 this week. A lot of the matches are casted, and Zeratul crops up fairly often. I know one series that was casted on Monday had a Zeratul in one of the matches, and they were using Void Prison to set up for Hanzo’s pretzel dragons.

1 Like
6

There’s still room for global Singular Spike, Void prison that lasts 10 000 years or Void prison that sucks everything in and it never comes back out.

7

I’m no expert, since I mostly play another style, but it makes sense to me with the style where you pop in, wreck havoc, then pop out.
Though, I’ve been watching tournaments where people use that play style but still pick Mending Strikes. I’m baffled.

1 Like
8

Most likely it’s because Mending Strikes is a more versatile talent — you can restore HP even on mobs and solo kill bosses. In addition, many prefer Shadow Stride at level 20, which gives 570 shield, and combined with lifesteal that’s already enough. Shroud of Adun gives 704 shield, but it’s nowhere near as functional.

On top of that, you don’t have to take Move Unseen for faster stealth entry, and you can use Shadow Hunter instead. This combination looks very strong, especially when you’re given a lot of freedom to act.
In any case, it’s interesting. I’ll probably try using this talent.

1 Like