Zuljin Guide: Let The Killing Begin!

General Discussion
1

Good evening everyone! I’ve come to bring a Zuljin guide. This is relatively in depth and we’ll be going over builds, when to pick him, and how to play him.

Who is Zuljin?
He’s a troll.
How do you play Zuljin?
Zuljin is an AA ranged assassin that excels in doing heavy damage over long periods of time and some suprising burst when needed.

Strengths: Good at doing a lot of damage if left alone.
Good vs. PvE objectives
Flexibility. All builds are viable!!!
Very good to hyper carry with.
Good poke (potentially)

Weaknesses: Poor escape.
Poor duelist.
Needs stacks.
Blinds (Kind of)

Allright so we’ve established some basics. This is generally Zuljin’s strengths and weaknesses. So if you’re in a draft mode, when do you want to pick him?

Usually you want to go for Zuljin when you are on a map where it favors PvP objectives. If it’s smaller or has 2 lanes he also excels there. Stacks are everything.
He fights well against opponents who can’t punish him easily, and lack displacements. Scary engagement and displacement that gets Zuljin killed more than anything else. You want to be able to comfortably trade with an easy way out.

You see a Kerrigan ETC? Maybe don’t pick him. You’ll die a lot trying to get stacks.

Abilities and how to use them
Beserker (Trait): Zuljin’s trait is one that gives him more AA speed the lower is health is. You can activate his trait to deal more damage per AA at the sacrifice of health.

Greivous Throw (Q): This ability is a skillshot that if landed lets you deal increased AA damage to people for a set amount of time. Use it on a tank or a squishy that stepped a little too close.

Twin Cleave (W): This ability throws 2 axes in a swirling arc that return to Zuljin. They apply slows. Good damge and is a subpar engage / disengage. One mistake I see Zuljin’s do all the time is always W straight out in front of them, missing targets directly infront of them. Use it to the side to hit someone in front of you, and do wierd angles to clear waves faster.

Regeneration (E): Just a heal that is useful out of combat. It’s really useful when you’re trading health and lowering yourself all the time. Don’t be afraid to use it in combat, as it can give you that burst 100 health you need to survive or it makes people allocate resources to interrupt you.

Amani Rage (Active): You lose 50% of your health on command and regen it over a period of time. :slight_smile: Sounds like a good idea for a ranged assassin with few escapes to lose half of his hp. Well, it definitely is, and gives Zuljin some hard punish game and teamfight potential. Use it when resources on the enemy team are spent, and deal a lot of damage.

What I like doing is slowing someone with W, throwing out my Q, press 1 and Trait, and just melt someone when they step out. However, while this damage is very high, it’s likely to get you killed. This is the whole appeal of Zuljin. You live on a knife’s edge, and you are constantly teetring between horrible failure, and magnificent success. Positioning is key, keep an eye on your oponents.

Now I’ll go over talent build. I don’t have TL3 so we’re doing this the old fashioned way boys.

Level 1:
Bonespiler (Q): Severly increases your sustained damage overall. Though don’t look too much into Q build as it’s rather niche, but I’ll tell you later when Q build is a monster.
Recklessness (Trait): The lower your health, the more spell damage and AA you do. Pretty simple, gives you value off of both ults. This is the safe talent in the tier. You can never go wrong with it.
Headhunter (Quest): This is my favorite talent on the tier. It’s a little risky, and don’t pick it if they have a Tracer or whatnot, but the payoff is huge. Going AA build? Pick Headhunter. Wanna burst people down with spell build? Pick Headhunter. Want to kite everyone to death? Use Thunder, er, Headhunter. I’ll talk later about the implications of this talent.

Level 4:
Troll’s Blood (E): This talent makes your E’s give more health and return mana when completed. It gives you the most sustain, so in situations where you need to be in a lane or there’s a long objective (Alterac) pick this talent.
Voodoo Shuffle (E): This talent makes your E’s more mana efficient and lowers its cooldowns. It doesn’t really help with sustain, but it makes it better to use E’s to top yourself off. The real benefit of this talent is the activatable in it. Removing slows and roots from yourself on a hero with no escape is very powerful. All the sudden, Garrosh and Arthas don’t scare you. While situational, keep this talent in mind.
Amani Hide (Activatable ability): When you use Amani rage you get 15 armor and the cooldown is reduced. Overall a solid talent and effectively gives you 15% more health while using it (As a whole it doesn’t help sustain). Use this talent if you feel you can trade into a team without risk, and activating your 1 (or whatever) isn’t as risky.

Level 7
Vicious Assault (Q): This talent just makes your Q even better. Solid talent if you’re going Q build. I’ll tell you the good part of Q build later :wink:
Arcanite Axes (W): This is a stacking talent that increases your W damage per hit. Think of it like Chromie and picking Here and There. Like Narha would say, don’t pick Here and There if you are doing bad stacking your Q’s. Likewise with Zuljin, avoid this talent if you are really behind on stacks. A good zuljin has around 75 stacks at level 7. However, if you believe in yourself, go for it. Just know you need a lot of AA stacks to make this talent work.
Ferocity (Trait): This talent makes your trait better. Has excellent synergy with Amani Hide and Taz’dingo! Good for an AA build.

Level 10
Taz’dingo! Good stuff right here folks. It really makes Zuljin scary, all the sudden he has excellent dueling, survivability, and more potential damage output. Use it aggressively, use it defensively, whatever. One tip I would give is that using Taz’dingo in an aggressive manner and surviving is simple. With certain talents later on, you can trade for about 2 seconds of the ability and just walk away like Sonic.

Guillotine Are you a play maker? Are you good at Zuljin? Do you just want to have a fun time? Well step forward, this is the ultimate for you. It really gives you a punch and has good synergy with Amani Hide and 2 level 13 talents. Use this ultimate if you can predict your enemies, need burst damage for a combo, or simply don’t fear death. Position well, kill everyone. Simple.

Level 13
Lacerate (W): So here’s the situation. You’ve completed your base quest, and you have Arcanite Axes up. The frustrating thing is your second round of W’s seldom hit. Well now with the insane slows this ability provides, you’ll be landing a lot more W’s. Use your W’s to slow someone down immensely, and your stacks will rise through the roof. It also gives you escapes and engages, which Zuljin needs.
Eye of Zuljin (Passive): My personal favorite talent in his kit (besides Headhunter). It makes your kiting insane, and if you’re good with stutter stepping you will be a horror to the enemy. Slow them down, get a couple of AA’s in and forever kite them. Really strong and highly recommend.
Ensnare (Active): A rather niche talent. It’s good for catching out overaggressive enemies, and has great functionality with Guillotine and Wrong Place Wrong Time (more on that later). It’s strong and it is definitely good I just don’t pick it that often. A lot of Zuljins have a tendency to be over aggressive with this talent, and die for it. I just prefer the group CC Lacerate gives or the Kiting Eye of Zuljin gives.

Level 16
No Mercy! (Q): This is where Q build goes from ok to disgusting. Again, Q build is niche. You don’t see it that often. But say, you’re fighting an enemy Garrosh and all the sudden your basic attacks ignore armor when Q is on them. He walks up and gets splatted, as he doesn’t have the highest health pool. Take this talent and all of Q build if you need to get through a lot of armor. However, from testing I’ve done it also ignores negative armor.
Wrong Place Wrong Time (W): The creme de la crop of the W build. Just gives your more burst damage overall. While harder to use, this talent lets your W’s become terrifying.
Let the Killing Begin (Passive): This talent is really really strong for the AA build. It just straight up increases your AA speed by potentially 40% and it’s really easy to get up there. It stays forever and AA’s refresh it, making it just solid. This + Eye of Zuljin allows you to have Bloodlust (minus life leech) permanently.

Level 20
Amani Resilience This talent goes from making Taz’dingo good, to jaw dropping. Now you are realistically unkillable when your ult is up, and as long as you have good game sense and such, you’ll never die. Really good for a hero that rides the balance between success and death.
Buzzsaw Yeah so your ult can now one shot. And it gets everyone behind them including buildings and waves. :sunglasses: If you land your Guillotines precisely, the initial damage procs and then the buzzsaw rolls on through. Really good. Great burst. Just solid.
Forest Medicine (E): Definitely the most niche talent on this tier. It doesn’t give as much on demand healing as Amani Resilience nor does it help with damage at all. However, against a sustain poke damage team, and combined with Trolls Blood at 4, you are the sustain king. Have fun trading with Zuljin now against everyone.

Phew. So those are all the talents and descriptions of them. Here’s some builds I would recommend.
Auto Attack Build
Level 1: Headhunter (or Recklessness if you’re a wuss).
Level 4: Anything. Pick on your circumstances.
Level 7: Ferocity.
Level 10: Taz’dingo!
Level 13: Eye of Zuljin.
Level 16: Let the Killing Begin!
Level 20: Amani Resilience
Pick this build just to do some solid sustain with really good poke and super solid damage. You know by now.

Spell Damage Burst Build
Level 1: Headhunter (or Recklessness if you’re a wuss).
Level 4: Anything (though Amani Hide is recommended).
Level 7: Arcanite Axes.
Level 10: Guillotine.
Level 13: Lacerate recommended though you can pick Ensnare.
Level 16: Wrong Place Wrong Time.
Level 20: Buzzsaw.
Pick this build if you’re stacking well and you want to blow up some poor squishies from range. :+1:

Cheesy Garros-er- Armor Blow Up Build
Level 1: Boneslicer.
Level 4: Anything (Guys I’m telling ya this talent tier is great).
Level 7: Vicious Assault.
Level 10: Taz’dingo!
Level 13: Anything.
Level 16: No Mercy!
Level 20: Amani Resilience.
Pick this build to kill orc warchiefs or fight against heavy armor comps (Uther, medic, some annoying tanks that throw you, etc.)

Zuljin is the epitome of flexibility, and all of his talents have their place and time. Blizzard, you did this troll’s tree right.
Allright. I’m about to wrap things up. Except I haven’t talked about one thing.
HEADHUNTER!
Love this talent so much and it’s underutilized like you wouldn’t believe. Just git gud and tell your teammates to focus certain enemies. The benefits of this talent are so insane it’s getting its own spot. It’s just SOOOOO GOOD.
—Zuljin’s baseline quest gives you 1.1 extra range at 75 stacks. That stacked with the 1.1 range Headhunter gives you allows you to be a Sgt. Hammer. Now you have infinite kite, poke, engage, harassment, and push power. LOOK AT THIS GRAPH.


He can infinitely push canon towers, forts, keeps, and the core, all without taking damage. Headhunter is so strong. You can now infinitely kite and always be doing damage, and enemies will fear you, all for the the one caveat that kills are required to do it.

So that wraps up my little guide for Zuljin. He is one of my favorite heroes and I love his playstyle. Don’t be afraid to pull him out when the situation calls for it, and share your axe with as many enemies as possible. Have questions or want to discuss? Feel free to share below.

Good luck guys, and have fun.

12 Likes
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very nice!

I like Zul’jin, but, well. I’m a bit one dimensional in loving the Guillotine… Perhaps I’ll try Taz’dingo! again now, thank you.

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Don’t need to shutdown the government anymore when we got this wall built. But in all seriousness this is pretty in depth

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Should maybe mention not to pick Headhunter against an Abathur. It preferably should not be necessary to say this, but I’ve seen Hanzo’s and Zuljins desperately chase around Abathur’s because they took those type of quests. Kinda funny.

And the Q build is pretty strong against Cassia.

My personal favourite build is going spellcaster because you aren’t bothered by blinds and can play a more hit-and-run strategy if that becomes necessary while it’s still very strong damage.

Tazdingo is almost always a trade too and it can be easily countered by Cocoon or Gorge or similar skills. Artanis blind too.

Good guide.

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Outside of armor hunting, I find Q build also pretty solid for solo laning. Even without the 16 talent, Boneslicer + Vicious Assault gives insane single-target damage any time you hit Q.

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The Grievous Throw throw build should not be underestimated. It trades some faster attack speed for effectively permanent 85% more damage to the target. Since he keeps much of the faster attack speed from baseline mechanics the result is pretty high damage, especially against structures and objectives. It is a great pick if your team has a lot of warriors with slow, or CC since you will always be landing the axe on at least 1 enemy hero. One does not need to pick armor negation for the Grievous Throw build, one can instead take faster attack speed and rely on superior damage numbers that way since you can hit Grievous Throw marked targets an infinite number of times.

In the end it largely comes down to if one can benefit from that 1.1 extra range from the level 1 quest. Against some comps it might be impossible to complete, in which case Grievous Throw would certainly give more value for an auto attack orientated build.

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Thanks for this wonderful guide.

Bookmarked!

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Yes the Q build is strong on it’s own merit. However the range and AA speed leads to way more AAs.

This on a stacking character is crucial. I find being able to consistently deal damage from afar is so much better. The thing is with Q build is you’re more likely to be pressured out of fight. Also, if you miss your Q you dont have a level 1 or 7 talent for around 8 seconds (off the top of my head).

You are right, it really comes down to that range. If you won’t be able do complete the quest, and feel like going Q build, by all means. Zuljin is very flexible. I just like using the Q build to fight armor comps is all.

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It is a good thing to note that if you are playing him on a map with player-driven objectives, such as the DK on Dragonshire or the Protector on Volskaya, you can relentlessly stack your baseline quest off of it while it is up.

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Dont overextend in getting stacks against the protector, that guy hurts. Do it when safe

11

How to complete Headhunter if enemy has Abathur?
Tips on aiming Guillotine and the upgraded guillotine?

12

You don’t pick it in the first place like Target Place.

13

Thats not what true Troll would do.

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14

Yeah that’s what someone who doesn’t want to troll the whole match with an incomplete quest.

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I wouldn’t say Zul’jin is a poor duelist, because he isn’t. Like every other solo laner, he’s very hero dependant. I woudn’t lane a Chen with him, but i’d have no issue sitting in lane against a Arthas or Leoric, As for his actual weakness.

Weakness:

  • Dive Comps

  • Needs Peel

  • Poor Early game due to requirement of stacks (hence why he’s a hyper carry)

  • His main burst dmg spells can be difficult to land effectively (twin cleave and Guillotine (if picked at lvl 10))

  • Very Poor camp clear and below-average wave clear

  • Can easily lose track of his passive being active

  • You confuse supports due to your passive

Strength:

  • Has a build for all occasions (People just need to learn how to read)

  • Hyper-carry (hight burst potential and high dps potential)

  • Self sustain

  • High Risk High reward (also a Weakness)

All in all, this hero requires a great deal of mechanical skill, hence why there are more weakness’ than strengths to him, as it should be. He’s by far one of the more difficult ranged asn heroes to play, but one of the more rewarding ones.