I am somewhat new to this game (level 92) and Zul’jin is my main. And is seems to me he is usually considered a B tier hero. But he seems like he could easily A tier. He does more damage then almost any other hero in the game if he is injured, and with the new talent upgrade his quest is almost always complete within 10 mins, increasing his damage even more. People also seem to think he is really hard to use, but my Zul’jin is level 27 (I never played another MOBA before) and he performs pretty well. So does anyone else think he seems underrated? Why is he considered so mediocre? Does he get less good at higher ranks? Just wanted to know what you thought.
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Because he has no movement abilities. He is slow AF.
Someone like Valla, for example, does comparable dmg but can zip around. And kite like a damn God.
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Valla also needs it since she has lower hp then him and cant heal like he can too.
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He’s overrated from what I’ve seen.
Everyone in mid-diamond is treating him like it’s release week when he’s the same turret that he’s been for a while.
I wouldn’t call him mediocre but he’s very risk/reward compared to other ranged AA heroes.
He’s dependent on snow-balling and in many ways even more fragile than Fenix or Valla since his trait drains his own life and he has no mobility tools until late game.
E heal doesn’t help when you’re getting focused, only Taz 20 is reliable mid-fight.
Roll is a simple and versatile ability that can be used for both protection and securing kills, I’d prefer my dps to have this ability in 90% of fights.
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I agree with this actually but patch changes affect diamond+ faster than other ranks.
He’s not S tier imo unless he’s a hypercarry with uther (tbh this also has more to do with uther than him but he’s still v strong). New patch puts him in A tier for me generally. I do laugh when enemies first pick him though.
Zuljin has always been very strong in low ranks. He’s just a little difficult to play so many haven’t put the time needed to pop off with him.
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He’s an excellent hero, one of my favorites to play. However, he does not do so well with the cc bloat or blinds. An enemy team can shut his dmg down unless he wants to feed and countering him is relatively easy.
That’s my analysis anyway.
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He’s good, but he needs a lot of peel to compete compared to others and his ramp up time is slower than the others. If you make it to late game he’s a ranged Butcher. But if you can’t get your stacks off, he’s not as efficient. No to mention, most ZJ players have this wierd sexual fetish of going Berserker build with HeadHunter at lvl 1, which is imo, his weakest build and requires the most ramp-up time.
If ppl weren’t so lazy, they probably would see the greatness of the other 2 builds, however, that’s not the case. Most ppl who play ZJ just want to stand still and get stax and so ppl tend to lean towards berserker build because of how “easy” it feels to play and how it “rewards” you even though it’s less viable than the other 2 options and much weaker throughout the game.
In general, if the enemy team doesn’t have any blinds, Q build should be you’re go-to. If you need the extra range and are somewhat countered, Mage-Jin should be the alternative.
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Voodoo shuffle can help with cc, but he is still slow.
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That’s only roots and slows, not stuns. Depending on the comp, you can get shutdown completely.
However, like I said, I enjoy playing him. Played him a lot during DW release. Everyone was playing Tychus and I was just sitting here stacking to infinity off of DW lol.
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He also gets less value in higher ranks because people will avoid him and focus on camps/laning. This isnt to say that he gets no value from stacks, just less normally.
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The one frustrating thing about him is how if he hits you with the spinning axes while you are on retreat, you are guaranteed to tank another 3-5 auto attacks. Similar case could be made for Raynor, you’d expect that a penetrating shot into the back would help you escape when in fact most of the time it results with death.
10% damage is okay but it’s the range that everyone wants.
If someone wants to get in close to shred enemies they just play Tychus.
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I always go with recklessness now because of the buff it got. makes it so much easier to get stacks.
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Ya I don’t understand why people go “head hunter” over “Recklessness” if they are going berzerker build. Recklessness is guaranteed extra damage and head hunter you won’t get that extra damage till later game if you even complete the quest. I play “Recklessness” all the time and build up berzerker and use taz’dingo as the ult. I’ve personally seen you typically get more damage going Recklessness over head hunter.
Needing to kill yourself to do more sucks
You might get more damage but I guarantee you’ll play way more greedy and die more often too. As soon as you’re half hp you’ll die in a 1 v 1
Yea but it’s (largely) sustained damage AA, not burst. That means it can be countered with shields, protected statuses, blinds, hard CC that stops him from chasing with his AA’s, etc. Drafting someone like Johanna can easily counter a Zuljin draft even in higher league play and I would suspect that characters like LiLi would make ZJ cry in lower leagues. This is in stark contrast to a burst mage like Li Ming who can output insane damage with 3 ability combo executed VERY quickly, far faster than ZJ can keep up with.
I wouldn’t say he’s mediocre but the fact he gets so much value out of having lower HP means he can be dangerous to play properly, even for very good players. The fact that characters like Taunt Varian with Mortal Strike or Ana exist also means that, if ZJ is at low hp, his ability to be healed back up can be stunted heavily, allowing him to die VERY quickly. It’s also easy to draft someone like Johanna/Cassia who have baked in Blinds or Artanis who can talent into Blinds (in his case, via suppression pulse) to start limiting how much damage ZJ can do in any given fight.
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This is Zul’jin’s biggest constraint. He has almost no self-peel since he has no dash or baseline hard CC or disruption. You have to constantly be on guard for ganks and dives, because your chances of escaping a well executed one are pretty slim.
He does do WAY more damage than Valla though, which is the only reason he’s still relevant.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that Zul’jin can have the highest single-target DPS output in the game, depending on how low you are on health and what build you pick. After level 16, his Q build kills Deathwing faster than even Tychus.
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I still remember on his release week you could melt all the target dummies in try mode faster than any mage with cooldowns toggled off.
It was bonkers.
There is a talent for movement speed. Giving Zul’jin early movement speed is a bad idea because of his baseline quest and because he can have big AA range.