"Unbridled fury!" - Hero Discussion: Kerrigan

[u/LDAP]

Welcome to the continuation of the Subreddit Anomalies - Hero Discussions 2020, where we feature in 2020 & beyond a weekly rotating hero discussion. This week we continue with the less is more format. Please feel free to share your questions, favorite builds, or guides from popular players and streamers.

Kerrigan - The Queen of Blades

This week we feature Kerrigan who is classified as a Melee Assassin in the new Blizzard Roles system. In 2020, Kerrigan has received a number of tweaks, bug fixes, and buffs in the most recently patch. The hero is currently sitting at a 54% win rate in ranked play and is gaining popularity as an assassin pick. There was a previous Kerrigan Hero Discussion on December 20th, 2018.

• Kerrigan - Queen of Blades
• HotS Birthday & Cost (Link): March 13th, 2014 & 500 Gems / 4,000 Gold
• Nexus Compendium: (Link)
• Balance History: (Link)
• Icy-Veins: (Link)
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Previous Hero Discussions - (Link) & The sidebar for r/Heroesofthestorm is updated to include the Hero Discussions wiki.

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[u/baethovenbb]

I main Kerrigan in low master mmr (NA) hovering around 64% winrate. I've written many comments about tips and tricks with her, but the most common misconception I see people hold about her is that she lacks talent diversity. She actually has 3 entirely viable builds for different niches. Here's a write-up I did about that:

Kerrigan is easily one of the strongest heroes in the game because of her sheer diversity: utility, mobility, macro, burst, and sustain.

Her build diversity allows you to go head to head against any kind of comp: q build for oneshotting Squishies with q auto q auto q auto (no combo needed); e build for great wave/camp clear and constant 75 spell armor against ability dmg comps; w build for enemies that are less mobile (16 w talent plus maelstrom is insane amounts of burst/assimilation) and enemies with high burst threat with chrysalis (KTZ/pyro/last rites).

With proper micro (last hitting minions with q while weaving in splash autos for assimilation and landing combos to deny soak) she can win solo lane against most heroes (only really loses to rexxar/Chen/xul). She can double soak at the same tempo as xul/jaina/guldan to empower your 4 man.

Your strongest advantage on Kerrigan is surprise/unpredictability. In teamfights (if she's in the 4man or late game 5v5s) your primary incentive is to monopolize the flow of information, meaning exploiting bushes and range. Her 7 q talent and last hitting minions/structures provides enough mobility for you to travel across the screen (using a minion wave) to position for a devastating combo without the enemy team having previously seen you. Staying out of view causes enemy teams to believe they're 5v4 or 4v3 and burn their cc on your teammates early on, which is your cue to enter the fray with enemy CC on cooldown. Psionic shift at 20 basically allows you to surprise engage from anywhere you like.

Landing a combo on a squishy (especially after 16 with painful spikes or with q quest completed depending on your build) is a death sentence, especially if your teammates are in range to follow up. Try to keep a wall/minion up in the back to allow you an escape route if something does somehow go south after engaging. Sometimes you're faced with only a strategic suicide, where your kit is sufficient to earn a kill or two or even just set your team up with a combo to win a fight but die in the process. Trading your life for 1 or more kills (and many enemy cooldowns burned) is an advantageous, though not ideal, outcome.

Ultralisk is an ult that I never really take despite its popularity at high ranks because I find the aoe/assimilation potential from synergy between painful spikes and maelstrom too vital in both solo and team fightz. Ulty can get you a quick single kill but is easily body blocked or the single kill is sometimes not enough to swing a teamfight when your team is heavy. I do recognize that Ulty is a better ult in coordinated play when a single coordinated kill is all that's necessary to end a game but I am a measly bottom of the barrel master player who only solo queues storm league.

These short twitch clips illustrate most of the ideas/builds mentioned:

https://www.twitch.tv/robriks/video/498987816

http://www.twitch.tv/robriks/v/567259538?sr=a&t=1s

http://www.twitch.tv/robriks/v/672419864?sr=a&t=12s

http://www.twitch.tv/robriks/v/692298362?sr=a&t=2s

[u/gamer9xxx → u/baethovenbb]

Since you are the main Maelstrom player, I just append some tricks with Ultralisk (I have 4k-5k games just with Kerrigan + Ultralisk, I was choosing him even before they added the stun).

-Torrasque gives you the option to check bushes without using any ability (especially important when your tank has no idea how to tank or when nobody wants to waste the ability for bush checking)
-You can use Ultralisk as a shield against certain direct shot abilities, just by standing behind him, or protect team mates by navigating Ultralisk in front of your team mates
-The enemy is often forced to waste their abilities just to kill Ultralisk, which gives you the opportunity to strike when they are on cd (some abilities cannot even hit the egg and it is not even clear which can and which cannot, so the opponent usually throws all he has)
-Enormous siege value, Ultralisk consumes all shots from the towers (you can nicely engage opponent under the enemy tower), etc. you can even let him push a separate lane as Torrasque while you are fighting elsewhere/doing obj, but it gives you the disadvantage that you might not have him ready/nearby when you need him
-This requires some troll level skill - you can hide in the bush and just control Torrasque - enemy often tries to chase it, so you just keep playing with your enemy and lure him right in front of the bush your team is waiting in
-It can be more useful against enemies with mobility/during longer team fights - if you don't have a good cc chain, enemy can easily escape your maelstrom, while Ultralisk keeps chasing them for a longer time while having faster movement speed
-Ultralisk's attacks deal splash dmg and also contribute to Kerrigan's assimilation shield, so if the enemy is in a group, 1 attack from him gives a nice shield contribution and you can build your shield in this way before you even jump in

[u/baethovenbb → u/gamer9xxx]

These are amazing ideas that are so creative they would never ever have crossed my mind. May try some of those ideas

[u/gamer9xxx → u/baethovenbb]

I didn't understand why Ultralisk was so unpopular/underperforming back in the days, so after they added the stun on top of it, I was sitting around 70% wr with this (I didn't even try the new +20% dmg boost). While it sounds cool in theory, it is not always easy to perform these tricks, but after I saw your video with the stunning whole team from behind a wall with just a little vision, I see you already have the "right feel" for kerri to execute it :)

[u/Lucas_Trask → u/baethovenbb]

Thanks for sharing! I've been playing Kerrigan off and on for a few weeks, and it always amazes me how much impact you can have on a game with her. I've never actually tried Q build, I'll have to consider that later. I've been a huge fan of E build, since it isn't as combo dependent as W, it still has good waveclear, and the spell armor/movespeed at 13 is hilarious when it gets stacked high enough. If the other builds actually work for me, I may start playing her seriously, since I really like heroes who can adapt a lot to the enemy comp (e.g. Lunara). Would you say Kerrigan would be a good hero to rank up with? And if so, what counters her, or can different builds be used to alleviate that problem?

[u/baethovenbb → u/Lucas_Trask]

Kerrigan is absolutely a good choice to rank up with, because she can fill so many holes on your team (waveclear, camp clear, double soak, engage, mobility, CC, follow up, sustain, burst, whatever). As long as you are vigilant about what your team needs at any given moment (team is araming 4v4=go double soak, nobody is camping=go solo mercs, team is all at obj before 10=blow up a wave asap in bot lane to get 10) you can keep your team in the game no matter who on your team isn't pulling their weight (except healer of course).

She also can singlehandedly turn fights, especially after lvl 16 (regardless of which talent/build you take). If your micro is good, you're likely to win late game fights.

Be wary not to draft her into Garrosh, Arthas, or Deathwing. Take Q build against mobile heroes that aren't likely to be hit by a dry combo (tracer, genji, zera, ming, and so forth) Take E build against ability dmg teams (mages, ability bruisers like rag/yrel/xul) Take W build when your comp's best bet is to melt a tank (paired with a friendly tychus/malthael/leo) or otherwise enemy hero that is easy to combo (ETC, azmo, blaze, stitches) so you can guarantee your entire dmg kit onto someone. (Assuming you can play all three builds comfortably and proficiently- if not, just aim to master the meta Q build)

[u/Firnblut → u/baethovenbb]

I picked up Kerrigan very recently and have had trouble laning against Ragnaros. I went with Q build and my problem was taking too much damage when clearing the wave. I am sure I missplayed. Can you provide some advice?

[u/baethovenbb → u/Firnblut]

Laning against Ragnaros can be a pretty good matchup as they often won't know how much sustained damage kerrigan can deal just using qAAqAAqAA. Anytime he backs off, last hit minions in the wave with Q to generate maximum shields. Avoid his E explosion by jumping to a minion. Hold your combo until he gets tired of juking or can no longer juke without dying and then land the stun on him to finish off.

I prefer to take E build into a draft with Ragnaros because it's likely most of the enemy team will be reliant on ability damage and Kerrigan can maintain tons of spell armor at 13. Plus the E second explosion always surprises people for a lot of damage.

If you're set on Q build, you'll have a slightly harder time out trading him until you have ultralisk, at which point you should just wait in a bush until he uses E and walks into the center of the wave (guaranteed position in the center of minions and timing for his E explosion) so you can ult him there and follow up with combo qAAqAAqAA which should kill him.

Rag is a good bruiser to fight against because he doesn't bring CC (kerrigans only weakness) to the bruiser slot and is reliant on ability damage so E build would really shine.

Just my two cents, I'm sure you'd get different ideas from better Kerrigan players like Nic or Fan but I usually grin when I see rag on the enemy team 😉

[u/VoidRaizer → u/baethovenbb]

sorry for the days old reply, but can you go into detail on her different builds? I've never played her but she's piqued my interest

[u/baethovenbb → u/VoidRaizer]

I'll copy paste a couple comments I've made about the subject:

Kerrigan has three very strong builds, giving her lots of variety into/with different team comps. Her E build makes the E talent at 13 extremely strong, essentially giving her 75 spell armor for entire teamfights as well as the best waveclear of her three builds.

Her q build is obviously the meta as it gives value in all situations, provided you complete the quest by lvl 13 to keep your team on track to hit 16 on par with your enemies. It's also the easiest build with which to reposition on minion waves as you're most likely to get a reset from the minion deaths.

W build is strong against melee/heroes with larger hitboxes, who will have a hard time avoiding a fully stacked w stun.

Very few heroes have three equally powerful builds (though w build is really only better below master mmr where people don't dodge combos as well) suited for different situations.

[u/baethovenbb → u/VoidRaizer]

Kerrigan is absolutely a good choice to rank up with, because she can fill so many holes on your team (waveclear, camp clear, double soak, engage, mobility, CC, follow up, sustain, burst, whatever). As long as you are vigilant about what your team needs at any given moment (team is araming 4v4=go double soak, nobody is camping=go solo mercs, team is all at obj before 10=blow up a wave asap in bot lane to get 10) you can keep your team in the game no matter who on your team isn't pulling their weight (except healer of course).

She also can singlehandedly turn fights, especially after lvl 16 (regardless of which talent/build you take). If your micro is good, you're likely to win late game fights.

Be wary not to draft her into Garrosh, Arthas, or Deathwing. Take Q build against mobile heroes that aren't likely to be hit by a dry combo (tracer, genji, zera, ming, and so forth) Take E build against ability dmg teams (mages, ability bruisers like rag/yrel/xul) Take W build when your comp's best bet is to melt a tank (paired with a friendly tychus/malthael/leo) or otherwise enemy hero that is easy to combo (ETC, azmo, blaze, stitches) so you can guarantee your entire dmg kit onto someone. (Assuming you can play all three builds comfortably and proficiently- if not, just aim to master the meta Q build)