Arthas Abilities and Strategy

• Death Coil can be used on enemies to damage them or on Arthas to heal him, something that can be done faster by using the Self Cast Modifier [Alt] rather than by mouse-hovering Arthas.
• Howling Blast being a slow projectile requires you to predict the movements of enemy Heroes.
• Frozen Tempest reduces both Movement Speed and Attack Speed of enemy Heroes, making it particularly effective against melee Heroes who rely on Basic Attacks.
• Frostmourne Hungers resets the cooldown of your Basic Attack, so try to use it immediately after a Basic Attack goes off.
• Army of the Dead can heal you on cooldown if you press R to cast it, then press and hold R for its duration.
• Summon Sindragosa disables enemy Structures, excluding Healing Fountains, which can make it a very potent ability to use during pushes.

Death Coil (Q) Arthas

• Mana: 40
• Cooldown: 9 seconds

Deals 164 (+4% per level) damage to target enemy.

Can be self-cast to heal for 262 (+4% per level) Health.

Death Coil is a versatile Basic Ability that can be used to either damage an enemy Hero or to heal Arthas. When you want to target yourself, you can use the Self Cast Modifier [Alt] instead of mouse-hovering your Hero.

When playing as Offlaner, it is usually better to cast this Ability on yourself in order to restore lost Health. When playing as Tank, you will have more opportunities to use it offensively but you should heavily prefer to use it defensively when getting low on Health.

Howling Blast (W) Arthas

• Mana: 50
• Cooldown: 10 seconds

Root enemies within the target area for 1.25 seconds and deals 68 (+4% per level) damage.

Howling Blast is a Basic Ability that provides crowd control to Arthas, something that can be used to either engage or peel. While this effect can hit multiple Heroes, it is perfectly fine to hit a single Hero with it.

A good Arthas should usually look for a flank rather than a frontal engage, however, sometimes you can still try to catch enemy Heroes with Howling Blast from distance. Just make sure that your teammates are ready to follow-up (in range and with cooldowns up) before going for an aggressive play.

Frozen Tempest (E) Arthas

• Mana: 13 per second
• Cooldown: 1 seconds

Deal 36 (+4% per level) damage per second to nearby enemies and Slow them by 10% per second, stacking up to 40%. Heroes hit also have their Attack Speed reduced by 10% per second, stacking up to 40%. Frozen Tempest's effects last for 1.5 seconds.

Frozen Tempest is a toggleable Basic Ability that Slows enemies (not only Heroes) and reduces the Attack Speed of enemy Heroes within 3.5 range. Both effects get more powerful each second a given enemy stays within range, reaching the maximum value after 4 seconds. Howling Blast helps with that because it ensures that the enemy stays nearby for a few seconds.

The constant Slow is useful for chasing and—more importantly—for peeling away melee Heroes. The constant Attack Speed reduction is good against Heroes that heavily focus on Basic Attacks to deal damage. Therefore, this Ability is particularly effective against Heroes with both those characteristics: melee Heroes who focus on Basic Attacks (such as Kerrigan or Thrall).

Mana management is important because you cannot use Abilities without it. While this Ability offers value in all scenarios, if Arthas uses it imprudently, he will find himself low on Mana very quickly. You generally want to have Frozen Tempest active only when damaging enemy Heroes, multiple Mercenaries, a full wave of Minions, and high-priority Monsters. If your Mana is getting low, you should deactivate Frozen Tempest so that you can at least cast other Abilities, which are more impactful.

Being an area of effect Ability, Frozen Tempest can also be used to hit hidden Summons on the ground (such as Creep Tumor by Zagara) or to get nearby enemy Heroes out of Stealth.

In this section we discuss how this Heroic Ability works and give some tips on how to use it. If you are looking for a detailed explanation on when and why you should pick it, check out the dedicated section in the Talent Build page.

Army of the Dead (R) Arthas

• Heroic
• Charges: 6
• Recharge Time: 18 seconds

Consume all charges to summon an equal number of Ghouls that lose Health over 20 seconds and attack for 20 (+4% per level) damage. Reactivate to sacrifice a ghoul, healing Arthas for 240 (+4% per level) Health. Stores up to 6 charges.

Whenever a nearby enemy Minion dies, reduce the charge cooldown of this Ability by 1 second. Takedowns reduce the charge cooldown of this Ability by 6 seconds.

Army of the Dead is a defensive Heroic Ability that, after consuming all charges available, summons up to 6 Ghouls that follow Arthas. The number of Ghouls summoned is equal to the amount of charges available when casting it. They will fight at his side and can be sacrificed to heal Arthas. This defensive effect turns Arthas into an extremely durable frontline Hero, unless the enemy team has healing reduction effects and/or brust damage to drastically reduce its effectiveness.

When active, Arthas will gain access to Sacrifice. Using it will sacrifice the Ghoul with the lowest amount of Health and heal Arthas by a considerable amount (similarly to when self-casting Death Coil). Sacrifice starts on a 1.5-second cooldown and has 2-second cooldown between uses. Even though it cannot be used when having full Health, you should still avoid using it when almost full Health to avoid overhealing.

In this section we discuss how this Heroic Ability works and give some tips on how to use it. If you are looking for a detailed explanation on when and why you should pick it, check out the dedicated section in the Talent Build page.

Summon Sindragosa (R) Arthas

• Heroic
• Mana: 100
• Cooldown: 100 seconds

Deals 230 (+4% per level) damage and Slows enemies by 60% for 4 seconds. Also disables Minions, Mercenaries, Monsters and Structures for 20 seconds.

Summon Sindragosa is an offensive Heroic Ability that, if aimed and timed correctly, can single-handedly decide the outcome of a team fight by Slowing multiple enemy Heroes and allow your team to easily engage them without being scared of enemy Structures nearby. Minions, Mercenaries, and Monsters caught in the way will be Stunned.

The first thing an Arthas player has to take into account is its cast time of 0.6 seconds, which requires you to think ahead before actually casting the Ability in order to increase your chance to hit enemy Heroes and/or to avoid being interrupted by them.

When you want to play aggressively in enemy territory, do not be scared of enemy Structures because they will be disabled for 20 seconds, a powerful effect to further increase the advantage after winning a single-lane Objective (such as the Immortal on Battlefield of Eternity) because disabled Structures cannot deal any damage. Due to being Invulnerable, Healing Fountains cannot be disabled by this kind of effects.

Frostmourne Hungers (D) Arthas

• Cooldown: 12 seconds

Activate to make Arthas's next Basic Attack strike immediately and deal 71 (+4% per level) bonus damage. Dealing damage restores 40 Mana.

Quest: Killing a Minion or hitting a Hero with Frostmourne Hungers permanently increases its bonus damage and Arthas's Basic Attack damage by 1.

Frostmourne Hungers is a Trait that can be activated to deal bonus damage and restore Mana upon hit. Once activated, it stays on hold until you Basic Attack someone, then it goes on cooldown.

When the chances to have a team fight in the next 8-12 seconds is low, activate it and attack a random enemy in a safe position (usually a Minion) just to get some Mana. During a team fight, use it on the focused enemy Hero as additional burst damage, so that it will be easier for your team to get a kill.

Remember that activating Frostmourne Hungers will reset the cooldown of your Basic Attacks. Because of this, the best way to use this Ability is to immediately activate it after a Basic Attack. This trick will result in you landing 3 Basic Attacks in the time window of 2 Basic Attacks, increasing your burst damage.

Arthas has a Baseline Quest which requires to last-hit enemy Minions or hit enemy Heroes with Basic Attacks empowered by Frostmourne Hungers. Each time you do one of these things, you will increase Arthas's Basic Attack damage and Frostmourne Hungers's bonus damage by 1. There is no cap.

If you can safely hit enemy Heroes to get stacks, you should do so. When that is not possible, you should lower the Health of an enemy Minion, activate Frostmourne Hungers, and then last-hit them. This way you will get at least 2 stacks per minute when sitting in a lane or 4 stacks per minute when rotating from lane to another.