E.T.C. Talents

Level	Choices
1	✘︎ ? ✓
4	? ✓ ?
7	✓ ? ?
10	✓ ?
13	? ✓ ✘︎
16	✓ ✓ ?
20	? ? ? ? ✓

This Talent tier improves E.T.C.'s survivability.

Due to its attack requirement, Guitar Hero is much less reliable than its Prog Rock counterpart, even if its overall potential healing output is a bit higher.

Prog Rock provides a reasonable and reliable amount of self sustain. In the late-game, this effect is also extended to allies, making it an effective counter to some amount of poke damage and just generally good for recuperating Health.

Certain team compositions feature several Heroes that heavily rely on Basic Attacks to deal damage. Block Party, then, offers a modest increase to your raw survivability and to that of your teammates. This Talent is particularly useful against Greymane and The Butcher.

This Talent tier provides offensive utility.

Crowd Surfer has interesting implications in terms of mobility, but is so situational when compared to the other existing choices that it can rarely if ever be justified. Still, the Talent has room on tight Maps such as Cursed Hollow and Tomb of the Spider Queen.

Loud Speakers is a significant and reliable increase to Face Melt's peeling and disruptive power. This becomes particularly obvious when paired with the Mic Check and Face Smelt Talents. Loud Speaker also increases E.T.C.'s effective range for interrupting and generally reaching opponents without having to use Powerslide.

Speed Metal's movement speed increase is invaluable for you and the rest of your team. In general, movement speed provides both offensive and defensive utility; it helps with uptime, positioning, escaping, and avoiding skillshots. Particularly effective against melee-heavy team compositions.

This Talent tier improves E.T.C.'s damage.

Pinball Wizard provides a good amount of burst damage with a major downside over Echo Pedal in terms of waveclearing: it requires E.T.C. to commit his most important Abilities. The Talent's utility is also limited to targets hit by Powerslide, which can be difficult or outright negative when Face Melt should not be used. If you are not in a solo lane situation, Pinball Wizard is E.T.C.'s only way of dealing any significant amount of burst damage. In other words, if your team composition is well-rounded, Pinball Wizard is a solid choice.

Echo Pedal is an incredible boon to E.T.C., who generally heavily lacks any decent waveclearing or Mercenary Camp claiming capacity. Echo Pedal greatly helps with this, on top of adding a very respectable amount of damage to his general kit. Proper when solo laning.

Hammer-on provides more single-target damage than the two other Talent choices on this tier, but falls much shorter in terms of utility and area of effect damage.

At this Level, Heroic Abilities become available. Both Heroic Abilities have already been described in the Abilities section.

Mosh Pit is notable for single handedly altering the way that your opponents play due to its team fight-winning potential. This Heroic Ability's power is as considerable as is its difficulty to use; many factors must be considered when using Mosh Pit, such as the availability of interrupts or movement Abilities on the opposing team, the map that is being played, or your own team composition.

Stage Dive can essentially act as a mapwide mobility Ability, opening up the possibility of split-pushing for E.T.C. due to its global cast range. This allows you to generate an Experience lead and simultaneously threaten Structures without the downsides of leaving your team at a man disadvantage, should a fight erupt.

Omitting this aspect, Stage Dive is an excellent initiation tool that may force an enemy team to split up or use movement Ability Cooldowns in order to avoid its effect.

This Talent tier improves Face Melt.

Mic Check's condition is so easy to meet that it essentially cuts the Cooldown of Face Melt by half. This makes E.T.C. excessively disruptive, especially against melee Heroes.

Encore provides a unique effect that is noteworthy due to E.T.C.'s otherwise long Heroic Ability Cooldowns. Although less powerful as a combat tool than its Mic Check alternative, the stated Cooldown reduction is worth considering in longer or otherwise indecisive matches.

Face Smelt is not as strong as may first appears on paper due to the the "fading" clause of the Talent's Slowing effect.

This Talent tier improves E.T.C.'s survivability.

If you find yourself getting inexplicably bursted down too often after initiating fights, Show Stopper is there to provide you with all necessary added survivability. Consider, however, that Imposing Presence does better against Basic Attacks.

Aggressive Shredding provides you with a large amount of survivability by significantly improving Guitar Solo's uptime. Another added benefit of this Talent is the ability to cheaply and rapidly trigger Echo Pedal through the added Guitar Solo casts.

Imposing Presence offers an unparalleled amount of survivability against Basic Attacks. The Talent's effects are multiplicative when used with Block Party and Rockstar. As with the former choice, it is of limited use against team compositions that rely on Ability-based damage. Imposing Presence should be picked if your opponent's team features two or more Basic Attack-reliant Assassins.

This Talent tier provides powerful offensive utility.

Tour Bus makes Mosh Pit extremely punishing against teams that lack the interruption to deal with the channel. It also helps you catch more players than you typically would by only using the regular Mosh Pit, as the Powerslide reset feature gives you a second chance to hit enemy Heroes should you initially miss.

Crowd Pleaser turns Stage Dive into an absolutely fearsome initiation tool. With such a wide area of effect, it becomes difficult for everyone to avoid the Ability. The caveat is that Crowd Pleaser is hardly useful against teams that tend to split-push, or hard-engage against your own teammates for quick kills. Against such teams, you should look into either Bolt of the Storm or Storm Shield.

There are situations where no amount of peel that E.T.C. provides can seem to help your teammates stay alive. Storm Shield then shines, as the instant shielding can effectively be used to prevent a good amount of burst damage. It should be noted that E.T.C.'s large Health pool makes Storm Shield a good Ability to use when it is difficult for him to stay alive. Just be sure to coordinate with your teammates as to not use two Storm Shields at once, as the effects do not stack.

Death Metal requires you to die specifically near enemy Heroes to be of any use, and also requires your allies to be able to follow up on the impending Mosh Pit cast. The upside is that a dead E.T.C. cannot be interrupted. If you find yourself dying often, this Talent may have significant payoff, especially if you manage to position yourself right next to your opponents.

Bolt of the Storm is the ultimate form of defensive and offensive utility. It works especially well when paired with Mosh Pit, as you can teleport onto unsuspecting enemies, chaining into Powerslide, followed by your Heroic Ability for hits that are difficult to prevent. Bolt of the Storm is also useful Ability in general, be it for catching up to escaping Heroes, escaping yourself, or avoiding very dangerous skillshots.