Kel'Thuzad Build Guide “The darkness guides me.”

Kel'Thuzad is a combo-oriented ranged damage dealer with outstanding area of effect crowd control and burst damage potential. Relying on skillshot Abilities to grow through Master of the Cold Dark makes him weak in the early stages of the game and harder than most Heroes to play, let alone master.

Strengths

• Extremely potent crowd control chain
• Powerful situational burst damage
• Potent sieger
• Global presence through Shadow Fissure

Weaknesses

• Very vulnerable to mobile Heroes
• Difficult to play due to all Basic Abilities being skillshots
• Limited defensive Talent options and general mobility
• Weak in the early game

Standard Build

Recommended

Level 1 ?

Level 4 ?

Level 7

Level 10

Level 13 ?

Level 16 ?

Level 20 ? ?

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The standard build of Kel'Thuzad focuses on helping you out in hitting your skillshots and dealing massive amounts of burst damage. The key to playing Kel'Thuzad well is managing to time your combo. With Chilling Touch, this becomes a lot easier due to the AoE slow component of it. Once Kel'Thuzad hits Level 10, he gets his hardest hitting ability and the key component to his combo burst. Landing a Chains of Kel'Thuzad into Frost Nova into an instant Shadow Fissure can potentially one-shot any squishy enemy hero, and later on Power of Icecrown on top of the spell power bonus from Kel'Thuzad's Trait can help securing kills on enemy tanks as well. Should you choose to get The Damned Return at level 20, Kel'Thuzad is able to dish out a lot of siege damage.

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Kel'Thuzad synergizes with

Since Kel'Thuzad depends highly on skillshots to deal damage, he naturally works well with any Hero that can provide reliable crowd control against a kill target for him to follow up. His frailty also makes him dependent on other Heroes to peel for him; Tanks tend to fulfill these two needs, though other Hero types can too.

Kel'Thuzad is countered by

Since Kel'Thuzad relies chiefly on skillshots to deal damage, he does particularly poorly against Heroes that have ways of quickly dodging his Abilities. Furthermore, his frailty and lack of self-peel makes him vulnerable to high-damage, nimble Heroes that can quickly reach him.

Kel'Thuzad's stronger maps

Kel'Thuzad's average maps

Kel'Thuzad's weaker maps

Maps that promote early skirmishes are optimal for the purpose of quickly completing Master of the Cold Dark.

• Generating Master of the Cold Dark stacks is of the utmost importance early on; the faster you complete this Quest, the more likely you are to snowball.
• When targeting two Heroes, Chains of Kel'Thuzad pulls them towards the middle point between the two Heroes. Cast Frost Nova there.
• When targeting a Hero and a Glacial Spike, Chains of Kel'Thuzad pulls the Hero to the Spike.
• Using Chains of Kel'Thuzad against a frontline Hero is useful to then hit a more vulnerable backline Hero without being blocked.
• Upon hitting a Hero with Chains of Kel'Thuzad, use Glacial Spike, wait 0.5 seconds, then recast Chains of Kel'Thuzad towards the Spike for an easy hit.
• Frost Nova should be used as a follow up to Chains of Kel'Thuzad or allied crowd control.
• Frost Blast can be negated through effects that render your target Invulnerable, such as Ice Block; pick your target accordingly.
• Shadow Fissure combos particularly well with a center Frost Nova hit due to the Rooting effect.

Kel'Thuzad has a niche role as a counterpick to immobile team compositions. Due to his stacking nature, he also does well on Maps that feature constant brawls, notably two-lane Maps such as Braxis Holdout and Battlefield of Eternity. Under such circumstances, Kel'Thuzad players are expected to exploit his powerful mid-game to snowball the game with excellent burst damage.

His particular vulnerability to highly mobile Heroes makes drafting a Tank with reliable peel essential to ensure Kel'Thuzad's survival. The crowd control provided by most popular Tanks also doubles up as an offensive tool to ease hitting with Kel'Thuzad's powerful yet avoidable Abilities.