Kel'Thuzad Build Guide “The darkness guides me.”
Welcome to our guide for Kel'Thuzad, a Ranged Assassin in Heroes of the Storm. Within these pages, you will find everything required to understand how best to play this hero, in both different map styles and team compositions.
1. Kel'Thuzad's Overview
Kel'Thuzad is a combo-oriented ranged damage dealer with outstanding area of effect crowd control and burst damage potential. His reliance on skillshots and relative fragility, however, make him one of the hardest Heroes to play, let alone master.
2. Kel'Thuzad's Strengths and Weaknesses
Extremely potent crowd control chain
Powerful situational burst damage
Potent sieger
Very fragile, especially to melee Assassins
Difficult to play due to ALL Abilities being skillshots
Limited defensive Talent options and mobility
3. Kel'Thuzad's Talent Build Cheatsheet
Plaguelands Build
Talent calculator » The Plaguelands build focuses on improving Kel'Thuzad's utility.
It is at its best when your team composition may lack waveclear,
sieging, or Mercenary Camp claiming power, and a proper way of reliably
initiating combat with opponents. Key Talents include The Plaguelands,
which improve Kel'Thuzad's sustained area of effect damage,
Hungering Cold, which greatly
increases Kel'Thuzad's damage through
Death and Decay, and
The Damned Return, which more or less doubles Kel'Thuzad's sustained
damage output. As with all builds,
Frost Blast can be used if your team
composition has plenty of reliable follow up or lacks initiation
tools.
Chains Build
Talent calculator » Barbed Chains build focuses on improving Kel'Thuzad's niches against
Armor and Shields, and generally improving the damage potential of
your teammates. Key Talents include Barbed Chains,
Strip Shields,
and
Chain-Link. This build works well with reliable follow up,
as the value of Armor-reduction and Shields-hate effects increases as more
Heroes target the affected targets.
Blighted Frost Build
Talent calculator »The Blighted Frost build focuses on improving
Kel'Thuzad's burst damage potential. It works particularly well when your team
composition features several sources of crowd
control to follow up on
Frost Nova or to enable you to easily follow up with
your own crowd control chain. Key Talents include Blighted Frost, which
increases the duration of Frost Nova's Rooting effect,
Shadow Fissure, which deals a large amount of area
of effect damage, and
Hungering Cold, which greatly
improves Kel'Thuzad's burst damage through
Death and Decay.
4. Kel'Thuzad's Synergies and Counters
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.
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 Stealthed or otherwise high-damage nimble Heroes that can quickly reach him.
5. Kel'Thuzad's Maps















Maps that promote early skirmishes are generally beneficial for the purpose
of quickly completing Master of the Cold Dark. Furthermore, Maps with channeled Objectives are good for
him since the objectives can reliably be interrupted by
Shadow Fissure. Otherwise, Kel'Thuzad's
versatility makes him a fine pick all-around.
6. Kel'Thuzad's Tips and Tricks
- 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.
Death and Decay should nearly always be used on-Cooldown due to its insignificant Mana cost and short Cooldown.
- When targeting two Heroes,
Chains of Kel'Thuzad pulls them towards the middle point between the two Heroes.
- When targeting a Hero and a
Glacial Spike,
Chains of Kel'Thuzad pulls the Hero to the Spike.
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.
7. Role in the Current Meta
Kel'Thuzad's reliable crowd control and high area of effect burst damage make him a good fit for most team compositions, whether there is lack of means of initiating or plenty of Rooting or Stunning effects for Kel'Thuzad himself to follow up on.
Kel'Thuzad's high threat level and fragility make him a high-priority pick in most drafting situations, and generally match-dictating as a Hero, in the sense that team compositions do well to support him — and counter him, when possible. His particular vulnerability to highly mobile Heroes makes drafting a tank with reliable peel essential to ensuring the success of Kel'Thuzad-based compositions. His inability to reliably solo lane also makes it important to draft at least one independent Hero for this task.
8. Changelog
- 30 Aug. 2018 (talents page): Talent descriptions and recommendations updated to reflect latest balance patch.
- 30 Aug. 2018 (abilities page): Ability descriptions updated to reflect latest balance patch.
- 05 Sep. 2017 (this page): Guide published.
More Assassin Guides
Oxygen is a veteran of the MOBA genre, which he has been playing for nearly 15 years. He has coached some of Heroes of the Storm's most prominent North American players and teams alike, including Team Liquid. As a Master player, he enjoys playing all Heroes and roles.

- Weekly Brawl - Lost Cavern: February 22rd
- Icy Veins Podcast Episode 36
- Heroic Deals: February 19th
- Free-to-Play Heroes Rotation: February 19th
- Weekly Brawl - Trial Grounds: February 15th
- Heroic Deals: February 12th
- Activision Blizzard Q4 2018 Earnings Call & Layoffs
- Heroes of the Storm Patch Notes: February 12th


- Heroes of the Storm Abathur
- Heroes of the Storm Cho
- Heroes of the Storm Azmodan
- A to Z (troll) series: Heroes of the Storm - A like AZMODAN!
- Heroes of the Storm Ana
- Heroes of the Storm D.Va
- Heroes of the Storm Auriel
- A to Z (troll) series: Heroes of the Storm - A like AURIEL!


