Stitches Talents

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

Patchwork Creation is a strong Talent that gives you Armor when applying Vile Gas, doubled when Shambling Horror is active, and increases all healing received by 15%.

The healing amplification provided empowers your self-healing from Devour and the healing received from Regeneration Globes as well, increasing your self-sustain while laning regardless of your Healer being good at single-target sustain healing or not. On the other hand, the value you can get from Patchwork Creation during team fights heavily depends on your Healer because some of them (for example Uther) will not heal you that much.

Consider picking this Talent to increase your survivability against burst damage, when playing on Maps where team fights last longer than usual, and when the early game is important (for example Braxis Holdout)—because in that case you will not be able to get enough value from Hungry for More.

You can combine this Talent with Vile Cleaver at Level 4 to drastically increase the amount of Armor you will get when hitting multiple enemies with Slam and then activating Shambling Horror if needed. This effect is particularly effective when fighting near Minions in lane or when contesting an Objective featuring multiple Monsters (notably Shrines on Infernal Shrines).

Savor The Flavor is a weak Quest-based Talent that, when using Devour on enemy Heroes, permanently increases Stitches's Health Regeneration and Vile Gas's damage by a small amount.

We do not recommend this Talent because, compared to the other options in the same Tier, it does not provide enough value while also forcing you to use Devour on enemy Heroes in situations when you may prefer to safely use it on nearby Minions instead and to use it on cooldown in moments when you may prefer holding it in case a team fight happens.

Hungry for More is a good Quest-based Talent that increases Stitches's maximum Health by 25 (not scaling) for each Regeneration Globe collected and his Movement Speed by 5% baseline and by additional 5% every 20 Regeneration Globes collected.

You can easily get a good amount of bonus maximum Health out of this Talent, especially on 3-lane Maps where you can rotate between lanes (such as Tomb of the Spider Queen) together with your team.

Considering that collecting 30 Regeneration Globes during a balanced game is not that easy, do not expect to get more than 750 bonus maximum Health (about 10% extra maximum Health at Level 20) and 10% additional Movement Speed from this Talent in most of your games.

This is the go-to Talent when planning to pick Gorge later on because it gives you much needed Movement Speed for running away right after using it. Similarly, it should be avoided when you are going to pick Putrid Bile because the Movement Speed provided by them will not stack.

Playtime! is a strong Talent allows Stitches to restore Mana when hitting enemies with Basic Attacks and reduce the cooldown of Slam when hitting enemy Heroes with the inner area of Slam or enemies with Basic Attacks.

The cooldown reduction provided helps you when clearing Minions and has moderate synergy with Slam-based Talents: Under Pressure at Level 13 and Pulverize at Level 16. You can even pick Chop Chop at Level 13 to boost your Attack Speed and get more cooldown reduction by a consequence.

Vile Cleaver is a good Talent that increases your Attack Damage against enemies affected by Vile Gas and makes Vile Gas spread to nearby enemies and makes Slam applies Vile Gas to all enemies hit.

The ability to easily spread Vile Gas provided by Vile Cleaver has synergy with Patchwork Creation at Level 1, Putrefaction at Level 7, and Under Pressure at Level 13.

Tenderizer is a good Talent that applies a decent Slow to enemies hit with Basic Attacks and heals Stitches for a small portion of his maximum Health.

While not particularly powerful, we recommend this Talent because it helps you body block enemy Heroes and slightly mitigates the lack of crowd control suffered by Stitches when Putrid Bile is not available.

The healing provided by this Talent has synergy with Patchwork Creation at Level 1 because it amplifies any healing effect or with Hungry for More at Level 1 because it increases your maximum Health.

Serrated Edge is a good Talent that makes Hook deal percent-based damage to enemy Heroes and slightly reduce its cooldown when connecting on them. You also get some Mana in the process, to compensate for the cooldown reduction.

The main reason to ever pick this Talent is the moderate amount damage it deals because the cooldown reduction happens only if Hook hits an enemy Hero and therefore it does not help you to get another try sooner than usual when missing.

Second Helping is a good Talent that gives you another charge of Devour, but with a 6-second cooldown between uses. Whenever he will end up being at maximum Health after using Devour to heal, Stitches will get a temporary Shield equal to a percentage of his maximum Health, losing effectiveness death after death due to the Gambit mechanic.

Patchwork Creation at Level 1 can increase the healing provided by this Talent like any other healing effect and, due to being based on Stitches's maximum Health, it also has synergy with Hungry for More and similar effects that increase it.

Having a second Devour at your disposal greatly increases your survivability. While the Shield is welcome, this Talent does not become bad after losing most if not all its Gambit stacks, especially if you pick Digestive Juices at Level 16.

Putrefaction is a good Talent that allows Stitches to reduce the healing received by enemy Heroes affected by Vile Gas, but only while Shambling Horror is active. In addition to that, Vile Gas heals Stitches for a big portion of its damage dealt.

The ability to reduce healing is interesting to have on a Hero whose playstyle revolves around picking off enemy Heroes with Hook and burst them down. That said, we find the healing reduction provided by this Talent rarely useful compared to the damage done by Second Helping and we have to point out the partial overlapping with Master Hooker at Level 20.

You may need this Talent against team compositions that feature a huge amount of healing (for example Whitemane), to the point that your team will struggle to get a kill through them.

In this section we discuss when and why to pick a given Heroic Ability. If you want to read how they work and/or you are looking for some tips on how to use them, check the dedicated section in the Abilities and Strategy page.

Putrid Bile is a good Heroic Ability that helps a lot when your team needs additional peeling from low-mobility Heroes.

Gorge is a strong Heroic Ability that can be used to either transform your Hook into a better engage against low-mobility Heroes, especially near allied Structures, or to remove an enemy Hero from the battle and gain a numerical advantage for a few seconds.

Meat Hook is a good Talent that, after hitting an enemy Hero with Hook, heals Stitches by a huge chunk of his maximum Health over a few seconds. The healing effect can be refreshed with Basic Attacks on that Hero.

Consider picking this Talent when you want to boost your survivability, however, keep in mid that its effect is reliant on connecting Hook and it is weak to healing reduction effects (such as Emerald by Deckard Cain).

Under Pressure is a weak Talent that slightly increases the damage you deal with Slam and further increases it when you damage enemy Heroes with Vile Gas, up to 100 additional damage with the outer area of Slam and up to 150 additional damage with the inner area of Slam.

We do not recommend this Talent because getting stacks is not that easy and the damage provided by each stack is not that good, therefore it takes too much time to get a reasonable amount of damage from it.

Chop Chop is a decent Talent that increases Stitches's Attack Speed for a few seconds after hitting enemy Heroes with Hook or after activating Shambling Horror. Basic Attacks against Heroes refresh the duration.

Consider picking this Talent when you want to improve your damage output, especially if you have Tenderizer at Level 4 to Slow enemy Heroes hit with your Basic Attacks. Blinds will reduce the effectiveness of this Talent.

Pulverize is a strong Talent that drastically Slows all enemy hit by Slam for almost a second and slightly lowers their Armor for a short duration, regardless of them being hit by its inner or outer area.

Reducing the Armor of enemy Heroes, even if not by a lot, increases your own damage and the damage done by the rest of your team, something that is quite useful if you are playing around Hook.

The extra Slow improves your otherwise lacking peeling capabilities as well as your engage potential as it can be used to setup enemy Heroes for your team, especially if they rely on skillshot-based Abilities to deal damage. You can even use the extra Slow for increasing your chances to land an Hook.

Digestive Juices is a situational Talent that halves the damage done by Heroes hit with Devour for multiple seconds, other than reducing its cooldown and dealing additional damage over time.

Pick this Talent when you need additional peeling against low-mobility Heroes, especially if melee. The short range of Devour makes this Talent hard to use against Heroes who can play from the distance and impossible to cast on enemy Heroes who have access to mobility tools.

Flare Up is a weak Talent that deals damage to any enemy around Stitches. The damage per second goes up for 4 seconds when Hook connects on an enemy Hero or after activating Shambling Horror.

We do not recommend this Talent because missing Hook will result in you not having a Talent for a dozen of seconds and because you can boost your damage by going for the more reliant Pulverize instead.

Gift From The Embalmer is a good Talent that greatly increases the damage of Putrid Bile against Heroes and reduces your death timer based on how many times you hit enemy Heroes with it.

Pick this Talent when you want to improve your damage output without relying on Hook, something that is particularly useful against dive compositions that will come towards you and your team.

Hungry Hungry Stitches is a situational Talent that allows Stitches to use Gorge multiple times in a row across 4 seconds. After that, enemy Heroes get released in the same order they have been Gorged. Heroes released are massively Slowed for a second.

Stitches will have access to a short-range teleport for each activation except the first one. Each enemy Hero will be released 4 seconds after being Gorged, so they will come out at different times.

You can use this Talent to prolong the duration of your team's numerical advantage or to setup a wombo combo, especially if you can release enemy Heroes near impassable terrain to further limit their movements.

Master Hooker is a strong Talent which provides 3 benefits: redues the cooldown of Hook by 5 seconds, greatly reduces the healing received by enemy Heroes hit by Hook for 2 seconds, and gives the Unkillable buff to allied Heroes hit by Helping Hand for 2 seconds.

The cooldown reduction helps you when Hook misses and has synergy with Hook-based Talents: Serrated Edge at Level 7, Meat Hook or Chop Chop at Level 13, and Flare Up at Level 16.

Gas Bag is a situational Talent that reduces the cooldown of Shambling Horror and makes it give Unstoppable when used.

Activating it at the right moment is crucial for surviving against some burst compositions who will just take down the first enemy they see, no matter if they have a lot of maximum Health or not.