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KingCaffeine's Leo Tips
Hello Team,
As promised, here is a quick guide to Leoric, the Skeleton God. It has come to my attention that his strengths are consistently under utilized and there seems to be a general misunderstanding about how to best use his passive (i.e. feed). Heroes is a game of inches and seconds, and being able to trade a small amount of xp for positioning, vision, or time can garner a much larger advantage. Below you’ll find the most common builds that I use, as well as a few basic tips.
Bruiser Leoric build:
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1) Reanimation
4) Hardened Bones
7) Paralyzing Rage
10) Entomb
13) Crushing Hope
16) Imposing Presence
20) Spectral Leech
This is the most common Leoric build that I use because it is fulfilling the role which you mainly draft him for, a consistent King of the frontline. This is the most versatile build as well and can fit most drafts as a second frontline, or solo frontline if supported by two healers. As soon as you get spectral leech, you become a terror of the enemy frontline, guaranteeing you good trades in any exchange. This gives you the ability to hold the strong positions your team needs to win fights.
Leorky Build:
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1) Reanimation
4) Fealty Unto Death
7) Paralyzing Rage
10) Entomb
13) Burning Rage
16) Consume Vitality
20) Spectral Leech
The Leorky build is the most annoying way to get max value out of your death passive. This build is strictly for compositions based entirely around map pressure and trading your life for time. This build is terrible at taking 5v5 team fights, and excels at split pressure.
Full Tank Leoric build:
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1) Reanimation
4) Hardened Bones
7) Lingering Apparition
10) Marh of the Black King
13) Crushing Hope
16) Imposing Presence
20) Hardened Shield
This build is my least favorite, but it still has its place. The talents are focused on soaking as much damage as possible and assuring that you are the primary target.
Entomb Usage
The best thing about Entomb is its extremely short cooldown. You should never be scared to throw it out especially if you think that you will trade it for either a higher cd survivability ult (i.e divine shield, maw, ice block). Your main targets for entomb are obviously immobile carries or supports like Tyrande, Kael’thas, Zagara, Malfurion, and Jaina. Entomb serves other uses as well, such as pealing for your teammates and splitting a fight.
Leoric’s Passive: Undying and You
One of the most important factors for playing Leoric is getting as much value out of his passive as possible, without being a detriment to your team. As I stated before, Heroes is a game of small trades and this cheat death passive allows you to do many things no other hero can (except Murkgod). A hero kill is worth about two minion waves of xp and as the game progresses you can afford to give that xp up in trade for critical resources late game, such as vision, positioning, and clean disengages. Here are some do’s and don’ts for dying on Leoric
DO
- Trade your life for vision post level 20 when no objectives are coming up, unless your team is gearing up for a game ending fight/push. This is the counter to late game 5 man bush camps.
- Trade your life at any point in the game when it seems like your team will be chased down, better you than multiple teammates.
- Trade your life to keep the enemy on their side of the map while your team secures mercenaries/bosses late game, otherwise know as “distractics.”
- Trade your life for any crucial objectives your team cannot get otherwise (backdooring keeps)
- Aggressively trade in early game around tributes/mines, if your death gets you the objective, its worth.
- If your team is behind in levels and about to take critical structure damage, your deaths can buy your team time to clear death pushes and grab a foothold where they otherwise couldn’t have.
DON’T
- Scout aggressively as objectives are coming up, your death will NOT be worth if they get it.
- Die quickly in teamfights or your team will need to immediately disengage, you are not effective in teamfights while dead.
- If you’re ahead in the mid or early game, trading your life is usually never worth. The xp gain is too high due to the comeback bonus. Take it slow, and win fights through your advantage.
- Die in lane, you cannot soak while dead.
- Die right before either team hits a major talent tier, a fight will usually break out around the advantage.
- Die when getting positioning for a teamfight. Prefight trades are VERY important.
Hope you guys enjoy this guide. I’ll check back in this thread for any questions! Good luck in the Nexus boys.
Edit: Now that this has some visibility. PLEASE FIX DRAIN HOPE FROM BREAKING RANDOMLY. BLIZZPLS
