[1.151] Kerrigan tanky caster build

[thomulf]

I usually see Kerrigan built as an aa carry with lots of leech, and I wondered about alternate builds on her, and I started working on an INT play that works beautifully in pubs, but I'm sure could also be applied to IH with appropriate support from allies and a team with an actual tank in it.

 

Talents- 0/4/2

Swiftness- Great for chasing, great for running, great in general

Youth- helps you cast Q a lot early

Fitness- goes without saying tbh

Integrity- aa carries will be your main threat early and late game, the extra armor helps a lot

Zeal- great for escaping, great for chasing, what with her leeching abilities Kerrigan operates beautifully on low health and zeal complements this a lot

Undying- You'll be taking risks sometimes which might lead to you dying more than you're used to, undying will keep you on the field more

 

Ability progression- QEQEQRQEEWRWWWYRYY

 

Q is essential to have early game, the slow and damage will help you get a lot of kills which is why that will be what you mainly level. Infestation will help you get last-hits and the broodlings are nice to have, you want to get it up to lv2 before getting ulti so you can spawn broodlings, then finish Q before getting the rest. The bounce attacks don't really sync well with this build since you don't have might or fury, so leave them till last.

 

A note on broodlings-

Broodlings can't be directly "controlled", but they're very useful if you use them right. They'll attack anything you're close to, so if you have broodlings walk right up in the middle of the creep fight to make sure they're all attacking. They're also great for bursting down towers, mid game you'll have a nice energy pool so when you're pushing walk up right next to the tower and spam R on the tower/on the incoming enemy creeps in order to build up a mass of broodlings, which will kill the tower a lot faster. Heroes are too small for broodlings to get a good surround on though, so don't look to use them vs heroes, keeping your distance is a better option.

 

Item build:

:GravityEdge: :SymphonicSeed:

 

Start with ihan (you'll drop it at the end). Ihan gives you int, survivability, and epic sustain that complements your need to use Q and R a lot and your need to stay in the fight as long as possible. Next get gravity, there's really no reason not to rush straight to it since it gives so much extra damage. The move speed is also nice. Nitrogen is essential to make your R slow the enemy while your chasing and to make your Q double-slow. Yamato and symphonic further increase your damage as well as giving you more health, also they have a ton of timescale and cdr which will allow you to cast your ulti more than once per second. Symphonic also keeps your energy up, even mid/late game you'll be relying on your energy pool to spam ulti (kind of like dustin) and symphonic helps a lot. Organic makes sense because of your leeching ability (you can kill creepwaves very efficiently with R to keep your health up), and further increases your sustain. Mantle is because endgame fast aa carries like shadow, zera or murloc will be the main threat to your sustained slow-dps playstyle, and mantle helps you keep your distance. If the main threat is an enemy hard caster, or if there are lots of stuns, you can get lifetech or parallax instead of mantle.

With this build you'll end up being kind of like an unlimited, massively ranged vergil, as long as you have the timing to land R correctly. It's extremely powerful vs pretty much any enemy, and a nice twist from ordinary aa kerri.

Edited December 22, 2013 by thomulf

[Moo]

I think it is a fun build, but you have very little presence in teamfights since you have only slows for cc, low burst, and no tankiness to soak up damage for your team. The main power of the build is poking. As for items, I reccomend ancient rune early, as it gives great energy regen and its unique procs on your E DoT, which keeps the ancient rune burn damage going for a long time, and it can be refreshed constantly with ulti, Q, and your aa even procs it. Ancient Rune also damages towers with kerrigan's E, so it slightly helps with tower pushing, and I think it is a very good item on her if you are building int ( it isn't good on aa Kerri because it doesn't fit the aa kerrigan playstyle at all).

[thomulf]

Compare it to vergil. Admittedly, you don't have the same burst that vergil ulti has (although you do deal enough to kill even tanky carries in 5-6 hits, and deal consistent damage to even hard tanks). However, on the flip side kerri R has greater radius and range, and can be used more often than vergil Q. And your Q can slow more than vergil can with nitro alone, at a far greater range- you can control a massive zone with an INT kerri.

 

Ancient rune sounds interesting, but I'm not sure it's worth dropping any of these items (except maybe mantle if there aren't hard carries on the other team and you prefer to push harder/deal more damage to tanks).

 

If you don't like having yamato and mantle (bit of overkill on movement) another option other than lifetech or parallax is chilling, nice for cdr and to instantly remove enemy parallax (allowing you to slow them almost immediately). Only problem then is that you have no spell resist, it might be best for fighting shadows, zeras, novas, murlocs who bring a parallax thus invalidating the possibility of having mantle.

[Ancientmagicks]

I have seen a few aa int builds lately that are pretty effective.

 

Cerebro

Nitrogen

Splitter

Ihans-> gravity

Eternity

Pyre/coa

 

Not the tankiest build but the passive poison surprisingly does decent dmg and your ulti does close to 500dmg. And eternity heals like a mofo with all the spam spell dmg.

 

[thomulf]

hmm, eternity, nice. I tried initially aa/int hybrid with energy saber and coa but you have to get within attack range then, when you really should be taking advantage of your ~10 range ulti.

[Ancientmagicks]

hmm, eternity, nice. I tried initially aa/int hybrid with energy saber and coa but you have to get within attack range then, when you really should be taking advantage of your ~10 range ulti.

Totally agree and with its dmg and spamming its a great anti rancor/zera.

[thomulf]

Yep, another pro is being able to consistently take out cloaked enemies early-midgame without needing to buy detect.