Wait Til They Get A Load of Me... - A Kerrigan Guide for Heroes of the Storm

Leader of the Zerg Swarm, Queen of Blades, Sarah Kerrigan has been a fan favorite character from the Starcraft universe for long time, so it's only natural that we see her in the Nexus. Kerrigan is a fearsome Melee Assassin with all the tools to chase, stop, and kill her enemies.

Q - Ravage: This is our gap closer ability that provides our fantastic mobility. One of the best things about this ability is that the cooldown will reset if you kill the target you last hit with it within 1 second.

W - Impaling Blades: This is a stun ability placed in a small selected area near Kerrigan, but it needs to complete its animation before it will stun anything in the selected area.

E - Primal Grasp: This can be used to drag enemies back towards you, and is an essential part of what is called the Kerrigan combo which will be explained in detail further down.

Trait - Assimilation: Kerrigan's trait takes 10% of all the damage you do (20% if the damage is dealt to an enemy hero) and gives you a shield equal to that amount. These numbers are doubled when she gets the Aggressive Defense talent at level 16. 10-20% does not sound like very much, but it stacks up surprisingly fast if she hits a full combo.     

R - Maelstrom: A very simple Heroic that creates a damaging aura around you. You should just pop it when you engage in a teamfight. 

 

Level 1: This tier depends on the enemy composition and which hero is supporting our team. If the enemy team has 2 Auto Attack heroes, then we should look towards taking Block. If the enemy does not rely on Auto Attack damage then we look at our own support and ask ourselves if we feel safe with the amount of healing we will have in teamfights. If we have something like a Brightwing or a solo Tassadar who don't really have the best healing power (not that these supports are bad at all) then we can pick up Siphoning Impact. Should you end up with a fairly balanced composition for the enemy team and we do feel safe with the level of support on our team, then we can go for more damage on our combo by picking up Sharpened Blades. To be honest, this level 1 tier is a personal choice and you should pick what you think will give you the most value. Personally, I go with Block for about 80% of my Kerrigan games to have more survivability in teamfights.

Level 4: At this tier, I would say pick Psionic Pulse on all maps other than Infernal Shrines because you don't want to starve yourself on mana by clearing shrine minions. On Infernal Shrines, I would go for Clean Kill to refund some of the mana.

Level 7: Bladed Momentum is simply the only viable talent at this tier. Lower cooldowns means more combos, which means more damage, which means more shielding from our trait, and it all fits together.

Level 10: For our Heroic ability, we pick up Maelstrom. Ultralisk is simply killed too easy and don't offer much value other than being a short time distraction.

Level 13: There is no choice at this tier, Eviscerate is just too powerful to miss out on.  

Level 16: This tier depends on the enemy team composition. If they have double tank, then we should take Essence for Essence to chunk their health pool in teamfights. If they're not running double tank, then we should pick up Aggressive Defense to get our shield up faster.

Level 20: Here we simply pick up Bolt of the Storm to get an easy escape.  

 

Kerrigan does indeed have a deadly kit of abilities to work with, and if used right it will almost always guarantee you a kill on a squishy assassin or specialist hero.

The way we use Kerrigan's abilities in correct succession is simply called the "Kerrigan Combo". In this section of the guide I'm going to walk you through 5 steps of the "Kerrigan Combo", so that we can understand everything that is going on. 

Step 1: First you have to get close to the enemy hero that you want to engage on, DON'T use your Ravage (Q) to get close to them, as you will need it off cooldown in a moment. When you get close to you target, then you place your Impaling Blades (W) right in front of them. 

Step 2: When your target sees the animation on the ground they will most likely try to run away from you, but then you place your Primal Grasp (E) as far in front of your target as possible to drag them back into the area of your Impaling Blades (W).

Step 3: By the time the target has tried to escape and has been pulled back in, the delay on Impaling Blades (W) has finished and your target will be stunned. This is the time to get value from your Level 7 Bladed Momentum talent and get as many Auto Attacks in as possible while your target is in melee range.

Step 4: After your target gets out of the stun they will most likely be low on HP and will try to use their Crowd Control abilities on you to slow you down, or they will try to use their movement utility abilities to create distance between you for safety. This is the moment that we saved our Ravage (Q) for, as now we can close the distance the target has created between us and finish them off.

Step 5: If you have executed the steps correctly then you should be able to take a squishy target from full HP to death in the mid to late game. If they still have a bit of HP left, or if you tried to use your combo on a more tanky hero then you should only be a few seconds away from being able to use the combo again thanks to your Level 7 Bladed Momentum talent choice.

Everything about Kerrigan's playstyle revolves around her combo. This is what does the majority of our damage and gives us survivability via our trait's shield.

Unlike the other Melee Assassins, Kerrigan is not very good in a solo lane. Her abilities cost a lot of mana and she will most likely either be poked out of her lane or forced to back to restore her mana. So in the early game, you should look for a lane where you have an ally hero, preferably a ranged assassin who can help you with the last bit of damage you need to kill an enemy hero in a combo. You will have a fairly easy time soloing mercenary camps after level 7 and since you should not be in a solo lane, you should be free to go and take your Giants camp every now and again without the fear of losing lane experience. Remember to position yourself in range of all the minions in the mercenary camp to let your AoE from Psionic Pulse (Level 4 talent) hit all of them.

Other than these few things, you are just going to have a blast jumping around in teamfights and landing your combos on as many squishy heroes as possible. Remember to go back to your base and restore your mana before you go to the map objective, as Kerrigan does struggle with mana in long teamfights. 

 

My personal favorite composition as a Kerrigan player is with a Ranged Support like Brightwing or Rehgar, a tanky Warrior like Muradin or Johanna and then two Ranged Assassins who can do a lot of AoE damage like a Mage, Falstad or Valla. It is important to mention that Kerrigan does not do very well against double Warrior, as it gets dangerous to do your combo if you target does not die and they get the chance to turn around on you and retaliate.

Tassadar and Medivh are always nice to have around so that we can stay in the fight for longer, and gain more value from our Level 7 Blade Momentum talent.  

Furthermore, Kerrigan is one of the really good counters to Lt. Morales, as she can jump in and combo her easily. This is one of the situations where you can actually use your Ravage (Q) to get to your target before you use your combo, as Medic has no escape other than Medivac which forces her to stop moving before casting.

All of Kerrigan's damage and survivability comes from her combo. If you manage to dodge her combo, then you won't take the damage from her abilities and she won't get the shield from her trait either. Kerrigan is a really squishy hero, but she often has good survivability due to her trait's shield and her mobility, but if she misses her abilities then she is an easy target, as her Auto Attacks aren't very threatening beside the value she gains from her Level 7 Bladed Momentum talent. 

The easiest way to dodge a Kerrigan combo is to step to the side when you see that it is going to happen instead of trying to run away from her. Another way is simply to be pre-cleansed by your support, but this will still make you take some of the damage and provide the Kerrigan with the shield from her trait.

 

I simply love playing Kerrigan, especially after I changed to a Melee Assassin main instead of Support in the new season. I realized that her ability kit, general playstyle, and high mobility in teamfight situations really entertains me. Other than that, Kerrigan has always been one of my favorite characters in the Blizzard universes, but I have honestly been a bit afraid of picking her up and playing her and by that ruining the character for myself. As for skins, I prefer the Red tinted Queen of Ghosts skin with the matching red and gold Hearthstone card mount.

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