Lien de la publication Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/p/DZ-rk2ZCj3s

Lien de la source de l'étude : https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.03641

Liminary analysis:

Kael'Thas is one of my favourite heroes, the one that got me hooked into the game a decade ago when I was a noob enjoying immoderately enemies running into Flametrikes and spreading Living Bomb while I tried to achieve basic combos. I'm expecting (even if never certain) to be more experienced on the game and have more refined analysis about our game today and -even tho I still love our Prince of Quel'Thalas- I can only notice a gaping flaw in it's design: a lack of skill-expression and interactivity around the Pyroblast heroic ability & Verdant Spheres talents making an overall rich and complex hero fell bland and unfair in some conditions, as well as a lack of incentives to explore the diversity of it's options when discovering the game/hero.

Verdant Sphere is an excellent hero-defining ability, allowing decision-making and a diversity of plays no other mages of the game benefits from. However talents like [Fel Infusion] & [Mana Tap] consists literally on gaining ressources when pressing D, without creating interaction with the opponents nor differences between a good and an even better Kael'Thas player.

Pyroblast push this issue even further. While Phoenix is the faster heroic ability that fit easily into a combo; Pyroblast is the slower, bigger, memetic option made to finish opponents after a fight or a particularly successfull poke phase. Practically it doesn't really feel satisfying to channel for an eternity to send a super slow targeted projectile & definitely do not feel deserved to get hit by a (405+5%/lvl) fireball when you or your healer do not have the means to Shield/Protect/Stasis it (while on the opposite feeling comically bad and still unskilled when you have those tools at disposal).

My propositions will also revolve around the following constraints:

• The "high single and area damage" & "punishing grouped foes" identity should be enforced.
• No new animations or sounds should be required.
• Incentivizing the talent diversity depending of matchups and allowing build hybridations.
• Keeping intact what makes people already love the hero.

Rework Proposal & Commentary

For reference, the wiki page of the hero.

R2 - Pyroblast:

• Base damages reduced from 810 to 202 for main target and 405 to 101 for nearby targets.
• A variable part is added to it's damages equal to 40% of the damages dealt by Kael'Thas to enemy heroes during the 12 seconds preceding the start of the channeling, capped at 810 damages (5% scaling). 20% capped at 410 for nearby heroes.
• Explosion radius increased by 50%.
• Cooldown increased from 100 to 120 seconds. Heroes damaged by the explosion reduces the cooldown by 20 seconds.

#This turns the Pyroblast into a skill crowning a great damage dealing sequence by the player. It's damage won't feel "free" or "unskilled" as they reward a good game sequence or on the contrary punished poor damage output.
#At level 1, a maxed damage share correspond to hiting 8 enemy heroes with it's last 2 Flamestrikes and last Living Bomb (9 to 10 at level 20 due to the difference of scaling between the abilities).
#In the same spirit, the bonus radius is a niche improvement for well-coordinated teams with good crowd control while being insignificant for others, and the cooldown reduction mechanic enable protection & stasis mechanics to punish a poor use of the spell.

Level 1 talents:

• Fel Infusion:
  • REWORK; Activating Verdant Spheres causes Kael'thas's next 2 Basic Attacks to instead deal 115 Spell Damage and grant him 1% of his maximum health and mana, tripled against heroes. If both of them hit enemy Heroes, gain 15% Spell Power for 10 seconds.

#This basically fuses [Fel Infusion], [Mana Tap] and [Sunfire Enchantment] into a single, much more proactive talent incentivizing players to use basic attacks and rewarding good spacing and calculated aggressivity. This fit the level 1 playstyle-defining tier better and free 2 talents slots.

Level 4 talents:

• Mana Tap:
  • REMOVED
• Gravitic Pulse:
  • NEW TALENT: When Gravity Lapse is empowered by Verdant Spheres, it instantly kills enemy minions without counting toward the maximum number of targets hit.
  • Passive: Increases Gravity Lapse mana cost by 10.

#Make the level 4 a pure Gravity Lapse tier by resurecting a talent from the Alpha, offering a costfull alternative to hit Gravity Lapse more easily.

Level 7 talents:

• Sunfire Enchantment:
  • REWORK: Each enemy hero hit by a basic ability increases Kael'Thas' Attack Speed by 3%, up to 45%. After reaching the maximum bonus, the Basic Attack Damage is increased by 50%. Lasts 12 seconds.
  • Passive: Increases Kael'Thas attack range by 1.1

#Preserve the "damage talent tier" spirit with an option still centered on Basic Attacks now that the former effect of the talent has been merged into [Fel Infusion]

Level 20 talents:

• Presence of Mind
  • REMOVED

#Removed since it's functionnality is now partly baseline. Another option would be to remove of greatly improve the limit on Pyroblast variable damage share.

• Master of Flames
  • Passive: Kael'thas benefits from all of his level 13 talents.

#A thematic buff to a fundamentally passive talent punishing mispositionned enemies. The idea behind it is to make Living Bomb a richer tool (with the slow and CDR) aside from the memetic base effect of the talent.

What would you think of those ideas? Of course the numbers can be tinkered with but do you believe it would make KT more exciting to play, play with and play against?