Arthas Abilities and Strategy

• Death Coil can be used on enemies to damage them or on Arthas to heal him, something that can be done faster by using the Self Cast Modifier [Alt] rather than by mouse-hovering Arthas.
• Howling Blast being a slow projectile requires you to predict the movements of enemy Heroes.
• Frozen Tempest reduces both Movement Speed and Attack Speed of enemy Heroes, making it particularly effective against melee Heroes who rely on Basic Attacks.
• Frostmourne Hungers resets the cooldown of your Basic Attack, so try to use it immediately after a Basic Attack goes off.
• Army of the Dead can heal you on cooldown if you press R to cast it, then press and hold R for its duration.
• Summon Sindragosa disables enemy Structures, excluding Healing Fountains, which can make it a very potent ability to use during pushes.

Death Coil (Q) Arthas

• Mana: 50
• Cooldown: 9 seconds

Deals 164 (+4% per level) damage to target enemy.

Can be self-cast to heal for 290 (+4% per level) Health.

Death Coil is a versatile Basic Ability that can be used to either damage an enemy Hero or to heal Arthas. When you want to target yourself, you can use the Self Cast Modifier [Alt] instead of mouse-hovering your Hero.

While playing as Offlaner, it is usually better to cast this Ability on yourself in order to restore lost Health, especially if you do not want to waste the Healing Fountain.

Howling Blast (W) Arthas

• Mana: 60
• Cooldown: 10 seconds

Root enemies within the target area for 1.25 seconds and deals 68 (+4% per level) damage.

Howling Blast is a Basic Ability that provides crowd control to Arthas, something that can be used to either engage or peel. While this effect can hit multiple Heroes, it is perfectly fine to hit a single Hero.

A good Arthas should usually look for a flank rather than a frontal engage, however, sometimes you can still try to catch enemy Heroes with Howling Blast from distance. Once they are Rooted, you can walk towards them to continue the engage and get them inside Frozen Tempest or you can stay at a distance while allied Heroes get value from it by hitting enemy Heroes with skillshots.

Frozen Tempest (E) Arthas

• Mana: 11 per second
• Cooldown: 1 seconds

Deal 40 (+4% per level) damage per second to nearby enemies and Slow their Movement Speed by 10% per second, stacking up to 40%. Heroes hit also have their Attack Speed Slowed by 10% per second, stacking up to 40%. Frozen Tempest's effects last for 1.5 seconds.

Frozen Tempest is a toggleable Basic Ability that reduces the Movement Speed of nearby enemies (not only Heroes) and the Attack Speed of nearby Heroes. Both effects get more powerful each second a given enemy stays within range, reaching the maximum value after 4 seconds. Howling Blast helps with that because it ensures that the enemy stays nearby for a few seconds.

The constant Slow is useful for chasing and—more importantly—for peeling away melee Heroes while the Attack Speed reduction is good against Heroes that heavily focus on Basic Attacks to deal damage. As a consequence, this Ability is particularly effective against Heroes with both those characteristics: melee Heroes who focus on Basic Attacks (such as Kerrigan or Thrall).

Mana management is important because you cannot use Abilities without it. While this Ability offers value in all scenarios, if Arthas uses it imprudently, he will find himself low on Mana very quickly. Always use it when damaging enemy Heroes or when clearing Mercenary Camps, but avoid using it when clearing Minions.

Being an area of effect Ability, Frozen Tempest can also be used to hit hidden Summons on the ground (such as Creep Tumor by Zagara).

In this section we discuss how this Heroic Ability works and give some tips on how to use it. If you are looking for a detailed explanation on when and why you should pick it, check out the dedicated section in the Talent Build page.

Army of the Dead (R) Arthas

• Heroic
• Mana: 80
• Cooldown: 80 seconds

Summons Ghouls that last 15 seconds and attack for 20 (+4% per level) damage. Sacrifice Ghouls to heal for 267 (+4% per level) Health.

Army of the Dead is a defensive Heroic Ability that lets Arthas summon several Ghouls that will fight at his side, allowing him to become an extremely durable frontline Hero, unless the enemy team has healing reduction effects and/or brust damage to drastically reduce its effectiveness.

In this section we discuss how this Heroic Ability works and give some tips on how to use it. If you are looking for a detailed explanation on when and why you should pick it, check out the dedicated section in the Talent Build page.

Summon Sindragosa (R) Arthas

• Heroic
• Mana: 100
• Cooldown: 100 seconds

Deals 230 (+4% per level) damage and Slows enemies by 60% for 4 seconds. Also disables Minions, Mercenaries, Monsters and Structures for 20 seconds.

Summon Sindragosa is an offensive Heroic Ability that, if aimed and timed correctly, can single-handedly decide the outcome of a team fight by Slowing multiple enemy Heroes and allow your team to easily engage them without being scared of enemy Structures nearby.

The first thing an Arthas player has to take into account is its cast time of 0.6 seconds (not mentioned in the tooltip), which requires you to think ahead before actually casting the Ability in order to increase your chance to hit enemy Heroes and/or to avoid being interrupted by them.

When you want to play aggressively in enemy territory, do not be scared of enemy Structures because they will be disabled for 20 seconds, a powerful effect to further increase the advantage after winning a single-lane Objective (such as the Immortal on Battlefield of Eternity) because disabled Structures cannot deal any damage. Due to being Invulnerable, Healing Fountains cannot be disabled by this kind of effects.

Frostmourne Hungers (D) Arthas

• Cooldown: 10 seconds

Activate to make Arthas's next Basic Attack strike immediately and deal 99 (+4% per level) increased damage. Dealing damage restores 30 Mana.

Frostmourne Hungers is a Trait that gives a small amount of burst damage and helps you restore Mana on hit. When used, it stays on hold until you Basic Attack someone, then it goes on cooldown.

When the chances to have a team fight within 10 seconds is low, activate it and attack a random enemy in a safe position (usually a Minion) just to get some Mana. During a team fight, use it on the focused enemy Hero.

Remember that activating it will reset the cooldown of your Basic Attacks, so the best way to use this Ability is to immediately activate it after a Basic Attack, a trick that will result in you landing 3 Basic Attacks in the time window of 2 Basic Attacks.