E.T.C. Build Guide “You can't kill the metal!”
Welcome to our guide for E.T.C., a Tank in Heroes of the Storm. Within these pages, you will find everything required to understand how best to play this hero, in both different map styles and team compositions.
E.T.C.'s Overview
E.T.C. is a disruptive but moderately durable Tank. Teammates will find his outstanding ability to engage and peel valuable, however, his limited damage output means that E.T.C. players must work well with allied Heroes in order to secure kills.
E.T.C.'s Strengths and Weaknesses
- Ability to engage from medium distance
- Some mobility to get out of danger
- Huge amount of crowd control
- Opportunity to become global at Level 10
E.T.C.'s Talent Build Cheatsheet
Guitar Solo Build
RecommendedE.T.C.'s Guitar Solo Build increases your damage output and, more importantly, self-sustain when hitting enemies with Basic Attacks, which not only keeps you healthy in lane but is also particularly effective in prolonged team fights.
Hammer-on at Level 7 increases the damage you deal with Basic Attacks and, as a consequence, it also increases the healing you get from Guitar Hero at Level 1. This synergy works on any enemy, not only on Heroes, which means you will be pretty good at tanking enemy Structures while pushing with your team.
When facing Heroes who can create impassable terrain (for example Entomb by Leoric) and/or when playing on Maps with impassable terrain on rotation paths (such as Cursed Hollow) and/or around Objective areas (notably Dragon Shire), you can replace Speed Metal at Level 4 with Crowd Surfer.
Face Melt Build
AdvancedE.T.C.'s Face Melt Build is designed to give you the highest amount of crowd control outside of Heroic Abilities when playing as main Tank. Thanks to that, you will be able to disrupt enemy moves and peel for your team when needed.
Thanks to Loud Speakers at Level 4 increasing the radius of Face Melt, it will be easier to trigger Mic Check at Level 13 and thus be able to knockback and even interrupt enemy Heroes more often.
Hybrid Build
SituationalE.T.C.'s Hybrid Build boosts your waveclear and turns you into a global Hero, a combination that allows you to play as an Offlaner with great success, especially on big Maps because you can get more value from Stage Dive there.
Since you want to keep Powerslide ready for when you will join a fight with Stage Dive, you will rely on Guitar Solo to trigger Echo Pedal at Level 7 to clear Minions and defend from Mercenaries. As a consequence, Aggressive Shredding at Level 16 will basically double your waveclear.
When facing Heroes who can create impassable terrain (for example Entomb by Leoric) and/or when playing on Maps with impassable terrain on rotation paths (such as Cursed Hollow) and/or around Objective areas (notably Dragon Shire), you can replace Speed Metal at Level 4 with Crowd Surfer.
ARAM Build
ARAME.T.C.'s ARAM Build increases your damage output and, more importantly, self-sustain when hitting enemies with Basic Attacks, which not only keeps you healthy in lane but is also particularly effective in prolonged team fights.
Hammer-on at Level 7 increases the damage you deal with Basic Attacks and, as a consequence, it also increases the healing you get from Guitar Hero at Level 1. This synergy works on any enemy, not only on Heroes, which means you will be pretty good at tanking enemy Structures while pushing with your team.
When facing Heroes who can create impassable-terrain (for example Entomb by Leoric), you can replace Speed Metal at Level 4 with Crowd Surfer.
E.T.C.'s Synergies and Counters
E.T.C.'s aggressive crowd control-oriented Ability set makes him particularly useful to any Hero who is able to follow up on said crowd control with powerful damaging and/or crowd controlling Abilities.
If you pair E.T.C. with a Hero who, like him, is capable of playing as either Tank and Offlaner, you can keep E.T.C. in the 4-man until Stage Dive gets unlocked and then swap.
Healers who can provide Unstoppable during Mosh Pit (such as Kharazim with Cleansing Touch) are great to deny enemy interrupts which will otherwise shut it down.
E.T.C. struggles against Heroes who can easily dodge, quickly interrupt, or completely ignore his crowd control Abilities.
E.T.C.'s Maps
Having a well-rounded Ability set, E.T.C. works well on most Maps but performs better where he can flank—to Face Melt and then Powerslide as a safe engage—or fight near choke points—where he can easily hit enemy Heroes with Powerslide and his Heroic Abilities.
Battlefield of Eternity is particularly interesting for E.T.C. because he can knockback and Stun enemy Heroes right below the allied Immortal to make it impossible for them to dodge his Abilities.
While it is not necessarily a huge problem depending on the rest of your draft, E.T.C. is not that good for Maps where the Objective takes extremely long to be secured because, even if he has some self-sustain, he will struggle to be alive for long due to his below-average durability.
E.T.C.'s Tips and Tricks
- When dangerous to go forward, use Powerslide from the side of the enemy Hero you intend to Stun, possibly more towards allied Heroes than enemy Heroes.
- Face Melt is a great tool to peel or interrupt stationary-channeled Abilities.
- Guitar Solo is the least important Ability at your disposal, thus being great for triggering Rockstar to mitigate incoming damage.
- Mentally track of enemy crowd control Abilities so that Mosh Pit does not get interrupted.
- Stage Dive allows you to quickly join your team when playing E.T.C. as Offlaner and/or to dive together with other allied Heroes.
E.T.C.'s Role in the Current Meta
E.T.C. is a disruptive Tank as he provides a huge amount of crowd control which can be used to peel or engage. Thanks to his versatile kit, E.T.C. can be used as either an aggressive or defensive Tank, depending on the draft and based on the situation.
Not being extremely durable, E.T.C. has to be careful when going for aggressive plays, making sure that his team is ready to follow-up and being confident that the chosen move will translate to an advantage, otherwise he may end up dying for no reason and thus leaving his team without a key component for multiple seconds.
If your team drafted accordingly, E.T.C. can be played as an Offlaner. Even better, if the main Tank is capable of solo laning, you may put E.T.C. in the 4-man until Level 10 and then switch them once Stage Dive gets unlocked.
Changelog
- 30 Nov. 2024 (talents page): Guide reviewed.
- 30 Nov. 2024 (abilities page): Guide reviewed.
- 30 Nov. 2024 (this page): Guide reviewed.
- 20 Sep. 2023 (talents page): Guide reviewed.
- 20 Sep. 2023 (talents page): ARAM Build added.
- 20 Sep. 2023 (this page): Guide reviewed.
- 20 Sep. 2023 (this page): ARAM Build added.
- 07 Jul. 2022 (talents page): Builds updated.
- 07 Jul. 2022 (this page): Builds updated.
- 03 Feb. 2022 (talents page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 03 Feb. 2022 (abilities page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 03 Feb. 2022 (this page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 28 Jan. 2022 (talents page): Builds updated.
- 28 Jan. 2022 (this page): Builds updated.
- 28 Sep. 2021 (talents page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 28 Sep. 2021 (abilities page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 28 Sep. 2021 (this page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 18 Aug. 2021 (talents page): Talent Build page updated.
- Build added.
- Descriptions improved.
- New layout.
- 18 Aug. 2021 (abilities page): Abilities and Strategy page updated.
- Descriptions improved.
- Tips and Tricks improved.
- New layout.
- 18 Aug. 2021 (this page): Introduction page updated.
- Build added.
- Descriptions improved.
- Synergies and Counters improved.
- Maps improved.
- Tips and Tricks improved.
- New layout.
- 27 Oct. 2020 (talents page): Talents and builds reviewed and updated.
- 07 Sep. 2020 (talents page): Talents and builds reviewed and updated.
- 30 Aug. 2020 (this page): Role in Current Meta section updated.
- 19 Jul. 2020 (talents page): Talents reviewed and updated.
- 05 Apr. 2020 (talents page): Description and recommendation updated for Pinball Wizard.
- 13 Dec. 2019 (this page): Added a note about current Anomaly.
- 11 Oct. 2019 (talents page): Talents section updated.
- 11 Oct. 2019 (abilities page): Abilities section reviewed.
- 11 Oct. 2019 (this page): Guide updated.
- 21 Jan. 2018 (this page): Guide fully updated.
- 26 Apr. 2017 (this page): Guide updated for Genji's patch and moved to the new format.
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Elitesparkle is a multiple times Master player in Europe who plays Heroes of the Storm since its release. He is an active member of the community who likes to teach new and veteran players all he knows about his favorite game.
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