Falstad Abilities and Strategy

• Capitalize on Flight's global range to split-push or soak Experience. It can also be used to gank.
• Using Hammerang and Hinterland Blast against targets under crowd control will greatly improves your accuracy. Nothing beats practice, however.
• Limit your offensive use of Barrel Roll, as it leaves you vulnerable.
• Use Mighty Gust to disengage a losing battle, to split the opposing forces in half, knock your enemies into your team for blocking their retreat, or secure Capture Points.

Hammerang (Q) Falstad

• Mana: 60
• Cooldown: 10 seconds

Throw out a Hammer that returns to Falstad, dealing 80 (+4% per level) damage and Slowing enemies hit by 25% for 2 seconds. Reactive to explode the Hammer, dealing 95 (+4% per level) damage to nearby enemies.

Hammerang is a Basic Ability that deals a good amount of damage from the distance, however, it requires good aim and timing to be used at its maximum potential, else you will end up doing less damage than what is theoretically possible.

The Slowing effect is quite useful to help you hit enemy Heroes with Basic Attacks, to keep them within Lightning Rod range, or to help your team land skillshot-based Abilities.

While the projectile is flying, you can cast it again to make it explode and deal damage to enemies in a small area around it. The projectile still comes back after you make it explode. You should try to hit enemies with the projectile that is going forward, with the explosion, and then with the projectile that is coming back.

While in lane, Hammerang can damage an entire wave of Minions as they are walking in a straight line, before engaging your own Minions. That said, do not expose too much in an attempt to get maximum value out of this because staying alive is more important than maximizing your damage on Minions.

Lightning Rod (W) Falstad

• Mana: 60
• Cooldown: 13 seconds

Deal 107 (+4% per level) damage to an enemy, and an additional 75 (+4% per level) damage per second for 4 seconds while close to the target. Deals 100% increased damage to Minions and Mercenaries.

Lightning Rod is one of the most damaging single-target Basic Abilities in the game, especially when empowered with multiple Talents.

Although it cannot miss, its effect will be ended early if your target moves out of its range. It is therefore imperative that you do try and either select targets that are unable to get away from you (such as one Slowed by Hammerang or otherwise under the effects of crowd control), or that are currently fighting you or another player.

Barrel Roll can be used to keep up with a target that is trying to escape, though this is seldom recommended, as it is dangerous to use your main escape move offensively.

Due to its restrictive cooldown and relatively high Mana cost, Lightning Rod should be used sparingly if you are uncertain that it will last for its full duration.

Thanks to its bonus damage on Mercenaries, Lightning Rod is also an effective way of claiming Mercenary Camps.

Even if it does bonus damage to Minions, you should avoid using Lightning Rod on them—except for Melee Minions in some circumstances and Catapults—because it costs too much Mana and ends up killing them before the effect ends, basically wasting damage and therefore Mana in the process.

Barrel Roll (E) Falstad

• Mana: 70
• Cooldown: 13 seconds

Dashes forward and grants a 171 (+4% per level) point Shield for 3 seconds.

Barrel Roll is a Basic Ability that can be used to quickly reposition yourself and get more value out of your kit in different ways:

• to deal more damage with Basic Attacks;
• to keep enemy Heroes within Lightning Rod range;
• to dodge enemy skillshot-based Abilities;
• to secure a kill when you can safely do so;
• to escape through impassable terrain.

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.

Hinterland Blast (R) Falstad

• Heroic
• Mana: 80
• Cooldown: 120 seconds

After 1 second, deal 475 (+4.75% per level) damage to enemies within a long line. The cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds for every enemy Hero hit.

Hinterland Blast deals a huge amount of damage to enemies hit by its long lightning ray after a short delay. The increased scaling makes it slightly more powerful in the late game.

To negate its weakness of being delayed as a compensation for its power, we recommended that you use Hinterland Blast along with some form of reliable crowd control.

While it can be used to hit multiple Heroes at the same time and doing so will reduce its cooldown based on their quantity, do not hesitate to cast Hinterland Blast to take down a single enemy Hero if that action would lead to winning the next Objective and/or taking down enemy Structures immediately after.

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.

Mighty Gust (R) Falstad

• Heroic
• Mana: 70
• Cooldown: 60 seconds

Push enemies away, and slow their Movement Speed by 40% decaying over 4 seconds.

Although it deals no damage, Mighty Gust has some unique applications. The Ability's unordinarily long knockback effect can be used to completely disengage from unfavorable fights, forcibly move foes away from Objectives when appropriate, or otherwise split backline Heroes from their frontline. Using Mighty Gust against a foe that is near any kind of path blocker will cause the target to become stuck against this blocker for the Ability's duration, dazing them for the duration. Be careful to not knock your opponents away from your teammates when you may actually be close to getting a kill.

One of the most useful and aggressive application of Mighty Gust involves using Flight to position yourself behind one or multiple opponents to then knock them towards your teammates. Although this tactic often leaves you open to counterattacks, Barrel Roll can be used to reposition yourself rather safely. This tactic is particularly useful against escaping opponents as they may be unable to retaliate against you. Be sure to inform your teammates of your intent to use such a strategy by shift+clicking Mighty Gust and then pinging your intended Flight destination. This will make coordinating around the Ability much easier.

Tailwind (D) Falstad

• Cooldown: 5 seconds

Gain 15% increased Movement Speed after not taking damage for 5 seconds.

Tailwind partly makes up for the fact that Falstad does not have a regular Mount. Although he is still slower than other mounted Heroes while its effect is active, he gets to benefit from the Movement Speed increase while in combat for as long as he does not take damage. This helps with positioning for his Abilities, as well as kiting Heroes that do not have a ranged Ability or attack to kill Tailwind's effect. It should be noted that damage from non-Heroes will also cancel Tailwind, making it imperative to avoid being within the attack range of Minions and Structures while traveling around.

Flight (Z) Falstad

• Cooldown: 75 seconds

Instead of mounting, Falstad can fly a great distance over terrain.

Flight is Falstad's defining Ability, and the main reason why he does not have access to a regular Mount. Having the ability to very quickly move to nearly any point of interest on the battlefield allows Falstad players to very effectively gank, rotate, defend, or attack positions, and escape from Heroes who do not have interrupts for it. Using Flight properly is a hallmark of strong Falstad players.

A special note should be made with regards to using Flight for soaking and split-pushing purposes. In practice, Flight's extensive range allows you to play in a way that is uncommon by willingly being late to Objectives to instead keep on gathering Experience for your team to become more powerful than that of your opponents. Doing so effectively puts your opponents in a delicate situation: they find themselves having to dedicate someone to stopping you, at which point you can simply Flight away to leave them stranded and create a numerical advantage elsewhere. If they decide to leave you to do your own thing, you can secure an important Experience lead, granted your team plays defensively enough to avoid casualties. In essence, Flight forces your opponents to react to your strategy, which is a sure-fire way of capitalizing on their communication (or lack thereof).

The fact that you become Unstoppable during Flight comes in handy to counter specific Abilities that affect the target with a powerful crowd control effect (excluding Time Stop) after a delay (notably Temporal Loop by Chromie).