Falstad Talents

Level	Choices
1	✓ ✘︎ ?
4	? ? ✓
7	? ✓ ✘︎
10	? ✓
13	✘︎ ✓ ?
16	? ✓ ?
20	? ✓ ? ?

Gathering Storm is a strong Talent that increases the damage done by Hammerang each time it hits an enemy Hero. After reaching 30 stacks, you get the equivalent of 30 stacks as a bonus.

While it will be harder to stack on 3-lane Maps, especially if you have to help covering side lanes, we find it to not be a problem because this Talent gives a percentage bonus and not a flat bonus. As a result, the bonus damage from each stack you get keeps scaling together with Hammerang's damage as your team levels up, so you are not forced to constantly farm stacks all game long.

Dishonorable Discharge is a weak Talent that reduces the cooldown of Lightning Rod by 2 seconds when picked and by additional 2 seconds after reaching 30 stacks. Hitting enemy Heroes with Lightning Rod will permanently increase the damage done by Lightning Rod. After completing the Quest, killing enemy Heroes will reset the cooldown of Lightning Rod.

You can only get Quest progress after 3 strikes. Considering that Lightning Rod hits once immediately and once every second while active, you have to channel it for at least 3 seconds in order to get 1 stack and then you will get 1 stack per second, up to 2 stacks per cast without any Talent and up to 4 stacks per cast with Charged Up at Level 7.

There is notable synergy between this Talent, Static Shield at Level 4, Charged Up at Level 7, and Thunderstrikes at Level 13. Picking all those Talents makes Falstad extremely difficult to duel for most Heroes.

Frequent Flyer is a good Talent that can be activated once every 45 seconds to increase your Attack Speed and to enable Tailwind for 4 seconds. In addition to that, killing Minions and Heroes will permanently increase your Attack damage. There is no cap for this Quest.

Contrary to normal Tailwind, the effect coming from this Talent does not get canceled when taking damage, so it always lasts 4 seconds; therefore, other than to boost your Attack damage, you can activate it to refresh your Trait right after taking damage while fighting, especially if you are playing with other Trait-based Talents in addition to this one. You can also activate it to increase your damage against enemy Structures when needed, assuming you do not expect to fight for the next 45 seconds (its cooldown).

As it does not require to hit enemy Heroes, this kind of Quest is particularly good for a Hero like Falstad who can easily take care of Minions in lanes that are far from the rest of the team and quickly join them with Flight when a team fight starts.

Static Shield is a decent Talent that creates a powerful Shield when Falstad is hitting enemy Heroes with Lightning Rod, based on the damage it deals.

You may want to pick this Talent when facing dive Heroes (such as Tracer), to increase your survivability against their quick and scary attacks.

There is notable synergy between this Talent, Dishonorable Discharge at Level 1, Charged Up at Level 7, and Thunderstrikes at Level 13 that make Falstad extremely difficult to duel.

Updraft is a good Talent that turns Barrel Roll into one of the longest mobility Basic Abilities in the game. The Talent is mostly useful when you are against dive Heroes who can put a lot of pressure on you with their high damage and mobility. With it, not only you will have a Shield, but you will also be able to create more distance between you and enemy Heroes trying to take you down.

Hammer Gains is a strong Talent that increases your self-sustain, something that is especially useful while taking care of side lanes on your own and slightly increases your survivability during team fights.

Being based on the amount of damage done with your Basic Attacks, this Talent has synergy with Frequent Flyer at Level 1 and Secret Weapon at Level 7, but has no synergy with Sustained Winds at Level 13.

Secret Weapon is a good Talent that increases the range of Hammerang and temporarily allows Falstad's Basic Attacks to deal more damage.

With this Talent, you have to focus on using as many Basic Attacks as possible while Hammerang is flying in the air.

The range increase makes Secret Weapon generally safer and easier to use.

The damage increase provided has synergy with other Talents based on Basic Attacks: Frequent Flyer at Level 1, Hammer Gains at Level 4, and Nexus Frenzy at Level 20.

BOOMerang is a strong Talent that increases the damage you deal when reactivating Hammerang and also reduces the Spell Armor of enemy Heroes damaged by the explosion.

Pick this Talent when you want to empower the burst damage of your team and/or when you want to increase your waveclear even more.

Charged Up is a decent Talent that empowers Lightning Rod by increasing its range, so that it becomes harder for enemy Heroes to exit its area, and by extending its duration by 2 seconds makes it hit 2 more times.

There is notable synergy between this Talent, Dishonorable Discharge at Level 1, Static Shield at Level 4, and Thunderstrikes at Level 13 that make Falstad extremely difficult to duel. If you are not going for that synergy, then it does not make sense to pick this Talent. Since we do not recommend Dishonorable Discharge, the same is true for this Talent.

In this section we discuss when and why to pick a given Heroic Ability. If you want to read how they work in detail and/or you are looking for some tips on how to use them, check them out on the Abilities and Strategy page.

Hinterland Blast deals a substantial amount of area of effect damage from great range that most players have come to take for granted from Falstad. It is usually chosen as the damaging piece of any kind of teamwide combo that involves a certain amount of crowd control. Hinterland Blast, however, must compete with Gust, widely recognized as one of the best Heroic Abilities available in the game.

Mighty Gust is a unique Ability that uniquely provides Falstad with a reliable area of effect crowd control, something that is seldom seen in other Heroes, especially Ranged Assassins.

Its relatively short cooldown makes it difficult to pick out Falstad or any of his allies, making the Ability an excellent counterpick to dive-oriented team compositions. It also shines against Healers such as Kharazim and Uther, who strongly rely on specific positioning to be effective.

The knockback effect is also useful for attempting to steal Boss Camps from your opponents by using Flight or Barrel Roll to position yourself on the Capture Point just as the Boss is about to die.

Thunderstrikes is a good Talent that increases the damage done by each consecutive hit of Lightning Rod on the same Hero, turning Falstad into a real threat for enemy Heroes who cannot outrange or break Lightning Rod with ease.

There is notable synergy between this Talent, Dishonorable Discharge at Level 1, Static Shield at Level 4, and Charged Up at Level 7 that make Falstad extremely difficult to duel. If you are not going for that synergy, then it does not make sense to pick this Talent. Since we do not recommend Dishonorable Discharge, the same is true for this Talent.

Flow Rider has the potential of vastly increasing Falstad's damage potential. It does, however, require you to play extremely safely, to the point of not letting Tailwind fall off by taking damage. The task is often impossible against Heroes with plenty of area of effect damage or who are capable to dive aggressively. Other than that, we find this Talent quite powerful, particularly when combined with Aerie Gusts at Level 16 to keep Tailwind going.

Sustained Winds is a good Talent that increases your damage output in the form of percent-based damage on your Basic Attacks, slightly increased when under the effect of Tailwind.

The damage increase provided has synergy with Frequent Flyer at Level 1 and Nexus Frenzy at Level 20, but not with Hammer Gains at Level 4.

Pick this Talent when you want to pressure and/or take down the enemy frontline and/or when you need damage that goes through Armor effects.

Crippling Hammer is a good Talent that empowers the Slow applied by Hammerang and allows you to apply it via its explosion as well.

You may need this Talent to kite enemy Heroes who lack mobility and/or range in order to help your team damage them or escape, based on the situation. Generally speaking, the crowd control provided by allied Heroes should be enough.

Aerie Gusts is a strong Talent that simultaneously provides offense, defense, and utility in the form of more Movement Speed. This is on top of greatly increasing the uptime of Flow Rider, another potent Talent, by making Tailwind reactivate faster when not taking damage.

You can combine this Talent with either Flow Rider at Level 13 to quickly reactivate its cooldown reduction effect after taking some damage or with Sustained Winds at Level 13 to have more Movement Speed for kiting enemy Heroes and also to restore its bonus damage component in less time.

Afterburner is a good Talent that provides extra Movement Speed after using Barrel Roll, so it can be used to either chase enemy Heroes or to escape from danger.

As with Updraft and Static Shield, Afterburner is primarily picked against aggressive team compositions that make it hard for you to stay alive.

Call of the Wildhammer is a good Talent that increases the damage done by Hinterland Blast by 25% and its range by 100%. The bonus damage is high enough to make this Talent interesting to pick without even taking into account the bonus range, especially if we consider that it will be rarely useful as the baseline range will already cover your whole screen.

Wind Tunnel is a strong Talent that transforms Mighty Gust in one of the most powerful crowd control effects in the game by allowing you to lock one or more enemy Heroes on top of impassable terrain, rendering them unable to act for the duration.

Nexus Frenzy is a good Talent that provides you with additional Attack damage and Attack range, something that gives more value when you are playing a Basic Attacks Build but it is not required nor advised because it competes with the powerful Wind Tunnel.

Epic Mount is a situational Talent that drastically lowers the cooldown of Flight, reduces its channel time from 2 to only 0.5 seconds, and makes the flight animation 50% faster.

The cooldown reduction allows him to completely negate any Catapult pressure on the Core and/or to quickly travel across the battlefield for claiming Capture Points when needed (for example on Dragon Shire).

The shorter cast time and increased travel speed combined together can be useful for when you need to use Flight for an offensive Mighty Gust, to quickly deny a powerful crowd control effect (excluding Time Stop) after a delay (notably Temporal Loop by Chromie) with the useful Unstoppable frames that Flight has, to dodge a delayed effect on the ground (such as Grav-O-Bomb 3000 by Gazlowe), to outrange Abilities that require the target to be within a certain range to go off (for example Pyroblast by Kael'thas) or as a form of escape because the enemy team will have less time to interrupt the cast or kill you.