Gul'dan Talents

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

Pursuit of Flame is only a recommended choice when utilizing a Fel Flame Build. Although there is a Quest portion to the Talent, it does not take too long to complete, as Gul'dan will be able to land many casts of Fel Flame against his lane opponent when trading with them during the early game. The increased size of Fel Flame from Pursuit of Flame will allow Gul'dan to fight from somewhat safer positions, deeper behind his allied frontline. The larger size will also make it much easier for Gul'dan to generate and maintain stacks of both Fel Armor and Rampant Hellfire, as well as trigger the cooldown reduction effect of Bound by Shadow.

Chaotic Energy greatly increases Gul'dan's self-sustain and utility in lane. Lowering the Mana cost of Abilities and getting more healing from globes will help out in the early game with Life Taps and put some ease into your Healer. The range increase synergizes well with the later Talents as well.

Echoed Corruption is a great Talent that provides Gul'dan with even more damage on top of his already loaded kit. The quest portion of the Talent is relatively easy to complete, as each strike of Corruption that connects with an enemy Hero will count towards the Objective. A single, well placed cast of Corruption should regularly gather multiple strikes that count towards the quest goal. Once the quest is completed, Corruption has the potential to do an even greater amount of burst and damage over time to a decent sized area. This Talent is incredibly strong on Maps with many narrow choke points such as Towers of Doom and Tomb of the Spider Queen. These constricted passage ways will help funnel enemies into Corruption's path. It is important to note that Echoed Corruption is mandatory when using a Corruption Build, as much of the following Talents will be chosen to most effectively maximize Corruption's power.

Health Funnel's cooldown reset on enemy death is good, and the fact that this resets even when using Drain Life on Minions makes it very viable for early-game lane rotations and waveclearing.

Improved Life Tap significantly improves Gul'dan's core mechanic Life Tap. A 15% increase in the Mana provided by a single Tap is huge, and should keep Gul'dan well supplied without having to over-tap to stay relevant in teamfights. The Health Gul'dan can save when using Life Tap not only keeps him safer during the match, but also translates to more potential Mana in the long run. More Mana allows Gul'dan to keep his damage output up, especially in longer trades when poking enemy Heroes over Objectives or sieging. This Talent should only be picked if you are unable to utilize Consume Soul properly.

Consume Soul is a great Talent for matches when Gul'dan will find himself in lane for longer durations or constantly nearby enemy Minions. The amount of Health replenished by Consume Soul is significant, and the fact it can store 2 charges means Gul'dan can restore a massive amount of Health almost instantly. The 25-second cooldown of Consume Soul is also quite generous. Consume Soul combined with Drain Life provides Gul'dan with nearly unparalleled self-sustain when laning. The better Gul'dan can manage his Health, the more Health he will be able to sacrifice for Mana using Life Tap. Consume Soul is best on Maps where Gul'dan will have regular access to enemy Minions such as Tomb of the Spider Queen, Dragon Shire, and Towers of Doom.

Hunger for Power is a game changer for Gul'dan, as a 15% increase in all damage output is not something to take lightly. Since Gul'dan's primary role as a Ranged Assassin is to deal damage and waveclear, this Talent will prove invaluable. Although it does come at the cost of a 25% reduction in healing received from his allies, this does not affect the many other ways Gul'dan will be going about keeping himself nice and healthy ( Drain Life, Consume Soul, Healthstone). Whether intentional or not, at the time of this writing Regen Globes and Healing Fountains ARE affected by Hunger for Power, although that is not mentioned in the Talent tooltip. The increase in damage will make each cast of an Ability more impactful, meaning that on paper, Gul'dan should have to cast fewer Abilities to be equally as effective. Theoretically, this casting of fewer Abilities should result in a need for less Mana, which causes the need to be regularly casting Life Tap to go down, which ultimately results in Gul'dan no longer requiring constant heals from his allies in the first place. Now, it is important to note that this is all somewhat irrelevant, as Gul'dan should continue to regularly blast off Abilities just as often as before having talented into Hunger for Power. Because of this, we as Gul'dan players should rejoice in the fact that a 25% reduction in healing is a small price to pay for such a power spike. The reduction in healing received should not be too much to prevent allies from continuing to heal Gul'dan. The increase in damage on Fel Flame will also make waveclearing a breeze, allowing Gul'dan and his teammates to rotate faster. On a quick side note; the 15% increase in Spell Power only affects the damage aspect of Drain Life, and does not increase the amount of healing Gul'dan will receive from the Ability.

Curse of Exhaustion is probably the biggest damage upgrade you have for a Drain Life Build. Increasing the damage by 50% and Slowing the target by 40% will allow you get more Health out of enemy Heroes and make them more susceptible to threats from your allies. With the range bonus from your Quest at Level 1, you will definitely notice the power you get from this Talent.

Bound by Shadow is the definition of a situational Talent, as it will only be beneficial to Gul'dan if the enemy team has a heavy melee composition. The build places heavy emphasis on zoning and poking enemies with Corruption, so being able to reduce its cooldown dramatically by landing casts of Fel Flame can be useful. When playing with a burst composition, Hunger for Power remains a stronger pick. Bound by Shadow will integrate smoothly into poke compositions built around stalling teamfights in order to zone enemies or siege Structures.

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.

Horrify is the Heroic Ability you will want to pick in every situation. A 2-second Fear, causing the enemy team to split up, is huge in teamfights and good casts of Horrify can decide the outcome of a teamfight.

Rain of Destruction is one of the most lackluster Heroic Ability in the game and even with the recent buff it should never be picked. The fact that this Heroic Ability has the chance to miss all meteors in a teamfight just makes it all the much worse. Until Rain of Destruction gets reworked, stay away from it.

Fel Armor is a great source of damage mitigation for Gul'dan as long as he will be able to get off a consistent amount of Fel Flame casts. A 50% reduction in damage taken from Abilities is outstanding and the 2.5-second duration per Fel Flame strike is very generous. Because Fel Flame has a cooldown of 1.5 seconds, as long as he can connect the Ability, Gul'dan should be able to keep up Fel Armor for the entire duration of every brawl. The reduction in damage taken also affords Gul'dan a little more freedom to draw Mana via Life Tap without running the risk of ending up with dangerously low Health.

Harvest Life works better in 1v1 situations where the bonus Health from Harvest Life could decide the outcome: life or death. If you have all the other Drain Life-based Talents, it is mostly recommended to pick this one up as well, however, Healthstone can still work great if you need the Health instantly rather than over time.

The permanent Health increase of Dark Bargain is extraordinary, however, the cost of its strength is too unforgiving to be justified. Being taken out of the match for an additional 10 seconds after death is detrimental to your allies and will often lead to enemies capitalizing on their huge numbers advantage when contesting Objectives or sieging. Although Gul'dan's entire kit is based around his Health management, Dark Bargain is way too risky of a gamble to bet on.

Having reliable access to an immediate 25% Health heal on a 45-second cooldown makes Healthstone a very strong Talent. Especially when combined with Consume Soul, Gul'dan is able to rise up from life-threatening low amounts of Health almost instantly. Even when Gul'dan is winning trades and only taking diminutive amounts of damage, Healthstone can be activated immediately after replenishing his Mana with Life Tap to stay topped off and ready for imminent skirmishes or teamfights. If timed wisely, Healthstone should be available for every major altercation, particularly those surrounding important Objectives. The on-demand nature of Healthstone also allows it to be used to prevent Gul'dan from being immediately blown up if caught out or the target of the enemies focus fire.

Rampant Hellfire is a great Talent that will considerably improve the damage output of Gul'dan and is best selected for when utilizing a Fel Flame Build. The increased size of Fel Flame from completing the Pursuit of Flame quest will make striking targets to generate and maintain stacks of Rampant Hellfire much easier. Keep in mind that Rampant Hellfire will stack up to 5 times, and generates a stack for EVERY enemy Hero struck, theoretically allowing it to be fully stacked with one cast of Fel Flame should it somehow manage to hit the entire enemy team. Although Rampant Hellfire lacks the initial burst effect of Darkness Within, its long term damage will greatly surpass it should Gul'dan be able to maintain his stacks. It should be noted that it is never a good idea to put Gul'dan in a vulnerable position just to stack or maintain stacks or Rampant Hellfire. Although he may get a few quick stacks, there is not much he can do with them if he is immediately targeted and taken down by his opponents.

Ruinous Affliction is a core Talent in the Corruption Build. When well placed, a cast of Corruption empowered with Ruinous Affliction will do insane amounts of area of effect damage to any target caught in its wake. Echoed Corruption helps to ease the burden of trying to land 3 strikes of Corruption on a single target, as the additional strikes will count toward the damage bonus of Ruinous Affliction. Bound by Shadow also keeps the cooldown time of Corruption realistically low, allowing Gul'dan to systematically poke down enemy Heroes as they attempt to contest Objectives.

Darkness Within adds some micromanagement to Gul'dan's kit, but will reward you if you manage to execute it properly. You get a free Life Tap and 25% Spell Power for five seconds. The criteria for achieving the bonus are pretty easy and you can potentially go a whole teamfight without ever having to lose Health due to spamming Life Tap. This Talent really only works well in a Drain Life Build, due to the two other Talents synergizing well with their respective builds.

Haunt adds a huge amount of utility to the already impressive Horrify. An additional second of duration on a large area of effect crowd-control Ability is absolutely huge. The additional vulnerability debuff to EVERY Hero struck with Horrify is just insane, as Gul'dan and his allies will be able to do immense amounts of teamwide damage to their helpless victims.

Demonic Circle is a great source of re-positioning or escape for Gul'dan players who happen to find themselves being repeatably dove on by more aggressive opponents. Although Horrify can be used to peel away immediate threats, manipulating the direction of opponents can be quite tricky. Demonic Circle is an overall more reliable source of escape and should be always placed nearby the location of an impending teamfight. Try to position the Circle close to where the backline of Gul'dans team will be in order to receive assistance from allies after having escaped, but make sure it is far enough away to avoid being immediately focused again. Demonic Circle is a viable Talent particularly when facing threats such as Illidan, Greymane, or Tyrael.

Deep Impact is a Talent that ultimately provides too little utility to Rain of Destruction to make it a reasonable pick over Horrify at any point in a match. Rain of Destruction will remain to have its list of set backs, and the Slow provided by Deep Impact is just as unpredictable as the damage. Although at a glance the 90% Slow effect looks huge, the .5 second duration renders it basically useless.