Hogger Talents

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

Journeyman Cooking is a situational Quest-based Talent that heals Hogger by a percentage of his maximum Health for each enemy Hero hit with Ez-Thro Dynamite. When doing so, Hogger gains 10 maximum Health, up to 750 additional maximum Health after stacking 75 times.

Talents that empower Ez-Thro Dynamite have synergy with Journeyman Cooking because they help you with its Quest progress: Dense Blasting Powder at Level 7 and Kablooie! at Level 16.

You can pick this Talent when playing Hogger in the 4-man because it is easier to stack when there are more enemy Heroes nearby and scales well into the late game.

Bones to Gnaw is a decent Talent that gives Hogger 10 Armor while under the effect of Meat, so for 5 seconds, and creates a chunk of Meat when Loot Hoard lands.

Bones to Gnaw has synergy with Garbage Fire at Level 7 because it slightly reduces the cooldown of Loot Hoard, Hoardapult at Level 10 because it creates additional Meat, and Secret Stash at Level 20 for the same reason.

On The Prowl is a strong Talent that passively heals Hogger for 8 Health per second, increased by 0.16 Health per point of Rage, up to 24 Health per second at maximum Rage. Once every 40 seconds, you can activate it to gain 30 Rage over 8 seconds and stop your Rage decay during that time.

You have to pick this Talent when playing Hogger in the offlane because it gives you self-sustain in the laning phase, when there is no Healer with you.

Brute Force is a decent Talent that slightly increases Loot Hoard's range and landing damage. In addition to that, this Talent has a Quest component that increases Hogger's Attack Damage when hitting enemy Heroes with Staggering Blow, quintupled when you successfully Stun them against impassable terrain.

The idea behind Brute Force is to quickly stack up its Quest by Stunning enemy Heroes against impassable terrain, else you will take too much time to complete it. As a consequence, this Talent is better on Maps where team fights happen in narrow areas (such as Cursed Hollow).

The bonus Attack Damage provided by Brute Force does not scale and it is equal to about 45% additional Attack Damage with Quest completed at Level 20, resulting in a good synergy with Bloodthirst at Level 13 and Furzerker at Level 16.

When having this Talent, keep in mind that the extra range may cause Staggering Blow not to Stun enemy Heroes if they are near you and you cast Loot Hoard at the new maximum range, however, you can play around it by placing it closer.

Aggro Range is a good Talent that increases the radius of Hogg Wild and allows it to generate Rage when hitting enemies, with quadruple value against enemy Heroes.

It is advised to pick this Talent for clearing the Guardians spawning at the Objective on Infernal Shrines because you will be faster at clearing them and you will also accumulate more Rage for upcoming team fights.

Since it increases your Rage, this Talent has synergy with Rage-based Talents: Seeing Red at Level 7 and Anger Management at Level 20.

Hogger's Joggers is a strong Talent that gives you bonus Movement Speed and healing received: 10% when between 30 and 50 Rage or 15% when above 50 Rage.

We recommend this Talent because the healing increase makes you more durable, especially with a Healer on your side, and the Movement Speed helps you a lot when moving around during team fights.

Dense Blasting Powder is a good Talent that increases the value of Ez-Thro Dynamite in two ways:

• directly hitting enemy Heroes with Ez-Thro Dynamite and causing it to explode instantly throws a second Ez-Thro Dynamite behind them;
• hitting a Ez-Thro Dynamite that is already on the ground with Staggering Blow breaks into 3 new instances of Ez-Thro Dynamite and throws them forward in a line.

Especially when playing with this Talent, you can use Staggering Blow to Knockback enemy Heroes into soon-to-explode Ez-Thro Dynamite laying on the ground.

Garbage Fire is a good Talent that slightly reduces the cooldown of Loot Hoard. In addition to that, enemies around it take periodic damage and are Slowed by a small amount.

The damage and debuff effects provided by this Talent count for the special Loot Hoard created via Hoardapult as well, so you should always pick them together to get more value out of both Talents.

Seeing Red is a good Talent that, when above 50 Rage, increases your Attack Speed by 35% and makes the cooldown of Staggering Blow and Hogg Wild refresh 30% faster.

Considering that it requires 50 Rage to actually give you some value, we recommend to combine this Talent with Aggro Range at Level 4 as it helps you to quickly generate a bunch of Rage.

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.

Hoardapult is a situational Heroic Ability that increases Hogger's survivability and gives him another way to create impassable terrain with terrain outlines, usable for Staggering Blow and Hogg Wild as well.

Thanks to its utility, Hoardapult is particularly effective on Battlegrounds where team fights happen in narrow areas (such as Cursed Hollow) because you will not be able to get much value from impassable terrain in wide areas (for example Hanamura Temple).

Prefer picking Hoardapult when you need an escape tool and/or an additional source of Unstoppable to play around enemy crowd control.

Shockwave is a strong Heroic Ability that adds a powerful crowd control tool to your kit while also increasing your burst damage by a decent amount.

Avoid picking Shockwave if the enemy team is full of high-mobility Heroes because you will not be able to hit them with a delayed skillshot like this one.

Dust Devil is a good Talent that gives a considerable amount of Armor to Hogger during Hogg Wild and for 3 seconds after that. The amount of Armor gained is higher when above 50 Rage.

Remember to use Hogg Wild to benefit from the insane defensive value of Dust Devil when targeted by heavy-hitting Abilities (such as Pyroblast by Kael'thas).

Considering that having more than 50 Rage makes it more powerful, Dust Devil has synergy with Aggro Range at Level 4 because it helps you to quickly generate a bunch of Rage.

Pummel is a strong Talent that empowers Hogg Wild so that it immediately reduces the Spell Power of enemy Heroes hit for a few seconds and constantly debuffs enemies hit with a small but rapidly stacking Slow.

As it reduces Spell Power, you can use Pummel to reduce the healing and/or damage done by enemy Heroes via Abilities (for example against Whitemane), especially if they are melee Heroes and/or lack mobility to dodge Hogg Wild.

The powerful Slow provided by Pummel can be useful for increasing your chances to hit enemy Heroes with Shockwave too.

Bloodthirst is a decent Talent that gives Hogger the ability to heal himself when damaging enemy Heroes with Basic Attacks, Staggering Blow, or Hogg Wild. The healing amount will be 1/3 of the damage dealt to them.

As it works with both Basic Attacks and Basic Abilities, Bloodthirst has synergy with Seeing Red at Level 7 and Furzerker at Level 16.

Headbanger is a strong Talent that improves Staggering Blow, but only when the Knockback successfully slams enemy Heroes on impassable terrain, making them take additional damage in the form of percent-based damage and increasing the Stun duration from 0.75 to 1.25 seconds.

Even if you can combo Staggering Blow with Loot Hoard in wide areas, avoid picking Headbanger while playing on Battlegrounds that lack narrow areas (such as Hanamura Temple).

Kablooie! is a good Talent that empowers Ez-Thro Dynamites that instantly explode on enemy Heroes as follows: increases their damage, slightly reduces their cooldown, and increases their Slow.

The cooldown reduction you get from Kablooie! is nice to have because it allows you to constantly annoy enemy Heroes with your best Slow while also dealing slightly more damage and gaining a bit more Rage than usual in the process.

The powerful Slow provided by Kablooie! is useful to increase your chances to hit enemy Heroes with Shockwave and for repeatedly hitting them with Basic Attacks.

Furzerker is a decent Talent that increases Hogger's Movement Speed at the end of Hogg Wild for 2 seconds and the damage done by your next 1-2 Basic Attacks within 8 seconds of hitting enemy Heroes with Staggering Blow or Ez-Thro Dynamite.

The mentioned Basic Abilities will provide 1 stack per enemy Hero hit. Basic Attacks will consume 1 stack of Furzerker to deal additional Physical Damage to enemy Heroes hit.

Secret Stash is a decent Talent that drastically increases Hogger's survivability in prolonged team fights. Once upgraded with this Talent, Hoardapult launches a chunk of Meat towards Hogger once every 5 seconds and creates a bit of chaos in the surrounding area by launching an Ez-Thro Dynamite once every 2 seconds.

Avoid picking Secret Stash when team fights are short because you will not be able to get value from the additional chunks of Meat.

Power Spike is a good Talent that greatly empowers Shockwave, making it reduce the Armor of enemy Heroes hit by a decent amount for multiple seconds. In addition to that, hitting enemy Heroes with Shockwave will give you 20 Rage and the cooldown reduction effect provided by your Rage will affect it.

We find Power Spike only playable in team compositions which want to quickly take down a single enemy Hero with burst damage because the Armor reduction effect provided is great for doing so—unless your team already has Armor reduction effect, considering they do not stack.

No Control is a strong Talent that, when activated while mouse-hovering an enemy Hero, makes Hogger cast an untalented and modified version of Hogg Wild that follows and damages enemy Heroes for up to 5 seconds, changing target to a random enemy Hero every time Hogger reaches his target. When lacking targets, Hogger will just spin on the spot until No Control ends. You cannot cancel No Control pre-emptively.

Despite the random component, No Control can add a lot of damage during team fights. Similarly to Hogg Wild, No Control deals more damage based on the amount of Rage you have, so try to build up your Rage with Basic Attacks and Basic Abilities before using it.

Do not use No Control when enemy Heroes are near their own Structures and/or have access to mobility tools, else you will end up dying without accomplishing anything. You have been warned!

Anger Management is a good Talent that increases your maximum Rage and every Rage-related bonus by 50%: cooldown reduction for your Basic Abilities, Rage generation via Basic Attacks, and damage against enemy Heroes with Hogg Wild.

We find Anger Management good when you expect long team fights because in that case you will be able to get past 100 Rage and get value from it. You can combine this Talent with Rage-generating Talents to speed up the process: On The Prowl at Level 1 and Aggro Range at Level 4.