Tassadar, the Protoss High Templar, has gone through many reworks during his lifetime in Heroes of the Storm. Previously a support, the latest Tassadar redesign classifies him as a ranged assassin with the damage to show for it. While he may have lost some of his key abilities that formed his previous auto-attack play-style, his new abilities and talents give players more options when it comes to builds.
New abilities
One of the biggest changes came to Tassadar’s Q ability. Blizzard removed his Plasma Shield, which gave him self sustain and allowed him to operate as an off-healer to support auto-attack based heroes. Now he has Shock Ray, which is a line skill-shot which damages and slows.
Going for a Shock Ray build delivers a major power spike at Level 16, where Tassadar can pick up the talent Thermal Lance. It causes Shock Ray to do an additional 8% of targets’ maximum health as damage.
Tassadar lost his only escape ability, Phase Shift, which made him invulnerable and unreveable for 2 seconds, while granting an increase in movement speed. This allowed Tassadar to get out of sticky situations. Now he has Force Wall, previously a heroic ability, moved to his base kit. Force Wall can be used in a pintch to help Tassadar escape, but it also lets him separate enemies and trap them.
If you are looking for an escape ability, Shadow Walk at Level 13 can be picked up as an active ability and grants you stealth for 1.5 seconds. His new heroic ability, Black Hole, allows Tassadar to stun and move a group of heroes. It lets him completely disrupt a team fight, similar to Stukov’s Massive Shove, but with the ability to grab multiple heroes.
Strengths & weaknesses
The Tassadar rework pushes him to a new level of AOE damage. His Shock Ray and Psionic Storm are strong at clearing minion waves, and allow him to deal heavy damage in team fights. With Force Wall and Psionic Storm, Tassadar can easily zone an enemy team, and he excels at blocking off small corridors between lanes. Maps like Tomb of Spider Queen and Garden of Terror have small corridors around the objectives, and there Tassadar can have a great time forcing enemies to reroute their path or utilize mobility abilities.
Tassadar is not without his flaws. With all that long range poke, he is very squishy and lacks mobility until Level 13, and even then it requires picking a talent that is on a 60 second cooldown. This lack of mobility and low health pool leave him vulnerable to high mobility characters. Heroes like Tracer, Kerrigan and Greymane can easily punish Tassadar if he is out of place. He relies on the peel from his allies to leave an engagement.
Place in the meta
It it too early to say where Tassadar will land in the meta after this rework. He offers lots of wave clear, and his kit is full of zoning abilities and slows, helping set up teammates for kills. He does well at initiating fights with long range poke, but does not excel at chasing the enemy. After a few games with him following the rework, he feels good but balanced.
Full details on the Tassadar rework and other changes in the current patch can be found in the official Heroes of the Storm patch notes.
