Strategy 3

A Walk in My Shoes

BM1

I’m a Krul main. I’m not embarrassed by that. I’m the first account (that I’m aware of) that played Krul to Pinnacle of Awesome. I want to show you a clip of a fight and try to break it down as best I can to help you understand why I do the things I do.

The clip starts with me last-hitting minions under turret. I timed it to let the turret hit the back minions once before I attacked them. It’s a small thing, but lane minions are BIG money, so I’m very careful to missĀ as few as possible.

You’ll see in my inventory that I have a Weapon Infusion. At 17 minutes into the game I’m definitely level 12. This is when the Infusion gives the most bang for the buck. We’re ahead about 3-5 kills at the start of the video, so I’m just trying to maintain that lead.

The enemy team is all crystal. Normally, I want to have an Atlas Pauldron or two to better assist my team in fights. However, due to the crystal nature of the enemy team (SAW, Koshka, Celeste) I opted for double Aegis (eventually).

I notice Koshka recalling in the bush near the shop. I realize this sets up an opportunity for me to fight someone when I have the man advantage, meaning I’m not 1v3. As I walk towards the recalling Koshka, she retreats, and SAW shows in lane. I turn my attention to SAW. I wait until the last minute to use my Weapon Infusion to get the most value out of it.

I attack SAW, but I don’t burn any cooldowns at first. Crystal SAW lives and dies from the execute damage of his Roadie Run shank and Mad Cannon stacks, meaning the less health you have, the more damage crystal SAW will deal to you. At full health this SAW is justifiably not a threat. Not yet at least.

As I move with him, getting Breaking Point stacks and applying stacks of Weakness, his team comes out of the woodwork. Koshka flanks from the jungle and Celeste meets him in lane. I get a ping back from Ringo, that lets me know he’s not near the fight, but I choose to fight on.

I wasted my ultimate. There are much better targets than a SAW who just used Roadie Run, like Koshka before she can ult, and Celeste while she tries to cast her ultimate. My ultimate was used out of greed, because with the few Breaking Point stacks I had it was highly unlikely that I kill that SAW.

Luckily for me, I step south knowing that if I’m going to run my best bet will be through the jungle. Celeste unleashes a Solar Storm just above me as I do that, clipping me with only one blast. Koshka uses Twirly Death, but I paid close attention to not fight near any of my creeps, so she can’t just get a dozen stacks and scratch my face off. Also, she’s my primary target for stacking Weakness and Breaking Point, because she’s melee. If she wants to brawl, she has to come to me.

A well-timed Reflex Block lets me stop the Celeste stun without moving my feet. Krul doesn’t want to walk during a team fight. He’d rather get his attacks in. Each attack is worth more than the last one, which means every single one matters. Using Reflex Block still allows me to have an Aegis block in case Koshka has her ultimate.

Koshka uses her Reflex Block, which would nullify all of the damage from my Spectral Smite, so I cast it on Celeste instead. While not a great target, some heal is better than none. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

After I trigger Spectral Smite I activate my Aegis block. It doesn’t do much, maybe blocks a SAW auto and a Celeste auto, but I was just trying to buy time to get more stacks built up, and keep my Breaking Point headed in the right direction.

It’s at that moment that you’ll see I am attacking as often as possible. I don’t careĀ who I attack, I just make sure to hit something. Breaking Point will eventually let me three-shot anyone, I just have to commit the time to building the stacks. The side perk is the crit you’re about to see on Celeste.

As Celeste tries to kite me, she takes the time to try to orb walk. This is insanely difficult to execute well at low attack speeds. Celeste doesn’t normally build attack speed, so now that she has 2-3 Weakness stacks she is just digging her own grave and letting me attack more and lifesteal.

At 10 Breaking Point stacks I get a crit on Celeste that seals her fate. I lifesteal at roughly 34% lifesteal on a 418 damage crit. Not the end of the world, not game-breaking, but enough of a buffer to keep me alive. Koshka is so scared that my Spectral Smite is up that she uses Reflex Block. Krul’s Smite is a 12 second cooldown, and I was only half-way through it. The threat still exists. However, with 10+ Breaking Point stacks, my Dead Man’s Rush is now more of a threat than Spectral Smite, as it scales with my bonus weapon.

I use the bonus weapon from Breaking Point to finish Celeste off with Dead Man’s Rush. This also grants me a 600 health shield for the next two seconds to start to lifesteal off of whoever comes closest. Koshka is home free; my ult is on a HUGE cooldown, and I just barely used my Dead Man’s Rush. I see SAW charging at me, but I know that with the shield I have so heavily invested in, he shouldn’t be able to finish me off. Oh, how I love being right!

SAW shanks me, back-flips into a Suppressing Fire. However, as he shanks me for 327 damage, I crit him for 449 damage. I don’t get hardly any lifesteal, but that 65% chance to crit really pulled through for me. It leaves SAW low enough that my Spectral Smite can finish him off without me having to trudge my way all the way through his Suppressing Fire. This is when Ardan shows up to save the day, shielding me, which might have killed the SAW if it were half a second sooner.

Two.

I can’t catch Koshka. She’s bounding away much faster than I could ever dream of moving as Krul. I know Ardan’s shield and speed boost are on cooldown. I walk into turret, taunting her to come after me. I have my Dead Man’s Rush activated, but I know the shield is more important than the damage now that my stacks have fallen off. I get the 600 health shield by targeting the turret, and I get to start building my Breaking Point again. Always attack, move, attack move, making sure to see the visual confirmation above your target’s head that they got a stack of Weakness. This lets you know that they’re losing and you’re winning.

Koshka runs towards her dual turrets. The last turret shot is in the air. My Spectral Smite isn’t quite up yet. Koshka is outside of my auto attack range. It was in that moment, when all hope was lost, that Ardan, the savior of Krul-kind, came flying in to save me. He granted me a shield to survive the turret shot, granted me movement speed to close the gap on Koshka, get my third auto and Weakness stack in, and then bought me enough time to activate Spectral Smite for the ACE BABY!

After the ace, Ardan drops turret aggro to me, but I already had a good number of stacks on the turret. I held my Smite to try to prevent my creeps from being shot at in case we wanted to end the game. My team pinged back, and we backed off to finish the game another day.

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing things from Krul’s perspective! I’ll post the video clip below! As always, I appreciate your comments here and on reddit!

3 Comments

  • Reply
    DarkStar
    Mar 19, 2015 6:42 pm

    I love the thought I think I will try out Krul since I have played a lot of Glaive on pretty good (ELO) also is there a chance you could right a lower tier Krul article?

  • Reply
    Inkeyes
    Mar 17, 2015 6:56 pm

    Did you just opening your closet with your post? Well, I’m also a Krul main brother! Nicely played. I like how you adjusted to your opponents with double Aegis, I have personally never done that. Its nice to see the full potential of breaking point. Just out of curiosity, what was going through your mind when you saw the flash of koshka before the engagement?

  • Reply
    SurpriseBirthday
    Mar 17, 2015 6:17 pm

    These are the plays I had in mind when Breaking Point was invented.

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