The Ultimate Kez Guide Part 1: What skills to take?

Welcome to our comprehensive Kez guide. We’ve been looking at high level games to see how the pro’s are playing him, to make sure you can win those double-downs without question!

Kez is one of the harder heroes, that’s why this Kez guide will teach you everything you need to know to make “the Invoker of carries” work. While Kez’s kit offers a lot of flexibility we recommend that you play him in the carry role, and this guide will be focusing on that aspect.

In this first part of the guide, we’ll break down Kez’s abilities, and game plan. In future iterations we will take a closer look at his item builds, matchups, and any new playstyles (potentially when his facets are added into the game) that will evolve over the course of this patch cycle.

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Innate: Switch Discipline

Switches between Kai and Katana modes. Both have four abilities that share a cooldown. The Katana has a longer attack range, and Kai has a faster base attack time. The cooldown starts at 8 seconds and gets reduced by 0.2 seconds every level (up to 2 seconds at level 30).

(Q - Katana) Echo Slash

Moves Kez forward 250 units (crosses terrain) and deals a percentage of his attack damage to enemies in front of him. After a short delay, an echo deals the damage again (not the movement).

Extra skill points increase the damage 70->100% and reduce the cooldown 20->14s.

Use case: Good in lane for securing creeps and applying pressure to enemy heroes without committing. Use it for farming when there are multiple small enemies. In fights, it’s often better to use Falcon Rush instead.

(Q - Sai) Falcon Rush

Gives Kez a buff that allows him to dash towards enemies (like Phantom Lancer’s Phantom Rush) and causes every attack to proc another echo attack after a short delay. While this is active, you have reduced attack range, and your attack speed items are way less effective.

Extra skill points increase the duration 3->6s, reduce your base attack time (so faster attacks), and reduce the cooldown 20->14s.

Use case: Your primary carry skill. It almost doubles your damage and gives you incredible chasing power. Use this during any big fight, for pushing (it works on buildings!) and farming larger creeps.

(W - Katana) Grappling Claw

Jump towards the targeted tree or enemy. If it’s an enemy, you attack with bonus lifesteal.

Extra skill points reduce the cooldown 15->6s, increase the cast range 700->1000 and increase the lifesteal bonus on heroes 50->200.

Use case: A versatile skill that gives Kez mobility as it works similar to a blink like AM’s. The extra lifesteal is nice, but not super noticeable. Use this as much as possible when farming once you have some mana regen.

(W - Sai) Talon Toss

Damages and silences enemies in an AoE around the target,

Extra skill points reduce the cooldown 15->6s, increase the silence duration 1.75->2.5s, and the damage 75->225.

Use case: Use it when you need a ranged silence or are already on top of an enemy for some extra damage (when you don’t need the grappling hook),

(E - Katana) Kazurai Katana

Your attacks and abilities deal a bonus percentage of the damage over time and apply health regen reduction.

Extra skill points increase the damage per second 5->9%, duration 5->8s (Total extra damage is 30>72%), and regen reduction 20->35%.

Aghanim’s Shard -> Kazurai Katana

Single target spell that deals huge damage depending on the amount of damage over time stacks the target has.

Use case: use it when you have a lot of stacks :)

(E - Sai) Shodo Sai

Passive: All attacks and Sai-Abilities have a chance (17%) to apply a mark that slows slightly and can be consumed by your attacks or abilities to stun for 0.5s, have true strike, and deal a critical strike (if it’s an attack).

Active: Disarms and slows self by 25%, and negates all attacks in targeted direction for 2 seconds. Any attacks negated briefly stun the attacker and apply an amplified version of the passive to the enemy (double stun duration). Can be deactivated early.

Extra skill points increase the crit damage 140-200%, and reduce the cooldown of the active ability 20->5s.

Use case: The active can be quite difficult to use, as often it’s a dps loss because you are not actively attacking. Can be strong to negate amplified attacks like Templar Assassin’s Meld. Use while running away or if you’re manfighting (situational).

(R - Katana) Raptor Dance (Ultimate)

Become debuff and magic immune for a second, then strike a number of times for base damage (75) + max hp percentage damage (4%) with 100% lifesteal.

Extra skill points increase the number of slashes 2->4, and reduce the cooldown 40->30s.

Use case: Really strong against tanky heroes, and if you can use it to predict and consequently ignore an enemy disable. The lifesteal also should not be underestimated, you can easily heal back to full in the middle of a fight. Quite weak in 1v1 situations.

(R - Sai) Raven’s Veil (Ultimate)

Become invisible with increased movement speed, apply a basic dispel to self, and reduce the vision of enemies within a huge radius. Applies the amplified Shodo Sai passive to all affected enemies.

Extra skill points increase the self bonus movement speed 15->35%, increase the buff duration 7->9s, and reduce the cooldown 40->30s.

Use case: Super flexible ability. Can be used to escape from ganks, and to sow chaos in fights. Also a guaranteed way of getting a stun ready to cancel a TP. The visual effect is quite obvious so it’s easy to scare away enemies you’re trying to gank. When ganking, you should instead use it out of vision, far enough away that enemies won’t be able to see the smoke effect. The buff will last long enough to still close the distance and jump people from invisibility. Can be strong in teamfights, but I would recommend being mindful with your usage as Raptor Dance is often stronger in big fights.

Recommended Skill Build:

With the recent nerfs, I would always recommend maxing your Q (Falcon Rush/Echo Slash)  first, as the duration on Falcon Rush is extremely short at level 1 now, and scales well with skill points (3->6s).

I recommend picking and leveling your ultimate whenever possible, as the cooldown decrease and increased slashes on Raptor Dance are valuable.

Then the choice is between your W (Grappling Claw/ Talon Toss) and E (Kazurai Katana/ Shodo Sai). While the damage increase on Kazurai Katana is substantial (30->72%), I think you really need the mobility from grappling claw more (the range goes up from 700 to 1000, and the cooldown increases enormously from 15 to 6 seconds) because your farming is more often limited by your mobility than by your damage (which is why Anti-Mage farms way faster than Ursa, despite the latter having a lot more damage). You do of course want to pick up a value point in your passive at level 3 or 4, to get the extra damage and utility.

To summarize this Kez guide:

R (Ultimate – Raptor Dance/Ravens Veil) / Q (Echo Slash/Falcon Rush) > W (Grappling Claw/Talon Toss) > E (Kazurai Katana/Shodo Sai).

 

Tune in next time for Items and builds for Kez!

 

Read More: Kez's latest nerfs