HotS: How To Bruise Ragnaros

[@rottenhoff]

hey, im a non english master rank rag player nice video, very good explanation! a few more tips on rag: contrary to what you said, rag is a tanky hero, but it depends on the situation. in higher level of ranked play, you will play him as a solo laner. there his tankiness comes from the healing of his Q-ability. you fight a little with the enemy solo laner, both retreat and you keep on healing with your Q off the minions, creating a hp advantage. you can also be sneaky and hit the backline minions with Q, the aoe comming from it could still hit the enemy player if he is somewhat close. this is also true if you try to finish a player who just ran past their gate. hit the gate or tower which is close to him and the aoe effect can hit him, resulting in very satisfying kills, which will happen more often than you think. his tankyness also comes from his level 13 shield talent. this talent allows a sort of kamikaze playstyle he is best at imo. thanks to this shield and his Q-heal you can very reliably destroy the enemy healer or a crucial dd, tipping the whole teamfight in your favour. you will most likely die shortly after this, but this trade is even more powerful because you can clear a whole lane with your lava wave ult before engaging. you dont need to use all abilitys on minions. if you need to heal, just use Q on the caster minion in the middle a few times ( which holds the healing globe). pro tip: you can Q enemy summoned minions, like a Nazeebo cage or Zagara minions for a nice heal! if you want to save mana, just autoattack the back minions. the front minions fight with each other and thus needing less dmg from you to finish them off. if you want to push, use all normal abilitys like shown in the video exept the W-ball. save that for the enemy towers. you can angle them so they hit both towers and deal good dmg to the gate. if you want to push even more, stand in the middle of the gate, your E will reach both towers, thanks to the level 1 range incease. also your Q will hit both towers if you hit the gate! just use normal auto-attacks on one of the towers for maximum destruction. you talked about his combo but i want to clarify a few things: you can run up to an enemy and if you are close, you use your E to speed boost you the rest of the way, making shure your E will hit the enemy so he will get slowed. next you want to first do a normal auto-attack, because it will be empowered by your level 7 talent and follow it up immediatly with a Q attack for a nice burst of dmg. after this aa-Q combo your E should explode now, slowing your enemy. now you hit him with the W-ball and angle it in the direction he will most likely flee to and keep auto-attacking after this. dont use the W directly on him, use it just before him if you can, making shure he will take the maximum instances of dmg, depending on the size of his character moddel. now your level 7 talent should be resett and your next auto-attack deals more dmg again. after that is just some auto-attacks and then rinse and repeat. this sounds complicated, but using the level 7 talent at maximum efficiency is the difference between a good and a great rag player. tldr combo sumup: engage with E -> aa -> Q -> (E explodes) -> W -> aa -> aa -> aa -> Q you can also use your E on teammates! this allows a tank to engage better and slow the enemys + giving you a shield at level 13 or save a teammate, all thanks to the speedboost it provides! at level 16, if you buff a teammate with your E, the 2nd E will always be on yourself. standing in the enemy team, trying to burst down the healer gets more easy if you can heal with your Q off of 2-4 people and getting 2 instances of E-shield of multiple people. dont be afraid to move in a sup optimal way when chasing your target, as long as you hit multiple people with your E for your shield and your taget with your 2nd E for the slow! although not very efficient, rag can clear camps pretty fast. using your lava wave ulti on a lane where a friendly camp is pushing will force the enemys to abandon an objective to defend it, or risking loosing their struktures. the ult can also be used so stop an enemy team from chasing you down, after a lost teamfight. no one wants to risk getting burned :) heck you can even use it offensively, forcing the enemy team into making bad decisions like moving into choke points, which will allow your teammates to hit their abbilitys more reliably. your D ability molten core is best used offensively imo. you can catch an enemy team off guard by pulling it off + the great range allows you to finish up low health enemys that are trying to retreat. the combo for this is: W first, similar to your regular W, predicting the path the enemy will go, which will slow the enemy so that your E follow up will hit them. Q-stun when it makes sense to you, either setting up dmg from your W->E combo or to save a teammate. just make shure you wont get stunned out of the annimation it takes for you to take over the fort, since it takes quite some time till you are in molten core mode and a cancel could leave you out of position and in great danger! sadly rag is not that great in higher level of ranked play. his pushing power is negated by the fact that all you enemys understand soaking aswell and most other solo laner provide their team with more usefull tools like a stun for instance. he is countered very easy by Sonya, Rexxar, Leoric and Malhael, which are popular solo lane picks. he has very little truely good matchups, because this champions are not played frequently. in that sense he is kind of an jack of all traits, master of none type of char. in quickplay im 100% convinced you could spin in a circle all game and hit your lava wave ult on cooldown and you would win 60% of games, because most qp players dont know what soaking exp is. he is a very nice char regardless of his flaws and i love him with a burning passion :) keep up this very informative and nice videos and make them insects burn!

[@Deaven50]

E build Ragnaros is best build! The only, ONLY other time I do anything else is if the enemy team has a lot of long ranged mages and E build wouldnt be able to reach them through their frontline. In that case, I go W build to pressure them from 'safety' while getting some spell armour. Fun Fact: The centre of Sulfuras Smash will always one-shot an Abathur, if you can figure out where the damn slug is. Small tip for for any Varian mains out there, if you see that Ragnaros's weapon is not on fire, the firelord may be looking to hit someone with a quick combo: An auto-attack into Q, which resets his auto-attack timer. Because his Q is a buff to his autos, as Varian, you can parry the entire thing. Doing so completely negates some several hundred points of damage, while preventing the AoE effect. Bonus: no Q damage dealt, no healing for Ragnaros! Only thing he can do to counter this is not make his attack too soon. (Or just aim for someone else I guess.)

[@ThingWub]

No, don't tell the dirty Varians how to win!!

[@UnsolPhysics]

So little variety among rag skins, a shame!

[@QuentinB20]

Imagine a water elemental Ragnaros.

[@UnsolPhysics]

@@QuentinB20 Right?! or a dust devil/wind elemental like al'akir or something!

[@ThingWub]

I really wanted a spaghetti Rag skin with his W being an actual meatball haha

[@MrShinoTheBugman]

fun vid. I usually run smash build, but I use this on occasion.

[@ThingWub]

I tend to feed if I go for smash build

[@getsomebud]

why am i awake

[@UnsolPhysics]

Why indeed

[@ThingWub]

Well as long as you are, maybe watch just 1 more before bed....

[@Andlekin]

Ragnaros, how to be a global nuisance

[@ThingWub]

Step 1: Press R. Step 2: Wait. Step 3: Profit!

[@c2thew]

Did not know about the :45 and :17 time for using Ult waves. Kudos

[@ThingWub]

Yeah test it out on different maps. Like towers of doom is a way different timing because there is only 1 building per lane compared to the 2 we are used to.

[@c2thew]

@@ThingWub gotcha. I wish there was a map timing breakdown posted

[@Jab40]

Great video

[@ThingWub]

Great comment :)

[@phlopsi3586]

The saddest thing about Ragnaros is, that you cannot pick Lava Wave in ARAM. I was really disappointed when I could pick him in ARAM, thought that Lava Wave must be really powerful due to everyone always being in a single lane and then I reached level 10 and Lava Wave was greyed out. :(

[@ThingWub]

A little bit of me cries everytime I see that... and the I stun 4 enemies with smash and I feel better haha

[@101deathcore]

I always knew rag was oppressive but jeez.

[@ThingWub]

We do a little soaking

[@whocaresaboutmyusername22]

What maps don’t work at :17 and :47? Smaller?

[@blackstar_1069]

Baby ragnaros for da win!!

[@ThingWub]

But big Rag needs love too :(

[@longkhang5683]

question? what is the catgirls channel ?

[@Aaron537_UNIQUESTRING]

Lol I've been wondering

[@ThingWub]

YOU MUST NEVER KNOW!!!!!!!!!