Damn Feathers! - Top Tips to Become a Master Falstad

Oi lads. Today our HotS Boost team will be discussing Falstad. He is a very unique assassin that has a mix of burst and utility damage which makes this character popular at the highest level of professional play and top of our HotS Tier List.

He can be hard to learn well in solo-queue without help from our Heroes of the Storm Boosting experts and bad teammates, but when he is played at his strongest, he can dominate games by himself.

Learning to single handedly win games with make strong plays as Falstad requires a lot of practice. If you want to have success with this dwarf, the tips and tricks that our HotS Boost experts and I will give you below will help you excel!

Maximize Soaking Experience

Instead of using his mount, Falstad can use his Flight to travel across the map to any location within its range. This gives him an unparalleled dexterity when it comes to lane sustain. Whenever a large objective is about to come up, you are able to remain in your lane getting an extra wave or two of experience, before traveling to your team to join the skirmish or contest the desired objective.

There are tons of opportunities to fly to a nearby lane and gain a big advantage over your lane opponents. When your team is making a push and has started to retreat, fly to another nearby lane to soak its experience. If your team is about to lose an objective and you have to disengage, fly to a distant lane and start taking experience. If someone is ganked in a solo lane, head on over and soak to limit experience losses for your team. I think that you get the idea!

Barrel Roll Over the Barriers, Don’t Use it Just to Gain Ground

Learning how to correctly us Barrel Roll is key to finding success as Falstad. He’s fantastic and destroying single targets, but often needs strong commitments in order to secure kills. When you lock in to get the kill, and you find that you got yourself a little too deep in the enemy team, use Barrel Roll as your way out.

I’ve noticed that sometimes while leveling Heroes of the Storm accounts using gaining ground alone isn’t enough to make the escape successful. Sometimes you will have to use Barrel Roll to jump over environmental barriers. Barrel Roll can be used to hop through most of the internal map, allowing you to move through tons of space and deny vision from your enemies.

To some Falstad players, this will be obvious advice. Our more advanced strategy is to set up your engagements in a way so you have the chance to fly across over barriers easily. In other words, if you make your approach to a wall, it will ensure your escape. Use your Hammerang to zone people towards walls.

Think about your ways to get out of a fight before you even get in, and you will find that you are able to make more effective plays.

Keep Watch of the Minimap

Falstad can be extremely dangerous when your team has good vision of the map or a sense of the enemy’s location via the mini-map. It’s your job to watch your map like a hawk to find opportunities to use your Flight in a moment’s notice.

We already discussed the advantages of traveling to a lane for experience, but that is not the only reason to watch the map. Sometimes you’ll see an ally that is about to kill an enemy, allowing you to come in to secure the kill. Other instances may require you to fly in to save an ally with your Mighty Gust.

There might be a mercenary camp destroying a faraway lane that needs you to come in for the clear. If you are not watching the mini-map, you might be too late to get kills, save a life, or protect your fort! If you are struggling, buying hots accounts to practice your skills will make a huge difference when you go back to your main.

Use your Flight First

Flight has an extremely long range, however it isn’t global. Many times after you cast it, Falstad will need to take some time moving within range before the skill activates. That means you can end up wasting 5 or 10 seconds “running” without using the skill. Instead of losing time on your next cooldown, you can cast Flight at its max range, and then run to your chosen location.

When I buy Heroes of the Storm accounts to practice, I notice there are times where you don’t want to mosey up to your location, so this strategy doesn’t apply to every situation. Sometimes the effect of a surprise landing is more important!

Diversify Your Usages of Mighty Gust

Mighty Gust has not been Falstad’s popular heroic ability choice, but it has gained attention when people started to realize how useful it is in a lot of situations. If you are not using it creatively, then you are wasting most of its power. Sometimes all it takes is practice to get Falstad playing like his earned God Tier on the HotS Tier List.

Even though the common use of his Mighty Gust is forcing strong disengagements, you can also use it offensively. Using it to push enemies into a wall or trapping your opponents into an enclosed area can set up plays for your team and area of effect damage. You can also use your Flight to fly behind the enemy team’s line then gust them into your allies to prevent any disengage spells from their team and force a fight and when your team is ahead. You can pick off an important target with your crowd control, then force their allies away for the kill.

Mighty Gust has tons of utility around big objectives, structures, and the cores. Being able to hold off your opponents when defending your core can be game changing. You also can temporarily delay an opponent’s defense when attacking the core yourself. If enemies are trying to take a keep before your team arrives, using Mighty Gust can prevent the structure from being destroyed. you can push people off mercenaries to capture points, block turn-ins, or steal bosses.

Always Conceal Your Landing Spot

When you are using your Flight, enemies will get a marker on their map that shows your landing spot. If you are too aggressive, there will always be enemies waiting with lots of crowd control to your flight. Making Flight to land inside bushes or a safe distance away can remove risks of bad Flights.

Be Willing to use your Hearthstone Often

Because Falstad is always able to fly back to his old location, there is basically no downside to using your Hearthstone as often as possible. You are able to use your health and mana as resources in your lane, endlessly pressuring your opponent, then returning for a refill so you can jump back into the lane without losing experience. If you are able to do this well, you will force all your opponents to take structure damage and force them to go back to base to force them to lose experience.

You can also make runs back to base during objectives. Falstad is not useful when he does not have health or mana, so go back to base to recover, then just fly back to give your team that extra surge that they will need to take the objective.

Falstad’s trait Tailwind gives him large amounts of movement speed if he has not taken any damage in 6 seconds, another reason why he is god-tier on our Heroes of the Storm Tier List.

If you are able to always stay safe during team fights, you can use this huge movement speed bonus to your team’s advantage and chase down opponents. Try to keep Lightning Rod active throughout its duration. An extra attack because of it can make a huge difference. Position yourself defensively and avoid damage in fights to gain this advantage.

These tips in this article will help smart and patient players use Falstad as an incredible weapon and keep him high on our Heroes of the Storm Tier List. If you are able to use all his utility along with the large burst damage he can provide, you are certain to be a powerful force than will single handedly control games and make your team better.