Troll Warlord

I need your thoughts on our beloved troll. Where does he fit in the current meta? Is he a viable mid against the current popular ones? What is your general item progression with him? And everything else.

He's ****

Lacks physical damage early game and no magical damage anyhow. His nuke is 225 damage at level 4. OSfrog

Then comes problem with break mechanics and now he definitely needs phase HoTD and drums to even dent some heroes. He's the loser of this meta when everyone is going nukes nukes nukes.


My take is to play him support by giving people battle trance buff and also maxing his w for slow and miss chance.

Sigh, I guess I'll pray to the frog so that he gets atleast a little buffed.

yea nukes are definitely an issue, but nothing i dont think you cant solve with a simple BKB. As for lacking in damage in early game Ill have to disagree. Once you hit lvl 4 you can start doing ****. And last time I checked Death Pulse is only 225 dmg rn, so its not terrible. Also you have 2 nukes and a build in disable.

Now the real issue here in this meta is of course Invoker. The number one pick right now currently is one ofTrolls worst enemies due to the excess of nukes, disables, and mid prowess. Knock Invoker out of the kingpin spot, and Troll will be back im tellin ya. He can even deal with Legion as long as she isnt initiating with a Silver Edge

He ain't coming back for 3 meta's, mark my words(they are the last you hear)


Also, necro has a scaling ultimate a good forsaken broken passive and a godforsaken aghs upgrade.
Troll has none.
He can't even farm nowadays.

Troll Warlord is pretty mediocre right now but is by no means a bad hero. You can still win games with him, he's nowhere close to the dumpster.

He's a pushing carry. There are actually very few viable pushing carries in the game so if you have a pushing lineup, need a safelane carry and Lone Druid isn't available, then Troll is a perfectly viable pick. He needs 15-20 minutes of farm, can get Rosh very early, and turn that into a push.

Of course he loses mid against any decent mid hero, becuase he has no base damage. But then Troll isn't a mid hero, he's a safe lane carry and that's it.

Nuke doing only 225 damage? Who cares...since you don't max it anyways. You do realize that the ONLY VIABLE skill build on Troll is 4/1/4, right? Always max Fervor first, bash second, and skip your ult until level 10 because it's terrible at level 1. And then either take stats, or max axes only if you need the blind against melee carries. Whirling axes is a value point, no use in maxing it.
We're not in 2013 anymore guys.

Troll can actually farm because you max Fervor which allows him to do ancients extremely early into the game, even with just phase and lifesteal. You get lifesteal and a situational Quelling Blade and just tear through the jungle Sven style.

Silver Edge is a problem in the late game definitely but the idea is that you pick Troll to 5-man push in the mid game, so the item is not a problem if you play like this.

Support/utility Troll is in the dumpster right now because Battle Trance sucks. His ult was nerfed for no reason after 6.83, since it wasn't even what made him OP. Give him a decent Aghanim's Scepter upgrade and it might become viable. That would actually be kind of fun.

Why pick Troll Warlord when you can pick Windranger?

She can manfight, control, push, and can be played both mid and safelane.

Unless you are going for a niche multi-carry push strat with Battle Trance I don't see much reason to pick him instead of Windranger.

Maybe because most people aren't scum?

WR and Troll don't even have overlapping roles. Troll is a position 1, WR is a position 2 or 3.

WR can *solo* the safe lane if you have an aggro trilane or a roaming duo, but a solo safe lane is not a position 1.

Troll can only be played safe lane in a dual/trilane (there's no such thing as mid Troll until it gets massively buffed). WR can only solo mid, solo safe lane or solo offlane. There's no overlap whatsoever.

Also, Troll can carry a game on his own because he can change targets. WR can't.

The real question is... why pick Troll when you can pick Drow?

They're both fast hitting carries that push with a well designed team. Troll gives attackspeed, drow gives damage (lots of it, including alpha wolf).

Drow can also go Agh's Maelstrom and clear a wave in like 2-3 hits.