So recently in the NACL Hammers’ LEV3L played Baron and built him SM BP SH instead of the traditional Sorrowblade into breaking point into multiple TMs. Lots of people questioned that choice including the casters and Chuck in twitch chat, but it seemed to work; I’m also noticing many high tier players in SEA build Baron with SM instead of SB. To me this seems rather counter-intuitive, because why would you build lifesteal on a burst hero? That’s like building eve on a taka…
Well, one thing about the burst is that he attacks slower than most heroes as WP anyway and actually has to stay in the fight rather than burst and run in some situations to secure the kill, so say he’s going against a WP hero with att speed: he can get out traded if he’s pinched and can’t get away, but with it, he has a better chance to survive since he gets some health back. It also helps when he hasn’t hit full power to trade with enemies if needed. Of course you shouldn’t necessarily be trading AAs with wp baron but you’re better off covering your bases. That’s my theory at least.
After the attackspeed changes he became more effective as a ramping team destroyer who also happens to have devastating burst late game.
SM is a much safer buy for lane sustain, dueling and teamfighting. SM and BP together is meta. SH is stupidly overpowered. Put them all together and you get the ultimate meta Baron build.
SB is still fine as a first buy on Baron, but you better make use of its early power spike, since it’s almost always inferior by late game.
I can understand lifesteal on wp Baron. He really gets targeted hard and it really helps sustain longer. I have a different build for wp Baron using poison shiv… but the play style really changes when you build like this as you sacrifice damage for attack speed and mortal wounds.
Those who play wp Baron will either go straight raw damage burst or more consistent damage by building attack speed and lifesteal.
It’s really down to team comp as well and if you’re getting targeted. you really do need the attack speed to really make full use of that lifesteal. That’s why i prefer poison shiv if i’m going to build lifesteal on Wp Baron.
The fact he built Slumbering Husk means he was getting targeted right? or did he just build it for security? Because as a Wp Baron, you really need to go full glass canon to have any impact. He falls behind really fast if he doesn’t build damage.
Baron also deals aoe damage with every basic attack and skill. His effective overall damage per shot is very high when he hits heroes and minions at the same time. Lets say he hit 1 hero and 3 minions with a basic attack. He gets health back from all those he hit!
Combine that with BP scaling and his healing will be immense.
I guess this makes sense. I liked SB because of the huge power spike it gave you mid game but I suppose SM is better for the late game and teamfighting in general.