Natalia

Hey there guys! Welcome to another guide by Kinslayer! Today, we will be examining Natalia, the swiftest assassin that has ever crossed the Land of Dawn!

Natalia is a hero who specializes in aiming the backline of teams and if left alone, can do devastating damage to a team! She belongs to the assassin class and personally is one of my favourite heroes!

Now let’s look at what kind of hero Natalia is!

Lore

Natalia was raised from a little girl by the Church of Light and trained into one of the Church’s assassins. This young phenom had risen to become the top assassin for the Church via her outstanding talents, but then on one assassination mission, she failed, causing her companion to meet with unprecedented disaster. Although she was able to escape danger with Tigreal’s help, this was undoubtedly a severe blow to proud Natalia. To prove herself again, she exiled herself to the outskirts of the land far from the Empire and the Church to carry out more dangerous missions. Who is her target? Will she be able to win back all that she once possessed?

Abilities

 

Assassin Instinct (Passive)

Attacks made from behind will deal an extra 15% damage. If the hero is in the bush for 2s without receiving or dealing damage, the hero will enter Stealth mode, and leaving the bush for 5s or dealing damage will make the hero reappear. Stealth mode increases hero movement speed 20%, causes the next basic attack to deal 35% extra damage, and silences the target for 2s.

Note: This is the bread and butter of Natalia, basically standing in a brush for 2 seconds allows you to roam the whole map without anyone seeing you. The only indicator is the ! around the heads of enemies whenever you exit the brush.

The silence of this passive is so important as it allows Natalia to lock down enemies such as mages (Estes, Eudora, Aurora) before they can get their combo off.

The silence disables flicker and healing spell as well!

 

Claw Dash

Dashes forward, dealing 250/280/310/340/370/400 pts of physical damage to enemies along the way. This ability can be cast again within a short period of time after hitting an enemy.

Note: Your main escape tool, and main source of damage in the early game. There is an instant refresh on this skill whenever you hit a minion/enemy hero. This allows Natalia to easily position herself behind the enemy to make use of the critical strikes on her passive.

 

Smoke Bomb

Casts a smoke bomb on the spot, slowing down movement speed for enemies within 65%. The hero’s attack speed will increase 30%/35%/40%/45%/50%/55%, and the hero will be able to dodge all basic attacks.

Note: Upon coming out of invisibility after attacking an enemy hero, this is the spell you should use to slow them down further and letting you get more hits. This also makes Natalia immune to all basic attacks so she can last longer against fighters like Freya and Yun Zhao.

 

Cold-blooded Strangling (Channeling)

Makes multiple forward attacks in a row, each dealing 60/85/110 physical damage and lowering movement speed of affected targets 65%.

Note: This ability may not seem like much but the slow is actually incredibly strong, combined with the smoke cloud, it is very difficult for your opponents to actually run out of Natalia’s range.

Natalia cannot move while casting this spell so be careful when you use it!

Natalia tends to hit harder with her basics than she does with her ultimate in late game stages so use this ability only when you’re able to hit more than 1 enemy to maximize its damage and slow!

Items

As an assassin, mobility and damage is very important for Natalia so that she is able to finish off the marksman and mage of the enemy team before they can devastate your team! Let’s look at the item choices!

 

Haas’s Claws

+70 Physical Attack

Unique: +20% Lifesteal

Unique Passive – Insanity: When HP drops below 40%, the hero will receive an extra 10% physical lifesteal.

Note: This item only allows lifesteal from physical attacks, skills only activate lifesteal only with Bloodlust Axe.

The boost in Physical Attack would increase Natalia’s damage output and give her a source of sustain! She is able to use this item effectively as she has a critical strike imbued in her passive, allowing her to lifesteal from the damage she outputs to opponents!

Unique: + 50 Movement Speed

These pair of boots give the highest movement speed, allowing Natalia to go from one end of the map to the other, taking part in team fights and giving her team an edge.

 

Scarlet Phantom

+ 30 Physical Attack

+ 40% Attack Speed

+ 10% Critical Strike Chance

Unique Passive – Frenzy: Crit strikes will increase the hero’s attack speed 35% and crit strike rate 5%, lasting 2s

While the physical attack boost is slightly lower, the increase in attack speed makes up for the loss! This item allows your crits to proc more often and also increases your attack speed!

With this item and smoke cloud, Natalia hits ridiculously fast, allowing you to make use of the 2 second silence window to deal as much damage as possible before your opponent can attempt to shut you down!

Berserker’s Fury

+ 65 Physical Attack

+ 25% Critical Strike Chance

Unique: +40% Crit Damage

Unique Passive – Doom: Crit Strikes will increase one’s physical attack 5%, lasting 2s.

This item further increases your damage output and the increase in critical strike chance allows you to proc Scarlet Phantom’s passive a lot more often! Natalia’s passive allows your damage to further increase when you attack enemies from the back and thus crit items are very good on her!

At this point you should be able to safely shut down carries and mages during team fights!

Deadly Blade

+ 60 Physical Attack

+ 300 HP

Unique: +15 Physical penetration

Unique Passive – Life Drain: Lowers 50% of target’s HP regen effect when dealing damage to it, lasting 3s.

Deadly blade is a very situational item and should only be bought if they have a healer such as Estes, or any hero that tends to have a large percentage of lifesteal such as Alucard, Ruby.

 

Blade of Despair

+ 130 Physical Attack

+ 25% Attack Speed

+ 10% Critical Strike Chance

Unique Passive – Despair: Deals an extra 10% damage to an enemy in any abnormal state (Stunned, knocked airborne, transformed, disabled)

If Deadly Blade is not required in the game, then go for Blade of Despair instead!

This item is so effective at maximizing item slots as it single-handedly increases your physical attack by 130! Natalia welcomes the 130 increase in Physical Attack as in allows your critical hits to hit so much harder!

The game should have ended around this point, you should be able to kill the opponent Marksman and Mage within the duration of Smoke Cloud!

Other Items

Natalia is a hero who is always in the thick of battle during team fights, here are some other items to consider if you’re having problem surviving in team fights!

+ 920 HP

+ 50 Magic Resistance

Unique Passive – Burning Souls: Deals 1.5% of one’s max HP as magic damage per second to nearby enemies, and deals extra 50% of damage to minions.

+ 900 HP

+ 56 Magic Resistance

+ 20 HP Regen

Unique Passive – Refuge : Get a damage-absorbing shield every 30s. Shield absorption amount grows as the match goes on, maxing out at 1150.

+ 500 Mana

+ 70 Armor

+ 5% Crit Strike Rate Reduction

Unique: +15% Cooldown Reduction

Unique Passive – Arctic Cold: Lowers movement speed 5% and lowers attack speed 30% for nearby enemy heroes.

Battle Spells

Natalia is a sneaky assassin who is able to infiltrate the enemy camps early due to her invisibility! This allows you to steal camps from opponents without them noticing, hence I feel the best Battle Spell for her would be Retribution!

Allies

As an assassin, Natalia definitely doesn’t want to be the first hero to have to engage, so she excels when she has a teammate that can open the team fight for her, heroes that come to mind are Akai, Tigreal, Freya etc.

These teammates will also take the brunt of the enemy spells and attention so your opponents won’t pay attention to the ! that appears whenever you are invisible and close to them!

Skin Preference

Natalia’s best skin has to be the Phantom Dancer! Not only is it beautiful, it also is Limited Edition, giving you the exclusive factor!

Emblem of Choice

Natalia is best suited for the Physical Assassin Emblem Set! Nothing in the emblem set is useless to her and she is able to make full use of the increase in Physical Attack, Critical Strike Chance, Movement Speed and Cooldown Reduction to devastate her opponents!

In Game Tips

Natalia is a hero that can slip in and out of the enemy ranks without them noticing, she is also very difficult to track down when she is invisible! Here are some tips that may help you elevate your Natalia game to the next level!

Early Game

Natalia, with Retribution should go into invisibility and attempt to steal from the enemy’s jungle! The enemies won’t see you coming and when the time is right, activate retribution and steal the jungle creep from them!

In the early game Natalia has huge ganking potential as she is able to sneak up to enemies, silencing and slowing them as well!

Mid Game

By mid game you should have a couple of items built already and this is where you can start to be an annoyance to the opponent team during fights! Get behind the enemies and let your teammates engage first, then creep through the bushes and target the lowest HP enemies to finish them off or get rid of their backlines (Mage, Marksman, even Assassins)

If not team-fighting, resume farming and if you spy an enemy hero who is low on health you can creep over with your fast movement speed and invisibility and try to finish the enemy off!

Don’t forget to farm the new hermit crabs as well! They give a large amount of exp and will be good for giving you an advantage over your opponents!

Late Game

By late game you should be well farmed already and being able to easily make short work of their backline heroes. As usual, wait for the right opportunity to enter the fray and never be the first one to enter the battle!

Additionally, at this stage of the game, Natalia + Smoke Cloud is able to take down turrets insanely quickly. If you see your teammates fighting and you’re on the other side of the map and are unable to get there on time, don’t be afraid to push the turret and try to get their throne!

This is a 50-50 situation as it could go two ways.

If your opponents realise and try to recall home to stop you, your teammates fight at an advantage as likely more than one hero would recall back to try to prevent you from pushing their turrets, heroes that are in the midst of recalling are very vulnerable as well!

If your opponents don’t realise it but are able to clear your teammates, you leave your team at a severe disadvantage as you will be the only one against 4 or even 5 opponents! This allows them to get objectives such as Lord which may potentially cause disaster for your team.

Footnote

This is my take on Natalia, she is a very versatile assassin who is able to do many things and is perhaps one of the best assassins if played well.

I hope you’ve learnt a thing or two from this guide and are one step closer to mastering Natalia!