Heart of the Swarm Campaign- Kerrigan Abilities: Heroic Fortitude

Of Kerrigan’s three first-tier abilities, this is unquestionably the simplest, but also the one that requires the most care to use properly.  Heroic Fortitude grants Kerrigan an additional 200 Life, and increases her regeneration rate by 2.  This makes her a much more durable unit on the field, and can drastically increase her sustainability and the rate at which she becomes ready for new battles.  On the surface this seems very low-management and low-risk, reducing your chance of losing Kerrigan to a bad situation or lucky shot from an enemy ability.  However, its best use is in a much more risky fashion.

With the alternatives to this ability being ranged attacks of one sort or another, Heroic Fortitude effectively creates a serious reduction in Kerrigan’s ability to deal out damage.  This means that she can’t destroy as many units in a given period of time as she otherwise could.  In many situations, this will effectively ‘make up’ for her increased durability, or even cripple her despite it, causing the battle to take longer but end up more certainly in the enemy’s favor.  On the other hand, fights which Kerrigan will win, she will win in better condition than she would without Heroic Fortitude, and she’ll be ready to get back into battle noticeably faster.  This plays well to methods of hero use generally popularized in the Defense of the Ancients style games and other forms of hero-unit-operated ‘tug of war’.  It requires a careful eye and good judgement as to Kerrigan’s state of health at all times, as well as a good understanding of what units or groups of units she can and cannot take on in a fight and expect to survive.

Because she has less ability to inflict targeted takedown on enemy units than a Kerrigan with Kinetic Blast or Leaping Strike, a Heroic Fortitude Kerrigan is often best used solo or alongside a small group of allies that either serve as a screen to keep enemies off her when needed, or provide massive damage while being vulnerable, so that Kerrigan can take the heat off of them and absorb the damage instead.  In situations where Kerrigan is part of a large mass of units, this becomes a much less significant effect, since she is considerably less likely to be targeted without some fairly high levels of micromanagement, and even then there are going to be so many potential targets for enemies that she’s unlikely to need the added durability.

While it seems on the surface that this ability is geared towards making Kerrigan a better mainstream combatant, in truth it caters more to micromanagement and small-unit tactics than to amassing large armies and bringing the hammer down on your enemies.  You are zerg and your tanks are walls of light units and sometimes ultralisks, not your hero.