All Kez abilities in Dota 2

Ascension Night is over, and Kez is finally here in Dota 2 as the 126th hero on the roster. The Flightless bird samurai has two sets of abilities at his disposal: one set utilizing the bigger Kazurai Katana, and the other associated with the smaller Shodo Sai Blades.

Here’s a breakdown of Kez’s abilities, Aghanim’s Shard and Scepter upgrades, and all other parts of his kit in Dota 2.

Dota 2 Kez abilities, explained

Switch Discipline (Innate)

• Default hotkey: D

This is how you switch between the two weapons in your arsenal, and thus the corresponding abilities. While this is similar to Troll Warlord’s kit, the ability cooldowns are shared for Kez. So, for instance, if you use his Q ability while in the Katana form and switch to Sai Blades, the different Q ability on the second form will be on cooldown.

As for the weapons themselves, the Kazurai Katana has longer range, higher base attack time, and higher Damage. This means, when you’re switching to the Shodo Sai blades, you are trading some damage and attack range for faster attacks (due to lower base attack time).

Echo Slash (Katana – First basic ability)

• Default hotkey: Q

This ability makes you slide forward with your katana in a forward direction, dealing a percentage of his attack damage and movement speed slow in the AoE twice in quick succession. Enemy heroes are dealth a flat bonus damage in addition.

Grappling Claw (Katana – Second basic ability)

• Default hotkey: W

Grappling Claw is Kez’s gap close or escape, depending on the situation as you can grapple enemy units (quite similar to Harpoon except you move to their location completely rather than meeting at the middle point) or trees (akin to Timbersaw’s Timber Chain). If you grapple an enemy unit, they are slowed and you gain lifesteal for your following attack (with a flat bonus amount of lifesteal if the target is an enemy hero).

Kazurai Katana (Katana – Third basic ability)

• Default hotkey: E

This passive skill imbues your Katana attacks with a stacking Damage over Time that’s calculated as a percentage of your original attack’s damage coupled with an additional DoT component. Affected enemies also have their health regen reduced by a flat percentage.

Raptor Dance (Katana – Ultimate)

• Default hotkey: R

Raptor Dance makes Kez channel for one second, during which he gains debuff immunity and 100 percent magic resistance. After a successful channel (only BKB-piercing disables can stop it, like Bane’s Fiend’s Grip), you perform a series of radial slashes which deals Pure damage based on affected enemy’s max health and heal Kez for a percentage of the damage dealt. You also receive a strong dispel at the end of the radial slashes.

Falcon Rush (Sai Blade – First basic ability)

• Default hotkey: Q

Falcon Rush lets you rush towards an enemy unit with phased movement (think of Phantom Lancer’s Phantom Rush). However, your attack speed is handicapped in this duration, which means this ability sees reduced benefits from attack speed-granting items.

Talon Toss (Sai Blade – Second basic ability)

• Default hotkey: W

Kez throws a Sai Blade at an enemy unit, which deals damage and silences all enemies in a short AoE.

Shodo Sai (Sai Blade – Third basic ability)

Default hotkey: E

This ability has both passive and active components. For the passive part, your Sai attacks and abilities have a chance to mark enemies, which slows them and your next attack on them has True Strike and deals stun and a critical strike. As for the active component, you can use it to parry attacks coming from the direction you’re facing for a short duration. Parried enemies are stunned and marked, and they’re dealt additional critical strike and longer stun when you attack them.

Raven’s Veil (Sai Blade – Ultimate)

• Default hotkey: R

Kez releases smoke in a large AoE, which applies mark with parry bonus to enemies besides blinding them. Upon casting, you receive basic dispel and gain bonus movement speed and invisibility until you break it by attacking or casting a spell.

Kez’s Aghanim’s Shard upgrade

Aghanim’s Shard upgrades Kazurai Katana and Shodo Sai, the two passive-granting abilities in Kez’s kit.

Shard grants an active component to the Kazurai Katana ability. This lets you impale your target with your attack, briefly stunning your target and yourself in the process. After the short duration, the debuff on the target ends, dealing your attack to deal a burst of bonus damage based on the stack amount.

As for the Shodo Sai part, Shard grants you a flat movement speed bonus, and additional movement speed based on the number of enemies with marks on them.

Kez’s Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade

Aghanim’s Scepter lets you refresh the cooldown of Switch Discipline by casting any of your weapon abilities. Additionally, the first ability you cast after three seconds of using Switch Discipline won’t put its alternate weapon ability on cooldown.