Tai-Rul by FATDOTABOY

Tai-Rul is a powerful and domineering Strength hero that sticks to his opponents and crushes them over the course of dawn-out engagements. His high attack damage and lower base attack time make laning easy, with the slow and stack effects from Resounding Blows keeping other melee heroes away from him lest they feel his fury. Similarly, with an Orb of Venom, Tai-Rul can make a formidable roamer and ganker even at level 1, using the slow and stun from Resounding Blows to help his laners secure kills.

Rings of Battle is an excellent initiation ability, useful for dealing some damage and slowing a fleeing target long enough for the War Monk to catch up and apply his Resounding Blows stacks. Alternatively, Rings of Battle can be used on heroes trying to engage with Tai-Rul to quickly add another stack of Resounding Blows, as well as the 100% slow to likely allow for another melee attack, essentially getting two stacks out of the ability usage.

Warding Palms is a dual purpose ability, excellent at both protecting Tai-Rul from damage and at proc-ing more Resounding Blows stacks. The barrier protects Tai-Rul from all projectile abilities such as Wraith King's Wraithfire Blast and Skywrath Mage's Arcane Bolt, causing him to suffer no damage and avoid any other on-hit effects. Additionally, it absorbs any basic attacks that it intercepts, both melee and ranged, somewhat similar to Templar Assassin's Refraction. This allows Tai-Rul to survive near-fatal ganks and to dive enemies under tower (the barrier also blocks Tower shots), as Tai-Rul can still attack and cast normally while the barrier is active. If an enemy hero is close enough when the barrier is cast, they will be knocked back slightly, take minor damage, and receive another stack of Resounding Blows. Between his auto-attacks and two proc-ing abilities, Tai-Rul should have many different options for applying Resounding Blows stacks to his opponents, as this ability is core to his concept.

Enlightenment in Violence is the War Monk's ultimate ability, and it synergizes with his other strengths. The evasion and status resistance allow even BKB-less War Monks to engage both physical- and magic-damage heavy lineups with near impunity, and the cleave effect proc-ing ability and item on-hit effects on all affected enemies means that Tai-Rul can not only apply Resounding Blows slows and stuns across multiple bunched enemies at once, but that his itemization is very open and promotes other on-hit abilities like Desolator and MKB. The abilities low-cooldown in late game allows a War Monk to almost always have this ability available for initiation or counter-initiation, and much of his carry potential derives from good use of this ability.

Tai-Rul has viability in just about any lane, as well as in the role of a roamer. His decent stats and early toughness allow him to trade blows in the top lane, while being able to go toe-to-toe with many safe lane cores early on, especially low HP ones. However, he also enjoys quick levels, as all his abilities start someone mediocre but scale very will with both levels and farm. Thus, both mid and bottom core positions are available to him, as he is a powerful tempo-setting hero if given farm priority. Lastly, in line-ups already saturated with laning cores, his kit allows him to 4 position roam in a pinch. The slow and stun effects from Resounding Blows can give enemy heroes a headache if caught out of position, and both Rings of Battle and Warding Palms give him excellent dive potential.