Greetings, my name is devmage and I've been playing Heroes since late alpha, and this is my first MOBA. I consider myself a hardcore casual. I'm an old gamer, playing MMORPG's for over 15 years playing largely support roles and have gravitated to those same roles in Heroes. BrightWing is one of my favorite support characters and I thought it would be fun to create this guide for my favorite way to play her, very aggressively.

About the Build
Brightwing is a fantastic team fight support. Her trait Soothing Mist is an AOE pulse heal, with ways to trigger this more often such as Gust of Healing, her ultimate Blink Heal for another direct heal, and Storm Shield for all! I start off the build with some more aggressive talents Arcane Precision and Envenom which gives Brightwing some extra and often unexpected damage. I fill out late game with Sprint for escape, and Criterize which helps ensure team kills. In fact being able to shutdown so many heroes with her Polymorph ability is what makes her super useful and fun in team fights.

Trait

(D)

Brightwing heals nearby allied Heroes for 45-306 (36 + 9 per level) every 5 seconds.

Your trait is your bread in butter. You need to be near someone to heal them. This often means been in the middle of things more so than some of the other support. What's great is it doesn't take mana to heal someone in this way and you are constantly healing your self. This makes for some fun harassing in the beginning of the game. This also frees up your mana to use with your other abilities.

Abilities

(Q)

Mana: 50 Cooldown: 8 seconds Deals 90-670 (70 + 20 per level) damage in a small area and 45-335 (35 + 10 per level) damage in a larger area.

Brightwing does little damage, its more like a tickle. This is going to be one of your only ways to deal damage to creeps and heroes. Like similar abilities once tossed it places a circle on the ground where it is going to hit and you can move out of it. It is one of the abilities you learn how to time to hit moving targets which comes with play time.

(W)

Mana: 75 Cooldown: 15 seconds Deals 30-175 (25 + 5 per level) damage. Target enemy cannot attack or use Abilities for 2 seconds.

This ability lets you harass and destroy your opponent and is her best ability. Using this one ability you can neutralize a lot of other heroes Heroic abilities which are interruptible, and allows your team to move in for the kill.

(E)

Mana: 60 Cooldown: 12 seconds Increase target's Movement Speed by 20% and block 1 Hero Basic Attack, reducing their damage by 50%. Lasts 3 seconds.

This ability is great for passing your teammates the a quick burst of speed to catch and finish off a fleeing enemy. A few alternate uses for it are helping that teammate that maybe didn't pull out fast enough to get away, or even yourself! I will often use it to maybe get somewhere a little faster as if your Z is down she doesn't get around quickly!

Heroics

(R)

Mana: 40 Charge Cooldown: 10 seconds Cooldown: 1 second Teleport to nearby ally, healing them for 125-618 (108 + 17 per level). Can store 2 charges.

This is my goto Heroic Ability. BrightWing is a support character and if you want some entrails you are going to need to help your teammates take down some heroes. Because Brightwing's mobility is somewhat limited by not having a mount this can be helpful to get somewhere faster as you can kind of drag behind someone with it. Use it to heal your team mates, and move in and out of fights/range.

(R)

Mana: 90 Cooldown: 60 seconds Creates an expanding nova of wind, dealing 130-1000 (100 + 30 per level) damage and pushing enemies away.

This ability is one I usually ignore. I've seen it most often used to either disrupt the enemy team or allow your teammates to back out of an engagement that is going wrong.

Mount?

(Z)

Cooldown: 45 seconds Teleport to an allied Hero.

BrightWing is one of those heroes who has a special mount condition. She doesn't jump on a horse, she is a flying fairy dragon! No instead she uses her power teleport to her teammates. This is fantastic on any map but particularly powerful on large maps like Sky Temple, Cursed Hollow and Dragon Shire. The disadvantage for having this ability is regular getting around is just plain slow. Once upon a time this cooldown was 30 seconds and I believe that a bit nicer. I try to save this if I think I'm going to need to hop around or need to be somewhere quickly soon. This lets you pop back to base for mana and jump right back into the battle however extremely fast. It CAN be an escape if a low damage hero has you on the ropes but most of the time you cannot execute the teleport before they can interrupt or kill you.

Level 1

	Arcane Precision
	Inner area damage increased by 33%.

• Arcane Precision
• Shield Dust
• Bribe
• Scouting Drone

So I start out different from the rest of the pack. The majority of what you see people go with here is Bribe, but to be honest I find it doesn't fit my play style. I am always in the fight, always trying to support my team I don't want to go off and get some giants. If I'm with someone getting camps we already had the capability of taking them. I've found that having the extra damage from Arcane Precision helps me lane in the beginning, and land deathblows in team fights or fleeing enemies. I experimented with Shield Dust and didn't find it made a large enough impact to justify. Scouting Drone I leave to others :)

Level 4

	Envenom
	Cooldown: 60 seconds Activate to poison an enemy hero, dealing 210-1080 (180 + 30 per level) damage over 5 seconds.

• Anti-magic Powder
• Protective Shield
• Envenom
• Promote

Staying with the aggressive theme here I go with Envenom! For the longest time I used Protective Shield but found that Envenom really allowed me to help a kill happen that may not have happened otherwise. After I saw how effective it was I never went back. I use Pixie Dust far more often for catch up than escape, I don't believe Anti-magic Powder would be effective enough for those 3 seconds to be useful. Promote seems out of place on BrightWing.

Level 7

	Gust of Healing
	Cooldown: 60 seconds Activate to release a Soothing Mist every second for 4 seconds.

• Regenerative Rains
• Gust of Healing
• Calldown: MULE
• Cleanse

Two options to improve your healing this level, one I consider more controllable than the other. I prefer Gust of Healing over Regenerative Rains for the larger burst healing you get with Gust, and being able to trigger it when I need it. While you end up healing with Regenerative Rains while you are tossing out Polymorph and Arcane Flare I love being able to just kick off Gust of Healing in the middle of the team fight while I take care of business and that huge burst just brings people back without the cast times or me needing to be casting. BrightWing shouldn't be hanging around buildings for Calldown: MULE and crowd control doesn't last long enough for Cleanse to be super effective.

Level 10

	Blink Heal
	Charge Cooldown: 10 seconds Cooldown: 1 second Teleport to nearby ally, healing them for 125-618 (108 + 17 per level). Can store 2 charges.

• Emerald Wind
• Blink Heal

Blink Heal is my go to Heroic Ability. This is your first and only single target heal. It's not a huge heal but noticeable enough. You can do it in quick succession if needed and often thanks to the low cooldown and fast recharge. It also gives BrightWing some much needed mobility in the process as well. I see Emerald Wind still very popular ability and it can really throw a monkey wrench into team fights and let team member pick people off, and can also be used for disengaging a team fight you loosing.


Level 13

	Sprint
	Cooldown: 60 seconds Activate to gain 75% Movement Speed for 3 seconds.

• Sticky Flare
• Phase Shield
• Sprint
• Ice Block

This is another level I changed from my original picks. I started out here taking Phase Shield but I would often meet up with people not in a fight so it seemed like a wasted talent 50% of the time. I started taking Sprint instead for the get away, or even sometimes to get someone faster and save my Phase Shift cooldown for a temple grab or something. Ice Block always seemed dangerous I'm not sure how you would get away if you had to use it and I prefer speed for me than snare for others with Sticky Flare.

Level 16

	Critterize
	Polymorphed targets take 25% more damage.

• Hardened Focus
• Sticky Powder
• Critterize
• Stoneskin

This is probably the easiest choice period, we go with Critterize here. Polymorph lets you shut down the enemey and Critterize makes them dead! Hardened Focus has some merit because you are full quite often because of your trait but it will only help you in laning you will not be staying above 80% in a team fight, where that extra hero damage will come more in handy. Sticky Powder isn't necessary if you take Critterize they will die before they can run 90% of the time, and making them dead is greater than the brief protection of Stoneskin.

Level 20

	Storm Shield
	Cooldown: 45 seconds Activate to give all nearby allied Heroes a Shield for 20% of their max Health for 3 seconds.

• Continuous Winds
• Ysera's Blessing
• Storm Shield
• Rewind

We round out the build with Storm Shield as the last talent pick. Since her nature is to heal everyone I like that I can shield everyone as well. This is great mid team fight followed by Gust of Healing. I've never found myself going if only I had one more change of Blink Heal, so Ysera's Blessing is a waste. Continuous Winds is a must I feel if you did go Emerald Wind because of how effective the extra blasts are. Lastly Rewind is something I toyed with but never found as useful as Storm Shield.