Tyrande Whisperwind strikes fear into all who wish ill of the Kaldorei. As the highest ranking Sentinel and High Priestess of Elune, she is not only the Night Elves' most deadly warrior, but also their most cunning leader.
Tyrande is probably my favourite Hero, but her design has always been confused and bloated. This update is my attempt to show some ways her kit could be improved - mostly in the form of reducing the bloat and sharpening up her builds. Modern talent designs have a good balance of in-tier diversity and between-tier synergy, and I've aimed at achieving that for her. In short, there should be a clear Q build, a clear W/E build, and a clear Basic Attack build, but, every talent choice should still be a decent alternative for any build in the right situation or if you just prefer it. Some clearly right builds, but no strictly wrong ones.
Tyrande's overloaded kit also makes her have a fairly unfocussed identity, an awkward mix between a sustained in-combat healer and a burst-damage-support. I've backloaded some of her power to refocus her a bit more towards her 'sustained healer/damage support' niche, by removing some of her burst damage and healing and increasing her sustained damage and healing.
One major change I wanted to make was to the cluttered level 20 options where Iceblade Arrows and Shooting Star were treading on each other's feet - breaking them apart has caused knock-on changes across many tiers. Secondly, to reduce what I felt was unnecessary complexity, the biggest changes to her kit come from wanting Hunter's Mark to no longer be an active ability, and wanting Light of Elune to use a regular cooldown style instead of the double-charge cooldown system. Both of these changes have some significant knock-on effects, most notably from the Hunter's Mark change.
That all said, Tyrande is established and well liked, so I didn't want to majorly overhaul her from the ground up. I have made comments like this through the build to explain how I've tried to achieve my goals with minimal disruption. It is to be expected that the balance team would tune numbers like cooldowns etc., so I'm not terribly concerned about the power level beyond there hopefully being nothing obviously broken going on.
Combat Trait
1
Moonlight
Tyrande's basic attacks apply Moonlight to their target for 4 seconds, burning them for 4 damage per second, revealing them and lowering their Armor by 10, increasing all damage taken by 10%. Does not affect structures.
Hunter's Mark is no longer an active ability, and is just applied to enemies she attacks. Taking it off the active button eases some of her kit's bloat, and pushes a bit harder into her identity as a 'sustained damage-support' healer. The armour-reduction amount is reduced from 15 to 10 to compensate slightly for the uptime increase, and the tiny damage over time is basically just for flavour. Overall her burst damage contribution will be weaker, but her sustained damage contribution stronger. Restyled from Hunter's Mark to Moonlight since Hunter's Mark is a fairly old-fashioned generic effect that doesn't really suit Tyrande's unique character.
Primary Abilities
1
Light of Elune
Cooldown: 4 seconds 15 Mana
Heal target allied Hero for 360 Health.
The cooldown is reduced from 16 seconds for two charges to 4 seconds for one charge, and the base healing amount is increased by about 30%, but the cooldown reduction from attacks and ability damage is gone. This does a lot of work in both simplifying her kit and refocussing it into the 'sustained' rather than 'burst' identity.
2
Sentinel
Cooldown: 15 seconds 40 Mana
Send an Owl across the battleground revealing its path, dealing 60 damage to up to two Heroes hit and applying Moonlight.
As it's such a big element in choosing to pick Tyrande, it's important for Sentinel's vision to get value consistently. To that end, Sentinel is harder to block early as it now pierces one hero by default, with its damage halved. Kit tightened up slightly by replacing the owl's reveal effect on heroes with an application of Hunter's Mark (Moonlight). The reveal is slightly shorter (4 seconds instead of 5), but the armour debuff gives it some nice added utility. Mana cost reduced slightly.
3
Lunar Flare
Cooldown: 13 seconds 60 Mana
After 0.75 seconds, deal 150 damage and Stun enemies in the target area for 0.75 seconds.
Another huge part of picking Tyrande is her ability to follow up on an engage with this chunk of damage and CC. I haven't made any alterations to Lunar Flare baseline, but talent upgrades have traded some burst damage for better consistency.
Heroic Abilities
1
Shadowstalk
Cooldown: 90 seconds 75 Mana
Grant all allied Heroes 20% movement speed and heal them for 380 Health over 5 seconds. Heroes also gain Stealth for up to 10 seconds. They are Unrevealable for the first 0.5 seconds, and remaining stationary for at least 1.5 seconds while Stealthed grants Invisible.
Added unrevealability to be consistent with similar effects, then added movement speed and front-loaded the healing so that it is a better clutch save.
2
Starfall
Cooldown: 80 seconds 75 Mana
Deal 92 damage per second and Slow enemies by 20% in an area, applying Moonlight. Lasts 6 seconds.
Every 1.5 seconds an untalented Lunar Flare will fire at a random enemy in the area, prioritizing heroes.
Starfall is another good example of Tyrande's kit being confused as it was the 'damage' heroic but because of its ability to generate CDR on Q it was actually a powerful healing spell - the end result being rather unimpactful for anything. As Q CDR is now only from basic attacks, Starfall is given a stronger identity as a straight aggressive heroic. Adding some Lunar Flares into the mix and applying an overall damage buff in the form of Moonlight (Hunter's Mark) should help it feel like a much scarier, more aggressive area denial ability.
TALENTS
Level 1
(Q) Moonlit Arrows
Basic Attacks restore 1 mana and decrease the cooldown of Light of Elune by 0.25 seconds.
Moved from level 7, reduced CDR as the value is higher, and added mana restore to compensate for an overall slightly more mana-intensive kit (due to Q's shorter cooldown).
(W) Ranger
Sentinel pierces an additional Hero. Its width is increased by 25%, and it deals up to 600% more damage based on distance travelled.
Max damage buff to 600% from 250%, as baseline damage halved. This brings the maximum damage back up to the same amount, but it can now hit three heroes instead of two.
(D) Huntress's Fury
Tyrande's Basic Attacks fire additional arcane arrows at all nearby targets with Moonlight, dealing 75% damage.
Turned the Huntress's Fury effect inside-out for an interesting interaction with the new style of Hunter's Mark and an option to get a small improvement to Tyrande's woeful waveclear, moved from level 7 so the waveclear talent choice is available while it's most relevant.
Level 4
(Q) Everlasting Light
Light of Elune gains a second charge and heals for an additional 30% of its healing amount over 9 seconds. This healing starts high and reduces over the duration.
In an attempt to make Tyrande's level 4 talents more distinct, Elune's Chosen is removed as it overlapped both Mark of Mending and Everlasting Light while bloating her kit with another activated ability. Everlasting Light becomes the active-healing talent option at level 4. Charges do not both recharge together, but you can start a fight with two charges again for more burst healing. Q now acts as the 'activate' that Elune's Chosen had, granting sustained healing, and the it's-good-to-heal-multiple-targets aspect of Everlasting Light is achieved by the non-stacking Heal-over-Time. Restores 10% additional healing over 9 seconds, 10% additional over the first 6 seconds, and 10% additional over the first 3 seconds.
(E) Fury of the Moon
Increase Lunar Flare's range by 30%. Basic Attacks reduce the cooldown of Lunar Flare by 0.5 seconds.
Combined Lunar Blaze's range from level 1 and Ranger's Mark's cooldown from level 13, removed CDR on Hunter's Mark as it no longer has one. Reduced CDR on Lunar Flare to slightly compensate for much improved uptime and renamed to better suit the new design.
(D) Mark of Mending
Basic Attacks against targets with Moonlight heal the attacker for 1% of their maximum Health. Tyrande's Attack Speed is increased by 10%.
As Tyrande's basic attacks will now always be against targets with Hunter's Mark (Moonlight), this talent can be simplified. The self-healing effect is now significantly smaller, and the heal on others is halved, but the hugely increased uptime on Moonlight should notably outweigh that. The increased attack speed frees up some of Iceblade Arrows from level 20 to mark this as the basic attack build talent option at 4.
Level 7
(Q) Kaldorei Resistance
Light of Elune grants the target 20 Spell Armor for 3 seconds.
Spell Armor increased from 10 -> 20 and duration increased from 2 -> 3 seconds, but no longer stacks (only relevant if you took Q charge at 4), so baseline Q applies it fully. Overall a slight buff, but mostly just simplifies the effect.
(E) Lunar Blaze
Casting Lunar Flare fires an instant blast of moonfire in the target area, dealing 46 damage to enemies, slowing them by 20% for 0.75 seconds and applying Moonlight.
Moved from level 1, the mage-build talent option at 7. As part of refocusing Tyrande away from burst damage and towards consistency, the damage quest is replaced with a flavourful bonus hit and slow effect (a teaser of her Starfall heroic) which should help lock down enemies and let E land more consistently.
(D) Trueshot Aura
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Activate Moonlight to grant 25% increased Basic Attack damage to nearby allied Heroes for 5 seconds. Passive: Tyrande's Basic Attack damage is increased by 15%.
Slightly less bloated, this no longer refreshes Hunter's Mark cooldown as that is no longer activated, and as the D button was freed up it is a good place to move this to. Cooldown reduced from 45 to 30 seconds since it now does less. Swapped levels with Huntress's Fury as Fury more useful early and Trueshot Aura a better choice for a later power upgrade and a better competitor with the other options at level 7.
Level 13
(Q) Quickening Blessing
Gain 5% Movement Speed. Light of Elune increases the target's Movement Speed by 20% for 3 seconds.
(Passive) Darnassian Archery
Increase Basic Attack Range by 1. Basic Attacks against enemy Heroes grant a stacking 10% Basic Attack damage bonus for 4 seconds.
The attack range from Shooting Star at 20 has been rolled into this Basic Attack talent choice so as not to compete against another talent that it would also crave.
(D) Harsh Moonlight
Moonlight reduces the target's movement speed and damage dealt by 15%, and it deals 300% more damage.
The damage reduction effect from Harsh Moonlight and Iceblade Arrows have merged here, which while less immediately impactful than the original Harsh Moonlight version, has the uptime from Iceblade Arrows and synergizes with other Hunter's Mark effects. Quadrupling the tiny DoT is mostly meaningless flavour - 4 times nothing is nothing, but it's certainly a more "Harsh" kind of moonlight.
Level 16
(Q) Celestial Alignment
Light of Elune blesses its target for 0.25 seconds, making them Unstoppable and then healing them for 5% of their missing Health.
Q having a shorter cooldown inherently increases this talent's already high power level, but the other talents on the tier are stronger so this needed a buff too. The brief window of Unstoppable is a very important utility that healers frankly need (even if Tyrande does get it notably late), and the small throughput bonus helps to reinforce the choice as the healing talent choice.
(W) Empower
Heroes hit by Sentinel take bonus damage equal to 7% of their maximum Health and are silenced for 0.125 seconds. Basic Attacks reduce the cooldown of Sentinel by 0.5 seconds.
CDR changed to on-basic-attack for thematic consistency with other effects. Added a single frame of silence as an interrupt to bring up the power level slightly to compete with the other talents on the tier.
(E) Shooting Star
Tyrande's Attack Speed is increased by 10%. Every 8th Basic Attack launches a free untalented Lunar Flare at a random enemy near Tyrande's position. This prefers Heroic targets.
Moved from 20, where Shooting Star and Iceblade Arrows were stamping on each other's feet. The attack speed from Iceblade Arrows is split out between here and Mark of Mending at level 4, two places it synergizes well. The increased attack range has moved to Darnassian Archery at 13 where it doesn't compete against another basic attack build talent.
Level 20
(R1) Eyes of the Night
Shadowstalk applies Moonlight to all enemy Heroes, and heals for 50% more.
Another cohesion/synergy upgrade, using Moonlight instead of a separate reveal. The duration is considerably less, but that's not hugely important and the added utility of Moonlight makes this a significant upgrade to the aggressive power of this ability.
(R2) Celestial Wrath
Increase the Slow of Starfall to 40% and increase its radius by 20%.
What used to be a reasonable upgrade to an unimpactful heroic, is now a powerful upgrade to a strong, impactful heroic. Possibly oppressively strong now, but... shouldn't it be?
(D) Full Moon
Moonlight can now stack twice on enemy Heroes.
With Harsh Moonlight taking the damage reduction effect from Iceblade Arrows, this adds back the stacking aspect of it - along with stacking the armor reduction (and damage over time) of Moonlight for what should represent a fairly significant power upgrade.
(Passive) The Night Warrior
Your Spell Power is increased by by 30%. Every 3 seconds, you fire an untalented Lunar Flare at a random enemy nearby, prioritizing Heroes.
Gambit: Every 3 seconds, you take damage equal to 3% of your maximum health. Each of your deaths increases this by an additional 1%.
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You might have gone a bit overboard with the Starfall though ^^
Some disco party if you go Starfall, Shooting Star and Night Warrior.
I recently did my own rework idea, forgive my lackluster layout
https://www.heroesfire.com/hots/concept/tyrande-12456