Introduction Top
So I have quite a bit of games logged as Jaina, and honestly I feel like she is an excellent hero. Jaina fits well with any team composition, and she has the capability to burst down tanks in late game. She is great in lane, and great at bursting down camps. The greatest part about Jaina, and more specifically the way that I build her is that in a team fight you will be able to nuke any assassin on your opener and finish off anyone who runs away. I'll explain the talents that I go with in my build and talk about why I go with them.
Winter's Reach Top
This talent is a god send. I have been in countless situations where both myself and my level twenty ultimate have secured kills off of this talent alone. Jaina does run into mana issues when all you do is burst, even when it comes to clearing minion waves. Be sure to use all of her abilities sparingly while you lane. The overall idea with this build is to be an asset in a team fight, without having to be in the team fight.
Snowstorm Top
This ability increases the radius of your Blizzard by 30%, which is incredible. In late game team fights, you will want to be able to deal as much damage to as many people as possible. Even without the 30% increase in size, people know not to let the second crash of your blizzard hit them. If you're careful with your placement with blizzard, you can zone your enemies into making a tough decision. Let me explain what I mean by that. When I play Nova and select her Orbital Strike ultimate, I will place in ahead of a Hero who is running away that way the enemy hero is between me and the ultimate. What this does is make the enemy player decide whether or not they want to run through the ultimate and risk dying, or if they want to wait a few seconds which allows myself or my team to catch up and secure the kill. You want to be doing this with your blizzard as Jaina, unless obviously you have a team with some gnarly crowd control.
Frostbitten Top
With this talent, end game Jaina's burst will do over three thousand damage in just the initiate. That means that in less than two seconds you have successfully killed or gravelly wounded any assassin in the game. Oh, and this is all area of effect!? With a well placed burst, Jaina will do more than three thousand damage to everyone caught in her path!
Summon Water Elemental Top
I used to think Ring of Frost was amazing, and having it explode twice was cool, until I tried this ultimate out for the first time. When you burst, you want to spawn this fun guy underneath of the squishiest target on the enemy team. Boom. They're chilled. Now all of your abilities hurt more! What makes this guy cool is that you can pick where to spawn him. Here's an example of how amazing that is: I was playing on Dragonshire one game, and we were winning a team fight by a significant amount with both teams at level ten, but unfortunately it was too early in the game and the enemy team's first wall was still up. So when the enemy team fled behind their wall, I conveniently summoned my ultimate on THEIR side of the wall and had it focus the heroes that it would be able to kill. It worked like a charm. If you take anything away from this guide, make sure that you take away the fact that you can reactivate the ultimate and select a new target. So you're on Cursed Hollow and your team just killed three of them and you're about to grab the tribute, but you also just used your ultimate? That's great. Reactivate your ultimate and move it to an area where the last two enemies are likely to come from to try and stop you. Your ultimate has now zoned those two players and you've taken the element of surprise away from them. This ultimate will slow your enemies and chase them for twenty seconds or until they kill it. What's not to love?
Storm Front Top
The absolute greatest talent ever aside from your ultimate. Now you can kill people without being anywhere near them! With this talent, I love to sit on the other side of walls or terrain that is blocking me from the team fight and rain down shards of broken dreams on my enemies. Depending on the area you've selected, you can even hit them with your cone of cold. This talent helps you zone enemy players that might be chasing an injured ally, and you don't even put yourself in harm's way by doing so. Ice Block is a talent for novice players as sort of a second chance for playing poorly. Jaina is all about positioning in a way that keeps you alive and most importantly helps your allies. Icy Veins is also a good talent to go with, but the tradeoff is that you put yourself in more danger in exchange for higher damage. You don't need higher damage than what we're building.
Northern Exposure Top
Tanky heroes hate you now. Sonya thinks she has the upper hand on you because you're squishy ole Jaina? False. With this talent your burst will change to R, E, W, Q. Even if you die, you can have your Water Elemental hunt them down and kill them. When you get this talent, Jaina will never lose to Zeratul in a fight. At the very least you will both die. Don't think this means you can just run up and try to fight a Zeratul. You need to be more experienced and understand how that guy works. Being able to catch Zeratul and Nova out of stealth with your Cone of Cold is crucial with Jaina.
Wintermute Top
So now your water elemental mimics all of your abilities for 50% of your damage plus it's range is increased by 50%. If that isn't broken to you then you've never played against a great Jaina. Basically now when you Summon your Water Elemental on the enemy team's Diablo, you're going to attack him with Cone of Cold to make him vulnerable, drop some Blizzard on him, and hit him with two Frostbolts. That is going to do more than half of Diablo's health.
Let's talk strategy. Top
Jaina is a glass cannon. She is stupid powerful, but her kit doesn't come with any survivability other than her slow. The selling point with this build is that you're able to kill your enemies without them even knowing what was hitting them. Heroes of the Storm is all about getting ahead of the enemy team and denying them objectives and camps. While laning, if you're able to assault the enemy's towers, position your blizzard so it hits both the tower and the healing fountain. Healing fountains have significantly less health than any other structure, and if you deny your enemy the ability to heal after you burst them then they will have no choice but to back. Jaina is amazing with a Zagara on the team. If you're playing with Zagara and she lands a Consuming Maw ultimate, get your timing right and drop your burst when the ultimate is ending. You will kill everyone before they even have a chance to fight back. Let's say you use your ultimate on the last enemy hero alive and secure a Megakill for your team, what do you do with your Water Elemental now? You reactivate and have it go help you siege! Don't just let your Elemental sit idle for 15 seconds.
Go ahead and give this build a shot and let me know how you liked it in a comment. I guarantee you cannot go wrong with this build.
Heroes of the Storm Build Guides
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