Brightwing used to be my favourite hero even though we all recognize she was broken, the whole rework came as a bit of a shock since the majority of favourized builds included a lot of the use of different talents that were completly removed, turning her from a 8 button hero to a 5 button hero. What was fun and good with Brightwing was the complexity and different ways you could play her and utilize all your talents and abilities to your full potential making her the most viable healer before the Butcher patch.

She had it all, mobility, lots of shields and insane healing(which by all means had to be nerfed).

Since the rework we are in a sense stuck on two different builds.
one which mainly focus on shielding and another one who focus on the passive healing, I'm mainly gonna talk about the shielding build which usually looks like this(ADDED A FEW MORE VIABLE BUILDS):

hyper shift talent at lvl 1 and followed by Manic Pixie on lvl 4, Phase shield on lvl 7, Blink Heal on lvl 10, Shield Dust on lvl 13, Greater Polymorphor Critterize on lvl 16 and last Storm shield or Double wyrmhole on lvl 20.

This is by all means a really good build with a lot of map control and mobility and the ability to bring out 2 or 3 shields if you also pick Storm shield on lvl 20 are really good and gives you room and space to dash out Blink heals by ease on your shielded targets.

One of the major cons with this build is that when you're jumping around alot between different players you will get stuck and need to be stationary and channel alot before teleporting to your chosen location/player, this in a way forces you to need to find room and space where you can channel safely which is not a hard task for the majority of Brightwing players but can sometimes be a small disadvantage depending on situation and time and is a big disadvantage if you're not used to playing Brightwing and are not used on how to position yourself in the safest place possible.

I'm not gonna go deeper into the cons of an already really good build but what I'm gonna try and do is to explain why I prefer to play Brightwing in a totally different way and I might be shooting myself in the foot for doing so but I believe that this build is viable in its own way.

So here is how I'm thinking with the choice of talents and why I choose to play this way.

The main reason I prefer this build over the hyper shift shielding build is because I like to have lots of utility and lots of different "weapons" in my arsenal to help turn the tide of the game to my teams favour and I want lots of actives instead of just 5.

Build order and why:

Level 1 I choose Bribe, why? some of you might ask, well it's easy, siege and mercs helps to win games, objectives win games, if the enemy has pushed all lanes into your side of the map you need to push it back and as a support this is a way of supporting the team, mainly because you let specialists stay in lane and focus on pushing the lane and you allow the damage dealers to focus on killing the enemy team instead of worrying about going into the jungle and kill creeps.

It takes literally no time at all to get those siege out. You can use it to force the enemy team to go into a passive/defensive mode and if you are lucky you might even create situations where you can pick off and gank single heroes who goes to defend and kill the siege you just pushed out or you can use it to quickly steal the enemies siege and mercs, sometimes even when they are there and trying to capture them themselves you can enter a teamfight force them to back away and steal it fast without having to kill the siege and quickly head back to where its safe.

It's a brilliant and cheap way of controlling the game and doing so fast.


Level 4 I choose Manic Pixie, it's a good way to boost your passive heals early game when you dont have Blink heal yet or to boost the passive healing on the squishy damage dealer you're supporting and shielding during teamfights to increase your healing output every 4 seconds and increase the chance of the damage dealer surviving and winning the fight.


Level 7 I choose Cleanse because the more actions you can dish out during a teamfight the better.

Maybe you shield Illidan but behind you Jaina gets rooted by Thrall and he rushes towards her aiming to take her out and my team needs her burst aoe damage since it's key to winning the teamfight and if she gets taken out we are in a disadvantage.

Thats why I prefer to pick Cleanse because it opens up for possibilites to support more friends during fights and brings more actives to my arsenal that helps me to save someone in the most critical situations.

Level 10 I go for Blink heal, its by far the most superior of the two ultis, it gives you two target heals and opens up a whole new world of mobility, escapes and means to win the fight.

Since you can use this ability on both teammates and your own creeps in the lane it literally gives you the possibility to save yourself from situations where any other hero or support would've fallen and died.

It's a good way to draw yourself closer to enemies being chased by teammates through Blinking to that teammate so you can land a polymorph so he/she can finish that kill easier.


Level 13 I usually go for Pixie boost instead of Shield dust, this is more up to what you prefer yourself since I find both abilities equally good and useful depending on situation, but why I mainly go for Pixie boost is because the way I support I want as much ways of helping my teammates out and give them the best chance of surviving.

Some might say that a stronger shield is better where I think that you already have a shield with the ability itself it might be weaker without Shield Dust but with Pixie Boost you upgrade that ability to a whole new ability and turn it to both a shield and a speed boost.

This is insanely good when your squishy teammate with low HP need to get the distance from that Butcher or any other melee hero chasing them. It opens up room for you to go inbetween and body block the enemy, it buys your teammate time to run back home to safety while you polymorph the enemy Butcher that are chasing them and you do a quick Blink Heal on your teammate when the enemy is out of play for 1,5 seconds increasing the chance of them getting away and survive.

Since Polymorph also slows you get both the speed boost on your teammate and a slow on the crazy bastard trying to kill your friend. In my opinion this is by far more useful as a support tool than increasing that shield with 50% block on ability power, though that 50% block is always a good support tool against Nukers like Jaina or Kael'thas with huge ability power dmg, though you can still manage with the Pixie boost and Polymorph to shut them down and get one or two Blink heals in there if your fast enough.

Pixie boost is also a useful way of moving yourself around the map faster since you dont have Hyper shift and 45 sec CD on Phase shift.

It's also useful to help melee teamates chase down kills on enemies trying to escape and juke away from them, Pixie boost turns the ability into both a defensive and offensive support tool.


Level 16 I mainly go for Critterize as my main choice since it turns Polymorph into a viable way of bursting down enemies that you pick off in teamfights with that 25% Dmg boost and it helps secure kills more easily on important targets such as enemy healers or damage dealers. I personally see no use making the Polymorph last one second longer.

Hardened focus only works well if you have Hyper shift and can run back and forth between the pool and the fight more often this is if you ever manage to keep a fight alive that long.

Since Hardened focus makes it possible to cast spells more often it also makes you spend more mana and this talent only works when above 80% health which with current meta with only 1 support/healer in the team composition you are going to be mainly focused by the enemy team and will rarely be at full health, so it's in a way a very risky choice.

Bouncy Dust is a viable choice aswell but It's hard if your playing with randoms in QM and they don't know how this talent choice works in their benefit.


Level 20 Storm shield, Storm shield, Storm shield. An aoe shield that if cast with skill ends up on your whole team, this ability is a game winner, a tide turner and a life saver. Perfect to protect your whole team if they have low hp from sudden aoe dmg bursts such as Nova's Precision strike, its an amazing talent that buys you time to dash out Blink Heals and your Pixie Dust on teammates to increase the chance of surviving and winning a teamfight.

Double Wyrmhole is a good choice aswell but I prefer an aoe shield before an extra heal that might end up being stressed out and risking myself to maybe end up in a bad spot if done in a rush during the midst of a teamfight. As I said earlier, the more actives and ways I can get to support and dictate the pace of the game the better it is.

Thats how Brightwing were before the Butcher patch and the talent rework and thats how I liked to play her, a pure support.

Hope you can find this build useful and fun to play with. I'm sorry for the bad English and mistakes in the text, it's way too late and I'm really tired, I will edit it tomorrow and do some adjustments. GL HF!