Good
- The obviously obvious 20% movement buff
- Can be built into a total Siege monster
- Excellent poke with Thornwood
- Additional vision at the cost of a non-heroic ability and talent slot
- Lovely lovely Greater Spell shield
- Can have the greatest sight range late-game

Bad
- Low attack speed
- Dies violently when stared at (except spell burst)
- Non-heroic abilities overall (See skills description)
- Orb walking highly recommended

Summary
Beneath the surface of Lunara is a versatile hero with some powerful talents one can miss. Most unusual is that she can be built to dish out immense non-hero damage from afar when built for it, vying for the top spot in siege, lane clearing and wholesale non-hero slaying.

I'd put my money on siege being her most useful build when circumstances call for it, and that she is slightly under-powered when built for other purposes in the current iteration.

Orbwalking, or stutter step
To get the most out of Lunara you should orbwalk in order to make the most of her movement speed.

The easiest way to understand it is to look up orb walking youtube, doesn't matter if its Dota2 or LoL, the concept is the same.

If you pay attention to your basic attack against a retreating enemy you will notice that you stand still for a moment right after you make a basic attack, even though the enemy is moving away! By Orb walking you manually click to move immediately after your attack in order to cancel the idle time.

Basically there is a cool down to your basic attack, and orb walking means manually moving in between your basic attack cool down. Whether it is to maneuver in or out you gain a lot of distance you would otherwise by just letting the the basic attack auto-track the target for you.

... And now I'll tell you that you don't always want to orb walk (Please don't hurt me). Due to the mechanics of movement animation, she loses a tiny bit of attack speed when stutter stepping. My Money's on her hop animation, and that it must complete at least 1 hop if you stutter step before you can basic attack again, while your basic attack finishes cool down before the hop animation finishes. Still, greater mobility is worth a very slight decrease in attack speed in most case, especially on for Lunara.

A standard DoT that can stack up to 3 times which is applied whenever you damage something whether from basic attack or abilities.


Your only nuke with average damage, tiny AoE, low range and good (*gasp*) cool down. When unmodified this skill pretty much has the range of your basic attack with a half second delay. If I sound unimpressed that's because I'm unimpressed. It's better uses beyond the obvious involves applying poison to a clump of chaff.


Ah, your mediocre decaying slow that will trigger on everything with poison on it while adding another stack on top. If I sound unimpressed don't be fooled, this is actually a fair skill for her design.


A rare vision skill that's quite handy. Basically a movable scout drone that dies in 1 hit. I personally prefer the timelost wisp talent for the least downtime over the others with the exception of skybound wisp for specific maps. It's useful to be sure, but it cost Lunara a non-heroic ability slot and a talent slot.


Ah, the lovely Thornwood. The best poke in Lunara's arsenal and the best way to apply poison. Excellent in picking off retreating hero since most underestimate how fast and far this nuke travels (for now), not to mention how hard you can spam it for a surprising amount of damage with 3 charges. The cooldown is pretty high so don't triple shot unless its a sure kill only, otherwise stay at 2-3 charges unless you're burstin' and runnin' some structures. With a siege built you can burst out a lot of damage against sturctures from afar.


The other Heroic with far shorter range. I'd pick Thornwood over this most of the time due to a better Level 20 talent, greater range and a far better application of poison. The only times I would use this would be when close confrontation is unavoidable and looking to happen frequently in a given match, which is likely if you go brawler build or against certain compositions.

Tier 1Blossom Swell
the Original AoE is Tiny, +20% of Tiny is even tinier, how does that even work? I don't know either!
Seriously though, that 20% probably isn't going to make the difference of hitting or missing something.

Photosynthesis
Mana isn't one of her problems.

Natural Perspective
A fantastic talent that really is required for good poking and chase. Tired of losing visibility when chasing enemy around corners and into bushes? Zeratul worming his way through a wall? Spot them anyway and keep up the attack without missing a beat! And let Zeratul eat thornwood thru the wall.

crippling-spores
Pick this if you A) Don't plan to pick up Nature's culling at tier 3. B) Need some more wave clear. C) can justify giving up Natural Perspective.

The 3 builds above aren't set in stone, mixing and matching based on team composition and map is always the best way to go. I do use different wisp and pick up cruel spores on tier 1 from time to time.

Brawl build
Pros
-High DPS vs heroes

Cons
-No real poke beyond your basic range and faster speed
-All your abilities work at basic attack range

The most obvious and my least favorite builds (I'll admit I'm not all that good with this build), Brawl built is defined by Wild Vigor + Invigorating Spores and focuses on DPS against heroes. I'd only consider this if my team has a lot of actual brawlers that can take the heat away from you. The key to good plays here is timing and rationing out your leaped strike for clutch moments.

Note: You don't actually want to jump in the middle and brawl for real, stay on the edge and pick away unless they are routing or there's a favorable trade opportunity.

Poke build
Pros
-Fantastic poke that comes into play mid to late game
-Massive vision at level 20

Cons
-None specific to this build

When your team lacks brawlers/peelers, poke is a good build to consider. Thornwood is your key in triggering initiating your star wood spear, and with some skill you can keep the 50% bonus attack range on throughout a fight. You could consider skipping spell shield for even more poke in pestering blossom if the enemy composition allows for it.

Siege build
Pros
-Massive non-hero damage, you can siege down a tower faster then a siege tank.
-Some decent poke from Thornwood.
-Massive vision at level 20

Cons
-You give up a lot of hero damage from forsaking Wild Vigor

Perfect build for maps with a lot of creeps or creep themed like spider-queen / Battlefield of Eternity (Immortal). The key is Nature's Culling talent at tier 3 and this turns your poison into a massive DoT against buildings and non-hero units. Thornwood also makes the perfect skill to apply your DoT.

1 thornwood with crippling creep will do a line of creep like Rick James on a line of coke (do it before they spread out).

You might wonder why I didn't take cruel spores at tier one, and that's because it only applies on merc or minions. It does not apply on buildings or specials like immortals. Minions die from 1-2 stack of poison anyway, and only mercs will call for more which is easily doable without giving up Natural perspective talent. Cruel spores should be taken to enhance your wave clear when you did not pick up Nature's Culling.