Hi guys. I'm a dedicated player on HOTS and have well over 400 games already in it, and more experience in other mobas of the past, though I have made HOTS my permanent moba home for now. 25 years gamer, and so on so on.

Can't call myself hardcore since I am not as competitive any more, neither casual since I "eat" casuals for breakfast :P so dedicated HOTS player and experienced gamer is the best fit to describe myself.

In my time in HOTS, I have gone from assassins to tanks back to assassins and some supports from time to time and main quite a few characters. Never have I had a "relationship" with a hero like Greymane.

Ever since I got my hands on him, I have already in 10 days twice the kills I had with any other hero in a time of months, twice the assists, but also unfortunately 3 times the deaths. Hence my overall K/A/D count on Greymane stands at 241 / 220 / 153 (as of right now).

Evidently, I play rough with Greymane, and my play-style is walking a fine line of dangerous. But, it gets results, and I have never enjoyed a hero more. He has become my new main, and well, for 241 and 220 K / A in such a short time, I would gladly pay with the price of blood and thus 153 deaths.

The idea is to win, and being the kind of player that, when playing a damage dealing character, likes to get in there and deal as much damage and/or kills as possible before I die (either as initiator or after the team initiates), Greymane with this build fits me perfect. Whats' more, the hero damage outputs, kills and assists I put into the match, might have me see death more often, but get the team through to a win quite often. A sacrifice I am more than happy to take ;)


And the TL:DR version -
This guide does not aim at accumulating the best hero stats. It aims at getting the best results in a match. A price as I mentioned I would gladly pay in "blood". But, this does not mean that one cannot play this build more cautiously as well.

First, a quick look at his skills.

Then right into the talents and the strategy of using those skills and Greymane in combat.

SKILLS

Gilnean Cocktail
For use in human form and for aoe damage in lanes. It must make impact/contact to explode, otherwise it does nothing.

Razor Swipe
When in the Worgen form, you swipe instead for a short range in a direction.

Inner Beast
Attack Speed boost as long as you are attacking. Human and Worgen form.

Darkflight
Pounce onto your enemy for extra melee damage. The primary means for entering Worgen form.

Disengage
When in Worgen form, roll into a direction and turn back into a human for ranged attacks.

Go for the Throat
The primary Heroic used for this build. Its basically an advanced version of Darkflight that can be used in any form.

Marked for the Kill
Another great heroic. Turn into human form, "paint" a target with a targeted shot for extra damage and re-activate to pounce at them in worgen form. A very useful skill but a little harder to get used to (explained later)

TALENTS and USE

LEVEL 1 WOLFHEART

Inner Beast is the main characteristic to the damage dealt from this build. It increases the attack spead (ranged and melee) by 50%. Meaning for every 100 damage dealt, with inner beast you deal 150 more or less. Looking at a lengthy fight, every 1000 damage dealt with Inner Beast on is turned into 1500 damage, and so on. With Wolfheart, you can activate Inner Beast much more often, making your main dps modifier at times something that can be always on in all and every fight you take part of.

What we take from all this is that Wolfheart makes Inner Beast active almost indefinitely when used right throughout a match, hence why it is my go to Talent for this build.

Make sure to take advantage of Inner Beast, in both human and worgen froms, as this will increase your threat level a lot. When possible, try to activate it before you use Darkflight to get the full impact of jumping in. This is not always possible, since Darkflight becomes many times a skill used on the fly and needs to come out as soon as possible, and Inner Beast has a small casting time which might delay you that half a second here or there before a pounce.

LEVEL 4 THICK SKIN

The main use of this build is harassment and causing rush down attacks and increased dps to kill off your enemies as fast as possible. To do this, Darkflight becomes a skill you will need to use a lot and for many reasons. It has its drawbacks however and can put you in a dangerous situation more often than not. For this reason and for the character of this build (that being, chasing enemies down and jumping in a lot) any defence you can get to help your survivability is a good thing.

Thick Skin does just that. Although seemingly a small defensive buff, it could grant you an extra 2 seconds of life in a fight, which will then make it enough for you to retreat just in time if lucky. In a dangerous situation were you decide to take one for the team, it also gives you enough time to do what you do best. That is, quickly kill your foe!

LEVEL 7 QUICKSILVER BULLETS

Quicksilver Bullets is the perfect way in this build to help a little on your range if you are going for Unfettered Assault. In truth, both builds (this one and the Anti-Stealth build) are mostly the same approach and result, they simply change a little depending on conditions. For this reason the talents changed can be substituted on their own as well (for example you can pair Incendiary Elixir with Unfettered Assault or Quicksilver Bullets with Running Wild depending on the situation).

For the most part, I like to have one or the other from the ranged modifers always present (that being at least either Quicksilver Bullets or Running Wild) to help with Greymanes' overall effectiveness.

In really easy games however, I will have both.

The result is that Quicksilver Bullets are mostly a choice to make the overall build more efficient, allowing you to have better approach to a combat before jumping in, or striking enemies when using Disengage to either retreat a fight or chase a fleeing foe.

Against foes you feel really confident with, or know how to stay alive and do not commit as much, switch this out for Wizened Duelist. This bad boy will make you really feared if it is hard for them to kill you off. I usually tend to go against picking it, not because I don't love it, but because its hard to tell sometimes how much you can commit to fights with some match-ups, and if the enemy team tends to play better late game you are losing the range in human form which is constant. If you know how to stay alive, 30% extra damage is not a bad thing. It is actually terrifying for the enemy team.

LEVEL 10 GO FOR THE THROAT

The go-to skill for this build is to go for the throat (pun partly intended?). Simple, Go for the Throat is a "kill them off" move. It is also great for chasing down even more so when you have leaped in with Darkflight and the enemy is quickly trying to scurry away from you. Its practically a stronger and second Darkflight, however allows you to pounce again and deal that damage to another enemy within 10 seconds if you killed a hero off with it. For this reason primarily the skill itself is pretty much telling you what it is for = A finisher.

It doesn't have to be just a finisher though, so use it freely when you need to/ want to/ determine it is right to.

Since this build has a damage dealing burst-attack-like approach, having an extra means for quickly reaching your prey when chasing, is crucial.

Marked for the Kill is a little more on the sustained dps side of things. It is a little harder to pull off sometimes as you need to aim the skill and make sure it lands for it to work, as opposed to Go for the Throat, and could end up making the play-style too much at that point with all the Gilnean Cocktail shots all over the place (especially for this path where they must make contact to explode).

However, it can be just as useful for chasing when used right. I simply tend to go away from it since it has no burst damage when compared, making my kills slower.

LEVEL 13 UNFETTERED ASSAULT

Aside from the obvious which is this skill ( Razor Swipe), that being a slightly aoe attack in a direction, Unfettered Assault is something I put more for utility as well as survivability, becoming a great all around talent.

In cases where you do not want to commit as much to a jump in, the range increase, along with some small survivability from Thick Skin, should make it possible for you to make way to Disengage with little difficulty at this point.

Getting out of harms way is one of the hardest things with this character, since, having leaped in with Darkflight, it takes 6 seconds for Disengage to be available. More than enough time to be killed off in. Unfettered Assault is a great utility talent in my opinion. First off, chasing down the enemy with a Razor Swipe that cools down every 3 seconds, is madness with this talent. But, again, as I mentioned, it can also be used to get out of harms way before a Disengage.

If you see the enemy is not posing much of a threat as a team, then switch this for Running Wild. You trade that utility with better range on your most used skill, the Darkflight and Disengage.

LEVEL 16 ALPHA KILLER

What's to say? More damage against heroes. Making the point to this build shine even more. It is pretty much a better Giant Killer. In fact, it is Giant Killer x2 and stacked. The only thing to take note is obviously the fact that this extra damage is only for the worgen form. This sticks even more to the whole "jump in and kill" them notion of the build.

Having this with Wizened Duelist (if you went that way about it) should at this point make you dominant in fights even with just a couple kills stacked on.

Switch this out indefinitely for Executioner if you are in a team that allows for it. The damage outputs will be crazy. Something less common though since its not always easy to count on a team that you might not know.

LEVEL 20 TOOTH AND CLAW

A clear choice by now. You need to make your worgen form even stronger, cleave damage at this point will now make you deal your attacks to an entire team or clear out waves of minions in one shot. I think this one is a no brainer too and the only talent that is really worth it from this list (unless you are going for a ranged build, which I would advise against to be honest, since your worgen attacks are 40% stronger, and it puts the hero to waste and more in a support damage role).

THE STRATEGY

The whole idea of this build is to get in there fast and dish out as much damage as possible before they can respond. Be able to chase the enemy down with multiple means, and also retreat when possible as well.

If you want more survivability, then really it comes down to using Darkflight more carefully. Do not initiate, wait for the team to start the fight, then once some of the first enemy skills are dropped, pop in there unexpectedly and do your job ;)

I find that the nature of this build and Greymane in general makes you a much faster and more responsive hero. At which point you might need to become more of an initiator rather than wait behind, as you will find that you might have more opportunities to attack and catch an enemy off guard than another team-mate would.

Chasing enemies once in worgen form is either a Razor Swipe, or simply a Disengage in their direction, and then a Gilnean Cocktail. In most occasions, escaping Greymane is hard for the enemy, so use this wisely. For example Lt. Morales. Jump in there and force the player to retreat. Don't worry about dying at times. Sure it sounds like overkill, but the strategy is to weaken the enemy as much as possible for your team to win. Don't be afraid to take the fall, as long as it counts. Greymane is great for tracking around the bushes as well to strike behind enemy lines, and heroes like Sgt. Hammer will never see you coming at that point.

As I said, if you use your aggressive rush damage wisely you can break a team up. Do this when a team layout needs to be broken (like the 2 examples I gave). Hammer will otherwise be behind enemy lines gunning the team down. Managing to kill her off, even at the cost of your own death, is more than an advantage for your team to push forward and focus on the remaining foes. Pushing Morales away more often than not cripples the entire enemy opposition.

Characters that need focusing are the best prey for Greymane, he has no problem reaching them whatsoever.

If you can manage all this and stay alive as well... Well, then there is nothing more to say I guess :)

One last thing. Greymane kicks *** for early camping. Turn Inner Beast on, throw a Gilnean Cocktail, Darkflight onto the camp, strike a little for that Inner Beast refresh, Razor Swipe, then rinse and repeat Razor Swipe with normal attacks refreshing your Inner Beast. You should make easy prey of most camps early on (especially siege camps, bruiser camps might need an extra level or two before solo-ing early on).

Camping is something Greymane does faster and faster as the game progresses, and it can be used to have him off-lane in worgen form so you can enter a fight in melee and have access to your retreat Disengage on the spot. It's useful to know how and when to use this from time to time, but don't over commit to this strategy. The biggest advantage is the surprise of a Darkflight jump out of nowhere, so don't be afraid to turn into human form to prepare for a fight either (with mounting usually so as not to waste mana on Disengage).

Now to take a look at the second variant of that build and notes on differences and why.




For the Anti-Stealth variant, the main difference is mainly the Incendiary Elixir at level 7. The reason is simple, it becomes your go to skill to reveal stealth characters.

With losing a little of your ranged attack, I think it best balances back out to then go for the second change in it, the Running Wild talent. This combination will make you very viable for combat once again, and will also allow you to close in on those stealth characters you revealed. What is more, this strategy can be used on all occasions to reveal an enemy, but also to attack them.

The how is that the Gilnean Cocktail now explodes no matter what. Since it's primary purpose is to create damage behind an enemy, the explosion means you can add a little range to your shot, since it will explode always and reach farther regardless of making contact or not.

The larger distance covered from Running Wild will make you much faster on the map as well, and will allow you to make more surprise attacks. So take advantage of entering the fight after your team has initiated, as you can charge in from even more concealed places/distances.

This second variant can also be used as a general hunt build. Meaning, the cocktail that explodes no matter what can be used to reveal enemies behind areas you can't see, and the increased Darkflight range will allow you to hunt enemies down that might even be off-lane and behind obstacles (in a camp or what not). If you want an approach where you control such elements of the map, then this variant is also viable.


Another ok choice for the anti-stealth variant is also the Marked for the Kill heroic. However, I would suggest you take this only if you know how to use it and don't mind the loss of your burst damage, taking it for stealth enemies alone is a waste. So again, make sure it is something you can properly use in the fight no matter what. The added ability to strike stealth characters with it as well simply becomes a plus, and not the main reason to chose the talent.

And that is pretty much it for this rush-and-kill Greymane. I will be updating this build when possible with more tips as I come across them or changes if I see more fitting talent choices. I have to say for the most part this is pretty much a done and ready build for this style of players. That being, players that commit more to an attack, chase down, and deal damage to greatly weaken the enemy for the sake of the win and not trying to make sure they have the least deaths in a match.

Greyman can really hurt the enemy. So even if you spend some more time in death with him, it is completely worth it if your sacrifice got your team through to kill off the entire opposition. Something which is possible quite often with this kind of play in mind. A dangerous and all-for-all approach with high risk-reward levels. There are moments that I catch enemies off guard in team fights to the point that I do a triple kill on the spot (at least).

Pick your enemies off when they don't expect it, and before they can react, be rid of them. Never forget, you are always on the hunt. So don't be afraid to chase enemies to their death :)

Let me know thoughts and how you guys like to play with Greymane.

Take Care ;)