Hi,

I'm Bart VonDoom, I've been a moba enthusiast since the beta of another famous game in 2009, and this is my first guide for HotS. I decided to do a guide for Greymane cause I can't stop playing him since his release, as he reminds me of another "dead" moba character, the Blue Beetle in Infinite Crisis.
I really enjoy the versatility of the character being a ranged marksman that can turn into an all in melee bruiser, giving you lots of different gameplay and tons of fun.

Not to mention is damage is INSANE !

Hope you'll enjoy the two builds...

This build focus on what is to my mind the best way to play Greymane, which is harassing from a distance to get your enemies half to low life and then turn into a Worgen to go all in as a melee assassin to finish them.

Tier 1: Wolfheart

Wolfheart is simply the "go to" talent at level one, this lower the cooldown of Inner Beast by one second for each auto attack you make (16 sec cooldown as default, which is way too long), and basically enables you to kinda have it on permanently if you keep auto-attacking. This is simply too good to be true.

Tier 2: Thick Skin

As Greymane doesn't have much sustain, this talent ensure you can stay a little bit longer in the heart of the battle when you jump in the pack as a worgen, using Darkflight (careful, it does NOT work when you trigger the ult Go for the Throat) by reducing the damage of the next two heroic basic attack by 50%. It really helps to ensure a kill (or a double kill) or to ensure your escape.

Tier 3: Incendiary Elixir

I find Incendiary Elixir better than Wizened Duellist for a few reasons. First, don't get me wrong, Wizened Duellist is a good talent, but it really start having an impact after you have four or five kills (+12/15% damage on your auto attack) and is simply a killer when maxed up, but you lose all bonus on death, so from the moment you start stacking up, you can be sure the enemy team will focus you straight (they would be dumb not to). Incendiary Elixir is great as your Q in human form is your main harass and also your wave clearing ability. Increasing its damage by 200% permanently is a massive boost to the spell, and making it explode at all time (no need for it to hit an enemy first) ensure that damage. The explosion is doing way more damage (207 at lvl one) than the first hit (69 at lvl one), and seeing the high mana cost of the spell (80), this talent is defo worth it as it ensures damage at all time. You can use it to finish off fleeing enemies, even is you miss, they'll be hit buy the explosion radius.
If you are stomping the enemy team and know that you will get more and more kills and stay alive, and/or are not using Gilnean Cocktail that much, then go for Wizened Duellist.

Tier 4: Go for the Throat

The damage of this ult is massive, and so is its range. I really find it more effective than Marked for the Kill as it is a skillshot and can easily be missed or dodged. Go for the Throat send you straight into the enemy's face (so be careful not to use it low life or not to jump into the full enemy team, except if you have a death wish), and if you kill him, you can use it again on another target. It is a great finisher as much as an good initiator.

Tier 5: On the Prowl

This gives you a 30% move speed boost as soon as Inner Beast has been activated for 3 seconds, making it the perfect chasing talent to finish your enemies, hence why it is my first choice. In certain games versus enemy teams with lots of movement speed, Running Wild can also be a good choice, as it increases the range of Darkflight (your engage/chase spell) and Disengage (your escape spell) by 35% and could really help you.

Tier 6: Relentless Predator

This is your second sustain talent, and also your life insurance, really. It reduces the duration of stuns, silences, slows, roots and polymorphs against you, making it way easier for you to stay alive when you get focused (and trust me you will). A must for survival.

If you are really decimating the enemy team, you can opt for Alpha Killer, to do 3% of enemy hero's max health in damage with your auto attacks, strongly increasing your basic damage.

Tier 7: Tooth and Claw

This talent makes your auto-attacks cleave for 100% damage, enabling you to easily jump in the pack and do triple, quadra kills. Be prepared to be highly focused when you reach this level as you will become a massive threat to the enemy team.

This build is more of a roaming "Jungler Assassin" type of build, it works well if you are the only assassin in your team, allows you to jump on a target, do tons of burst damage to get the kill, and safely escape/go back to safety using Disengage, then repeat. This works well when your team has strong CC ability, and versus team that lacks CC. Basically you go fire from a distance when you can, but mostly you go all in Worgen style and then Disengage to go to safety. (switch toe build two on top of the page)

I will only explain the tiers that differ from the main build.

Tier 2: Eyes in the Dark

As this build only focus on damage and not on any type of sustain nor tankiness, this talent will be your life insurance, so make sure to have it ready when going for a kill, as it will save your life. It basically makes you invisible for 4 seconds when you use Disengage, ensuring you'll escape to safety without issue. This ensures you don't die, so you can keep stacking on the next talent.

Tier 3: Wizened Duellist

This talent turns you into a killing machine the more you kill enemy heroes. For each kill, your attack damage will increase by 3%, stacking up to a max of 30%. When maxed up, you basic damage is simply insane in both forms !

Tier 5: Executioner

This talent increase your basic attack damage by 40% to stunned, slowed or rooted target. Nothing to explain here, you know you will get the kill if the target movement is impaired. If your team doesn't really have strong CC, you can swap it for Relentless Predator to increase your viability.

That's it peeps,

Hope you liked it and if so, please give me a thumb up ;)

See you around in the Nexus !

Bart VonDoom