Crusaders are unbending champions of faith and law. These living fortresses use impenetrable plate and towering shields to wade through foes, leaving demonic bodies smoldering in their wake. The thick of battle is unforgiving, but crusaders rush in without hesitation, relying on holy magic and heavy armor to guarantee victory. Johanna is a durable, front line tank with exceptional peeling and wave clear capabilities. Each of her abilities has a defensive and offensive application, making her a very versatile tank that adapts to the moment's needs without being dependent on her talent picks to do it; Johanna can easily switch from peeling for her teammates with Punish to chasing and locking down fleeing opponents with Condemn and Blessed Shield. Her high level of versatility gives her more freedom to choose talents that better suit the map and fill in the gaps left by her team.

Johanna lacks any true engage options outside of her heroic abilities, Blessed Shield and Falling Sword. Whereas other tanks, like Diablo or Garrosh, are able to dive in and immediately be disruptive to the enemy team while isolating enemies from their allies, Johanna is much more suited to chasing and locking down fleeing enemies with her array of slows, stuns, and blinds.



You know that crusade that Johanna is always talking about? It's a crusade to peel for her teammates at all times and she's very passionate about it. Punish applies a 60% slow to enemies and Condemn briefly stuns enemies for 0.25 seconds while also pulling them towards Johanna. The brief stun is very important as it allows Johanna to interrupt enemy spell casting and abilities.



Johanna's survivability is dependent on using her active abilities correctly. Iron Skin applies a shield that lasts for four seconds while also making her unstoppable. This shield can be used to mitigate incoming damage and also escape from bad situations since crowd control abilities will have no effect. Laws of Hope is a level one talent that heals Johanna for 30% of her total HP over four seconds. This heal can be combined with Iron Skin to get the full heal off while the shield from Iron Skin absorbs any incoming damage. Using these abilities too early or too late will be the end of Johanna and you're healer isn't going to be happy (but you can still blame the healer anyway).



The level 4 talent Sins Exposed enables Johanna to clear a full minion minion waves in one rotation of her basic abilities, allowing her to effectively double soak on small maps or solo lane on bigger maps. Even without the Sins Exposed talent, the crusader can still use her large health pool, blinds, and anti-CC trait to force opponents back to their fountain or nexus while she is free to stay in lane soaking EXP. Being such an imposing presence in the lane means that she can be drafted as a solo laner in double warrior compositions.



Each of Johanna's abilities have an area of effect, AoE, meaning that her abilities will hit everything in the targeted area, so by the end of the game she will have inflicted large amounts of hero damage by hitting multiple enemies at once. This damage is amplified through talents like Blessed Hammer and Roar. Be aware that Johanna isn't an assassin and that her hero damage done is the result of chipping away at multiple opponents simultaneously; it's up to your assassins to burn down and do lethal damage to your targets.

The goal of this build ls to make Johanna as effective as possible in as many situations as possible; you could call this her default build. By level 20, Johanna will be able to effectively clear minion waves (4), apply a shield to her allies (20), stun enemy heroes from a distance (10), and deal large amounts of AoE damage (13), all while applying constant crowd control through her basic abilities. Blessed Momentum is the keystone of this build because of the synergies is provides between Shield Glare, Blessed Hammer, and Blinded By The Light.




Laws of Hope heals Johanna for 30% of her maximum HP over 4 seconds and has a relatively short cooldown of 40 seconds. By alternating between Laws of Hope and drinking from the healing fountain as needed, Johanna is able to stay in lane much longer than other front line heroes. Every time you hearth, you are wasting precious time that could be spent soaking EXP, taking a camp, or ganking an enemy. When playing correctly, you will only need to hearth to restore your mana, but never your health. Hold Your Ground can be a stronger alternative once you master the timing to absorb incoming damage.



Sins Exposed places a mark on affected targets that lasts for 4 seconds and causes them to take an additional fixed amount of damage the next time they are hit by yourself or an ally. This talent enables Johanna to efficiently clear minion waves within a single rotation of her basic abilities. At any level, an entire minion wave can be cleared by casting Shield Glare on the wave, pulling the minions together with Condemn, and finishing the survivors with Punish. At this level, Johanna can effectively double soak on small maps or solo lane as needed.



Blessed Momentum reduces the remaining cooldown on all of your basic abilities by 0.5 seconds each time you auto attack an enemy unit. Besides the obvious benefits of being able to use your basic abilities more often, it has the added bonus of indirectly reducing the cooldown of your level 13 and level 20 active abilities. Both Blessed Hammer and Blinded By The Light have their cooldown reduced each time you hit an enemy hero with Shield Glare. Both abilities are very impactful during team fights, especially Blinded By The Light which can easily turn the tide in your favor.



Blessed Shield is a skill shot that stuns up to three enemy heroes per cast. The initial target is stunned for 1.5 seconds and the secondary and tertiary targets are stunned for 0.75 seconds each. This tool can be used to either initiate a team fight or to stop fleeing opponents from getting away to safety. It is less effective when used to engage and is better reserved to guarantee a kill or to put a timely stop on an unfriendly ultimate ability like Pyroblast or Temporal Loop. Learn to recognize the casting animations for powerful ultimates and you will save countless lives in the process.



Blessed Hammer is a strong AoE ability that deals damage in close proximity to Johanna when cast and spirals outwards, damaging increasingly distant enemies. Blessed Hammer is chosen over Holy Fury because Blessed Hammer does more damage and is able to hit distant enemies for long-range kills and dismounts. Additionally, each enemy hero hit by Shield Glare reduces the remaining cooldown on Blessed Hammer by 8 seconds; Blessed Hammer is on a 30 second cooldown, so hitting 4 enemy heroes with Shield Glare resets the cooldown of Blessed Hammer and hitting 3 enemy heroes will set the remaining cooldown to 6 seconds or less. Don't be afraid to use this ability often during team fights and when sieging walls and towers.



Both fanaticism and Imposing Presence are strong picks on this tier. Imposing Presence should always be taken against auto attack heroes like Valla, Zul'jin, and Tracer just for the passive 20% attack speed reduction; the activatable slow and improved attack speed reduction is just icing on the cake. In all other situations, fanaticism is an excellent improvement to your Iron Skin trait that can help you escape bad situations or close in on otherwise unreachable opponents thanks to the 40% movement speed increase. Pay attention to your opponent's talent choices before you take your level 16 talent; attack speed reduction isn't as effective against a Zul'jin who went for spell damage rather than auto attack damage.



Blinded By The Light applies a shield to all nearby allies equal to 25% of their total HP. This is an active ability on a 60 second cooldown whose cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds for each enemy hero hit by Shield Glare. It is not an exaggeration to say that this talent is broken and incredibly powerful; The healing version of this talent, Storm Shield, only applies a 20% shield instead of 25%. Applying the shield at the right moment and coordinating with your healer will guarantee that every team fight goes in your favor. Use the shield to engage, absorb incoming ultimate abilities, or save an ally from lethal damage; there is no other viable option in this tier so long as Blinded By The Light is in the game.

Subdue is a very powerful talent in niche situations and requires your team to draft around your talent choices. As Johanna, your focus is to always hit at least two enemy heroes with Punish in order to apply the 80% movement speed reduction and deal bonus damage with Roar. Your team should consist of heroes like Raynor and Greymane that have Executioner style talents, otherwise this build will be ineffective. Johanna can be built as a damage bruiser when she is not the main tank and your team needs more damage. The Heaven's Fury build is designed to improve your personal survivability by improving Iron Skin and increase your damage output with Falling Sword and Roar. Heaven's Fury adds a damage component to your ultimate ability and reduces the cooldown of it based on the number of confirmed hits while in the air.