Jaina Build Guide : proDG's Study of a Superior Build :: Heroes of the Storm (HotS) Strategy Builds

Jaina

Build: (Ongoing Study) proDG Jaina Build

Level 1

Level 4

Level 7

Level 10

Level 13

Level 16

Level 20

Threats to Jaina with this build

Threat

Low

High

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Threat		Notes
1		No Threat
2	Murky	bait his bubbles and aim your q while he bubbles. predict his position and release your spells and he is already dead indeed. do that every time. try to kill his pufferfish every time you see it.
2	Leoric	free kills. stay out of his entomb range. if he lands w on you then walk away from him while kiting spells.
3	Falstad	bait e and combo him, sidestep his Q and when he lands W on you, Q-E him and walk away. When he flies and lands near you, just kill him lol. Ice block both his ults. ezpz
3	Mephisto	Ice Block his ults, and when he uses his E, combo him, you know where he will land after few seconds. his spells are very easy to dodge if you focus on his movements.
4	Stukov	He must find a good timing to disable you for a few seconds. don't ice block in front of him without baiting his silence (his E)
4	Xul	Stay in a safe range, you can clear his push very easily. wait for his shield to go away, and combo him. Ice Block his poison nova ult or his root.
5	Gul'dan	Watch out for his Horrify! Don't Ice Block when he has his ult up, if you want to though,... use it and cancel right away when he begins to SUCC you. Otherwise, bait his spells so he runs out of mana, when he taps his HP for mana, that's when you go for the kill. or maybe just bait his ult.
6	Genji	Deflects your burst combos with ease. You will have a hard time landing your q, but he probably wont have a hard time hitting you though.
6	Medivh	He will disable you with his ults, and enables his teammates to gank you. and his protect is very good defense vs your combos. try to bait his protect then dish out as much dmg as you can. High chance that he'll survive your ganks.
6	E.T.C.	Dodge his slide and you're fine.
6	Kerrigan	Sidestep her W-E combo and her ultralisk ult. Sure, in a 1v1 you will be poked with a couple q's and it will hurt, but you must learn to ignore that hp loss and focus on dodging her combos. Watch the ground. THAT's what'll really kill you. (or just use the counter combo and kill her)
6	Blaze	Ice Block his aoe ult and you'll be ok.
6	Kael'thas	Ice Block his pyro, dodge his skill shots!! get in the habit of releasing your Ice Block quickly so he doesn't time his flamestrike below you.
6	Stitches	Dodge his hooks and stay away from him. try to move from his side to side, not back and forth. If you ice block he will hook you or gorge you or both.
7	Sylvanas	She can dish out a surprising amount of dmg in a short time. watch out for her W (Don't let her get close if she lands W on you) it deals additional dmg over time which is more bad news. Aside from her silencing AOE ult, I've had a couple instances where she was able to mind control me when I was ice blocked. I have not yet confirmed if this is a bug or not.
7	Alarak	He can eat up your burst combo as if it doesn't even tickle. He will also push you around and silence you. dodge his W and poke from range. Only fight him with the help of a teammate.
7	Lunara	pure cancer. Poison and slow. She has a nice escape with her leaping strikes, and she passively moves faster than others. She's that type of hero where, it's easy for her to gank you, but she's hard for you to gank. Possible solution is to bait her leaping strike, then root her and combo her when she lands (but it's harder than it sounds)
7	Gazlowe	He can place turrets between you and him to block your q, and he has a quick firing stun cc (his E, and a wider radius ult that stuns you and pulls you in) it's hard to dodge if you don't react instantaneously. His auto attacks are very painful as well.
7	Diablo	Don't let him get near you he is a BIG FAT walking cc. I call him John Cena. stay away from any terrains and that includes your own cannon towers!
8	Tracer	Cancerous. (Unless you catch her at recall and crack her skull open) Only other good thing about this matchup is that she has TINY max hp. That's about it for good news.
8	Illidan	Well known for chasing squishies down. He will probably pick Sixth Sense, a 75 spell armor talent vs you. root him and gtfo of his q range. You can try to wait for his E to end, then give him some pokes.
8	Samuro	He will not be bothered by your cc. He will penetrate your defense and chase you down. try to focus him to pressure his engage. Think of the game "wack-a-mole".
9	Valeera	If she reaches you before you break her stealth, good luck. She's only a threat if she goes q build with shroud. It's easy to spot a good Valeera apart from a bad Valeera. If she consistently silences you and lands all her q, then back off and ask for help vs her.
9	Zeratul	bait his vorpal blade (Zeratul always teleports behind his target when he uses vorpal) if he try to solo you, and he lands an auto on you, be ready to AltW-E-Q on his a*s the moment he lands behind you, or you can just E-Q and watch him blink away in pure cowardice. Ice block to interrupt his engage and also to cleanse his vorpal mark.
9	Greymane	His each auto attacks will CHUNK you. You'll die if he jumps on you with his attack speed on. (Unless your all out combo lands perfectly. Combo works after you pick Numbing Blast) Try to only engage/kill him when he is in his puppy form.
10	Anub'arak	Hard to kill because of his base HP and his W shield and spell armor, and he has array of cc, one of which is also a nice engage and disengage, and the other threat is Cocoon, an ultimate that disables you in place for 7 seconds... Just sidestep and avoid if you can. (He is only THIS much threat if he has any follow up from his teammates, but if you get cocoon'd he will probably call for his backup to kill you hehe)
10	Garrosh	Reasons near identical to Anub. Massive armor and melee range taunt and other cc. He's like Anub except instead of charging in on you, he cc's the s*t out of you and he throws you DEEP into his side of the map for all his team to gang up on you. AND STILL THEN you can't do shi because he will taunt you, or others will chain cc you.

Top

For the longest time, I used to think Jaina was a boring, basic bi**h with ez burst mechanics for newbie players to enjoy, but after drastically improving my game knowledge over the few seasons and even reaching within ~top 10 in the world hero leaderboards with a few selection of heroes, and after studying league of legends pros' playstyles, contemplating which heroes has potential to perform as well as high level plays of League of Legends champs, outta nowhere I remembered Jaina also has similarities to league champs' mechanics:

- an ice block (Zhonya's Hourglass)
- AND an ice blink (Flash but applies aoe chill!)
- is a mage with nice/fair range and insane dmg output & cc
- and the lesser-known utility of her kit

It's been my obsession to find heroes that closely resemble League of Legend champs and go nuts studying them like I'm Mew2King studying combo frame data or something. I'm already loving this particular build. I just spent about 5 and a half hours in try mode, studying and crafting builds and repeating combos over and over (and over and over) again, comparing each builds and combos and applying them to real life to see whether it was possible to pull off consistently :) I may study Jaina more until I get some decent +LVL20 gameplay and show you the combos you can pull off and the utility she brings.

Hotkey quick cast settings for this build to work:
Q: On release
W: On release
E: On
R: On release
Ice Blink: On

(ice block) I bind number 6(or any number from 1-6) key to my side mouse button (I use Razer Deathadder)

This is an ongoing study, I will upload a YouTube video in the future explaining this build in depth because I am not an amazing writer thanks to my Attention related disorder. But for now, simple reasons for picking each talents are as follows:

1:
Winters Reach: This I find has little use in my build because you will often be close to enemies.

Lingering Chill: This allows you more time to kite around between your spells and really ensures you to sink that bonus dmg in all the time during the fight.

Fingers of Frost: I see it as this; do you want your s*x to last longer? or grow an extra arm? sure, another arm would be omega useful, and gives me more functionality, but f**k that, s*x all the way. (wtf am I on about? I'm not high trust me please. I'm just sleep deprived) all jokes aside, this is not needed because of level 4's arcane intellect. Frostbite duration bonus is relevant in my build.

4:
Arcane Intellect: This has unmatched synergy with level 13's Icy Veins, if you read the description it'll make sense. While in a fight you will harness infinite mana with super spammable cooldowns on your abilities. Only option for this build.

7:
Ice Floes: This is just lazy. I have landed a talentless E on 4 or 5 enemy heroes many times with little issue. You don't wish for this when you can gain a free Q poke CDR talent.. right? Instead of grabbing this, practice your teamfight positioning and aim! :D I know y'all can do it. and as for its E CDR, I will explain the synergies later but you will only need to root the enemies once for the fight to end. So it won't be as needed.

Ice Lance: This will help you chase your foes down after you burst them in team fights. It makes life easier when you have your 2.75s CD Q at your disposal, and on top of that, it gives additional 10 mana. (your Q base mana cost is 30. Arcane intellect refunds 20 for each spells onto chilled targets. this talent refunds additional 10. It's literally FREE ranged burst dmg poke at a 2.75 CD)

Icefury Wand: Not relevant because W, blizzard is not the main focus in my build. Blizzard's primary use is for zoning and wave clear (and applying the chill marks for combos.)

10:
Ring of Frost: This makes Jaina scary. her other ult also makes sense but won't help a whole lot in this particular build. This build should be the superior build. No room for imperfection. HUGE aoe cc and burst dmg, best use is for denying multi-man dives and kills from enemy team and of course, initiation. Many people know that most Jaina players start engage with Ult so they dodge this easily, so I suggest you mix this up to cast in mid combo, chain root them with your E, in whichever order you see fit.

13:
Storm Front: Not going for W talents. it seems safe but for this build like I said, You'll be near enemies often times anyway so you seriously don't NEED this.

Ice Barrier: (LOL) Maybe when your team has no healers or peels for some reason. Otherwise NOP.

Icy Veins: How important is this you ask? well This build revolves around the usage of Icy Veins. Very important. makes your already manageable mana cost even less and makes it even more spammable. Think about it, do you fight every second of the game? do you not camp? not roam? not hearth? By the time you encounter another fight, this will be ready for you! proc this right after your first Blizzard cast and spam away. Aim good while you do so.

16:
(Blizzard talents are now out of the equation.)
Numbing Blast: This one is obvious. By this point you're dealing b rabbit's mom's spaghetti loads of dmg, so no need for northern exposure talent. Picking the free root talent is the only way as it offers an additional cc and it synergizes with your combos. trust me on this I'm too sleep deprived to explain scientifically or mathematically or w/e XD.

20:
Ice Blink: You now have your league summoner spell, flash LOL. worth it considering in league of legends this thingy has a 300 seconds CD. Little less range but hey it works wonders. The beauty of unpredictability. Damn that's a long word.

When I make an in-depth guide on YouTube I will embed it here for you to see, thanks for peeping!

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