Hello fellow players, my name is Xyrin in game and I am a Master League/Rank 1 player, and I'm here to show you how to strut around like a true Crusader.
Johanna is a very strong tank in the current Meta. She can soak up a ton of damage, and sustain herself right back into the fight without blinking. Other than our beloved
Abathur, she is one of the easiest heroes to obtain Hero of the Storm with. With this guide, I will go through each talent and explain why you should (or shouldn't) get that talent for your current match up.
But, there might be a big question you have.
"Why is
Johanna such a good hero?" She can soak a ton of damage, disposition the enemy team, has a small AoE slow, and is able to blind the entire enemy team. Ontop of all this, she has very few counters.
Iron Skin::.
Become unstoppable and obtain a Shield. A simple ability, but one that must be used correctly or you will fall flat on your face as Johanna. Most people would assume to use
Iron Skin before entering a team fight to absorb as much damage as possible while engaging. However, the correct use of this ability is to avoid CC, and to negate as much focus fire upon you as possible. Using this ability early is the same as if a
Malfurion used his
Regrowth on you when you have 10 missing HP.
Punish::.
This ability does a bit of damage while slowing anything it hits. This ability is quite useful after using
Condemn, as you will hit and slow multiple heroes this way.
Condemn::.
AoE displacement ability. Her bread and butter, her bee's knees. This is the ability that will terrify your opponents getting caught in it. It is also extremely useful in canceling channeled abilities such as
All Shall Burn,
Whirlwind,
Mosh Pit,
Overkill and more.
Shield Glare::.
One of my favorite abilities in the game,
Shield Glare has great range and utility. It's amazing to knock a stealthy like
Nova or
Zeratul out of cloak with this ability.
Falling Sword::.
I love this ability for what it is. It's look, what it does, but it eventually falls short late game when people can just
Bolt of the Storm out of it leaving it to waste.
Blessed Shield::.
The only downside to this ability is that it's a skill shot, and you can easily miss it as it has a travel time. Once you nail down the speed of the shield however, it will be an amazing initiation tool. They won't see it coming (unlike
Falling Sword, and they will be stunned for a decent amount of time allowing for some heavy damage from your team.
5/5
Reinforce is a good talent to pick up when they have a lot of heavy AA damage (
Nova,
Zeratul,
Sgt. Hammer, etc) but you have no healer. It will give more sustain overall in team fights than
Regeneration Master would, and without a healer you'll need that extra sustain in team fights.
1/5
Knight Takes Pawn is not that good of a talent. You won't need the extra lane clear early on as you should ALWAYS be laneing with another hero. There is also another choice for help on lane clear at level 7, when lane clearing can be much more important.
3/5
Righteous Smash, in my honest opinion, only seems useful if you are going to be picking up
Battle Momentum at level 7 to help you from starving yourself of Mana. That is really the only thing that this talent will help you with.
5/5
Regeneration Master is still one of my favorite first talent pick for Warriors in the game. It can provide so much sustain late game that it can be a bit ridiculous.
5/5
Amplified Healing on Johanna with a healer can be quite ridiculous, as it also synergizes with Regen Master and
Holy Renewal as well. ALWAYS get this talent if you have a healer.
1/5
Roar is a bit lackluster. If you wanted to deal damage as a Warrior, you would be playing
Diablo or
Sonya. You should only be picking this talent up if you have 2 other Warriors on your team with you.
2/5
Eternal Retaliation is
okay. It will allow you to use it to help clear some minion waves and still be able to use it again shortly after, or using it in a team fight on top of a minion wave to be able to use it again shortly after, but by all means if you want shorter cooldowns you'll be using
Battle Momentum instead.
5/5
Laws of Hope is another one of those talents you'll be getting if you don't have a healer. It provides okay sustain, and a small burst heal that has saved me quite a few times. You should NOT get this however if you do have a healer, as
Amplified Healing wins over this talent in every way with one.
4/5
Battle Momentum is a good talent on any hero that can get it, however with Johanna it can screw you over if you don't manage your abilities correctly. Johanna doesn't have the biggest mana pool, and you can burn yourself out rather quickly with this talent, allowing the enemy team to easily turn on you.
5/5
Sins Exposed allows you to do a couple things. First, you'll be getting a bit of extra damage to everyone you hit with
Shield Glare which is not that bad because of the incredible range it has. The biggest thing it gives you is lane clear which Johanna struggles with. E > W > Q with a few auto attacks will clear a lane pretty quickly, and this is even more effective when you're on
Haunted Mines.
3/5
The Crusade Marches On is a very
meh talent choice. You are most likely going to go for
Sins Exposed or
Battle Momentum as this tiers talent choice. With Johanna's playstyle, this talent surprisingly isn't that effective.
2/5
Conviction might help you once or twice in a game to nab that one extra person that is just out of range, but for the most part people won't start running away from you UNTIL you activate the ability, negating this talent to near uselessness.
3/5
Falling Sword is a fun as hell Talent, but unfortunately will fall off late game. You most likely will only be hitting one hero with it, and it's a short stun. The only reason to pick up this talent is for the extra damage and some wombo-combo sort of deal, but with
Bolt of the Storm being on most heroes level 20 talent, will render this heroic useless.
5/5
Blessed Shield is my go-to pick of the heroic choice. It's hard to tell when it's coming, it's a good ranged AoE stun, and it has multiple uses.
2/5
Burning Rage just doesn't fit with Johanna's playstyle. Yes, you most certainly can make a bit of use of it, but forcing yourself to make use of it to be effective over the other choices forces you to make bad decisions. If you're looking to do some passive damage because you are close to someone, then that's alright, but I wouldn't suggest that. If you're taking it to stand next to someone to deal damage to them, well, that's just plain stupid.
5/5
I've started falling more and more in love with
Hold Your Ground. Basic Survivability and sustain increase.
4/5
Subdue is useful if you have little to no chase on your team. For instance if you have a
Gazlowe or
Azmodan trying to catch up to people to deal damage, then this might be an option. Although, I've never had to use the talent myself.
3/5
Spell Shield could have been useful on
Johanna, but unfortunately
Hold Your Ground out shines it.
Spell Shield has a 30 second cooldown on itself, while
Iron Skin has a 20 second cooldown, 16 if they break the shield. With
Hold Your Ground you are gaining a flat 20% increase, and with
Spell Shield you are either negating a
Snipe (Good), or a
Moonfire (Bad). Since you don't get to choose what you are blocking,
Hold Your Ground wins.
5/5
Holy Renewal works wonders for this build since it gives you more sustain, and works off of
Amplified Healing. With the range of
Shield Glare as well, it shouldn't be hard to heal off of multiple targets.
3/5
Fanaticism is good for disengaging or while running for your life, but that's pretty much it. You know what else is good for disengaging or running away? Having a full health team there to back you up, because you're doing your job right.
2/5
[Blessed Hammer] isn't useful for the same reason it isn't useful in Diablo 3. It doesn't do enough damage to justify the talent pick, and the damage is random. Yes, you may indeed have an instance where the same hero gets hit by all 3 spins, but in the long run you aren't there to deal damage anyways.
5/5
I will take
Imposing Presence over
Holy Renewal if they have a lot of AA damage like
Zeratul,
Nova,
Illidan, etc. It's great for negating a lot of outgoing damage.
For this tier I want to make it simple for you.
5/5
Indestructible is a 100% pick talent right now. It's too powerful and will most likely get nerfed. You should never choose a different level 20 talent.
This build is to soak up damage for your team mates by being a pain in the *** to the other team. Your job is to get in and dirty, and force them to focus you, otherwise they will get hurt badly.
My Playstyle insists on using
Shield Glare to blind as many people as possible, using
Condemn to try and gather as many people as possible, and then using
Punish to deal some extra damage and slow as many of them as I can. The enemy team has two choices after this happens. First is to spread back out and reposition themselves. In this case, I continue chasing and deal as much damage as I can, keeping a buffer between me and my team mates. The second instance is that they all focus fire you, which you then pop your
Iron Skin and back out of the engagement while your team mates blast them to oblivion.
You continue to do this, over and over, and you will eventually wear the enemy team down, done deal.
If you have any questions about my
Johanna build, feel free to leave a comment and feedback.
Quick Comment (1) View Comments
You need to log in before commenting.