Li Li
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Build: Standard Healing
Level 1
Level 4
Level 7
Level 10
Level 13
Level 16
Level 20
About This Guide
This guide is for players new to the game and advanced players who want to dive into Li Li with a bit of background. I welcome all feedback, and will be updating this guide as changes are made to the game.
Please rate, comment, and get in touch with me at twitch.tv/DARKshowtime and showtime-us.com.
The Basics of Li Li
Li Li is soft, swift, and automated. Most notably, her Q heal --
Healing Brew -- automatically prioritizes a hero in range with the lowest health.In this sense, she has the worst stock kit of the healing support heroes, in that her main healing ability will target a lower health hero who has successfully escaped a group fight over a higher health hero or tank who is still in the thick or about to take a burst.
This is a recurring theme with Li Li, which will discuss in depth in the kit section below, and it is also what this build intends to build around and, to some degree, circumvent.
Healing in Heroes of the Storm
The healing support play style is a dangerous dance in and out of targeting range. Because there are no item or statistical advantages between any given players, an individual players contribution is best defined by actions per minute (often referred to as APM and A/M). That is, the more things you're doing, the more you're helping your team push into a victory.
Because of the action economy and how it ultimately decides who wins or loses the match, healers are placed in a precarious position - keeping your teammates alive, while also actively participating in team fights with well placed auto-attacks and ability usage, as well as getting out of the fire when necessary without leaving the rest of the team to die. Additionally, advanced level play will benefit from an expanded action economy through ability-granting talents like
Healing Totem and
Shrink Ray, the selection and use of which will be expanded on in the talent section of this guide.A lot of the kind of awareness required to make the most of a healer's action economy comes from experience. That said, it won't take more than a few games for a new player to quickly pick up a solid intuition for when to press in with auto-attacks in order to get a pick that might otherwise get away, when to run away, when to come back, etc. Because of Li Li's relative squishiness, this kind of awareness will come quickly, as your options are slightly more limited than
Uther, for example, who can take and dish out more of a beating.In short, if you're new to the game or new to healing, Li Li is the easiest to pick up and learn the ropes.
Li Li's Kit
Li Li excels at staying mobile at all times. The times that you're standing still should be few and far between. As you will see, the automated nature of Li Li's kit also gives you some degree of leeway to maintain a level of potential awareness of both the map and your surroundings that healers worried about landing abilities or targeting allies in time can't afford.
Trait:
Fast Feet
For the majority of the game, this is your only method of creating gaps between you and the enemy, aside from not being in range of them in the first place. You are very squishy and easy to burst down, so booking it the moment you get hit is always the first option.
This doesn't mean you should always be running away from the action as soon as you get hit, but you should be running to create distance between yourself and danger. Very often a teammate will see that you're in danger and react accordingly to help you create that distance, in which case you will often consider returning to help keep them up and possibly clean up.
Q:
Healing Brew
Your famously non-targeted heal. Don't be fooled by the relatively low amount healed - the cooldown more than makes up for it. Compare it t
Holy Light and
Light of Elune. It is both more mana efficient when used sparingly and capable of more total healing in the span of their cooldowns. The drawback in this comparison is that it is less capable of burst healing in crisis points and is less versatile than a heal you totally control through targeting.Most of your healing done will come from this ability, which is what will allow you to focus more on the map and state of play, especially in the early game when your team is busy building up a tempo and pressure toward early objective wins. As your kit expands into direct spells when you level up, this freedom of awareness will diminish to some extent, but by that point the team is roaming together and the burden is less on you and more on the group as a whole.
Remember that while this ability does not have a casting time, it does have a travel time, so in heated situations it's better to brew a second too early than a second too late, especially with the relatively trivial cooldown. Expect this spell to be used as soon as it's available in team fights, regardless of what phase the game is in.
W:
Cloud Serpent
This will be your second biggest contributor to healing, and your largest contributor to damage - that is, unless you take
The Good Stuff instead of
Bringer of Gifts in Talent Tier 3 (more on that in a bit).Needless to say, this is a very powerful spell in the hands of a high APM Li Li player, with or without
Bringer of Gifts. When cast on yourself, especially in the early game but even later on, the serpent provides a significant buff to your autoattacks. The ability shines even more when cast on a basic attack focused character who can buff their attack speed, as they will gain a higher damage output out of the spell than you. In any case, the damage buff from the serpent will be felt most in the clincher moments in team fights over objectives in the early and mid-games. Bringer of Gifts brings
Cloud Serpent into a whole new domain of interesting, however, as it provides you with access to a relatively powerful direct heal, in addition to the damage buff. The additional maximum potential healing per second provided by this talent gives Li Li versatility that she is otherwise starving for, as well as a greater control over who
Healing Brew can potentially target.E:
Blinding Wind
The relatively high cost, low damage, and long cooldown of this spell leave three potential uses: softening team fights during engagement, cleaning up team fights against weakened opponents, and making close-shave escapes slightly safer. The latter of these possibilities is the most likely, so try to keep this ability available for use unless you know you won't be needing it shortly.
Cloud Serpent with auto-attacks is better for clearing minions, though you could feasibly use
Blinding Wind to make taking an early Bruiser or Siege camp slightly easier.R1:
Jug of 1,000 Cups
This heroic ability is a solid group heal and should be able to swing an otherwise even team-fight in your favor. Good timing is key, though with a 60 second cooldown you should only be afraid to use it if you think you might need it soon after. Save it for the clincher - experience will help you better decide when the time is right.
R2:
Water Dragon
This heroic ability requires you to get close to your enemies in order to do relatively little damage and slow them for a few seconds. Avoid it unless your team insists on your using it for some sort of combo - even then, there are probably safer alternatives than the squishy healer running into melee for a setup. Some might argue that this ability is good for finishing enemies off - I disagree, unless you're already winning the game handily. The windup time will require you to chase enemies for a finish, which is a bad strategy 99% of the time for non-
Zeratul heroes.
Blackheart's Bay
Mass Vortex
Gale Force
Bribe
Cursed Hollow
Lingering Blind
Envenom
Calldown: MULE
Clairvoyance
Lightning Serpent
Hindering Winds
Elusive Feet
Garden of Terror
Dragon Shire
Ice Block
Two For One
Cleanse
Magical Essence
Timeless Creature
Stoneskin
Storm Shield
Jug of 1,000,000 Cups
Double Dragon
Bolt of the Storm
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