Li Li, the World Wanderer, is a highly positional support who relies on her spammable heal and multi-target blind to keep her and her allies in the fight. Li Li is extremely quick on her feet, speeding up any time an enemy hits her, allowing her to get out of trouble where others might fall. Because of this, she can be surprisingly aggressive, with her pet Cloud Serpent and fearsome Water Dragon to assail her foes.

Strengths

• Easy to learn; only one Ability requires any targeting
• Extremely mobile with cast-while-moving spells and her passive
• High sustain healing
• Very cute

Weaknesses

• Little to no crowd control
• Difficulty handling burst damage
• Squishy, particularly vulnerable to crowd control
• Too cute?

(Trait) Fast Feet Fast Feet is a very useful, if boring, passive. It makes Li Li incredibly slippery. She can move in and out of a team fight fluidly, escape from situations that would be impossible for most other Heroes, and can even give chase with smart use of mechanics (try hitting a merc camp for that last burst of speed!). In a game where not every Hero can properly give chase, this ability will save Li Li's bacon more often than not.

(Q) Healing Brew Healing Brew is Li Li's bread and butter ability. You're going to be using this ability on cooldown in almost every situation. You should always be trying to use this ability on the best possible member of your team; since we have no way to target this ability, we must always be wary of where we are in a fight, and adjust accordingly based on who needs our heals the most. Maybe that Stitches isn't close to death and there's no reason to heal him right now, but you also need to heal your Zeratul, who is very close to him. You need to be able to position yourself in such a way that you hit the Zeratul with your Brew, and not the Stitches. This is the key to using Healing Brew effectively, not mindlessly spamming (though there is a lot of that as well).

(W) Cloud Serpent Cloud Serpent is dead easy to use. Just cast it on whoever is closest to the most enemy Heroes. That's it, you've mastered Cloud Serpent. It effectively adds some passive, uncontrollable damage. You generally will want to hold off on using this when mana is a concern.

(E) Blinding Wind Blinding Wind is deceptively strong even with no talents, as it can easily remove hundreds of damage with every cast. Like Healing Brew you must be sure you are positioned correctly to get the most out of this ability. Hitting just Stitches is no good, but ducking behind enemy lines for a minute and hitting Sgt Hammer and Valla is a great use of the ability. It's almost always wrong to use this ability for the damage, but it's a fantastic way to secure a kill early on in the game, so if you think you can get a kill behind the gate, go for it! Be sure to utilize Fast Feet when positioning for this spell.

(R1) Jug of 1,000 Cups Jug of 1,000 Cups is a very potent teamfight ability, however against teams that can knock you out of it easily it is almost worthless, as they will just save a stun for when you cast it. However if you can somehow manage to craft a scenario in which this doesn't happen, it's the best choice. It may still be preferable over her secondary heroic if you are desperate to keep your team alive.

(R2) Water Dragon Water Dragon is a pretty good chase/pick off ability. The way this works is Li Li summons a Water Dragon above her head, channels for 3 seconds, and then the Dragon crashes down upon whichever Hero is closest at the end of the channel. This will whiff if a Hero moves out of range before the channel is over. The best way to use this ability is to begin the channel as early as possible during a fight, so you have time to move to your desired target before the channel ends (and before they have time to react and run). Ideally you hit more than one target with this, but it's usually better to smash the called target instead.

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Conjurer's Pursuit - The Mana regeneration it provides early game is decent, but if you manage to be at every merc camp, in every lane, at every team fight (as you should be), then you're going to stack this up relatively quickly. This is necessary in order to sustain yourself and your team over long periods of time and to keep yourself in the fight. However, it is notably less good on certain maps, and if your team is good at sustaining itself. You may, therefore, prefer Timeless Creature instead.

ALTERNATIVES Pro Toss - Basically useless, since we will always be in range to heal someone, and it competes with much better talents. Timeless Creature - A very nice pickup for a teamfight oriented aggressive build. If you want to go full Serpent, you shouldn't skip this talent, as it synergizes well with later talents. Personally, I find the Serpent build to be very underwhelming, but if you're good at managing your mana and your team is good at sustaining themselves, this might be preferable over Conjurer's Pursuit. Gale Force - Irrelevant. This ability already does virtually no damage, especially late game, so buffing this up (particularly at the expense of another talent) is worthless. This might be a consideration if it didn't compete with two much better talents, but as is Timeless Creature is better if your aim is more damage.

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Mass Vortex - This will allow you to remove a huge amount of auto attacks every 10 seconds during a teamfight. Although this and Lingering Blind will tend to prevent the same amount of damage if used against certain team comps, Mass Vortex is much easier to use, and has some applications for wave clear. Note that you will basically be able to blind the enemy team near-constantly once you get Kung Fu Hustle.

ALTERNATIVES Healing Ward - It's alright, but 20% health over 10 seconds with the area restriction and the possibility of the ward's death is not usually worth it. That being said, this is sometimes the correct choice, notably if the enemy team lacks any significant amount of right click damage, and instead does most of their damage through abilities. A lot of people disagree with me on this, but I've just never found it quite that useful, at least on Li Li. Mending Serpent - Cloud Serpent will attack one time per second. In other words, at level 20, this talent will heal for 384 over the duration, or 576 with Timeless Creature. This definitely isn't much, especially since it happens over time, and also relies on the Serpent actually being able to hit something. However, it does scale with both Timeless Creature and Serpent Sidekick, so it can sometimes be the correct choice against teams with low auto attack damage. Lingering Blind - This talent will completely ruin an auto attacker's day. 4 seconds of right click damage is insane, especially if you can hit both of the auto attackers on the enemy team. That's potentially thousands of damage gone from the equation entirely. This will absolutely prevent the most possible damage over the course of the game, though it won't pad your meters. However, this is only effective against teams heavily reliant on right-clickers, and relies on you being able to reliably hit both at once, and as such generally loses out to Mass Vortex.

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The Good Stuff - A great buff to your most spammable ability. A little less immediately potent these days, but I would almost never pick anything else. This is actually 30% additional healing, which is especially noticeable when using Two For One.

ALTERNATIVES Shake It Off - Meh. Doesn't really compete with The Good Stuff even against stun-heavy teams; you won't gain enough healing in most situations to make up for the loss of the HoT. This is probably the right choice if you're dying before you can do anything every single time, but it doesn't even prevent you from being knocked out of Jug of 1,000 Cups. Pitch Perfect - A pretty nice mana saver. Might be useful when you're first learning the Hero in order to buff up your mana regen, but The Good Stuff is always better. Might be the right choice if you're using the Serpent build and you find yourself running out of mana often. Lightning Serpent - Wouldn't even be good if it cleaved at 100% damage, and therefore it is completely worthless at anything less than that. Notably, it does NOT proc Mending Serpent. Don't even take this in a full Serpent build. If your ONLY concern is damage, then technically speaking this is the best talent on this tier, and it does help with wave clear a little bit.

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Jug of 1,000 Cups - Still personally hard to justify with all the CC running around, but the ability does heal for a significant amount. If you can get it off and keep it going, then this will completely flip a team fight. I look at the composition of the enemy team to determine whether I will use this or Water Dragon, preferring the latter if the enemy team is extremely CC heavy.

ALTERNATIVES Water Dragon - This fits the aggressive playstyle of this build very well, allowing us to get easy picks or chase down fleeing heroes or to just simply put out a little extra damage in the fight for our team while we're still able to heal away. I pick this up if the enemy team is extremely CC-heavy, which would prevent me from using Jug of 1,000 Cups to any significant advantage.

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Shrink Ray - This ability is absolutely fantastic. It lets you catch someone who's trying to run, it locks down the biggest damage dealer on the team, it can bail you out if your team let a Zeratul jump you, it can even let you 1v1 a particularly squishy Assassin; it's an all around versatile and amazing talent.

ALTERNATIVES Elusive Feet - This is just a much more expensive Block, which is already not a fantastic pickup on most heroes. It asks more of you and does less. Hindering Winds - A nice idea, but simply doesn't do enough to be worth the pickup, and more than that Shrink Ray will almost always do the same job better. If this slowed by a LITTLE more, it might be worth it in a chase comp. This does give Li Li her only real CC, but sadly it's not good enough. Surging Winds - Extremely good at around level 20 when you can pair it with Kung Fu Hustle, you can essentially keep the buff up indefinitely. Note however that this is also much more difficult to use than Shrink Ray, since you have to manage your mana and make sure you're always hitting somebody, AND you will want to be in the fray for Kung Fu Shuffle. Great if you can use it, skip it if you're not confident. Note that this also makes Mass Vortex significantly better.

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Two For One - This quite literally doubles the output of your heal, and splits it between two targets, which is a major benefit. This will allow you to, for example, heal yourself as well as someone else, or heal the tank AND your squishy at the same time. It also just makes you that much better at nursing everybody back to health after a fight. The extra cooldown is definitely a concern, but not enough to be relevant.

ALTERNATIVES Safety Sprint - Not good enough, especially considering almost all the other talents on this tier are more immediately useful. This might be good enough if it was at all health levels, but it's not. Herbal Cleanse - Sort of interesting, but the fact that it's super unreliable means that you won't often get any benefit from this ability. Even if we just take it for the Movement Speed increase, this is still not reliable enough to be worth considering. That being said, if you're in a double support comp, and you're up against a heavy CC team, AND you're confident with your positioning skills, this is a very useful ability to have. Serpent Sidekick - Mandatory for a Serpent build (of course), but largely irrelevant otherwise. This obviously doubles the effectiveness of your Serpent, which is not very good baseline, but combined with its other talents does make it somewhat formidable. Useful in a double support comp.

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Kung Fu Hustle - Li Li loves to spam her abilities. This lets you spam them significantly more often, and fits in very very well with the aggressive playstyle of this guide. Pair this with Surging Winds for a nearly permanent 20% increase to your Ability Power and you become a team fighting monster. Just be sure to watch your Mana... hope you've been stacking Conjurer's Pursuit!

ALTERNATIVES Jug of 1,000,000 Cups - A very nice increase to the potency of Jug. Makes your team more difficult to kill while it's up, but of course suffers all the same problems that Jug does. Double Dragon - USUALLY a solid pickup, as it will basically double the damage of Water Dragon. That being said, this is a little bit unreliable, as it still takes another 3 seconds for the second Dragon to crash down on the target, and you give up some of the other great talents on this tier. Furthermore, Kung Fu Hustle will generally let you deal more damage over time, anyway. Bimmy and Jimmy disapprove. Storm Shield - Decent enough, but it's just not competitive with the other talents on this tier, so we will never pick this talent. Bolt of the Storm - Blink is absolutely brilliant. It can allow you to get into position for Water Dragon, Shrink Ray, Blinding Wind, and even Healing Brew. It can also double as an escape ability. All that being said, Li Li is already naturally mobile, and her other talents on this tier are simply better choices.

First of all, it's important to note that this build is primarily designed to be run alongside some other healing Support. As Li Li's numbers are not the best, even with a full Support build she needs extra help to keep her team up. However, with a secondary Support like Uther, this aggressive playstyle really shines, putting extra pressure on your enemies with your blind and shrink while also putting out very respectable healing numbers.

During the laning phase, you want to monitor your Mana closely, and ensure that your lane partner is able to trade harass with the opponent effectively. To this end, you should usually hold off on Cloud Serpent, unless you're sure you can bully the opponent entirely out of lane. Save your Mana for Healing Brew and Blinding Wind when the enemy gets aggressive. Remember that it's totally fine to use the Moonwell just to get Mana, since you can heal yourself anyway. It is generally better to take some damage first if you can help it, of course.

Li Li's primary job is to keep her team mates in the fight. The most important thing you can learn as Li Li is proper positioning. This will allow you to not only stay out of harm's way, but most effectively utilize Healing Brew, and Blinding Wind. In a team fight it's crucial that you cast these two spells on cooldown, and that you hit someone important with both every single time. It's well worth it to jog in to hit that Valla, since your passive allows you to slip right back out (assuming your tank is positioned appropriately as well).

If you've taken Jug of 1,000 Cups, there's a lot of things to consider. First and foremost, you can be knocked out of Jug. Stuns, knockbacks, and the like will stop the channel of Jug. It is extremely important that you do not waste this channel. Sometimes it's unavoidable, but with the numbers as they are now, it's best used to heal everybody up AFTER the fight so you can secure a push, or to break off and heal an Assassin up quickly so they can get back in the fight. If you can position yourself correctly however, and the enemy team has no way to stop the channel, it is obviously very effective to use this right in the middle of the fight.

Water Dragon has a considerably different playstyle. The best use of this spell is as a ganking tool. It's possible to catch someone without a Blink, even with the extremely long 3 second channel, and with a buddy you can finish them off. However, it's much more difficult to figure out the use of this ability in a team fight. This goes back to Li Li's extreme reliance on her positioning. The damage can be rather devastating to the enemy Assassin if you can manage it, but the damage and slow splash, so this ability works great with a wombo combo. Either way, you should almost ALWAYS cast this during a team fight, even if you cannot get an ideal use out of it, since you can use abilities during the channel anyway.

Blackheart's Bay - Li Li's Cloud Serpent will attack chests for some reason, so be sure to keep it up while you're doing so. Keep in mind the range of your Blinding Wind, as this can sometimes be effective at stopping a turn in, if you don't get caught out doing so.

Dragon Shire - You can Shrink Ray the enemy Dragon Knight! You will want to more aggressively take merc camps on this map since Li Li is of very little help taking the Knight. You will usually want to give somebody else control of the Dragon Knight, unless of course this would mean giving it up entirely.

Cursed Hollow - You can sometimes toss a Blinding Wind across the wall from a Tribute, but other than that there are no special considerations for this map as Li Li.

Garden of Terror - There is some consideration for any Healing Globe based builds on this map, and that's that Garden of Terror has a lot of them. The Garden Horrors on either side of the map poop out a lot of these things, and there are a lot of merc camps to boot. If your team is bothering with Seeds, be sure to go and help, at least so you can greedily slurp up those delicious globs.

Sky Temple - Your Blinding Wind can be used to blind the Temple enemies, which will significantly reduce the amount of damage you and your allies take.

Tomb of the Spider Queen - Use Blinding Wind to interrupt turn-ins and, heaven forbid, blind enemy spiders. Also note that Li Li is a potent carrier on this map, since she is naturally very difficult to kill.

Battlefield of Eternity - This is a tough map for the little panda, as she doesn't bring anything particularly valuable to the objective here. That being said, Blinding Wind as always does work preventing damage on your Immortal.

Infernal Shrines - This might be one of the few maps where a Serpent build with Lightning Serpent can really shine, along with Mass Vortex to help clear out the Shrine minions faster.

Towers of Doom - Once again, Blinding Wind can prevent your enemies from taking the Towers. However, sustained combat is not as important here (largely due to the portal in the middle of the match), and thus Li Li is somewhat of a weak pick.

The little panda girl seems to have finally been forgiven for her past transgressions and is now firmly in the "pretty good" slot in most tier lists. She's still as fun as ever to play, and super easy to pick up for new players, while providing potent support to her team mates.

If you have any questions about the guide, feel free to post a comment below, and I'll try and answer them as best I can! I'd consider myself to be one of the best Li Li players in the game at the moment, but it's pretty hard to judge right now. You can also find me at the following places:

YouTube: Poultron
BattleTag: Poultron#1383
Twitch: Poultron
Twitter: poultronic

April 27, 2016 (Tracer Patch)

• Added changelog
• Water Dragon - Damage increased from 192 (+4% per level) to 318 (+4% per level).
• Water Dragon - Mana cost decreased from 100 to 50.
• No changes to guide; Water Dragon is still the same situational use, it's just less bad now