Medivh Build Guide : Undefeated Medivh :: Heroes of the Storm (HotS) Strategy Builds

Medivh

Build: Default

Level 1

Level 4

Level 7

Level 10

Level 13

Level 16

Level 20

Overview Top

is my favorite hero in the game. His role in WC3 was mysterious and interesting, and his kit in HotS can be extremely satisfying and one of the more powerful in the game under the right conditions. But, I'm under no illusion that the uniqueness of his kit and abilities make his contributions to victory in your average game difficult to capitalize on. Outside of organized play with a team familiar with working together, playing Medivh is a labor of love, not a safe bet.

Pros:Mobility for the whole team, anti-dive / anti-burst, strong crowd control potential, stealing mercs from enemy team potential.
Cons:Very difficult to play well, slow wave clear before level 20, can't get camps, crowd control unreliable, has an important quest with stacks that get lost on death until completion.

Look to take Medivh when you're in a group of pretty competent players and can fully capitalize on the mobility he provides for the whole team, or, when the enemy team has strong initiation and burst that you can counter outright with or his ults and

Talent Choices Top

Level 1:

is the best choice in most environments at level one. I have taken on maps where I expected extended team fighting and thought I'd need just a bit more mana regen to keep people shielded, but every time I do I always, always wish I had taken when the game continues. Especially if it gets to level 20 and I finally have Guardian of Trisifal, but I'm left slowly flying from lane to lane to make use of it. Between the two bird talents, movement speed is the most beneficial throughout the whole game and really adventitious in the late game.

is a valid choice basically only in a game where you expect a high level of team competency. You can find marginal cases where staying a bird while providing a portals for your team allows for some strong position play. But when you're playing among randoms, just assume they will not use your portals. Provide them, use them to the advantage of your team, not only yourself, but never expect them to use them.

Level 3:

provides you, and anybody else who uses your portal, with free extra focused damage on the next enemy hero they auto attack. Every time you go through the portal. And when poking during a fight, you can go through a portal two or three times before it expires. As Medivh, part of what you provide is damage.

really just doesn't provide enough protective benefit to be worth it. Even when used to its best possible extent, IE: when your team as a whole goes through an aggressively placed portal to attack the enemy while the 4 seconds of armor are up, they could have gone through with a bird to help actually secure those aggressive kills. only helps provide intel, and in a pretty superfluous way since you're already an invulnerable bird by default. What's a few extra inches or a spot reveal outside of specifically stopping a initiation or to more easily observe a hostile camp for potential theft with .

Level 7:

is in my opinion the strongest pick in this tier because it plays into the moment by moment mode of operation of Medivh as a whole, and it only grows more potent with the level 13 talent . It turns one of the strongest defensive basic abilities in the game into an offensive tool that comes into play right at a moment when somebody vulnerable on your team is going to be shielded, healed, and subsequently deal good damage back to their attacker, making for very good trades in health.

I have played a lot with and and neither of them flow into 's play style very fluidly. With while the benefit is relatively easy to trigger (blocking x amount of damage with a shield), you then naturally feel compelled to be more aggressive while the buff is active, and at the exact time that your shield is going to be on cooldown. as well is easy enough to trigger, but it's actually very rare that you will be lacing in auto-attacks in between casts of , and even less rare that you'll be able to do that for an extended amount of time. Especially if you've completed the quest. It's maximal use is when you turn Medivh into a quasi stutter-stepping ranged auto-attacker, and I find that demand of attention to positioning and accuracy distracts you from watching for other opportunities to shield friends or making an important play with your ultimates.

Level 10:

is my default choice because of it's versatility and ability to remove important but hard to reach targets from a team fight for a fairly long time. is a great crowd control option too, but in a more counter-initiation way I'll explain below. But has the ability to entirely remove half of an enemy team for three seconds. It's imperative you choose your targets for the seal properly, as with any such powers, like 's . You can just as easily completely screw your team if used wrong.

Typically you always want to remove the enemy team's back line with . Use it to remove the enemy healer and ranged DPS just after the enemy melee dive into your team and will need heals soon. Do NOT use it on an enemy that's been targeted by or on a that's just charged into his target. In the situation, make the judgement whether his target will survive the assault by the Butcher if you instead seal up the rest of Butcher's team. Butch may have charged in thinking he would have them to back him up.

Speaking of and other strong engagers or sticky melee damage dealers, this is where you start considering taking over the other ult. When you feel it's more important to shut down those incredibly strong windows of power from a single (usually melee) target, take . Abilities you should be looking for to counter with it are things such as , , before he can escape, before she can escape, , , as he goes in for the kill.

Level 13:

is the natural choice given our level 7 choice of . The reasons why is good just get multiplied when you can protect multiple people at once. And, it's usually when team mates have gotten clustered up that they're just begging to be completely whammied by some enemy wombo-combo. This negates all of it, on all the poor saps caught right in the middle of it. And turns all that damage back on their attackers.

Again, I have used and extensively, at one point I preferred . Having a 1.5 second invulnerability shield on a 4 second cooldown is exceptionally annoying to somebody like . But, in practice, it's really those oopsie moments where your whole team WOULD otherwise have been obliterated by an enemy alpha strike while they were grouped up that makes far and away the most reliable useful talent at this tier. And the same reasons go for why it beats out .

Level 16:

is just the most damage. Even in a fairly slow game, by now you should have completed your quest. That means with the extra 15% damage from you're throwing out about 450 damage to any hero hit by every second. The damage adds up very quickly and it's safe damage, no goofy auto attacking or shielding for buffs required. Just more Medivh, more better.

is more of a gimmick. Basically if you've gone , and you hit at least three enemy heroes with three Arcane Rifts, you can cast again immediately. While fun, that's not typically going to make the situation better. Or, rather, it may be somewhat of a "win more" gimmick. The effectiveness of or is already there, built into them. Having them on unreliably shorter cooldowns pales in comparison to the raw damage you are guaranteed to enjoy from taking

Level 20:

is what makes Medivh a real hero. If you've ever watched any of my streams while playing Medivh, you are guaranteed to have heard me lament about how this talent is so integral to Medivh as a hero. That if it were up to me, I would put it at talent level 16 rather than 20. Most of the time you will feel like getting all the way to 20 is too late for its benefits to kick in. By that point you might really feel like a Guardian of your core, since it's enabling you to frantically push back endlessly encroaching lanes. But even if temo-wise I think this talent is a much better candidate for level 16, it's at 20, and it's by far the best choice for your average game.

Reliability is the name of the game. ? Maybe in a coordinated strike on a coordinated team. Not for pick-up pub games. 15% extra Spell Power from ? A substantial amount of extra damage, but probably isn't going to turn fights around if they've already been going poorly enough that you're level 20. And like before, enhancing or is a little superfluous when their core usefulness is already provided without enhancement. There are better marginal reasons to take either ult talent at 20, but by default, by level 20, probably by level 16, you will have wished Medivh could AT LEAST clear minion waves quickly between participating in fights. Now he can.

Take advantage of your practically invulnerable split-push potential and create opportunities to turn the pressure you've been under back on the enemy team. Hopefully get the enemy team to split up for the next objective because they finally have some cats near core they have to deal with. Don't neglect your team mates or objective fights to go full autistic split pusher, but you have the tools you need to contribute the best you can in the most reliable ways.