Valeera
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Build: Strategy N2
Level 1
Level 4
Level 7
Level 10
Level 13
Level 16
Level 20
First of all my statistics, you can analyze it if you want, I know some ppl love to do so https://imgur.com/a/6kQP1qO
And my English not that grate so beware.
Usually ppl start their guides with explaining why you should bother to learn this character. Well... her Demon Hunter skin was enough reason for me).
Gameplay-wise Valeera is the best anti dive character in the game. Mean she can effectively save your teammates from Genji, Tracer and any melee assassin who dears to dive in. Not just CC them for a bit like Varian or BW, but CC and kill all by herself. Plus she can instantly switch to assassin, when there are no threat to your baclkine anymore and start to kill ppl literally relentless.
There are 2 types of games in HotS. Against uncoordinated team (QM, Bronze, Silver, Gold rating) players there often go solo and do position mistakes all the time. Best way to carry in this games is just to catch and kill these players. So you need to build your character for that job.
Pick Crippling Poison to chase ppl effectively other talents Relentless Strikes/ Hemorrhage (if it better to open with E) Mutilate, the rest of build not even that important. Chase ppl who stay solo, kill faster than your team feed, Valeera very effective character to do so. You should always search for players with bad position and punish them hard, but do not expect there will be a lot of them on high ranks.
On Platinum and above things will suddenly change. Ppl will stay with their teams more often and sometimes there may be no position mistakes at all from opponents. So you need to stop play like it QM and start to actually think a bit. That's where ppl have big troubles with Valeera they trying to play QM style on any rating. I saw a guy who have 1600 games on Valeera while I have like 800 and he hardstuck at Plat 5. All because he only can hunt for solo targets in QM style and nothing else.
So to climb higher in rating you need to learn how to fight 5v5 as Valeera. And first of all you need good team comp to win 5v5 teamfight. Most important thing – you need only 1 tank coz you going to play role of 2nd tank if needed. It literally better to have anyone but 2nd tank, even 2nd support or 2nd spec. Even offtank like Deh or Sonya as solo tank or no tank at all in team with Valeera is better than 2 tanks + Valeera. If your team insist of having 2 tanks, just pick mage or something.
So optimal team comp Valeera, Tank, Heal, 2 ranged characters (mage + spec for example).
Less optimal but still ok Valeera, Tank, Heal, Melee Assassin, Ranged char.
This teamcomps will have 3 things which Valeera do not have. A decent or good wave clear. Ranged poke. AOE spells. Gladly there are a lot of ranged characters players, so it easy to get these team comps in almost every match.
The only question – who will go solo? And quite often it will be you as Valeera.
There are 2 kinds of solo lanes – you need to win 1v1 to have an objective (Braxis, DS) – Valeera is a very good 1v1 character if you fight on a point without minions. You can win a lot of muchups with Block – Relentless talents and even more with 7 Lvl talent (Mutilate or Slice and Dice). You also may play as a roamer ofc and support some other solo laner.
Other kind of lanes – you just need to soak exp like on Battlefield of Eternity. These lanes often end up in 2 ppl just soak exp and no one win the lane, and you can do that also, just don’t go all out before lvl 4.
So if you end up in solo lane on Braxis or DS, you should build talents to win the lane (Block – Relentless vs melee character and Crippling Poison-Relentless vs ranged). You need some practice of to win 1v1 so I recommend to go at solo lane as often as possible as a training. It will help to win 1v1 on Braxis when you need to. Fight on the spot without minions, and don’t fight till 4 (or till 7) if you can.
When you have your dream team with at least 1 or better 2 ranged characters, you need to understand your role in 5v5 teamfight. First check enemy pick, do they have any diver. Divers are Genji, Tracer and every single melee assassin + Sonya.
Strategy N1 (punish the diver)
If they have a diver your main goal would be to disable and kill this diver. It is safe and very effective strategy, coz you will stay with your team and you get heal from support and could back to fountain without problems.
So build to support this strategy. Crippling Poison (vs Genji and Tracer), Combat Readiness vs Melee assassins. Relentless Strikes, Slice and Dice (or Mutilate if you fan of it)….. Death from Above vs Tracer (open on tank with Q to bait her, then silence her when she jump in), Strangle vs Genji, Sonya, Alarak, Blind vs rest of melee assassin including Malthael, Kerrigan, non-taunt Varian and so on. When diver is dead or run away with low HP, you just switch to closest opponent around and focus him with your team.
Strategy N2 (poke tanks and bait skills)
What if they don’t have any divers or it some Master rating and their divers don’t want to show up until Valeera is revealed. I start to use this strategy on Master more often than previous, coz ppl could learn - they dead if they dive.
The point is let’s poke and bait some stuff. Death from Above will be a key talent in this. So no one going to dive into your team, but it does not mean you should dive. Just do this – open with Q on enemy character closest to your team (which will be tank in 99% cases). Do short 1 second combo (open with Q, Q,W,E, autos) press Cloak of Shadows if tank have some dangerous CC and dash to your team. With DfA you could enter stealth again quite fast. Tank would have armor reduction so all your teammates skills will do more dmg. Often opponents would use some of their important cooldowns on you but these abilities would be wasted coz you will run away fast with Unstoppable. So this is your poke and it quite effective coz you will not only deal dmg, but will bait some of opponent skills (including Ice Blocks, support Ult and so on). If opponents wasted something really important your tank usually start a teamfight immediately and you probably will win. Btw after run away you may walk into opponents back and attack them from behind.
Best build for this strategy
Combat Readiness (to minimize AA dmg during fake openers)
Relentless Strikes
Slice and Dice (you need to run with a long version)
CoS (Smoke sometimes)
Death from Above
Assassinate
Enveloping Shadows
Strategy N3 (diving)
Diving is a not effective and dangerous strategy, because you put yourself into 1v2 - 1v5 situation. Tho it is all most Valeera players do all the time. I only dive into opponents if
- My back line is safe (opponents have 0 divers)
- Some of opponents are wounded (that is why you need a Mage – to poke and reduce someone HP so you can finish them)
- Some of my teammates can actually help me. Solo diving is suicide. Any good support can save his mage long enough to enemy frontline turn into you. But with some teammate help (Genji Anub, Li-Ming and so on) you can kill someone
- It should be absolutely safe for me.I should be able run away if dive fails. Even if enemy is wounded, expect it would be saved somehow and have a plan for retreat.
This strategy is usually pulled when I have some LvL lead to increase the lead even more, It not like I ever plan to dive on opponents before game even starts. So I usually have build from strategy N2.
Let’s talk about talents picks. These strategies I described are mostly about how you should position your character, and they could be done with different talents. I pick talents based on opponents pick in every game. There are not some default build ppl love so much).
Lvl 1
Combat Readiness – if opponent have at least 1 melee assassin to have easy 1v1 with him.
Crippling Poison – vs ranged assassins to chase them with less problems.
Lvl 4
Relentless Strikes – SS your main ability in any build and any playstyle, you need it always to be available
Lvl 7
Slice and Dice to play strategy N2. But if you below Platinum just hunt for ppl with Mutilate
Lvl 10
Smoke Bomb is my default Heroic effective vs AA teams and if it not much to clear with CoS.
Cloak of Shadows – pick vs poisons, roots, and if opponents have a lot of abilities you can actually negate with CoS (mostly mages have them)
Lvl 13
DfA – to strategy N2 (especially vs Tracer) and vs heavy poison teams (with Lvl20 CoS upgrade)
Blind – vs most of melee assassin except for Alarak
Strangle – vs Genji, Sonya, Alarak, maybe Cassia and full AP teams with Stiches
Lvl 16
Assasinate – to strategy N2 it so nice to melt a tank who step a bit far away from his team. Other 2 talents if I not going to open with Q even on tank.
Lvl 20
Enveloping Shadows – vs poisons teams and teams with huge ability burst/ a lot of CC (with Death from Above)
Rapture – great vs high mobility characters (Tracer, Genji, Falstad, Liming…) you don’t need to pick Hemorrhage to support it, Rapture is nice by himself.
Elusiveness – on big maps/if 2 other talent did not fit
Some tips
How to open on opponent.
Some ppl struggle with it. All you need to do – hide in the closest to your target bush or just attack from no vision area every time so you can reduce opponent's reaction time. If your opponent only have half of second to react he will not react at all. Use unexpected angles, attack your target from flank or back each time you can. Also you have an instant openers – come to opponent without stealth as any other character have to. Use stealth, use opener – it often done in teamfights, so you don’t waste your dps by charging stealth.
How to land a Sinister Strike
First of all you need to aim your cursor arrow on the red circle under opponent character feet). While you can click on any parts of character model to do auto attacks, to land a skillshot only red circle counts.
You may use slow poison to land skillshot easier.
Choose big targets first if you can.
Also right click on target after you open to do some auto attacks and be as close as possible.
Take your time, it better to aim 3 seconds than miss and waste 5 seconds.
Try to guess what opponent want to do - he rightckiced on you to fight, or he rightclicked to some safe place? Or he trying to dodge your Sinister, or he panicked. So just rightclick on his char and watch 1 sec at least, while adjust your cursor to that red circle.
PS I have a youtube channel with some gameplay video https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg27BS2lDpbKH1BGyVhwYElXan8f5h_HO
and here a new video
https://youtu.be/huuWIFLKbE4
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