Free Hero of the Week: Sylvanas
Free Hero Rundown will focus on one hero from the weekly set of free heroes. During the week, except for daily quests, you’ll see me playing this hero, hopefully kicking butt and taking names.
Possible Talent Choices
The final Heroes of the Storm archetype that needs to be looked at in Free Hero Rundown is the specialist. This week, the newest specialist added to the game, Sylvanas, is the free hero of the week.
Specialist is the blanket term for a hero that doesn’t just deal damage or heal. They usually excel at one type of situation, but falter a bit in others. Gazlowe, for example, is nearly unstoppable if you fight him in an area he has fortified with his turrets. Get him to leave his turrets though, and he is considerably weaker.
Sylvanas’ specialty area is in lane control and mercenary camps. That’s thanks to her trait, Black Arrows, which stuns mercenaries, enemy minions and enemy towers. She can solo siege camps and not take any damage, or she can clear a pair of towers without the help of minions, all thanks to her trait.
Basic Abilities
Sylvanas Q, Withering Fire, is the key to her multi-target stun. This fires a homing shot for minimal damage, but applies her trait, allowing her to lock down two targets at once. Her basic attack stuns her main target, and her Q stuns her secondary target. Positioning is important however, as Withering Fire seeks out the closest non-allied target.
Her W, Shadow Dagger, is her AOE damage attack. This move can stun an entire minion wave because of how it chains to nearby enemies on damage. Like her Q, the damage per tick is on the low side, but it can be modified with talents to do more damage or provide more utility. The talent spec I chose for Sylvanas uses the talent that lets Shadow Dagger increase damage from any source on the affected target by 25% for example.
Because of her wave clear and tower stunning abilities, Sylvanas is a natural split pusher. Her team can focus on one target, while Sylvanas takes down forts in another lane. To aid her in this, she has Haunting Wave, her E ability. This shoots out some banshees that travel slowly in a line, dealing a small amount of damage to what they hit. When Sylvanas hits E again, she is teleported to the banshees and takes their place. This can be used offensively catch a fleeing target or defensively, to escape when the enemy team sends a pair of heroes to stop your split pushing.
Heroic Abilities
Wailing Arrow is Sylvanas’ starting heroic ability and hands down her strongest. This shoots an arrow in a straight line that explodes, dealing heavy damage and silencing any enemies hit for 2.5 seconds. The arrow explodes at the end of it’s travel path, or when you hit the R button a second time. Since it does not explode on contact with enemies, you will usually have to activate it at the right moment, so pay attention to that when using it.
Sylvanas’ unlockable heroic ability is Possession. This lets her turn an enemy minion to fight on your team’s side. While this is certainly more interesting than Wailing Arrow, the effect is a bit underwhelming. Even though it has a short cooldown, even if you steal a catapult later in the game, minions are very fragile and still die quickly. Since it doesn’t work on enemy controlled mercenaries, this heroic is more just for fun than turning the tide of a fight.
Talents
One thing that Sylvanas lacks, being a specialist after all, is direct damage. She can do amazing damage over time and can destroy a lane’s fortifications if left alone. However, she’s not going to be able to burst down an enemy assassin or out damage a healer by herself. So the talents I chose increase her damage dealing abilities and give her just a bit more utility.
Increased Withering Fire range helps with positioning between 2 targets you want to stun and lets you poke enemy heroes easier. Envenom deals a bit of extra damage over time and empowering her attacks after using an ability adds extra damage because of how often you will hit Withering Fire (like all the time, seriously). Like I said earlier, Wailing Arrow is her only competitive heroic ability.
Her last 3 talents add utility, especially to her Shadow Dagger. Adding a slow to enemy heroes from her trait can be a huge help in team fights. Also, the vulnerability added to Shadow Dagger helps when pushing forts down or making it easier for your assassins to burst enemies down. Lastly, Bolt of the Storm is there because sometimes you need a little extra distance from Haunting Wave and sometimes those banshees are just too slow.
As mentioned, Sylvanas shines as a split pusher and capturing mercenary camps. If you go with a split pushing strategy, make sure your team is aware of it though or they might just charge into a 5v4 and then yell at you for not being there when they lose the fight. If your team thinks that grouping up is better, or they are just not working together well enough for a split push, make sure you stay toward the back and poke with Withering Fire and Shadow Dagger.
Sylvanas is a lot of fun, and I look forward to playing her this week! If you want to join me, look for AGRitterific in game. You can also PM me at ritterific@agentsofgame.com or follow me on Twitter @AGRitterific.
