Free Hero of the Week: Johanna
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
Last week, we looked at a melee warrior that specialized in tanking, Muradin. This week, we’ll be looking at another melee warrior that specializes in tanking, Johanna. Since this is her first week on the free hero rotation though, it bears doubling up on archetypes.
Johanna is a character with heavy crowd control and survivability, but not so much damage. Early in the game, she can help bully a lane with a partner, but unlike a character such as Muradin, come late game, she won’t pack as much of a wallop.
Her trait is one of the sources of her great durability. On a 20 second cooldown, you can activate a shield and gain the “Unstoppable” buff, meaning you are immune to any disables. This is particularly useful when initiating a fight, chasing a fleeing enemy, or running from a pack of enemies. In short, it’s a very useful trait.
Basic Abilities
Johanna’s Q is Punish. This deals damage to enemies in a semicircle in front of Johanna, then slows them by 60%. The slow wears off over 2 seconds, meaning it’s best to use this slow to lock your opponent down, rather than for catching up to them. Most of the time, this will be used in combination with her Condemn ability, which pulls enemies to Johanna. First you reel them in with Condemn, then Punish will lock them down even more.
Condemn is her W ability. As explained before, this pulls nearby enemies toward Johanna. There is a 1 second delay and a visual warning of its effect radius, so your enemies will have some idea of what’s coming. The pull also stuns, so any enemies channeling an ability will be interrupted.
Her E ability, Shield Glare, deals damage in a cone area in front of Johanna, but more importantly, blinds targets hit by it. A blinded enemy will miss any auto attacks in the next 2 seconds. This is particularly useful against auto attack assassins, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it against casters or healers too. The cone is fairly large so it’s easy to hit the whole enemy team if they bunch up.
Heroic Abilities
Both of Johanna’s heroic abilities provide crowd control. This makes the choice between the two more about how you want to use that crowd control. Her starting heroic ability is Falling Sword (even though she has a flail, I know). This let’s her jump to an area where she will then land, damaging and knocking up enemies hit. By clicking to move while Johanna is in the air, you can adjust the landing zone.
Johanna’s unlocked heroic ability is Blessed Shield. Johanna throws her shield, damaging and stunning the first enemy hit for 2 seconds. The shield then bounces to other nearby enemies, dealing less damage and stunning them for 1 second. So, while Falling Sword gives Johanna a movement boost, Blessed Shield locks enemies up longer. When choosing your heroic ability, try to think about which utility you will need more.
Talents
Johanna has some of the most unique talents released so far. To keep things simple for learning Johanna, I stuck to the ones that increased her survivability, making her a more effective tank for the team. The first two do just that, giving her block charges after a basic attack and giving her more HP regeneration over time. In the third tier, I chose the talent that gets Johanna more uses of her trait for using her other abilities.
I decided to use Falling Sword for Johanna’s heroic ability because I feel mobility is important for a tank. This lets her initiate a fight with Condemn and Punish, then jump to a fleeing enemy, hopefully giving your team time to finish them off. In keeping with that, I also took the talent that gives Johanna movement speed when damaged while her trait’s shield is up.
Burning Rage is a personal favorite, and Indestructible finishes the talents off. Indestructible is particularly interesting. When Johanna is dealt fatal damage, instead of dying, she gets an extremely large shield. The shield lasts for a few seconds, but be careful, you don’t get any extra health, so when the shield disappears, you’re still going to be low on health.
In the early game, Johanna can put out some good damage, so try to keep your opponents pinned down, afraid to leave the safety of their towers. Her damage does drop off a bit during the mid-game, so focus instead on getting good Condemn + Punish combos. If you can lock up two or more enemies in a team fight, that should be enough to ensure your team wins the fight. Also, don’t be afraid to get in the middle of the fight, that’s what a tank does.
Thanks for reading this week’s Free Hero Rundown. I’ll be playing Johanna in game as AGRitterific. Like I said before, Johanna has a lot of cool talents, so if you have a cool build, leave it in the comments or let me know on Twitter @AGRitterific.
