Raynor Abilities and Strategy

• Movement is crucial when playing Raynor, since he lacks any gap-closing abilities. Thus, make sure to constantly keep stutter stepping in between each Basic Attack even while fighting Minions in lane.
• You can manually reassign a new target to your Banshee by hovering your cursor over the desired target and pressing R again.
• Penetrating Round can be used to Knockback enemies away from you. Sometimes it can also be used to knock enemies towards your teammates.
• Inspire also works on Minions and Mercenaries. Use it during pushes to take down enemy Structures more quickly.
• With Exterminator, Inspire should be used every time you move closer to a wave or friendly mercenaries, because it will not expire.

Penetrating Round fulfills a variety of purposes. This enables Raynor to use it both defensively and offensively. If used defensively, this Ability is capable of knocking enemy initiators back from Raynor, which allows him to reposition himself. If used offensively, Penetrating Round acts as a solid form of waveclear capable of damaging an entire Minion Wave as they walk in a file towards you.

Even though Penetrating Rounds deals high damage, against specific Heroes it is good to be conservative about using it in fights. Not using it until Blaze starts using Jet Propulsion or until Yrel leaps with Avenging Wrath is a great choice, since canceling those Abilities with a knockback effect will greatly reduce the effectiveness of those Heroes.

Inspire is an impactful Ability, as it buffs not only Raynor's Attack Speed but also that of Minions and Mercenaries. This causes it to be particularly useful during pushes towards enemy Structures. Do not be conservative with this Ability; it greatly increases your damage output and mobility. In fights, we recommend you to keep using it when it is available, right after you hit a Basic Attack, to abuse the reset mechanic.

Adrenaline Rush is Raynor's main source of self-sustain. Similarly to other healing Abilities, it can be manually activated and then restores a significant amount of his Health. Note that it cannot be activated if Raynor already has full Health, which may be a problem against burst damage.

Adrenaline Rush can help you to stay in lane, which allows you to keep soaking Experience. However, keep in mind that Adrenaline Rush's cooldown is quite high. Thus, make sure to keep attacking enemies in order to lower the cooldown slowly but surely.

During fights, it is better to keep Adrenaline Rush for when you are getting dived or focused, since the Armor from Fight or Flight will mitigate a great part of the damage.

Here we explain how this Heroic Ability works. If you are looking for more information about it, check the dedicated section in the Talent Build page.

Although it moves very slowly, Hyperion can be an impactful Heroic Ability, as it damages several enemies in a very large area. The Hyperion should be used when pushing or when fighting over static Objectives, such as the Guardians on Infernal Shrines or the Temples on Sky Temple. This forces the enemy team to either fight within its area of effect and thus take heavy damage from its lasers, or to give up an Objective. Either way it becomes a win-win situation. This strength, however, also becomes its weakness when fighting in open space, which simply allows the enemy to walk away from it and re-engage from another position.

Here we explain how this Heroic Ability works. If you are looking for more information about it, check the dedicated section in the Talent Build page.

While Hyperion focuses more on pushing and damaging multiple enemies at the same time, Raynor's Raider increases Raynor's damage against single targets. The sustain damage provided by the Banshee can cause his enemies to retreat, which then allows Raynor to either focus on a new target or chase down his original one. The Banshee's superior Movement Speed outpaces most Heroes, which makes them very effective pursuers.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind when using Raynor's Raider.

• The Banshee should almost always be used on priority targets to take them down as quickly as possible.
• The Banshee moves faster than most Heroes which makes it a formidable chaser.
• Hovering over a different Hero with your mouse and pressing R causes the Banshee to attack the desired target. This procedure also allows you to manually re-assign a different target.
• When Raynor dies, the Banshee disappears as well.

Give 'Em Some Pepper is Raynor's passive Trait, which greatly increases both his damage during team fights and waveclear. Make sure to spend as much time using Basic Attacks as possible in order to trigger its bonus damage. Bear in mind that the bonus damage also applies to non-Heroic targets (such as Structures, Minions, or Mercenaries), which turns Raynor into a decent pusher.