Heroes of the Storm Valeera

[Fransoa 25]

2 hours ago, positiv2 said:

Most of the time you want to commit to a single ability (or a playstyle), especially if you already can guess what will counter the opponent's team the best. If you are unsure, your approach can be better, but that is rarely the case from my experience.

Luckily level 7 talents are great and any can be chosen. Which one do you choose the most often, from the two you mentioned?

I'd say that Thistle Tea is both easier and more powerful, unless your team has heroes with burst much higher than yours, that you can rely on, which is not that common, sadly. Thistle Tea is also more versatile and does not require you to stack combo points for Eviscerate in order to take advantage of the talent.

I've been taking Slice and Dice more at level 7, ofc I wouldnt pick expose armor if I couldnt get 3 combo points, that why I took Initiative, so you just use an opener, W, eviscerate and 3 quick autos, thats what I've been going for recently.

Also Im taking Death from Above more now, I love to jump around on minions and other heroes.

I think ill experiment  with Thistle Tea, its just that as Valeera you have so many buttons to press, and the order is crucial as well but now that I've got the hang of it, I can add 1 more button, see how it'll go.

[hammadroppa 2]

https://www.icy-veins.com/heroes/talent-calculator/valeera#24.0!4141244

My talent build 9/10 times.  I'm VERY surprised no one mentions how insanely powerful Crippling Poison is..  Vigor is my 2nd pick.  The ability to add another slow to your kit is so devastating as Valeera and it is free, off GCD and has a low cd.  Assassinate/Death from Above + Crippling gives you insane burst + a slow if you need to attack their backline.  Or you can use one of your other openers to set up picks and then add the slow after the stun, or slow + silence.  Also, Cold Blood is pretty broken atm.  I won't be surprised if it gets nerfed eventually.  The burst that it adds to an already bursty kit is pretty insane.

[positiv2 953]

@hammadroppaThe guide seemingly hasn't been updated since early february, which means that the increased duration of Crippling Poison hasn't been taken in account yet. Still, Vigor and Subtlety are really strong, and it's a shame the three talents have to fight for the player's love. So - Crippling Poison is indeed strong, but Vigor and Subtlety are much more.
Yeah, Cold Blood is incredibly strong and I wouldn't be surprised either if it got nerfed. 

[Thorgal2226 9]

On 6.04.2017 at 3:37 PM, Fransoa said:

i think ill experiment  with Thistle Tea

Ive recently got lvl 20 with Valeera as i love stealth characters. Thistle Tea is basicaly an rewind for her. I take it 100% of times.

If u can land ur Q with that one second cooldown u realy can wreck havoc in the middle of the team fight if u got over 200 energy points :)

[hammadroppa 2]

@positiv2 I will agree with you on Vigor but sub feels very lackluster to me.  The fact that you get no benefit to energy regeneration if you start a fight out of stealth (which is very, very common at higher mmr) and you lose the early game gank assistance of Crippling just doesn't put it on the same level as Crippling/Vigor.  Maybe other have more success with it, but Vigor or relentless are the only energy regeneration talents I take on Val.

[positiv2 953]

4 hours ago, hammadroppa said:

@positiv2 I will agree with you on Vigor but sub feels very lackluster to me.  The fact that you get no benefit to energy regeneration if you start a fight out of stealth (which is very, very common at higher mmr) and you lose the early game gank assistance of Crippling just doesn't put it on the same level as Crippling/Vigor.  Maybe other have more success with it, but Vigor or relentless are the only energy regeneration talents I take on Val.

If you are able to tell that a fight is coming, you can enter stealth and take the advantage of Subtlety's bonus, and the bonus is definitely not one to be simply ignored. 
Also, people at higher MMR (Platinum, Diamond, Master) pick Subtlety more often than any other talent at the tier, which means it has uses even at the higher MMR.

[Thorgal2226 9]

9 hours ago, positiv2 said:

Also, people at higher MMR (Platinum, Diamond, Master) pick Subtlety more often than any other talent at the tier, which means it has uses even at the higher MMR.

Form me (plat mmr according to hotslogs) Vigor synergize to good with the whole build I use. 120 energy with Thistle Tea is one Q more if I need it to finish off opponent or escape after I did. Also Nightslayer can be used more aggresively with the passive regeneration bonus without the 4 second delay to benefit Subtlety.

I also like the concept of quest talents. It takes me 8-10 minutes to do the quest.

Nevertheless Im using Subtlety on Mines as there is not much room for gathering globes on this map.

[hammadroppa 2]

On 4/19/2017 at 0:02 AM, positiv2 said:

If you are able to tell that a fight is coming, you can enter stealth and take the advantage of Subtlety's bonus, and the bonus is definitely not one to be simply ignored. 
Also, people at higher MMR (Platinum, Diamond, Master) pick Subtlety more often than any other talent at the tier, which means it has uses even at the higher MMR.

Yeah what I mean is, when you're skirmishing and if you need to open on a tank or even just use stealth a 2nd time, I generally: Q toward target, stealth, cheap shot.  In this scenario Subtlety gives no bonus to energy regen.  I prefer the guaranteed value from Vigor/Crippling over this, but apparently others don't agree with me.  

[Valks 2,378]

4 hours ago, hammadroppa said:

I prefer the guaranteed value from Vigor/Crippling over this, but apparently others don't agree with me.  

If it works for you, stick with it. I think, as with every talent pick in HoTS, it depends on what you are playing against, basically. 

[Farbas 5]

Once you got all the talents in Ambush, is there any point of opening with Garrote? If you need CC, Cheap Shot is better...

I don't like the idea of having a skill that I never use...

[positiv2 953]

6 hours ago, Farbas said:

Once you got all the talents in Ambush, is there any point of opening with Garrote? If you need CC, Cheap Shot is better...

I don't like the idea of having a skill that I never use...

You will still sometimes want a silence against heroes that have strong escape abilities, or against targets with heavy stuns or CC in general, but most of the times Ambush is better as the damage is instant, which reduces the power of enemy healers (especially those without burst heal, like Brightwing) and gives your opponent smaller time window to react, and deals more damage when untalented. When talented, it's highly dependent on your opponent's ability to fight back or block your AA.

Cheap Shot deals little damage compared to Garrote, and because the stun is shorter than the silence, it's weaker against targets that aren't that easy to burst down (mostly tanks).

So, sometimes you want to use Garrote but most of the time Ambush offers higher damage. Using Garrote over Cheap Shot is recommended when you need a balanced mix of damage and CC, and when you prefer longer silence over shorter stun, such as against tanky mages or tanks in general.

[50m8r4 11]

I know it won't happen but like in the Dehaka ( is it really one? ) Rework what if they removed relentless strike And just plain lower the energy cost of sinister by 10 as I ( I don't know about you ) can't live without the lower energy cost from relentless to try any other tallents at 4

[Guest Marvelmvp]

I have more plays on valeera than anyone and a lot of Val's are terrible. I'm Level 30 val she carried me from gold 1 to plat 3 & a lot of the talent choices in this are wrong. Crippling poison is #1 best choice. Thistle tea is HORRID. vals job is not to stay in tfs long she will easily get focused she goes in & out after 13, before she just makes picks with stuns and ganks. After 13 you can be more aggressive. The expose armor is always best if no one else on your team has -25% I always use it on tanks then go after the healer, and with 2 healers becoming a thing, wound poison is amazing, also good vs Sonya, thrall and anyone with self sustain. But yeah as one of the higher ranked val mains I disagree with these talent builds, it's a recipe for failure and I see why so many ppl flame val. 180+ games. 67% win. 

And if you don't take 2 combo points at lvl4 then u have to get seal fate at 16 for the easy 3 combos out of stealth 

[Guest Andrerx470]

Now that Blizzard has removed cold blood and nerfed eviscerate I think that Valeera best selling points have become the 7 abilities coming from switching between cloacked and visible and the variegated amount of bad status that she can inflict.

There are 3 main problems with the builds which are suggested on this website:

1-You can deal at most 1800-2000 damage at level 20 assuming you can land 1 or 2 hit with seal fate.

2-To deal the aforementioned damage at level 20 you need to land a 4 abilities combo (ulti excluded) in about 2 seconds (possible only against super noobs after you have finished vigor mission).

3-Picking mutilate means mutilating your escape and drastically reducing your survivability.

An interesting alternative that you might want to try out is this one:

lv1 vigor, lv4 initiative, lv7 slice and dice, lv10 situational, lv13 blind, lv16 expose armor, lv20 nightslayer

The damage at level 20 with the "safe combo"WWE plus the enhanced basic attack speed and reduced armor amounts to 2200 in 2 seconds. The 2,5sec blind on cheap shot also allows you to attack even heavy melee warriors and problematic heroes like tychus, raynor and genji(his reflect becomes useless). Finally the reduced armor can create an opening for your melee warriors (2 blade varian for example) to take out 1 member of the enemy frontline and tilt a teamfight in your favor.

[positiv2 953]

On 12. 6. 2017 at 11:18 AM, Guest Marvelmvp said:

I have more plays on valeera than anyone and a lot of Val's are terrible. I'm Level 30 val she carried me from gold 1 to plat 3 & a lot of the talent choices in this are wrong. Crippling poison is #1 best choice. Thistle tea is HORRID. vals job is not to stay in tfs long she will easily get focused she goes in & out after 13, before she just makes picks with stuns and ganks. After 13 you can be more aggressive. The expose armor is always best if no one else on your team has -25% I always use it on tanks then go after the healer, and with 2 healers becoming a thing, wound poison is amazing, also good vs Sonya, thrall and anyone with self sustain. But yeah as one of the higher ranked val mains I disagree with these talent builds, it's a recipe for failure and I see why so many ppl flame val. 180+ games. 67% win. 

And if you don't take 2 combo points at lvl4 then u have to get seal fate at 16 for the easy 3 combos out of stealth 

I don't want to demean your Platinum 3 (it is a nice rank after all) or even less so yourself as a player, but Micekrispies is a Grand Master player, and in order to stay there has to employ the best strategies. Some strategies that might work at lower ranks, such as gold, do not work at the higher ones when you face significantly better players, as can be seen on the win rate of some talents in different leagues. A strong talent might have a bad winrate in bronze because of its high skill cap, and a bad talent can have a high winrate because bronze players do not know how to counter it yet. I am getting a bit off topic here though.

Care to elaborate on Crippling Poison being #1 pick? Not only it has to compete with Vigor, it has to compete with Subtlety as well. Those two talents are way too good to be left out, especially if your team already has a hero possessing powerful CC, such as Falstad.

Thistle Tea doesn't require the fight to be a 5v5 - the talent allows you to 1v1 tanks with higher success rate, as you will have more energy to make your combo strong even against high-health heroes. 

Expose Armor causes the armor-reducing effect to start after you deal the damage, which means the 3-point Eviscerate will not deal bonus damage. You will be left with a 2-second window (which is quite short) to burst your opponent without any combo points. Or you could go for Thistle Tea and deal almost twice the damage, instead of 25% increase. Since you will be either the only or one of the two main damage dealers, your teammates will not be able to take advantage of 25% as much. If you want to use it to take down tanks and supports, you will find yourself being out of energy a lot. And since you didn't take an energy management talent at level 1, the situation will be even worse.

So, you have to take either Initiative over Wound Poison, which you describe as an amazing talent (and a never-picked talent is not what I would describe as amazing), or you take Seal Fate over Expose Armor, which you say is always the best, which make me feel like you contradict yourself a bit as well.

[Thorgal2226 9]

On 12.06.2017 at 10:18 AM, Guest Marvelmvp said:

I have more plays on valeera than anyone and a lot of Val's are terrible. I'm Level 30 val she carried me from gold 1 to plat 3 & a lot of the talent choices in this are wrong.

Well as a 69 lvl Valeera player with over 500 games with her I can tell U that your talent choices arent that good. Losing one of lvl 1 energy talents is very painful for Valeera as she is very energy dependent. If u go this and than neglect the lvl 4 relentless strikes U wont be getting much from that 1 sec cooldown of your Q which is great for securing kills and synergises fantastic with Thistle Tea at 16. But I understand your love for the "short combo" build and it probably suits your playstyle better. But dont say its the obviosly better talent choice as it clearly isnt. Especially at higher levels of play. At low levels u probably will do great with Valeera even if u dont take any talents at all ;)

[MurkyFelix 51]

On 6/14/2017 at 8:00 AM, Thorgal2226 said:

Well as a 69 lvl Valeera player

Lul 69 (had to xP)

Played a game with here there last night and found something cool. I probably played her wrong but I made a rule where I wouldn't commit to a kill unless 1) It was a 1v1 and I could burst them quickly (less than 3-4 seconds, dependent on enemies visible on map) 2) It was healer Malf at the start of the team fight, 3) The enemy hero was surrounded and I wanted the kill. 

Apart from the above; all I would do was run around and stun peeps when it looked like they were about to do something. Like; they had Butcher so whenever he walked forward looking like he was getting in range for his dash: stun. Malf at the back healing; stun, damage; rest of the enemies would turn around; my team whales on them.  Butcher threw down Silence of the Lambs ult; stunny stun. Those were just examples but essentially I just stunned; maybe chipped them and ran.  Late game there were hesitant to try much because of the stuns and how my team followed up on them.

Can't remember for sure but I believe this was my build: https://www.icy-veins.com/heroes/talent-calculator/valeera#26.0!1122333

I always welcome criticism on it but please; this was like my 4th time playing her and I wasn't committing to kills.

Just found it interesting how I see so many Valeeras committing to a kill no matter what and they mess up and die so much whereas I got 3 deaths (mostly the consequence of focusing Malf at start of teamfight but I did get the kill when that happened) and overall my team had 7 deaths (stun the enemy chasing ally for days) and all I was doing was stunning and playing mind games. By all means I didn't carry but I screwed the enemy team over consistently (mainly Butcher) with the constant stuns.

[HailFall 0]

So I have a lot of issues with this guide

First the biggest problem I have is that Subtlety is listed as suggested at 1. Subtlety is an extremely bad talent in my opinion. You should never actually be able to just walk up and use an opener on any hero without unrevealable, you will just be instantly revealed by any player who can spot the shimmer before you get your opener off. Valeera has to stealth when she sees an opportunity to use an opener, then go in and use it with the unrevealable duration. She also does not get value out of this talent any time but the beginning of the fight, since you cant just leave your team 4v5 for several seconds while you proc subtlety.

Combat readiness is extremely underrated by this guide. The survivability boost is formidable, and even if you cant cling to your target long enough to get an eviscerate off on them, you can just use it on a minion or structure to gain the block charges. I honestly think of this a lot like force armor. Very good depending on the situation. I think it should be moved to situational for sure. Its incredibly powerful vs a variety of heroes.

Wound poison at least deserves a mention as situational. Its not a bad talent at all, just very comp specific. It can help your team handle a Valla Tass Auriel trio for example, and is also good vs heroes with strong self heal like Butcher and Malthael.

I don't like fatal finesse. 60 bonus damage is practically nothing, and if you want the extra energy I would just take Thistle Tea or Vigor. Other options are better at this tier in my opinion.

Mutilate is more situational I think. Its mostly for helping Valeera to shut down dives, which it is good at, but the loss in mobility is significant enough that I hesitate to recommend it in the average game.

Silce and Dice provides more overall damage than Ambush in a single combo (3 auto attacks is more damage than 1 ambush), but requires valeera be able to stick to the target long enough to do her full combo. It also reduces her potential to pick off weak, retreating targets quickly with death from above a little. I would include something about this in the description, saying its only viable with garrote build just isnt true. It also synergizes well with Expose Armor later on.

Finally, I think you are not giving expose armor enough credit. Valeera has very strong auto attacks, so lowering armor is very good to help finish off targets after she eviscerates. Especially now Cold Blood is gone, this talent helps valeera have a better shot at being able to 100-0 squishier heroes.

As for the builds, I dont agree with Vanish build being here. There is no real reason to use this build. It gives valeera 0 investment into bonus damage and only really invests in energy talents, which are mostly unnecessary if you take vigor at 1 + initiative at 4. This is just massive overkill. The only real "vanish" talents in this build are elusiveness and nightlslayer, the remaining ones are all excessively investing in energy talents. Increasing energy regen by 100%, reducing the number of abilities needed to be used to complete a combo, reducing the energy of blade flurry, and on top of that, thistle tea. Talk about excessive.

 

[Guest Etron]

On 1/31/2017 at 7:39 PM, Hrimfisk said:

 

Seal Fate: Usually a go-to pick for me to capitalize on Cheap Shot into Sinister Strike. I find this to be the quickest way for me to gank.

g.

Kinda necroposting, but if you garrote you can actually proc two seal fate bonuses, letting you do massive burst.

[Guest zzzz]

Always take Crippling Poison at start, especially in sinister strike build. You don't need that extra energy regen nor you need that additional energy, so vigor is pretty much useless. Crippling poison allows you to secure more kills early game and if you take mutilate you just must have crippling poison.

[KendricSwissh 66]

After a long break, the guide has switched authors and has now finally been updated. ? Enjoy! 

[Guest Someone02]

My question for a Ambush centered build would Subtlety for a level 1 choice be better over Vigor? The gains from chain ambushing would net more energy gain and combat potential and even though it would slow her down you could go with enveloping shadows for her level 20 talent, between the two with her weaving through stealth and using ambush consistently would increase her own survive ability and ability to stay in team fights. Unless enveloping shadows has some kind of internal CD i would see it as a gain within team fights. please correct me if i am wrong in these regards. 

[Guest Someone02]

4 hours ago, Guest Someone02 said:

My question for a Ambush centered build would Subtlety for a level 1 choice be better over Vigor? The gains from chain ambushing would net more energy gain and combat potential and even though it would slow her down you could go with enveloping shadows for her level 20 talent, between the two with her weaving through stealth and using ambush consistently would increase her own survive ability and ability to stay in team fights. Unless enveloping shadows has some kind of internal CD i would see it as a gain within team fights. please correct me if i am wrong in these regards. 

Thinking about it some more could even go as far as to grab Initiative for you level 4 talent. Combat would go along the lines of hit and run tactics, From stealth with Ambush, into Sinister strike followed by and immediate Eviscerate, by then Vanish would be off CD, energy regen would be enough to shortly begin another round once the extended range for Ambush hits. This would lead to more armor reductions as well so if your team had targets to focus Valeera could lead it off. Or just leave her to pick off the back line and harass the opposing team for physiological. I know each of these talents are more on the undervalued side and even to the point of not being even situational. But when put together in this fashion it leads to her being operated as a rogue would, Pick your fights and hit hard fast and then GTFO.