Brightwing Build Guide “You don't want to be my enemy!”
Welcome to our guide for Brightwing, a Healer in Heroes of the Storm. Within these pages, you will find everything required to understand how best to play this hero, in both different map styles and team compositions.
Brightwing's Overview
Brightwing is a ranged Healer with strong global presence. She is capable of continually healing nearby allies without using Mana and protect them against enemy crowd control effects, due to her Soothing Mist Trait. Her ability to teleport to an allied Hero across the entire map makes Brightwing a very mobile Hero that excels on large battlegrounds, like Cursed Hollow.
Brightwing's Strengths and Weaknesses
- Great split-pushing potential
- Soothing Mist does not require any Mana
- Strong disengage thanks to Emerald Wind
- Reliable crowd control with Polymorph
- Built-in Cleanse that breaks Stuns, Slows, Roots, and Silences every 75 seconds
- Allows a variety of talent builds depending on the game situation
- Cannot use a mount
- Requires a lot of map awareness
- Her burst or sustained healing takes time or channeling to be applied
- Fairly high skill cap compared to other Healers
- Requires good positioning
Brightwing's Talent Build Cheatsheet
Critical Mist Build
RecommendedBrightwing's Critical Mist Build, thanks to Critical Mist, focuses on denying crowd control engages from enemies while providing good healing for your team. It is a great option against compositions with many different area of effect Stuns (like Blaze and E.T.C. have) or Roots.
Teleport Build
SituationalBrightwing's Teleport Build focuses on providing great global mobility, which becomes particularly useful on larger Maps like Cursed Hollow, Garden of Terror, or the medium-sized Infernal Shrines.
At Level 16, we mention Critterize as the main Talent, since it will greatly enhance Brightwing's capabilities to kill any targeted Hero. However, Hush! is a great option if your team is more focused on dealing sustain damage, instead of on blowing up a target. Phase Out is not necessary, but is an option if you are being the target very often.
Arcane Flare Build
SituationalThe Arcane Flare Build emphasizes Brightwing's unexpectedly strong damage and crowd control when combining several Q-based talents such as Dream Shot at Level 4, Sticky Flare at Level 7, and Hush! at Level 16. Phase Out can be a helpful defensive talent to pick up at Level 16, since casting Blink Heal may sometimes cause Brightwing to get too close to the enemy team.
Brightwing's Synergies and Counters
Brightwing gets countered by crowd control heavy Tanks that cannot have their engages canceled by Polymorph, such as Anub'arak, Johanna, or E.T.C..
Brightwing's Maps
Brightwing does particularly well on larger Maps like Towers of Doom or Warhead Junction, on which she can use her global mobility to great effect. On rotation-heavy maps like Tomb of the Spider Queen, Brightwing's inability to use a mount can often slow her down, making her a liability against aggressive pushing compositions.
Brightwing's Tips and Tricks
- Phase Shift allows Brightwing to split-soak experience very efficiently while also allowing her to join team fights in time.
- Blink Heal can be used to juke enemy Heroes and abilities.
- Arcane Flare's casting range is larger than the shooting range of enemy Towers, Forts, and Keeps. Always follow Polymorph with it; the slow can guarantee the hit.
- Pixie Dust becomes a crucial ability against Assassins like Jaina or Kael'thas to reduce their spell damage potential. Considering Pixie Dust's low cooldown, it is recommended to use it to mitigate spell damage at the start of the fight, because you will still have it available at the end.
- Against dive heroes like Zeratul or Genji, hold Polymorph until they dive towards an ally, since it will greatly reduce their effectiveness. However, it can also be used to guarantee kills of tanks with mobility, like on Muradin before he jumps out or on Anub'arak before he uses Burrow Charge to flee.
- Even though Soothing Mist's range relatively small, try to not be very close to your teammates to heal them. Always stay in a position in which the target you want to heal is close to the edge of your healing range, so you do not get damaged or controlled with them.
Brightwing's Role in the Current Meta
Brightwing is the only Healer that is capable of joining a team fight from any location on the battlefield, thanks to Phase Shift. This allows Brightwing to separate herself from the rest of her team and soak more Experience in lane than any other Healer. What also makes Brightwing stand out are her unique healing mechanics. Brightwing does not actively heal her allies with Abilities. Instead, Soothing Mist heals nearby teammates for a small amount every four seconds. In terms of crowd control, Polymorph poses a serious threat to enemy Heroes, especially on Heroes that rely on their mobility (such as Zeratul) to stay alive while dealing damage. Combined with the Critterize Talent at Level 16, Polymorph allows your team to focus fire a single target very efficiently.
Because of her strong Talent Tree, Brightwing's power level increases the longer the game lasts. This makes her a particularly valuable pick on larger Maps like Cursed Hollow, Sky Temple, or Dragon Shire. The correct usage of your mobility and crowd control Abilities enables you to heavily influence the outcome of a game, which makes Brightwing a force to be reckoned with.
Changelog
- 08 Dec. 2021 (talents page): Invisible Friends' description updated to reflect recent balance patch.
- 08 Dec. 2021 (this page): Guide updated after recent balance patch.
- 28 Sep. 2021 (talents page): Builds and Talents updated after recent balance patch.
- 28 Sep. 2021 (this page): Guide updated after recent balance patch.
- 25 Jun. 2021 (talents page): Guide updated after recent balance patch.
- 25 Jun. 2021 (abilities page): Abilities section updated after recent balance patch.
- 25 Jun. 2021 (this page): Guide updated after recent balance patch.
- 26 Mar. 2021 (talents page): Builds and Talents updated to reflect current meta.
- 26 Mar. 2021 (this page): Builds updated to reflect current meta.
- 20 Jan. 2021 (talents page): Builds and Talents updated after Safety Dust changes in recent patch.
- 20 Jan. 2021 (this page): Guide update after Safety Dust changes in recent patch.
- 03 Dec. 2020 (talents page): Updated Invisible Friends' description.
- 03 Dec. 2020 (abilities page): Updated Polymorph's description.
- 02 Dec. 2020 (this page): Guide reviewed after recent patch and no changes are necessary.
- 20 Nov. 2020 (talents page): Updated Talents recommendations.
- 20 Nov. 2020 (this page): Guide updated.
- 27 Oct. 2020 (talents page): Updated Talents recommendations.
- 27 Oct. 2020 (this page): Updated Builds.
- 25 May 2020 (this page): Updated Teleport Build.
- 01 May 2020 (this page): Updated guide to reflect current meta.
- 19 Dec. 2019 (talents page): Revised Brightwing's guide. No talent changes needed to be applied despite the most recent Balance Update.
- 09 Dec. 2019 (this page): Added an entry about the current Anomaly to the guide.
- 25 Nov. 2019 (talents page): Revised Brightwing's guide. No talent changes needed to be applied despite the most recent Balance Update.
- 06 Jun. 2019 (talents page): Applied a major update to the Brightwing guide.
- 28 Sep. 2018 (talents page): Updated Brighting's guide in accordance with her latest rework.
- 28 Sep. 2018 (this page): Updated Brighting's guide in accordance with her latest rework.
- 29 Jan. 2018 (talents page): Fixed a small wording issue in the Manic Pixie description.
- 13 Oct. 2017 (talents page): Completely revamped the predefined talent builds.
- 21 Sep. 2017 (talents page): Updated Brightwing's talents in accordance with the latest balance update.
- 03 Sep. 2017 (talents page): Updated Shield Dust's description.
- 07 Aug. 2017 (this page): Guide moved to new format.
More Healer Guides
Derenash has been playing Heroes of the Storm since 2015 and has achieved Grandmaster in multiple seasons, peaking at Top 1 in Season 3 and 4 of 2018. He participated in the HGC Copa America in 2018 where his team had a strong victory. He is passionate about teaching others about the game, and streams often on Twitch in Portuguese, and you can find him in Wind Striders' Discord as well where he is happy to answer any questions in English or Portuguese.
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