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Table of Contents
General Information
Welcome to our Johanna guide for Heroes of the Storm. Here you will learn everything you need to know in order to play Johanna in a competitive environment, whether you play on your own or with a team.
About the Author
KendricSwissh is a Master League Warrior and Support player in Hero League. He has been playing Heroes of the Storm since the early stages of the Alpha version and has mastered a large number of Heroes. He is also creating Heroes of the Storm related content on YouTube, most notably his series called Epic Plays of the Week, which focuses on video clips submitted by his viewers. He is also a streamer on Twitch where he will gladly answer all of your questions about the game.
1. Quick Reference for Johanna
Defensive Build (talent calculator link)
The Defensive Build focuses solely on Johanna's survival on the battlefield.
Her innate 25 Physical Armor and 
Laws of Hope at Level 1
make her a strong early game laner. It is important to keep in mind that 
Subdue at Level 7
can be a strong alternative choice, especially if the enemy team consists of multiple melee Assassins and/or Warriors,
who are usually easier to hit with Punish than ranged Heroes.
Bruiser Build (talent calculator link)
The Bruiser Build is only recommended if your team already has a dedicated full Tank.
While Johanna loses 
Blessed Shield with this Build, which means
she will not be able to peel as well for her backline,
she gains a lot of initiation power thanks to 
Falling Sword.
Synergies and Counters
Johanna pairs extremely well with Assassins that possess
strong waveclear, such as Gul'dan,
Kael'thas, or Jaina,
since her 
Condemn works very well with the follow up
AoE damage from those Heroes. For the same reason, Johanna allows aggressive Supports like
Rehgar to shine.
Johanna is one of the few Heroes in the game that has no natural counters.
She cannot be bursted quickly by Assassins, or crowd controlled by Supports or Tanks,
due to 
Iron Skin. However, this does not mean she is overpowered or always a good pick to have on your team.
Johanna is instead countered by playstyle, such as ignoring her in team fights or targeting her while Iron Skin is on cooldown.
Johanna also lacks good mobility and has no gap-closers, meaning that she can be kited very effectively and has
difficulty keeping up with dive-heavy allies. The only Hero we would currently consider to be a
"counter" to Johanna is Varian due to his 
Shattering Throw talent
at Level 13, which allows him to shatter both Johanna's Iron Skin
and her 
Indestructible talent at Level 20.
Maps
Johanna is a decent pick on almost any map with the exception of Warhead Junction. She thrives on battlegrounds like Dragon Shire or Tomb of the Spider Queen that favor early game rotations with tons of waveclear.
TL;DR Tips
- Damage and Slow adjacent enemies with
Punish. 
Condemn can interrupt abilities like Muradin's 
Dwarf Toss or E.T.C.'s 
Mosh Pit.
Shield Glare enemies that deal significant Basic Attack damage.- Use
Blessed Shield to engage, buy time to flee, or to interrupt enemies that are channelling abilities. - Use
Iron Skin just prior to an enemy using crowd control on you.
2. Johanna's Overview
Johanna is a low-mobility, extremely resilient Tank, capable of Blinding, Slowing, Stunning, and pulling enemies. She excels at creating chaos and disruption in the midst of the enemy team for extended periods of time, rather than peeling for her allies, as is typical of other Tanks. Johanna is one of the handful of Heroes in the game with no direct counters, and is able to fit into nearly any team composition.
3. Johanna's Strengths
- Extremely resilient
- Condemn provides you with one of the best
waveclear abilities of any Tank in the game
Laws of Hope provides a massive amount of health
regeneration and healing- Strong against Basic Attackers
- Iron Skin absorbs a significant amount of damage and
provides with you 4 seconds of Unstoppable, preventing
crowd control from affecting you
4. Johanna's Weaknesses
- Very little burst damage
- Low mobility and no gap-closer
- Relatively weak early game
- Can be kited by most ranged Heroes
- Poor peeling when compared to other Tanks
5. Johanna's Role in the Current Meta
Johanna's Tankiness, disruption, waveclear,
crowd control, and good sustained damage makes her
a very strong Hero overall, and a good fit for nearly any team composition. She
synergises well with a wide variety of Heroes, especially the ones that provide additional waveclear.
She has no natural Hero counters. Double Warrior team compositions are also quite
strong with Johanna, so long as the rest of the team is focused on sustaining, rather
than bursting (regarding healing and damage). Iron Skin,
with its 4 seconds of Unstoppable also makes Johanna
very effective versus teams made up of lots of crowd control, as she is mostly
unaffected by it.
Although Johanna is able to play defensively, providing some peeling for her allies, she is more potent when played aggressively. Her disruptions, in the form of Blinds, damage, Slows, Stuns, and pulls, are all AoE and therefore more effective when used against multiple enemies. Additionally, Johanna's large amount of maximum health and relatively low damage output versus single targets (compared to Assassins) means that the enemy team is incentivised to ignore her, instead prioritising more the vulnerable backline Heroes. Therefore, it is important to zone the enemy team's carries as much as possible, which can typically only be done with an aggressive playstyle.
6. Reading Further
To take things further, we have 2 more pages that you can read:
- Abilities and Strategy: an overview of your hero's abilities and how to use them;
- Talent Build: a detailed rundown of your talents and how to choose them.
7. ChangeLog
- 29 Jan. 2018 (abilities page): Added Falling Sword to the page.
- 02 Nov. 2017 (talents page): Changed Subdue from Not Recommended to Recommended.
- 29 Sep. 2017 (talents page): Updated Johanna's talents for Ana's patch.
- 04 May 2017 (talents page): Updated Heaven's Fury's talent description and recommendation.
- 17 Mar. 2017 (this page): Guide updated for Probius' patch and moved to the new format.
- 29 Jan. 2017 (talents page): Changed Blessed Hammer from Not Recommended to Recommended and updated Johanna's Builds.
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