Yrel Build Guide “Victory will be ours.”
Welcome to our guide for Yrel, a Bruiser 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.
Yrel's Overview
Yrel is a resistant Bruiser who excels at creating opportunities to decide fights in her team's favor. With a variety of crowd control Abilities, she can decide to use these either defensively or offensively. Since all of her Basic Abilities come with a short wind-up time, it is extremely important to think ahead when playing Yrel in order to avoid getting interrupted or missing the right moment to strike.
Yrel's Strengths and Weaknesses
- Decent self-sustain
- Good objective or Mercenary point control with Righteous Hammer
- Strong disengage
- Good mobility thanks to Avenging Wrath
- Decent waveclear
- Can greatly reduce armor with Templar's Verdict
- Very vulnerable to crowd control
- Easily runs out of mana
- Susceptible to getting kited
Yrel's Talent Build Cheatsheet
Bruiser Build
RecommendedThe Bruiser Build is designed to make Yrel a formidable solo laner and—as the name suggests—a Bruiser. Both Dauntless and Light of Karabor will greatly increase Yrel's survivability, making sure that you have enough resistance to outlast most other Heroes in lane or at least trade evenly.
Every Talent at Level 7 is excellent in its niche.
- Divine Steed excels in double soak situations by speeding up your rotation. It is also good for Yrel to reposition herself in a team fight, so she can either play aggresively or defensively.
- Righteous Momentum will very often be the best Talent in team fights, because it not only helps Yrel to peel her allies, but it also improves her flanks with Righteous Hammer.
- Holy Avenger can greatly increase your damage against certain compositions. However, it may have no value if enemies can easily cancel Avenging Wrath.
Seraphim at Level 20 removes one of Yrel's core weaknesses and makes her much less susceptible to enemy crowd control by giving her a short time window during which she becomes Unstoppable. Be aware that you can activate Seraphim during the channeling of an ability, denying a premeditated interrupt.
Yrel's Synergies and Counters
Yrel synergizes really well with Garrosh, since she can use Righteous Hammer to either push enemies towards him, or to push enemies away after he Displaces someone into your team, so the target cannot be peeled. Johanna and Maiev are also good with her, because they can Pull enemies together, so Yrel can follow with Avenging Wrath, dealing high damage. Abathur will greatly increase Yrel's survivability and damage in the early game, but after Level 16 both will be very strong together, because of the Movement Speed provided by Adrenaline Boost.
Yrel only struggles against Heroes that possess reliable crowd control, such as E.T.C., Lúcio, or Johanna who can interrupt her while charging her Basic Abilities. She gets heavily punished when an enemy uses a knockback effect on her during Avenging Wrath. For this reason, E.T.C. is the most threatening counter she can face, since he can interrupt every leap from Yrel.
Yrel's Maps
Yrel is not weak in any map, since she can always duel against the opposing Offlaner and roam with them. However, she excels on maps like Braxis Holdout, Infernal Shrines, or Dragon Shire that allow her to hold position on an Objective, abusing her strong self-sustain.
Yrel's Tips and Tricks
- Ardent Defender is a great defensive tool against enemy burst damage. That being said, feel free to use the Ability after dropping down to 50% Health instead of waiting until the last moment. This ensures you can stay fighting rather than having to withdraw from combat.
- Every of Yrel's Basic Abilities has a wind-up time. Make sure to charge up Basic Abilities in time when you need to gain maximum value off them in fights.
- Divine Purpose can be used to instantly cast an Ability with maximum value. Use it with Vindication to gain an instant heal, with Righteous Hammer to immediately knock enemies back, and with Avenging Wrath to engage or disenage at once.
- Dauntless greatly increases Yrel's survivability; use your Abilities within 2 seconds between each other in order to not lose the extra Armor from the Talent.
Yrel's Role in the Current Meta
Yrel is an amazing Offlaner that can easily fight the enemy in her lane and roam before them, flanking enemies with Avenging Wrath to push them towards your team with Righteous Hammer. Her self-sustain allows her to perform well even in unfavorable matchups. During team fights, Yrel excels at flanking the enemy team and peeling for her own Ranged Assassins and Healers.
With the help of her crowd control, she can take care of allies in need while also locking enemy Heroes down and buy enough time for her team to take them down. After hitting Level 10, Yrel can get away with playing very aggressively, since Ardent Defender allows her to stay alive even through the most dangerous of damage bursts. This makes her a great pick against burst compositions. However, she is also good against sustain damage from Marksmen, due to Dauntless's extra Armor. For those reasons, Yrel should only be concerned when against crowd control.
Changelog
- 11 Dec. 2022 (talents page): Updated Level 7 Talents recommendations and discussions.
- 11 Dec. 2022 (this page): Build updated to ensure meta relevance.
- 09 Feb. 2022 (talents page): Updated Builds and Talents after recent balance patch.
- 09 Feb. 2022 (abilities page): Divine Purpose's description updated after recent balance patch.
- 09 Feb. 2022 (this page): Guide Updated after recent balance patch.
- 26 Mar. 2021 (talents page): Updated Talent recommendations.
- 25 Jan. 2021 (talents page): Updated Righteous Momentum's description and relevancy.
- 25 Jan. 2021 (this page): Builds updated.
- 08 Oct. 2020 (this page): The Guide has been reviewed and is in accordance with the latest patch.
- 14 Sep. 2020 (this page): Reviewed guide and no changes are needed.
- 24 Aug. 2020 (this page): Updated Builds to reflect current meta.
- 30 Jul. 2020 (talents page): Updated Builds and Talents to reflect Level 1 Talent changes.
- 22 Apr. 2020 (abilities page): Updated the Abilities section.
- 22 Apr. 2020 (this page): Updated all topics to better reflect current meta.
- 13 Apr. 2020 (talents page): Updated Builds and Talent to better reflect current meta.
- 16 Dec. 2019 (this page): Added the current Anomaly (Experience Globes) to the guide.
- 12 Jul. 2019 (talents page): Revised and overhauled Yrel's Talents and Builds in accordance with the latest Balance Update.
- 12 Jul. 2019 (this page): Updated Yrel's introduction in accordance with the latest Balance Update.
- 28 Jun. 2018 (talents page): Completely overhauled Yrel's talents section in accordance with the latest Balance Update.
- 15 Jun. 2018 (talents page): Changed Maraad's Insight from Not Recommended to Recommended.
- 12 Jun. 2018 (this page): Guide added.
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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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