Tell me how to play Sylvanas

[pateuvasiliu]

Right, so here's the thing. I bought Sylvanas a while ago... but I am not sure what my job is.

I always top the Hero damage charts and do so heavily ( last game I did double the damage as #2 ) but... yeah, Sylvanas is meant to push, no?

So am I doing it wrong, playing her like an assassin? To me it feels like her passive is for pushing but her kit makes her very strong in fights. Especially the double E that allows you to blink around the battlefield ( + bolt, that's 3 blinks ) and the Q that recharges when you use E.

[Aliessil]

She's supposed to be a Support and she's great at locking things down (towers, waves, camps). Her damage output against those always feels a bit lacklustre to me though, but that's made up for with the ability to take siege camps as soon as they spawn.

However yes, she seems pretty decent in hero fights too. Consequently I usually play her as a kind of assassin-specialist hybrid. I'll often take out a single tower, then change lane to snipe a hero, then go clear another camp, moving often so they're rarely sure where I am.

[Fooicus]

TL;DR version of my answer - No, sylvanas is an awesome assassin.

Just because you're a specialist doesn't mean you're meant to push lanes, it just means you have the kit to do so. Sylvanas has really strong lane pushing kit with her W and Q. However, she can turn teamfights around with her silence ult and if you are good with your Q and build her right you can focus enemy heroes down fast. She can also solo camps (slowly). I usually top both hero and siege damage on her by knowing when you should push lanes and when you should kill heroes.

With reference to your build I use this build:
1. With the wind (that extra range really helps to get that killing blow)
4. Envenom (one of the best single shot abilities in the game)
7. Follow through (v good with the amount of times she hits an ability and her reasonable AA rate)
10. Wailing Arrow (Gamechanger in team fights)
13. Evasive fire (more manoeuvrability, which is everything in current game, gives you more push ability when enemy is fleeing and makes fleeing easier (just hold down Q))
16. Blood for blood (the other best single shot ability in the game)
20. Bolt of the storm (get this and you won't need double E, you can literally pop in and out of combat as you please, you become inuriatingly difficult to lock down)

With more reference to your actual abilities. Setting her up to kill heroes means you will get frequent recharges of your q, so ranger's ambush is useless, so I take envenom. Windrunner is nice but blood for blood is always going to be a better option. If it was in a different tier I would think about it. More useful if you don't really know what you're doing with her though. Combo of blood fo blood and envenom with 5 charges of Q and a shot of W = dead enemy hero.

[mrpopos10]

TL;DR version of my answer - No, sylvanas is an awesome assassin.

Just because you're a specialist doesn't mean you're meant to push lanes, it just means you have the kit to do so. Sylvanas has really strong lane pushing kit with her W and Q. However, she can turn teamfights around with her silence ult and if you are good with your Q and build her right you can focus enemy heroes down fast. She can also solo camps (slowly). I usually top both hero and siege damage on her by knowing when you should push lanes and when you should kill heroes.

With reference to your build I use this build:
1. With the wind (that extra range really helps to get that killing blow)
4. Envenom (one of the best single shot abilities in the game)
7. Follow through (v good with the amount of times she hits an ability and her reasonable AA rate)
10. Wailing Arrow (Gamechanger in team fights)
13. Evasive fire (more manoeuvrability, which is everything in current game, gives you more push ability when enemy is fleeing and makes fleeing easier (just hold down Q))
16. Blood for blood (the other best single shot ability in the game)
20. Bolt of the storm (get this and you won't need double E, you can literally pop in and out of combat as you please, you become inuriatingly difficult to lock down)

With more reference to your actual abilities. Setting her up to kill heroes means you will get frequent recharges of your q, so ranger's ambush is useless, so I take envenom. Windrunner is nice but blood for blood is always going to be a better option. If it was in a different tier I would think about it. More useful if you don't really know what you're doing with her though. Combo of blood fo blood and envenom with 5 charges of Q and a shot of W = dead enemy hero.

I highly recommend a build very close to this - she is a great team fighter/assassin and when able you can utilize your trait to take camps easy or push easy - dont play her has a soloist worthless lane pusher, the game just doesnt work like that.

Play her full on assassin/team fighter and use down-time to take advantage of the rest of her kit.

[Mormolyce]

Just throw your dagger at waves while you assassinate people. Also if nobody's defending a tower, lock all the buildings down via target swapping and cheese the whole thing. When defenders turn up, switch back to an assassin.

And pray they don't nerf her like they should :P

- - - Updated - - -

I highly recommend a build very close to this - she is a great team fighter/assassin and when able you can utilize your trait to take camps easy or push easy - dont play her has a soloist worthless lane pusher, the game just doesnt work like that.

Play her full on assassin/team fighter and use down-time to take advantage of the rest of her kit.

Lane pushing is NOT worthless, provided you know when to push and when to help your team. But Sylvanas can do both at the same time anyway, which is pretty nuts, so you might as well go assassin build.

[Deleted]

TL;DR version of my answer - No, sylvanas is an awesome assassin.

Just because you're a specialist doesn't mean you're meant to push lanes, it just means you have the kit to do so. Sylvanas has really strong lane pushing kit with her W and Q. However, she can turn teamfights around with her silence ult and if you are good with your Q and build her right you can focus enemy heroes down fast. She can also solo camps (slowly). I usually top both hero and siege damage on her by knowing when you should push lanes and when you should kill heroes.

With reference to your build I use this build:
1. With the wind (that extra range really helps to get that killing blow)
4. Envenom (one of the best single shot abilities in the game)
7. Follow through (v good with the amount of times she hits an ability and her reasonable AA rate)
10. Wailing Arrow (Gamechanger in team fights)
13. Evasive fire (more manoeuvrability, which is everything in current game, gives you more push ability when enemy is fleeing and makes fleeing easier (just hold down Q))
16. Blood for blood (the other best single shot ability in the game)
20. Bolt of the storm (get this and you won't need double E, you can literally pop in and out of combat as you please, you become inuriatingly difficult to lock down)

With more reference to your actual abilities. Setting her up to kill heroes means you will get frequent recharges of your q, so ranger's ambush is useless, so I take envenom. Windrunner is nice but blood for blood is always going to be a better option. If it was in a different tier I would think about it. More useful if you don't really know what you're doing with her though. Combo of blood fo blood and envenom with 5 charges of Q and a shot of W = dead enemy hero.

I play her differently and disagree with a few of your choices.

1. I take the 2 second reduced cooldown on the dagger over with the wind.
7. Follow through is only 25% on sylv - I always the take the heal on the dagger. If you're fighting by their towers, or a creep wave comes through, heck if you've got all 5 of the enemy team with it, say hello to full hp. Great sustain.
16. I prefer the vulnerable talent over blood for blood. Sylv can reliably give the entire enemy team vulnerable, every 8 seconds. Whats better, 15% of one opponents life total, or 25% extra damage on their entire team?

[Keile]

I play her differently and disagree with a few of your choices.

1. I take the 2 second reduced cooldown on the dagger over with the wind.
7. Follow through is only 25% on sylv - I always the take the heal on the dagger. If you're fighting by their towers, or a creep wave comes through, heck if you've got all 5 of the enemy team with it, say hello to full hp. Great sustain.
16. I prefer the vulnerable talent over blood for blood. Sylv can reliably give the entire enemy team vulnerable, every 8 seconds. Whats better, 15% of one opponents life total, or 25% extra damage on their entire team?

I also take the vulnerability over Blood for Blood. If you are with your team, that vulnerability will do more damage than your one blood for blood as they are now hitting that person harder as well. Not only that, but it can hit multiple targets if you use shadow dagger. You can get some nice combos with it if you have a competent team.

[Fooicus]

I play her differently and disagree with a few of your choices.

1. I take the 2 second reduced cooldown on the dagger over with the wind.
7. Follow through is only 25% on sylv - I always the take the heal on the dagger. If you're fighting by their towers, or a creep wave comes through, heck if you've got all 5 of the enemy team with it, say hello to full hp. Great sustain.
16. I prefer the vulnerable talent over blood for blood. Sylv can reliably give the entire enemy team vulnerable, every 8 seconds. Whats better, 15% of one opponents life total, or 25% extra damage on their entire team?

All fair points, I have also used all of those talents myself but prefer the build I posted.

The only point I will argue with is the vulnerability thing. Yeah it's badass, definitely worth considering. But at level 16, your teamfights occurfar enough apart that a 60second CD isn't much of a problem, especially when it does high damage, slows and heal? Yes please, especially combo with envenom . Would take the other if I was in a high AOE build team.

[Lesane]

Sylvanas' passive allows her to demolish a lane if left unguarded, and is insanely strong if you have your team with you. It's not so much Sylvanas that you need to learn, you need to learn general strategy of when to do what as in when do you push, when do you merc, when do you TF etc. With Sylvanas the when do you push option just becomes a lot more attractive due to how easy it is to push something down with her.

If you don't do a full team wipe but only take down 2 heroes for example, while your team is still complete, it becomes very attractive to just push a fort/keep with her because she's essentially a walking Cursed Hollow curse. You need to learn these moments where you can get buildings for free or with low risk with her trait, and that's the moment when you should push. Other than that play her as an assassin. Also, focus on harassing people in laning. If they don't have a healer you're almost as good as Zagara at harassing people in lanes. I tend to just throw my shadow daggers on the enemy hero, with luck it hits the wave but it's not a big deal if it doesn't. Run in and dump your full Q on the enemy hero and back off again. Within no time they'll need to tap well or be forced to lane with low health, and at that point you can push freely or let a teammate come to gank. The only hard counter to this is Brightwing due to the manaless heal pulse which easily outheals your poke damage.

As for the build I take pretty much the exact same build as Fooicus except I usually get Unstable Poison at 7 due to how quickly it allows you to blow up waves, which makes you a beast at collecting XP and makes you push lanes even when you are roaming due to the fact that your minion waves can pass through unscathed. It also helps with getting minions to attack buildings as quickly as possible, making you even more dangerous if left alone for a moment. Also, in case your enemy ever gets a huge double/triple minion wave through a lane somehow, you can blow them up within 2-3 seconds no matter if there's 7 or 40 minions. It also has the added benefit of raping enemy summons like Azmodan's/Zagara's without requiring any effort on your part. There's also the hilarious moments during laning where people stand within the creep wave to dodge Nova snipes or something and just get blown up as soon as the wave explodes. Unstable Poison just gives you a lot more versatility, Follow Through is better for team fighting though, and the dagger heal I would only get if you have no healer and the enemy team has Nova/Zeratul. I also get the ult upgrade at 20 most often, unless I need Bolt badly. Sylvanas' E is so good that I don't really need bolt on top of it most of the time.

[Sir Andy]

At level 10, don't take Possession. Otherwise, faceroll and top all meters.

Seriously, she's fucking broken.

[Deleted]

At level 10, don't take Possession. Otherwise, faceroll and top all meters.

Seriously, she's fucking broken.

Her topping meters is quite deceptive as the damage output hits alot of targets but for little amounts. It's like minor aoe that any support can easily deal with, and we all know that burst > sustain.

[Mormolyce]

Not gonna happen, not even needed at all.

Might happen, totally is needed.

It's not "worthless", but it doesn't have the value it has in other MOBAs. Short of very specific situations, trying to push a lane solo post level 10 is just gimping your team.

Obviously it's much less important vs. conventional MOBAs that don't have map objectives. Pushing lanes solo when there's a teamfight or something else going on is something newbies do a lot and that's bad, but there definitely are times when it's beneficial.

Her topping meters is quite deceptive as the damage output hits alot of targets but for little amounts. It's like minor aoe that any support can easily deal with, and we all know that burst > sustain.

IMO the problem is her ability to casually steamroll a lane WHILE dishing out significant hero damage. It should be one or the other. She has good damage, great survivability and insane lane pressure ALL AT ONCE, even baseline. If it were me, I'd either give her an overall damage tweak down or nerf her baseline while buffing her talents - so that there's a big difference between a lane build and an assassin build. Right now you can go full assassin for free because she's so immensely strong in lane baseline.

[Sir Andy]

Her topping meters is quite deceptive as the damage output hits alot of targets but for little amounts. It's like minor aoe that any support can easily deal with, and we all know that burst > sustain.

Withering Fire doesn't. It isn't a skill shot, it prioritizes heroes, has 5 stacks, replenishes every two seconds, is free and can be used from a mile away.

Shadow Dagger spreads from minions to mercs to forts to heroes. The metric by which she tops the meters doesn't matter so much as the principle that it's a braindead playstyle with massive rewards for hardly any risk. She's a much better fit as a ranged assassin than...ranged assassins.

[Hanto]

I build her as an assassin/support hybrid of sorts. She has amazing wave crushing power and base penetration, as well as a decent team fight kit (mostly due to Wailing Arrow). As such, the talents I pick with her are:
1. Barbed Shot (200% dmg with Withering Fire to minions and mercs)
4. Envenom
7. Unstable Poison (Black Arrow afflicted targets explode for 75 AOE upon death)
10. Wailing Arrow
13. Evasive Fire
16. Blood for Blood
20. Deafening Blast

I'm no pro MLG player by any means, but I have an incredibly high win rate with Sylvanas and I typically always get this same build every time (might look into Cold Embrace). It's amazing for lane and base pushing while still effective in the team fights. Just my two cents. She's a fun hero, my favorite by far. :| Just hit 9 yesterday and trying to power through that with a Stimpack for her master skin.

[Deleted]

Withering Fire doesn't. It isn't a skill shot, it prioritizes heroes, has 5 stacks, replenishes every two seconds, is free and can be used from a mile away.

Shadow Dagger spreads from minions to mercs to forts to heroes. The metric by which she tops the meters doesn't matter so much as the principle that it's a braindead playstyle with massive rewards for hardly any risk. She's a much better fit as a ranged assassin than...ranged assassins.

I've played Sylv extensively, currently half way through level 10.

She's not on par with ranged assassins.

Sylv can't bypass the front line, her Q is going to hit the warrior. If she dives in close to get the Q onto the desired target, she's dead. In fights, Sylv exists to get a grouped silence and try to damage what she can. Sure, one on one she can dish out damage, but who can't?

She's a balanced champion.

[Drunter]

Sylvanas is your heavy lane pusher, that conveniently has solid hero dmg. She's not nearly on par with Valla or Jaina in terms of hero dmg as others have pointed out, but she's got a lot going for her.

lvl1 - range on Q
lvl4 - envenom
lvl7 - minions explode on death from black arrow
lvl10 - wailing arrow
lvl13 - movement speed on Q
lvl16 - vulnerability on W
lvl20 - blink

[Hunter Extraordinaire]

Compared to...say, Thrall, when he was introduced, she's nowhere near over powered, and IMO, doesn't need any nerfs.

[Mormolyce]

Not really. Or rather, not at all.



...great survivability?

Besides that, though, when is it ever a relevant concept to do those things "all at once"? By the point in the game when it matters (10+ or later), damn near every hero can clear waves quickly, and you get lane pressure via mercs or map mechanics. I've just never seen this mythical situation where Sylvanas is putting this "lane pressure" on a team while simultaneously being a factor in teamfights. And if she IS somehow allowed to do that, then it's a failure of the other team to not deal with it or exploit her absence in fights, AND it's nothing that any other specialist couldn't do anyway.

She's a good hero, has a lot to offer a team, but it seems like people just keep grossly over-reacting to her passive.

Clearing waves is not the point, she suppresses tower fire (and obviously minions). That is HUGE. She can split between locking down towers and damaging heroes seamlessly with her Q and autos.

She's OP. Not "completely breaks the whole game" OP, but definitely "needs a nerf" OP.

It's fine for her to have that trait, but she needs bigger weaknesses to offset that strength.

- - - Updated - - -

I've played Sylv extensively, currently half way through level 10.

She's not on par with ranged assassins.

Sylv can't bypass the front line, her Q is going to hit the warrior. If she dives in close to get the Q onto the desired target, she's dead. In fights, Sylv exists to get a grouped silence and try to damage what she can. Sure, one on one she can dish out damage, but who can't?

She's a balanced champion.

Of course she isn't on par with ranged assassins, she's a specialist. But she's too strong all the same.

She has a very strong escape and frankly you have to be an idiot to get killed as Sylvanas.

There isn't really one thing about her that's obviously out of line, it's more the complete package. An overall damage nerf would fix it.

[mrpopos10]

I've played Sylv extensively, currently half way through level 10.

She's not on par with ranged assassins.

Sylv can't bypass the front line, her Q is going to hit the warrior. If she dives in close to get the Q onto the desired target, she's dead. In fights, Sylv exists to get a grouped silence and try to damage what she can. Sure, one on one she can dish out damage, but who can't?

She's a balanced champion.

I agree as to balance - her damage on meters is "high" but she doesnt have true burst/kill power so the numbers are misleading - all the little irrelevant ticks from the w skill and the poke dmg from q-skill, much of that dmg is 100% wasted because it is so spread out. that being said - she is a good hero and a great specialist role -

she is on par with zagara in my view, or hammer - except hammer and zag have more kill-shot type pressure - with the w-skill on zag and hammers autos/r.

[Deleted]

There isn't really one thing about her that's obviously out of line, it's more the complete package. An overall damage nerf would fix it.

Q - 5 stacks of withering fire provides you with 2 and a half auto attacks as burst. Each withering fire shot does HALF an auto attack's damage.

W - The dagger does trickling damage, yes to all, but still it's hardly noticeable

E - Use banshees for damage and you're dead, or you went all in and won a 1v1.

She hits everything, that's her niche, but doesn't hit for that much. The fact that she NEEDS envenom to win any 1v1 just shows that her kit lacks killing power.