How can I effectively play Sylvanas in heroes?

[dixincide]

I need to improve my specialist play in heroes of the Storm, and I have no idea how to use Sylvanas.
How am I supposed to properly use her?
When is she a better choice over an Azmodan or other Specialists for the role?



I'm trying to get more proficient in other roles in this game, I typically play assassins and of those I favor ranged casters to melee.
So I picked up Sylvanas to start learning the specialist role better because she seemed to have some overlap to what I'm used to.

Thanks to Match Making I've had some pretty poor team comps with my games as her, so I've had some bad times with my more recent games, still I can't seem to figure out how to use her effectively. If she's meant for siege damage it seems like an Azmodan would be a better choice. Taking Siege Camps I think falls to Gazmo, and map control Zagara. I'm guessing she's a back door hero? I could really use some insight.
Can anyone offer any advice?


Thanks in advance.

[Deleted]

I would honestly say, from a competitive stand point, that everything Sylvanas does, Zagara does better.

For Sylvanas to really work, she needs to be left alone, she's a complete monster when she's allowed to push unopposed, but in ranked play, you'll rarely be allowed to do that.

[Deleted]

I would honestly say, from a competitive stand point, that everything Sylvanas does, Zagara does better.

For Sylvanas to really work, she needs to be left alone, she's a complete monster when she's allowed to push unopposed, but in ranked play, you'll rarely be allowed to do that.

True, but Sylv is a lot safer than Zag. Sylv's got a decent escape and can split push quicker (not necessarily better, Zag with Nydus can split push and get to an objective before spawn).

[ro9ue]

I find I'm the most effetive Sylvanas when I get into empty/1-hero lanes, get the Corrupted Arrow talent in the first tree (the one that reduces ammo of towers by 2) and then buff Black Arrows and get the Life drain on Shadow Blades.

This way I can completely shut down any tower and groups of mobs. If you find an empty lane at the beginning, you can literally just sit there in the corner and take down a tower with ease with Black Arrows + the -2 ammo talent. Spreading shadow blades to shut down any mobs that spawn.

With the black arrow duration extension you can easily solo any minion camp by rotating your auto attacks between each mob. Even Knights, if you have the buffed black arrow you can hit mob #1, then hit 2, hit 3, mob 1 is about to come off stun and u hit 4. Then you cycle through.

Obviously if the enemy team catches on you need to GTFO. Take the best escape talents at later levels.

Just my 2c on Sylvanas.

[Nikkaszal]

True, but Sylv is a lot safer than Zag. Sylv's got a decent escape and can split push quicker (not necessarily better, Zag with Nydus can split push and get to an objective before spawn).

"Safer" depends on the Zag's skill at creep coverage

When Zag can see WELL in advance if someone is coming to her, and uses her movespeed bonus from creep to saunter back to safety, she should never be jumped by anybody

[Pandragon]

You cant. Sylvanas has 2 ways to play. Hero damage, or Minion damage. Choosing one over the other makes the other useless. Going hero damage: Other specialists can far out class her. Zagaara and Nazeebo come to mind. Minion damage: Other heroes can do just as much minion damage while still being able to do massive hero damage.

Outside of that she only has 2 uses. An AOE silence which is very good, and turning off turrets. The latter is only really useful in team play cause most ppl in soloqueue arent bright enough to push with her when you have no minions on the fort after pushing the enemy back to heal up. They just see no minions and run away.

[Lesane]

I find I'm the most effetive Sylvanas when I get into empty/1-hero lanes, get the Corrupted Arrow talent in the first tree (the one that reduces ammo of towers by 2) and then buff Black Arrows and get the Life drain on Shadow Blades.

This way I can completely shut down any tower and groups of mobs. If you find an empty lane at the beginning, you can literally just sit there in the corner and take down a tower with ease with Black Arrows + the -2 ammo talent. Spreading shadow blades to shut down any mobs that spawn.

With the black arrow duration extension you can easily solo any minion camp by rotating your auto attacks between each mob. Even Knights, if you have the buffed black arrow you can hit mob #1, then hit 2, hit 3, mob 1 is about to come off stun and u hit 4. Then you cycle through.

Obviously if the enemy team catches on you need to GTFO. Take the best escape talents at later levels.

Just my 2c on Sylvanas.

Those talents suck and they're not needed at all to do the stuff you are talking about. You don't need to drain tower ammo since you can just stunlock them and you don't need extended duration on your trait either to solo mercs.

You cant. Sylvanas has 2 ways to play. Hero damage, or Minion damage. Choosing one over the other makes the other useless. Going hero damage: Other specialists can far out class her. Zagaara and Nazeebo come to mind. Minion damage: Other heroes can do just as much minion damage while still being able to do massive hero damage.

Outside of that she only has 2 uses. An AOE silence which is very good, and turning off turrets. The latter is only really useful in team play cause most ppl in soloqueue arent bright enough to push with her when you have no minions on the fort after pushing the enemy back to heal up. They just see no minions and run away.

How did you even come to this conclusion? Any normal Sylvanas build is full PVP oriented with the exception of level 7, which contains the only useful PVE talent.

On-topic: my tip would be to use a proper build, play her like an Assassin but take advantage of her trait which is still really good. If you get any opportunity to push uncontested, go for it. You need more general game knowledge with Sylvanas than hero specific knowledge, since the whole point of Sylvanas is her trait and if you don't utilize it you should play another hero.

[Ryme]

Sylvanas is my highest levelled hero, the envenom nerf hit her particularly hard since the rest of her level 4 talents are pretty poor. She shines most on maps where you have a direct objective pushing a single lane: Haunted Mines and Infernal Shrines.

Your highest damage source comes from Shadow Dagger, ideally you should be getting this off on CD during team fights. Withering arrow is surprisingly weak so don't feel compelled to keep this going, it has five charges that can rapidly be depleted when you need.

Here's the very general spec I use: http://www.heroesfire.com/hots/talen.../sylvanas#lM5N

Occasionally, I will swap level 1 to the increased range if we lack decent lock downs, 13 I will use spell shield in the a rare double mage and/or nova situation and on 20 you can make a solid case for Bolt or Deafening Blast depending on their and your comp respectively.

Sylvanas is very squishy and is not great in many early 1v1 situations, you should still lane alone since you can wipe out an entire minion wave extremely efficiently even when you need to play safe and chill out near towers. If you're being pushed hard, just skirt round and throw out a Dagger on CD then retreat.

She has a strong escape in Haunting Wave which is usually best used to jump over terrain where your enemy can follow. The wave isn't that fast, and whilst it can be used to chase it's clearly been designed to not provide much of an advantage here, particularly if you pick up Evasive Fire. A solid juke would be to send it off in one direction then run the in the other, the enemy will usually follow you then you press again at the last second and you greatly increase the distance between you. If the enemy follows the wave, just dont teleport and you win as well

During objective pushes on the maps above, don't split push if you can help it, be with your objective and try to safe hit towers to disable them. This keeps your lane pushing objective alive longer and therefore allows to push deeper.

Deafening Arrow is a very strong ability. During team fights it's essential you time this right, if you do, it will heavily swing the tide of battle in your favour. The stars align situation is the enemy healer is channelling an AoE heal an both teams have engaged packed together; you want to hit the arrow on the healer. This will interrupt the heal, silence the healer and hopefully most of your enemy and allow your team to mop them up.

It's also a half decent disengage ability and can be used if the enemy is hunting you down and you the breather the silence will provide will keep you alive, this is harder to judge though and often feels like a waste.

You'd be surprised how slow people react to silences, many will continue overextending. The healer will notice quickly though and will try to break back, this split is where your team should pounce and pick people off. Try to keep dagger on CD and keep your withering charges high for a low health pick off. Envenom lacks burst so I generally save it for the players out of position.

[ttak82]

Reading some interesting comments here.

Just wanted to ask if Possession (Her second heroic) really that bad? You can spam it on low level minions and they become yours for full HP. They also go in front of turrets to soak ammo. Although assuming if a hero is in range, the hero is still prioritized, its still a bonus.

What about any possible synergy with other hero talents that modify nearby minions? (yes, that means pushing along with another hero - any useful strat there?)

[Raugnaut]

Reading some interesting comments here.

Just wanted to ask if Possession (Her second heroic) really that bad? You can spam it on low level minions and they become yours for full HP. They also go in front of turrets to soak ammo. Although assuming if a hero is in range, the hero is still prioritized, its still a bonus.

What about any possible synergy with other hero talents that modify nearby minions? (yes, that means pushing along with another hero - any useful strat there?)

Possession is a pure pushing talent. Sylv can push faster then any other hero except Hammer if left completely alone, so Possession really doesn't do much of anything except slightly speed up her already fast pushing speed.

Also, if an enemy hero does respond to it, you basically just gave them a good amount of extra XP.

Not to say Possesion is bad - if Azmodan had Possesion, it would actually be very good. It just doesn't fit very well with the rest of Sylv's toolkit.

Silencing Arrow is thus the best choice, as it gives Sylvanas good team fight utility.

[ttak82]

Possession is a pure pushing talent. Sylv can push faster then any other hero except Hammer if left completely alone, so Possession really doesn't do much of anything except slightly speed up her already fast pushing speed.

Also, if an enemy hero does respond to it, you basically just gave them a good amount of extra XP.

Not to say Possesion is bad - if Azmodan had Possesion, it would actually be very good. It just doesn't fit very well with the rest of Sylv's toolkit.

Silencing Arrow is thus the best choice, as it gives Sylvanas good team fight utility.

Yes, I was hinting at synergy with Azmodan's and Gazlowe's talents. In late game, if you have things like bloodlust, there is some benefit there as well although you are correct that, at that point (and before as well) silencing arrow has better usage.

[Raugnaut]

Yes, I was hinting at synergy with Azmodan's and Gazlowe's talents. In late game, if you have things like bloodlust, there is some benefit there as well although you are correct that, at that point (and before as well) silencing arrow has better usage.

True, an Azmodan/Sylv team, Sylv could easily take Possession to create huge powerful hordes of mobs. If Azmodan is actively pushing with Black Pool, then it becomes even stronger. Finally, if your being pushed to Core, a Sylv with possession could possess a catapult, and Azmodan could then buff it with his global Promote ability. A normal catapult deals 2% of the cores health in damage per hit, so a catapult with Possession+Promote, and Black Pool could easily hit for close to 10% of the core's HP a hit, making it very powerful at pushing.

[Lesane]

Possession is a pure pushing talent. Sylv can push faster then any other hero except Hammer if left completely alone, so Possession really doesn't do much of anything except slightly speed up her already fast pushing speed.

How does Hammer push faster than Sylvanas? It takes Hammer much longer to clear a minion wave pre-10 at least and her own minions take way more damage during it. Sylvanas clears minions very fast, or pretty much one shots them once she hits 7 and she can stunlock every building except the core so you get her own damage + the damage of a minion wave on the structures.

Also, Possession is one of the worst heroics in the game, never bother with it. Promote does pretty much the same thing and that's a level 4 talent and still no one takes it.

[Raugnaut]

How does Hammer push faster than Sylvanas? It takes Hammer much longer to clear a minion wave pre-10 at least and her own minions take way more damage during it. Sylvanas clears minions very fast, or pretty much one shots them once she hits 7 and she can stunlock every building except the core so you get her own damage + the damage of a minion wave on the structures.

Also, Possession is one of the worst heroics in the game, never bother with it. Promote does pretty much the same thing and that's a level 4 talent and still no one takes it.

Hammer doesn't bother with minion waves, and can just sit on everything and kill it. For minions, you only have 2 major sources of damage to buildings - Archers (Which deal ~50(+2/lvl) damage per hit) and Catapults (Which only come out when you have just the core, and Sylv is fairly weak for taking out the core in comparision to everything else). Hammers basic siege damage outdamages Sylv's damage output+3 archers (1 minion wave) and she can take out the core fairly easily. So yea, Hammer CAN down buildings faster then everyone but Azmodan (Needs specific talents) and Gazlowe (Needs Robo-Goblin). Sylv, by herself, is below everyone but Murky and TLV for downing buildings. Essentially, she has to rely on minion waves to push quickly, it takes quite a bit of time for Sylv to down a building by herself.

[ro9ue]

Those talents suck and they're not needed at all to do the stuff you are talking about. You don't need to drain tower ammo since you can just stunlock them and you don't need extended duration on your trait either to solo mercs.

Lol what? You can literally drain a whole tower in half the time with that talent. Which means theres a better chance you can shut it down before your opponent catches you. That's kind of a big deal. What other talents would you take in those tiers? Also extended duration + the debuff on heroes is nice and if you get the double duration you can solo knights with ease.

[Lesane]

Hammer doesn't bother with minion waves, and can just sit on everything and kill it. For minions, you only have 2 major sources of damage to buildings - Archers (Which deal ~50(+2/lvl) damage per hit) and Catapults (Which only come out when you have just the core, and Sylv is fairly weak for taking out the core in comparision to everything else). Hammers basic siege damage outdamages Sylv's damage output+3 archers (1 minion wave) and she can take out the core fairly easily. So yea, Hammer CAN down buildings faster then everyone but Azmodan (Needs specific talents) and Gazlowe (Needs Robo-Goblin). Sylv, by herself, is below everyone but Murky and TLV for downing buildings. Essentially, she has to rely on minion waves to push quickly, it takes quite a bit of time for Sylv to down a building by herself.

How does that calculation work? Sylvanas and Hammer have almost exactly the same base DPS early game. Combine that with the fact that Hammer has 0 DPS outside of auto attacking pre-10 while Sylvanas has her abilities adding extra damage. Then you add in the minion wave, which is more than just the 3 archers you mention, and Sylvanas will definitely push faster than Hammer. Especially if you consider the fact that the minions will just stay alive all the time and multiple waves start to stack up because they take no damage since Sylvanas is locking everything down. Yes, Hammer can get up to 70% bonus damage on that AA DPS if she sieges up, but 70% more damage isn't going to stack up against Sylvanas' spells + minion waves.

Example given: level 5

Sylvanas 97 DPS + 3 archers 90 DPS? (I don't know their attack speed, I went for 0.5 which is actually low as hell and it's probably higher) = 187 DPS. That's not including any of her spells or the warrior/wizard minions.

Hammer 96 DPS x1.7 = 163 DPS.

Hammer won't outpush Sylvanas pre-10, and pre-10 pushing power is what matters in that comparison imho because that's the only part of the game where there's even a chance of a moment popping up where it's a good idea to solo push and a chance that you can actually get away without being heavily punished if you fail.

Lol what? You can literally drain a whole tower in half the time with that talent. Which means theres a better chance you can shut it down before your opponent catches you. That's kind of a big deal. What other talents would you take in those tiers? Also extended duration + the debuff on heroes is nice and if you get the double duration you can solo knights with ease.

There's no point in draining towers because you can shut them down anyway if you play Sylvanas. You are sacrificing 25% extra range on your Q which is great against other players, both in team fights and in harassing people out of lanes. So to answer your question, at 1 I always go 25% extra Q range and at 4 I still go Envenom simply because all the other options are horrible. Double trait duration might making soloing knights easy but you really shouldn't be soloing knights to begin with, there's other heroes much better at doing that and you're better of pushing a lane since with your trait you'll push harder than any knight wave would've done.

[Pyromelter]

Sylvanas is best on maps where you can push under a big beast. You always push with the golem on mines when you have sylvanas on your team. She's even more insane on infernal shrines.

Her other really good aspect is she does a ton of pvp damage - shadow dagger does of just random AOE damage, and unloading 5 charges of withering fire with your AA's can help finish off a hero and get them to zero.

If you get really good, you can 1v1 melee assassins like zeratul with your ult.

Bottom line: If you are pushing, even if PvP is happening, keep the towers/forts stunned with your trait. If you are pvp'ing, use your really good poke to wear down the other team, and just get good at placing your black arrow to either finish them off or interrupt their healer.

[Raugnaut]

How does that calculation work? Sylvanas and Hammer have almost exactly the same base DPS early game. Combine that with the fact that Hammer has 0 DPS outside of auto attacking pre-10 while Sylvanas has her abilities adding extra damage. Then you add in the minion wave, which is more than just the 3 archers you mention, and Sylvanas will definitely push faster than Hammer. Especially if you consider the fact that the minions will just stay alive all the time and multiple waves start to stack up because they take no damage since Sylvanas is locking everything down. Yes, Hammer can get up to 70% bonus damage on that AA DPS if she sieges up, but 70% more damage isn't going to stack up against Sylvanas' spells + minion waves.

Example given: level 5

Sylvanas 97 DPS + 3 archers 90 DPS? (I don't know their attack speed, I went for 0.5 which is actually low as hell and it's probably higher) = 187 DPS. That's not including any of her spells or the warrior/wizard minions.

Hammer 96 DPS x1.7 = 163 DPS.

Hammer won't outpush Sylvanas pre-10, and pre-10 pushing power is what matters in that comparison imho because that's the only part of the game where there's even a chance of a moment popping up where it's a good idea to solo push and a chance that you can actually get away without being heavily punished if you fail.

Archers have a 1 second attack speed. Warriors deal 5(+1/lvl) damage per hit, also with a 1 second attack speed. Mages deal 8(+1/lvl) damage per hit, also with a 1 second attack speed. Their dps value in comparision to the Archers is insignificant.

Sylv does 50.1 baseline auto-dps, with 11.69 scaling value. Adding in Withering Fire (Both Shadow Dagger and Haunting Wave deals insignificant damage over time to buildings, not even a 5% increase to her damage output vs buildings), is an extra 14+1.5/lvl damage (Plus a decent burst whenever you get extra chargers), for a total of 64+13.18 damage/lvl. By herself, she does not outdamage Hammer, but I do have to retract my earlier statement, a single minion wave does bring her damage a bit above Hammer. Hammer to buildings, deals 80.08 baseline dps, plus 23.66 damage/lvl. I also just now noticed that Focused Attacks only proc against heroes now, which makes it kinda less useful, bringing down her overall estimate. So yea, pre-10, Sylv DOES have pushing power above Hammer.

However, at lvl 13, her pushing power becomes better, with both Napalm Strike (adds an additional 15+3.3/lvl dps) and First Strike (increases baseline damage to 101 +29.6 damage/lvl), which increases her late-game pushing power, requiring Sylv to need 2.5 minion waves to outpush Hammer. At 20, the gap opens up even more, and Hammer can safely push even better with a wide variety of range-increasing talents.

[Mormolyce]

I have to agree, ammo draining talents aren't as useful as you'd hope in HoTS in general but especially not on Sylvanas. Her passive renders tower ammo irrelevant as long as she's in range so the benefit you get out of depleting ammo is really really minor. I suppose you could take it if you wanted to but personally I think the added range on Withering Fire is far, far more useful. That has been life or death for me so many times...

I usually take that, Unstable Poison (immensely improves her wave clear), Evasive Fire (AMAZING), Cold Embrace (the vulnerability makes her an excellent sniper as well as again improving wave clear, it's so easy to apply too) and of course Wailing Arrow. Then play her as an assassin with good waveclear rather than a true specialist.

I would honestly say, from a competitive stand point, that everything Sylvanas does, Zagara does better.

Well... arguably, but that's because Zag is a fucking monster :P

[dixincide]

Well... arguably, but that's because Zag is a fucking monster :P

Off topic a bit: Maining Jaina and having a Zag use her Stasis ulti on a perfect blizzard is quite possibly my most hated thing in the world right now.