Alexstraza Tips/Tricks

General Discussion
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Lately I’ve been seeing many people ask how to get better at playing Alexstraza via Reddit and other social places so I thought I’d take this time to answer a few questions and just give some overall tips and tricks for playing her.

For those that are unfamiliar with me I’m considered an Alexstraza “one-trick” and perhaps you’ve played with me in masters/gm. I have over 1000 games with her, a hero level of 130+, and an overall winrate of 55% across all of those games.

Overview
Starting off I think it’s important to understand that even though Alex is listed as ‘medium’ difficulty in-game by Blizzard I don’t think shes easy to play at all and personally would label her as hard. While the concept is easy to understand of just throw down heals and hit D, there is a lot more to it than that.

With Alexstraza there is a lot of micromanaging that is happening while playing the hero that most probably wouldn’t consider. For example knowing how far forward or back to place her Abundance; if you lay it to close to your teammate while they are fleeing then they’re probably going to die before it activates. Place it to far back and they might not reach it in time to receive the heal. Another example being of how you need to keep track of enemy counter play such as Ana’s Biotic Grenade…did she use it? Is it safe to throw down Abundance? These are all examples of things that need to be going through your mind while playing this hero.

How to Optimize
Alexstraza is one of the only heroes in the game that has to monitor her own health in order to heal allies since not only is it percentage based but also based on her own health when the heal is being cast, primarily her Gift of Life (Q).

One big trick I can offer is using your Abundance in conjunction with your Q. Let’s say you’re about to heal an ally(s) with (W), you also want to see if you can throw out a Q as well because you know it’s going to take your own life but since you already threw down an Abundance you want to take that opportunity to heal yourself back up as well. This should be obvious but too many times have I see other Alex players heal someone up with Q but then not stand in their own (W) circle. Use every chance you get to keep yourself topped off.

Another tip I can give is to pay attention to your cooldowns while DragonQueen is active. Depending on if you took Cleansing Flame or not (which almost all the time you should) you can actually extend the power of the benefits you get while your trait is active. All of your cooldowns continue to reduce while you’re in the air and the timer of DragonQueen itself freezes until you come back down. This gives you multiple opportunities to cast your giant empowered Abundance.

Heroics
Like I just mentioned above I’d say you should take Cleansing Flame about 90-95% of the time simply due to not only being her only means of an escape from burst damage or dive, but also because it has great synergies with DragonQueen…much more so than Life Binder.

With Life binder you only get to heal one person, either yourself or another target. I can’t even begin to explain you how many times I saved an entire team wipe from happening being able to heal multiples targets at once with Cleansing Flame. The only time I would ever recommend taking Life Binder is if A) the enemy team has almost no dive for you, or B) you have a Cho’gall on your team. Some say Life Binder can be great for beefy targets like Diablo or Muradin but again if you want to protect yourself from Greymane, Zera, Genji etc I highly suggest taking CF. You also put yourself in a lot more danger due to the short range leash Life Binder has in order to cast it on a target, especially a tank who is mostly likely far out into the frontline.

When to Use Trait
This is the most common question I see a lot and the answer isn’t simple at all. Using DragonQueen, an effective 2.5 minute CD, is all about feeling out the situation and determining individually if it’s necessary or not.

Most of the time popping trait for little skirmishes especially in the early game when death timers are low isn’t worth it. Saving DragonQueen for important objectives and controlling that space such as on Infernal Shrines or Volskya is crucial to winning team fights.

NEVER pop trait in the middle of a team fight, always have it out and ready to do work at the beginning. Again…it’s all about feeling the moment out and seeing if it’s the right time. If your team is already down 25+ minions on Shrines and your tank is dead, then you probably want to save it for the defense instead.

Essentially the longer a fight draws out the less effective you become. You want to get the objective as soon as possible take every advantage you can while trait is active.

Final MISC. Tips
One last thing I wanted to say is that while most players take “On Ruby Wings” for the level 20 storm talent, I highly encourage you all to try out “Blessing of the Red”. This is a very amazing underrated talent that saves lives and wins team fights. Believe me when I say that having double Dragon especially with the time upgrade at 16 is great, but the additional health for low health targets like Tracer, Valla, Genji, Hanzo etc definitely matters and can sometimes mean life or death in a lot of situations. Yeah…an extra 500hp on a Diablo doesn’t seem worth it but for a Junkrat or KTZ is kind of a big deal, give it a shot the next time you play her.

Lastly…NEVER EVER TAKE ANY OF THE E TALENTS THEY ARE GARBAGE!

Thanks for reading guys and I hope this helps some. Alex can be and is one the most fun heroes in the game for me and more players should definitely add her to their arsenal. If anyone has any additional questions or feel I missed something feel free to comment.

Good Luck.

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Alex needs at least 1 hour of cardio a day till she’s better.

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100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats, and a 10KM dash, EVERY SINGLE DAY.

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Very true about the micromanaging. I’ve only just started her, but there’s a lot of foresight and predictions one needs to make when playing her.

Little things like casting Q+Abundance right before Dragon Form, then casting empowered Abundance, Cleansing Flame to extend duration for another empowered Abundance, and then a final fourth one right as Dragon Form drops. That’s a lot of free castings, and some serious bonus healing.

The one big thing I dislike about her is the sensitive nature of her health bar. I feel like I can rarely take risks like I can with Rehgar or new Brightwing. I do like that Alex’s output is great, but the playstyle is a little too defensive for my taste.

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which hero in the nexus would be able to fight one punch man? :thinking:

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can you post your most common talent build?

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I really wish her E talent tree was more viable. It’s very Fire Dragon themed which is awesome, but it just doesn’t win matches. I wonder if they intended it to be used in double support comps or with teams where everyone has self healing. Be nice to get more developer insight into their design thinking.

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Level 155 Alex main here myself and I actually do have beef with this assessment. In fact I would advise everyone here to take the OP’s advice with a grain of salt. Here’s why:

I have not taken Cleansing flame since the day they added the heal to Lifebinder.

I think the biggest flaw in your argument here is that you are comparing just the effectiveness of the two ults and nothing else. When you compare the amount of healing and utility you get out of Cleansing Flame vs Lifebinder, Cleansing Flame is the clear choice, until you factor in cooldown, which is why I believe Lifebinder takes the stage here.

Having a 60 second cooldown on essentially a 100% health restore, is insane. Cleansing Flame, because of its massive CD, MUST be saved for major team fights. Lifebinder on the other hand, has such a low CD that it can be used liberally, even as an out-of-combat heal.

Also, I don’t think you fully understand the ramifications of the added heal on Lifebinder and it’s effect on the percentage swap.

Lets take the old pre-hotfix lifebinder. It was useless if you and your target were both at 50% and the heroic would do absolutely nothing. Now, the heal changes everything especially when you factor in the healthpool of the person you are targeting.

Let’s say you and stitches both are at 50% health. The 480 heal on Lifebinder won’t move Stitches’ massive healthbar much, BUT the 480 heal WILL move your healthbar substantially since you have such a low healthpool, meaning after the 480 heal is done, you will be at a high enough health percentage to give stitches a substantial heal. This was not possible before they added the heal to Lifebinder.

Same thing goes both ways. A 480 heal will most likely heal a murky or tracer to full, meaning you get a 100% heal on yourself at the end of Lifebinder which puts you back in the fight whereas if you’d have taken cleansing flame, you’d be out of luck and need to hearth.

Additionally, your claim that Lifebinder doesn’t protect you against dive is absurd. When the enemy dives on you, pops all their cooldowns and then you heal to 100% health, they aren’t going to have the resources to continue wearing you down if your teammates jump on them.

The fact that Lifebinder gives Alex another method to heal herself outside of Abundance means that you can be more aggressive with fireballs and participate in the teamfight in a more meaningful way by providing more damage without the worry of being chunked and losing that precious 75% health percentage.

Also, since Lifebinder comes with a heal now, the 20 upgrade for Lifebinder is essentially a divine shield for both targets unless the enemy can somehow manage to keep heavy damage on both of you at the exact same time (unlikely.)

My last point is that Lifebinder is more friendly for coordinated play, especially if your friend is playing a heavy dive hero and you can coordinate lifebinder before he goes in deep. While true you can also do this with CF, the 60 second cooldown on Lifebinder gives your hard carry MANY more opportunities to go into the enemy team and secure you a win for the objective.

The fact that you cannot see the utility Lifebinder offers you and your team really makes me nervous about you giving people advice on how to play Alex. I would be cautious about taking advice from you given the very little amount of thought you demonstrate when assessing the effectiveness of certain abilities.

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Yeah, I haven’t touched LB since release. Having the healing/damage plus extended Dragon is just too good. And the CD isn’t that long on Cleansing Flame. I would suggest newbies try her out with AI to get a sense of how to use her W. I usually put it midway in between fights and backline so the tanks don’t have to move far while the backline still has a chance for a heal as well. E talents are viable especially with CD reduction on trait, so your healing numbers even out.

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Thanks for your added input. Alexstraza is risk vs reward and right now for me personally Life Binder just isn’t worth it most of the time and quite frankly has more counterplay than Abundance does now.

Life Binder was good with the initial buffs but they have since destroyed it for me. They nerfed the initial heal, made it susceptible to healing reduction effects like Ana’s grenade and finally it goes on full CD when it fails unlike Ancestral which just goes on a short CD before you can use it again. Despite being a 60sec cooldown, I just don’t see the reward for so much risk associated with it now.

Cleansing Flame is 99% of the time guaranteed heal + escape and as I mentioned more synergy with DragonQueen.

This just defeats the entire purpose of Life Binder does it not? Why waste it on yourself when the goal is to use it on high health targets like Diablo to take full advantage of it being a % based heal. My point being if you had CF not only are you out of danger and remove yourself from play but also heal everyone on your team. What if you’re going up against an Anub who webs you or a Garrosh or Varian with taunt? There is just too much counter-play to Life Binder in my opinion.

You also failed to touch on my point that CF is better to support dive heroes because you can follow them like Illidan or Genji. Life Binder restricts your range to a tiny space and Alex is a ranged based hero.

HGC is the highest quality coordinated play you can find and every pro takes Cleansing Flame when Alex is picked. I haven’t seen Life Binder once…including Asia region which I also watch late a night.

There are a lot of factors involved that determine which build I go such as map, the heroes on my team and just how I’m feeling about the enemy. For example if I’m playing with low HP heroes like Genji, Tracer, Guldan etc I usually take Q build so I can always keep them topped off. For maps like Infernal Shrines or Tomb of the Spider Queen W build is always the go to no matter what the composition.

The suggestion though is that if you go W build just ask your team to help you stack globes. Sometimes it can be very easy and done around the 8 minute mark and other times it be impossible not even finishing it.

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Mommy and daddy, please don’t fight!
But for real, I’m really conflicted as to what to take as far as her ults go reading both yours and OJ’s viewpoints on it.
I fully hesitate in picking Lifebinder when up against any team with some interrupt and or hard dive.
I wonder how aggressive can you really be versus an enemy team with displacements. It’s starting to feel like maybe I should git gud if OJ can handle any comp with just Lifebinder.

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Thanks for taking the time in creating this guide, I enjoyed reading it a lot.

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Personally I can see the benefit in both ults, but I mostly take life binder because of its insane ability to save people. If they would buff the E line a bit then cleansing flame would be a nice addition to the line designed to give extra damage and longer dragon.

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Thanks for this Alex guide! I’ll try her out soon.

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You say that the E talents are useless, but you don’t say why.

What talent build do u prefer to use and why?

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While I - mostly - agree with the whole post I’d add that it depends on what you play.

In QM, you probably want to go E-build because at least it means you can defend yourself and chase down targets for your team, too.

Sure in Unranked/Ranked you shouldn’t, but it’s QM, chances are you don’t even have a tank.

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Just out of curiosity, what counterplay is there to Lifebinder besides healing reduction which is rare nowadays given most heroes who have that debuff aren’t exactly popular.

The only other way to counter Lifebinder is to keep sustained damage on both Lifebinder targets at the same time with the goal to keep both targets at the exact same health percentage so the end proc does nothing. That requires WAY too much coordination for unorganized and even organized play.

On the opposite side, it requires very little to no coordination to interrupt cleansing flame especially when used as an escape rather than casting it way deep in the backline as a heal.

Additionally you have not addressed my primary point which is that you are comparing the raw power of the two ultimates, which I’ve already said Cleansing Flame wins no contest, but when you factor in Cooldown it’s a different story.

Let me put it to you like this:

What weapon has more effectiveness in the long run? The Hammer that does 100 damage every 3 seconds or the sword that does 50 damage every 1 second?

It’s not an accurate assessment to compare the raw power of both weapon unless you do the math and compare the damage relative the amount of value you get out of them per second, which in this case, the sword, although it does 50 damage compared to the hammers 100, will end up doing 150 damage every 3 seconds compared to the hammers 100 every 3 seconds.

Back to my point, Lifebinder allows you to use your heroic more frequently outside of major teamfights. It can be used for minor skirmishes and more importantly, pushing forts down.

Keep in mind just because the majority of people are using Cleansing Flame including pros does not necessarily mean that Lifebinder is worthless. Keep in mind that Cleansing Flame is the easier to use ultimate and is more noob-friendly, whereas Lifebinder requires a lot of thinking and planning ahead to gain effectiveness out of.

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Pretty avid Alex player here, and would disagree with the E talent comment. If you are going to be heavily rely on your dragon form during team fights, I strongly recommend considering E build in QM and Unranked to experiment with as it can be very powerful, assuming you can land skill shots or have easy targets to do so. You can effectively bring down the CD of dragon form by landing skill shots, allowing for more uptime of dragon form. For just about every time fight if you know how to land and have targets. In addition to bringing slow, and the stacking damage of flame buffet (not huge dps, but I’ve taken a fair number of players out who underestimated her short cd and slow).

A fun trick to dragon form if you take Cleansing Flame heroic: If your team is going to eat a lot of damage, throw down your circle of life in human form -> convert to dragon -> throw another circle down and top off any stragglers with Q -> use Cleansing Flame if needed -> by the time you land you will be able to get off another Dragon Circle of Life before your dragon form expires. This can pull out a lot of heals and provide healing coverage while you ascend and start cleansing the world.

Life-Binder heroic isn’t bad, it’s like a Divine Palm that works both ways, but I don’t bother with it unless I have a high health target, since it’s percent HP based. Cleansing Flame brings an escape, damage and healing in one.

Also, don’t be afraid to experiment with her Circle build, especially if you have others on your team that benefit from being able to collect globes. You can easily help tanks and assassins finish quests. I worked with a Kael’thas in UR once and ended up feeding him 70 globes for his mana barrier. Just shy away from this build if the other team can zone your area heal (Kel’thuzad, Junkrat, Jaina, Mephisto to name a few).

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Even in QM I wouldn’t bother with it, because for most part having a competent enough healer to pocket heal the best DPS goes a long way in QM. Unless of course for some bloody reason you get triple support due to luck of the draw… But honestly, I don’t think there really is any need to think twice about QM as it evidently is not the focus of the advice being given in this thread.

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Some reasoning behind my statement includes a lot of things.

Essentially they provide near-zero value for your team including giving up crazy utility like movement speed increases and extra self/team healing. In general the core concept surrounding the E build is to reduce the cooldown of DragonQueen but in my opinion it’s rather redundant. The +20% slow on her E is negligible,especially against mobile dive heroes like Genji or Greymane who don’t give a crap about your slow, more importantly Alex should be using DragonQueen in conjunction with Cleansing to keep herself alive. There is no situation where spamming E to get 10% for yourself only is going to provide any value especially in this burst/dive meta. Alex should be focused on healing her team, not spamming E.

Secondly her trait should always be up in time for every objective on most maps so having it up earlier just means you’re going to experience diminishing returns. For example lets say you just popped it in a random skirmish (which you should never do especially early game when death timers are really low) then you’re risking not having it up to win the objective when it really matters. Basically There is no guarantee you’re going to reduce the cooldown in time for the next objective if in fact you decided to pop it in-between objectives spawns whatever the map may be.

You also have to take into consideration that DragonQueen becomes less powerful as the game goes on anyways due to talent restrictions and human form gets better; it gets powered up anyways at 16 so that offsets the long base CD as well.

One small change I would make to improve E build is to make the quest increase the the duration of her trait as apposed to reducing the Cd…because like I said trying to reduce the cooldown is rather pointless. I would also just increase her E damage across the board…but then again Blizzard doesn’t like supports dealing damage or having wave clear so that idea goes straight out the window :confused:

In regards to your question about which build I prefer my answer is usually full Abundance build. The goal is to stack as fast as possible (8-10 minute mark) at which point Alex becomes the highest throughput healer in the entire game. The extra healing is also pretty necessary to offset the natural counter play the ability has built in.

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