Anduin Guide 3.0

General Discussion
1

Sorry Pesky… Will remove it if you want to come out with your own.

Overall impressions: I’ve played him a bit more and I watched Notparadox’s video. He is actually signficantly better. Before he didn’t really come online until level 13. Now he’s consistenly strong thanks to some powerful level 1 talents. They added a little variety to his talents but his old way is the best. For every tier i’ll always talk about my favorite first.

Talent 1:
Power Word Shield- This is such a good talent and its perfect for anduin. More shields for you = more suvivability= more ability to be in the thick of things landing aa’s= more healing for your team. Not to mention that all of anduin’s healing is on a delay, so having an instantanious shield compliments his kit well.

Lightwell- In theory this is a good talent. In reality nobody wants to stand still for small amounts of healing. Anduin has plenty of other talents for healing when you’re not fighting. NOt paradox talks up this talent and then gets no value from it in the game he plays. It doesn’t work well.

Evenhanded Blessings- Two main issues. 1 Anduin runs out of mana. This makes him run out of mana faster. The amount of time that you will not spend hearthing by going for the other talents far outweighs the extra healing it provides. I do not recommend this at all. Also keep in mind you root yourself whenever you cast q. Its almost always better to cast q safely then charge in and aa for extra healing. Getting extra q’s make you vulnerable.

4:
Moral Compass- safer aa range, a little more oomph to your w’s. What’s not to like? Good synergy with other talents.

Piercing Light- I think this has great potential. I cannot recommend it right now, but it is interesting.

Surge of Light- ? This talent is so bad and its cringey that notparadox picked it. 1 you dont need cdr on your e ability. Its pretty spammable as is. 2 the w talent has more synergy to get cdr on AND it fires a basic attack at all enemies. 25 mana is too low to justify when the others really give good dmg/ healing.

7:
Blessed Recovery- If you’re worried about getting blown up take this everytime. Some comps require it. If you’ve felt pretty secure its okay to try another talent.

Desperate Prayor- This was something i learned from notparadox’s video. Its actually not too bad. This can really help heal your big guys up when they have to disengage. AT 20 this was a really bad talent bc your team will have lost fight after 2 seconds (or you will have been killed lol) but theres tons of oppurtunities to get value from this from levels 7-20.

Binding Heal- Maybe if he had other q talents? Anduin has plenty of self heals without it imo. Its okay against super poke heavy teams but other than that not really useful. ’

16 (no need to discuss 10’s/13’s theyre the same)
Holy Nova- Highest winrate talent for a reason BABY!!!

Renew- I also like this talent. The healing is quite nice. IMO if you went for some of the non w talents go for renew. If you have cdr on w get nova

Glyph of Faith- This is my least favorite talent. It is also the current meta pick (partly bc notparadox always talks it up but he has proven that his anduin gameplay is questionable when applied to others. Remember he said that renew was better than bold strategy and that talent was awful at level 1). I never picked it when it was at level 20. Level 20 fights tend to be more 5v5 and less “oh look at that dumb fool get ganked”. That means you really only need it up once per fight. It also has much less synergy than the other two bc very few talents impact his trait. It’s not bad though because sometimes you do need that extra pull. I dont believe it’s as useful as people make it out to be.

20:

Varian’s Legacy- As I said before my playstyle is up front so I need the extra healing. The dmg is also quite nice when i want to have a more assertive role. It is not a mustpick as it was before though.

Censure- It is arguably one of the best talents of this tier. I just prefer varian’s legacy/inner fire. This is actually really good. If you dont think you need the healing and your team has followup this can really win the game on its own.

Inner Fire- Just a solid well crafted upgrade. GJ Blizzard. if youre good you really dont need the speed upgrade. The armor is definetely a must though.

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2

I do i like when its dropped on a camp or in the backline

I like your guide but you thrown in 3 notparadox mentions so far. That I kinda want to see his guide instead xD be careful with quoting the same guy too much

Can you add some builds? And what is the best build vs lots of poke

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3

I only suggest his talent once though? He just released an anduin guide and is a pretty famous hots coach/streamer. Think its worth incorporating his opinions even when i disagree with him.

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4

I posted my Anduin thoughts on your Patch Thoughts thread from a couple of days.

In a nutshell:

  1. Grant him increase attack range baseline.
  2. Buff chastise missile speed, it is too darn slow to tie it to a quest. Especially a quest that requires hitting two at the same time. Increase chastise missile speed at the very minimum. Yes had to say it again. Think KT 's Gravity Lapse.
  3. Buff a bit all of this Level 1 talents.
  4. His late game burst healing took a hit with the removal of Inner Focus. (Devs never explained why it was problematic). If they don’t wan’t to bring it back, buff his late game healing.
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5

Im personally enjoying the anduin rework for the most part. Here are some of my impressions…

I don’t think hes as weak as alot of people are saying but it does take more finesse to get some real good value out of him then it used to. Good positioning is still very important for him and many of his new talents ask you to consider your positioning even more carefully. Its so refreshing to feel strong right from level 1 rather then 13 aswell.
Anyway, talent time

1
Power Word Shield
I haven’t played with this one to much but it feels quite strong so far. its a very large throughput boost for a level 1 talent and it gives anduin a way to respond instantly which is something he otherwise lacks. Its also got some major build synergies.

Lightwell
I’m strange and actually really like lightwell. Its alot like alexstraza’s W where how much healing it does is entirely dependent on putting it in a good spot. I think alot of people are overly concerned with using up all of its charges. It heals a total of 750 which is more healing then pyroblast does damage. If you get all of that, thats great but even only using ⅔s of it is good in my eyes. It also has a handful of real strong synergies. Its also free healing which is nice for someone who does go oom occasionally. Not saying lightwell is god tier, its just not a bad talent.

Evenhanded Blessings
I think this one is just ok. Its some good throughput but you do go oom faster. It also doesn’t help you heal 1 target any faster while lightwell does and power word shield sorta does.

4
Moral Compass
I disagree with you on how good this one is. Alot of what made it so good is the past is just gone. You can’t break the game with varian’s legacy any more and you get renew much later now. Perused by Grace’s healing is also a shadow of what it used to be.

Piercing Light
Feel free to burn me at the stake but this is the best talent on the tier. Being able to fallow up your tank or your light bombs with 2 1.25s roots is pretty good. The quest half is just a nice bonus.

Surge of Light
I miss the old surge of light. Theres a couple of things wrong with this talent. 1 it doesn’t feel like it does anything and 2, all the time spent on this combo is often time spent not being in position for good Ws and leap of faith.

7
Blessed Recovery
Not much to say in this one. Not dieing as the healer is pretty good.

Desperate Prayor
Ita a good talent now. I’d argue the best time to use it is in fact, not as a desperate attempt to save people but as a way to quickly get people back in to the fight. What I mean by that is, all those times when someone leaves a fight to use the healing fountain. Instead you just hit them with a Q and Desperate Prayer and they are instantly good to go again. With the flexibility of being able to use it as an emergency heal as a nice bonus. Its so much more useful in the early game then it was at 20.

Binding Heal
This talent suffers from a lack to good synergies and other talents doing what it does but better. Both blessed recovery and lightwell can preform the same task.
Maybe if this talent also reduced the cooldown of Q by 1 or something it would be worth considering.

13
There was actually a change here. Don’t blame you for forgetting about it because its:
Push Forward!
Damaging an enemy Hero increases Movement Speed by 2.5% and the amount healed by Pursued by Grace by 5% for 6 seconds. These effects stack up to 8 times.
And its not great. The healing on perused by grace is so low, I wouldn’t consider this talent if it doubled its healing.

16
Holy Nova
This talent was good before. It just suffered for the unfortunate condition of being on the same tier as inner focus. Now that’s gone (rip) and holy nova’s been buffed its kinda wild.

Renew
I have to do more testing with this one but my initial impression is that it doesn’t do enough healing to justify all the hoops you gotta jump through.

Glyph of Faith
This one is my favorite talent on the tier :p. Its got some nice synergy with the other leap talent, allowing you to keep your speedboost after your first leap and it just proves so much safty for your team. You no longer have to save them for when things are dire, you can start using them for lesser things like helping to dodge big AOEs or pulling people over walls to rejoin fights faster or helping people catch up to things with your permanent almost mount speed.
I think the main reason it feels bad to take is more that your not taking holy nova in a full W build but is feels fine in [3331333]. My usual build.

20
Varian’s Legacy
I don’t like this one any more. All its synergies were made it so good in the past but many of those are gone now. If you need it dor survivability then you should have either not taken aduin or used light bomb with its new 20 upgrade.

Censure
This talent is crazy good. Its just so much lockdown, especially when combined with lightbomb

Inner Fire
Also fantastic. Not much to say here :p. Lightbomb just feels complete with this talent.

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6

I too love the rework.

Ill have to give it a go. Tnx.

This talent row used to be pure personal defense. I felt that when there were games where the enemy team couldn’t put pressure on me this entire row was somewhat redundant. I like that they brought in a talent like desperste prayer for those games when personal survivability was not a problem.

Im sad that this talent lost it’s synergy with Pursued by Grace. I don’t mind that as a baseline effect PbG only procs from AAs. However, it would be nice if healing procs from all damage could be reintroduced as a passive effect if you picked this talent.

2 Likes
7

I actually agree with most of what you said. I couldn’t recommend the quest talent bc I need more time with it. I do think that it’ll compete with moral compass once people play it more often. The range from moral compass will always make it a strong pick though.

13: yea i skipped over it bc nothing changed. You still go for w talent which is why i dont recommend glyph. trait talent is meh. needs to offer cdr on trait. 13 Trait talent does make glypth a great talent, but i think its overpicked.

20: agreed varian’s legacy is more niche now. It fits my hyperaggressive playstyle and I love aa healers so I still pick it. The other talents are more suitible for your avg player. Varian’s legacy is by no means a bad talent though. Its still competitive with the others.

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8

I think the piercing E works especially well with am aggressive playstyle.
When I play this talent, lightbomb plus double root extension is absolutely devastating. Especially when your mage is nearby. (Alternatively leap of faith your mage in range)
It dosen’t happen all the time but getting a double kill for free like this makes for some big swings in a game. 2 or 3 times is often enough.
Plus in my build, the spellpower boosts lightwell and Desperate Prayer healing.

I think my main issue with moral compas now is it kinda feels like a quest with out actually being one. Its pretty worthless at level 1 but it gains some good synergies at 16 and 20 (and potentially at 13 aswell if they make push forward good).

9

I played Anduin fairly recently on Braxis, and because QM be like that, our solo laner was Zeratul, with our Cassia sometimes rotating up to help. I took Lightwell at level 1, and when the gates dropped, went top and left a lightwell just off to one side of the beacon, so our Zeratul could dip in for heals when he needed them, but not right in the middle of the beacon so if he were at 98% HP, he could fight just outside it and not waste charges.

It worked really well, so I can recommend it as additional sustain for your solo laner on 2 lane maps.

2 Likes
10

Wow, most pessimistic sounding guide ever. That said, a lot of it is fair. Alright let’s see…

level 1:

I agree with the reasoning behind your suggestions, but not the conclusions. Power Word Shield does give instant response healing which Anduin normally lacks, and it does build into the existing strength of Anduin’s inability to die. However, it’s output is significantly lower than the other 2 options and Anduin already is very hard to kill. Which is why I think you should try for the other 2 talents if you can get away with it.

As for the weaknesses of the other 2 talents, the biggest problems are definitely mana thirst on evenhanded blessings and positional stress on lightwell. Lightwells can be placed correctly to get good value. I really think that a good Anduin should only whiff lightwell as often as Alex whiffs W, which is to say very rarely and only through very deliberate counterplay. As for evenhanded blessings I will add a quick note that even when power healing a single target, it does mean that second heal comes significantly quicker. If you still need to keep power healing like crazy after that, then you probably should have leap of faithed them out a while ago.

Level 4:

So firstly, a heads up: Moral Compass is bugged to be an accidental loan talent. You lose the attack range on death and you never get it back. Also yes Piercing Light is a ton of fun and has potential to be extremely powerful. Also the spellpower works on %based healing, namely Blessed Recovery and Holy Word Salvation, for when you actually take Holy Word Salvation.

With that said, I 100% agree with you and want to join in beating up on Surge of Light by saying that it’s literally Holy Reach but worse. Instead of an empowered autoattack that can target anyone even a minute later if need be, it’s a double auto-attack if and only if you hit the rooted target in the window. And instead of getting a significant pulse of AoE healing when firing this autoattack, you just get a measly second dose of your passive trait heal. And with how Chastise is more an opportunity talent than a spam talent, even the cooldown reduction is less value than the extra root duration on old Holy Reach. If I could, I would literally just trade this talent for Holy Reach to be back and level 4 would be perfect.

Level 7:

Yeah binding heal just doesn’t compete with Blessed Recovery on raw quantity more than anything. In general binding heal only barely gives more output than Blessed Recovery before you realize that binding heal is mostly going to be wasted on a full health Anduin while Blessed Recovery fires when you actually need it.

As for Desperate Prayer, it’s actually pretty good. However, in my experience in the majority of games it’s better to just take blessed recovery so you don’t have to heal yourself when you could be healing your team. Generally I will only take Desperate Prayer if I expect my frontline to be a huge attention hog, and Blessed Recovery otherwise.

Level 16:

The biggest problem with renew is that it’s also an accidental loan talent. If you die, autoattacks stop refreshing the duration of renew’s heal. If you don’t, Anduin can put out an amount of heals that is simply insane. Mind you however, I would say that if you took Power Word Shield at level 1 you should not take renew, because it’s the only level 1 that doesn’t have significant synergy WITH renew. Evenhanded blessings will let you get tons of renews set up very quickly, and lightwell will drown in CDR if you can keep renew up, but PWS… just go Holy Nova with that, Holy Nova’s a pretty good talent.

As for Glyph of Faith… what can I say, it’s a second charge of cleanse. Extremely powerful with well co-ordinated teams, struggles to compete with the increased output otherwise.

Level 20:

I don’t think Varian’s Legacy is ever competitive. Maybe, maybe if you’re really getting target fired and you’ve coupled it with lightwell. But you shouldn’t need that extra healing; there are better ways to keep yourself safe in IMO Censure does a better job of keeping you alive anyways.

Speaking of, Censure is amazing. Inner Fire is good if you trust your tank to know what they’re doing and aren’t already seeing lightbomb consistently connect. Granted as a follow up CC it generally should be able to connect. Which feeds into why I think Censure should be your pick in the vast majority of games.

11

Keep in mind guys that lightwell is currently the lowest winrate talent at level one by like 5 percent. Even if I agree that it can be good in niche situations/with some skill, most people are overestimating its value.

12

For prolonged poke fighting you would generally want to go:
1 - Lightwell: lots of healing for a 0 mana spell and poke wars usually mean there’s very little area denial.
4 - Moral Compass: in addition to giving the most heal ticks and thus the most cdr on lightwell, it’s also the only one that doesn’t require you get up and close to take full effect. Assuming you don’t die, it also gives you extra autoattack range which again helps in poke wars.
7 - Blessed Recovery: the vast majority of poke abilities fall in the range where they do enough damage to proc BR, but do less damage than BR heals you for. Thus, in poke wars this allows you to actually heal by getting hit, which as you might imagine is a very good thing.
13 - Speed of the Pious: always take this. Seriously. Always.
16 - Renew: really you could also go Holy Nova here and you should use your own discretion. But renew is the anti-poke talent in that it gives the most healing output and the heal-over-time side of things doesn’t actually matter so much when you’re only worrying about slow poke damage.

10 is always comp dependant.

13

I think this might have been my biggest disappointment from the rework.
On paper, this seemed so cool. CDR, mana regen, extra damage, and extra healing, all from level 4 talent.
Anduin is slightly more durable than most healers, but not enough to consistently be in enemy fire. I think I put myself in unnecessary danger more than a couple times trying to land follow up AA to trigger Surge of Light.
With Moral Compass, on the other hand, you can just toss your W towards the general direction of your enemy, and let auto-searching AA procs do the work for you. Really hope next bug fix will resolve the issue with AA range though.

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