Yes however you had front line advantage. Auriel does good healing if either an ally deals a lot of damage, or she is allowed to do a lot of damage. Being not the only healer you could be in front line more as well since dying will not mean a team wipe or huge ground lost. On top of this you just barely managed to out heal Andiun who also ended up dealing the most hero damage in return (somehow…) and Lucio out healed you massively. You also ended with a level advantage, so could push even harder with Auriel so her weakness was less significant.
Again, her low tier is as solo or pure healer. She is not reliable at doing that since many things like being at a disadvantage, having a poor front line or having useless/no ally damage being dealt results in her being a useless healer. It is this inconsistency/unreliability that gives her a low tier over other healers like Lucio (who out healed Auriel), Stukov or Brightwing which will always be able to give good healing no matter the situation. No other healer has such problems.
I have also won games with her as solo healer with impressive stats. However there have been some that I lost where her weaknesses really could be felt and practically any other healer would have done better. I would even say to the point that just having her as the only available healer option probably cost us the game, or at least significantly turned it into a stomp.
Aha!! So she was on par with the Tier 1 Anduin (according to the Icy Veins tier list). She had 2-nd highest damage, and was relatively close to the 1-st place (of the team). Doesn’t that make her as good as Anduin?
If you check my “must pick” list, you’ll see Lucio there too. I’m fully a were that he’s a monster in brawls. But you’ve got to admit, if Ariel was solo healer, she would’ve had higher healing numbers, since allies were keeping team topped off, and I didn’t need to use heal on cooldown, or even whenever I had max energy. There were a lot of periods where I had full energy and wasn’t using my heal, just because nobody was hurt. I even used it on 90-95% HP allies few times just to get quest stacks.
Although Ariel is really good in double healer compositions, she is a perfectly viable solo healer. She may require a good frontline, but ALL healers do.
I find her pretty reliable, and my 63,3% win rate with her in brawls is a proof of that.
I have 68,4% win rate with Rehgar, but 3 times less brawls played with him, and 65% win rate with Uther, with also 3 times less brawls.
My Lucio is sitting at 63,6%, with about 2/3 of my Auriel games (brawls).
Then comes Anduin with 59,2% win rate, and also about 5/6 of my Auriel games (brawls).
She literally my most played healer in brawls, because I find her extremely reliable there.
I could say that for Whitemate. I know that she can be pretty strong, but if I’m the one who gets to play her - I feel useless most of the time.
She is the only healer that requires a frontline or favourable comp to heal at all. All others can heal at least some what without one, even if it is less efficiently.
Example case why she is low tier: Imagine 3/5 allies dead with both yourself, Auriel, at 10% health and another ally, melee, at 10% health with a 2-3 level disadvantage and down a talent tier. How do you heal? No Hall of Storms to heal you (like in normal play so this is not an issue) and all wells destroyed or too risky. Any other healer will be able to do some healing in this situation, even if not optimal while Auriel just cannot heal at all due to no ability to deal damage at all. Where as with other healers, by the time your allies revive, you and the other person would be at 50% or higher health ready to defend, with Auriel all you can do is sit back and wait for one of the 100% allies to hopefully deal some damage to try and heal you and the other person, during which time you cannot heal them, even if you gain energy by them taking damage, since you are stuck in the hall of storms due to low health and they are having to take damage and deal damage to regenerate energy for you to heal enough to be able to leave and not be one-shotted.
Totally degenerate situation to end up in, and Auriel is pretty much the only healer that can end up in such situations. Every other healer will at most be mana constrained so might have to wait a few seconds before healing.
In the above situation Whitemane can always use her hotkey “1” healing beam to heal allies somewhat. If it is middle to late game she also has enough mana regeneration that she can spam her heal to 1 stack on allies or herself to heal, and there are talent options for even more healing. She also has an ultimate letting her engage at sub-optimal health as it both heals and grants armor. None of this requires dealing any damage to enemies and is some healing as opposed to the none Auriel can provide in that specific situation.
Of course there is an element of skill to it. I would rather take a good Auriel player over a suicidal Whitemane, but at equal skill level most people should want to take anyone but Auriel to heal if they are a solo healer since relying entirely on damage is very risky.
The situation you described is extremely rare. And I don’t mean being at a huge disadvantage, out of energy and in need to heal you team. I mean that’s it’s rare being in this situation and not being able to get energy from Q-ing a minion wave, or the enemy heroes, or giving the crown to a hero who can poke the enemy team, without risking too much.
But if you are at such disadvantage, it doesn’t really matter if you manage to heal or not. The game is pretty much lost anyways, unless you have some comeback heroes, such as Zul’Jin, or Butcher, or Gazlowe. All of which have some form of self-sustain.
A tip: Q-ing a minion wave pretty much fills your energy bar, even if it was empty beforehand. Unless you have the level 16 talent, and several stacks on it already. But if you have it, it doesn’t matter if you don’t manage to fill the bar to the brim, as you will get an even better heal than you would with filled bar, without the talent anyways.