Q build is more of an “anti-fat” build. Which isn’t really why you pick li ming. Usually if you are playing her, you want to go E build
That really depends on how confident you are with your Q’s, if they have lucio/tyrael (or any other source of consistent speed boost) and the amount of cc your own team has. When I play ming, lucio is the first ban always.
The main reason Q build outshines E build so much is the siege damage it produces. Obviously Q build is the only correct choice for BoE (minus some specific situations).
E build is good, but it’s so heavily overplayed that I don’t even bother to wonder why ming is sitting at such bad winrate overall. Not to mention that most ppl who play only E build never even bother to up their Q accuracy to at least 50%+ (no matter the build, Q is still ming’s main source of brute damage). Ppl get ming vs jaina-arthas-garrosh and then still go E build. And then they wonder why they are in 1 of 2 situations: 1) constantly dead; 2) damage lower than healer’s.
Lately my absolute favorite build is the “aa-Q build”:
aether walker-Q-Q-X-canoneer-mirrorball-tal rasha (sometimes R)
canoneer always has to be at 3 stacks when going into fight (stacked for free with aether).
Obviously it loses effectiveness not only vs high mobility but vs blinds too.
It’s also really hard not to take aether walker when you get used to it. The reliable free mana cost was what made that talent finally consistently good. Cooldown is great for mobility, but free cost is what allows for much more liberable use for dodging damage (which can be as simple as making puny a tower shot disappear). I’ve tried E build with aether, but the usefulness of the talent there is really questionable (you don’t use your finisher/main damage source for dodging abilities, so it’s not used enough to justify free mana cost); against some heroes it is quite possible to continually do damage and maintain cooldown reduction for extended time, but that’s hard work (1 tiny hit and the benefit is lost till end of fight). It is fun to move faster than mounted with the lvl13 E talent tho.
P.S. lvl16 fireflies is a great tech choice vs highly mobile teams, but it really diminishes the value of resets.
She has clear strengths and weaknesses.
She’s the strongest sieging/poke champ in the game, only rivaled by Hanzo, and she is far more bursty than Hanzo when she builds for it.
In turn, because she can poke/siege from much longer range than KT/Jaina, she lacks their aoe/waveclear and CC. It’s a tradeoff for her safety.
Clearly the people complaining about how weak she is didn’t play this game when she was released. It’s really not fun to be in a game with a champion who does KT/Jaina levels of damage from a galaxy away and who has a blink to boot which is actually rather effective with a strong frontline.
You generally will see the opposite, with the Orb fired first via a moderately quick finger roll from W to Q. Arcane Orb has the slower flight trajectory, and many got used to opening with it as a way to confirm multiple Missiles hits when Ming had the talent Ess of Johan.
Stay flexible and utilitarian with your skillshots, particularly when clearing lanes, and there’s no reason not to send your Q and W to different locations; take potshots at towers with either spell whenever it’s available and there’s no better target around. But the WQ firing order is still a good muscle memory to develop during hero engagements, as in a full combo you’ll want all your damage to land at the same moment during windows of allied CC and enemy cooldowns.
I usually always played, and build Li Ming as a poke sustain. As i feel that is her safest play (solo qm)
With that said, Jania, and KT have a crazy burst kit that can almost nuke a tank. And what is the best defense? Deleting the other team before they can react
Out of the 3, ming actually has the most single target burst (Q build, obviously) and lowest cooldowns (not counting Jaina with icy veins active). Ming’s definitely the best tank-buster of the 3, if you don’t have a real one (e.g., tychus).
Quick question.
Is randomly throwing the ORB is the best way to play her?
Thats definitly not true. Li Ming can realy strugle against tanks, most of then can avoid or mitigate her skill shots, or just tank the damage, so it does not hit targets with less heath. Anubarak with his bugs and spell armor is particulary effective against her.
Kael and Jaina have aoe spells that cant be blocked by positioning.
Li-ming burst people if someone dies and she gets her resets. Jaina with a well placed ring of frost or lvl 20 water elemental can burst a entire team

She is also one of the best anubarak counters in the game, completely denying him Cocoon value with Disintegrate. “Anub counters ming” is a pretty big misconception.
Anub is a good counter to LiMing because he has a spell armor shield and beetles. If he positions correctly he doesn’t even have to attack LiMing, he can just block and eat up her damage, almost nullifying her during a fight.
LiMing can remove his Cocoon pretty fast if she is able to channel Disintegrate, that’s true. Still, would you pick LiMing because the enemy team has Anub? There are other heroes who can destroy a Coccon pretty fast (Tassadar/Zarya/Tychus), the only thing LiMIng has going for her is a bit more range to do so.
Is Anub completely countered just because someone has to use his heroic to destroy a Coccon?^^

LiMing can remove his Cocoon pretty fast if she is able to channel Disintegrate, that’s true. Still, would you pick LiMing because the enemy team has Anub? There are other heroes who can destroy a Coccon pretty fast (Tassadar/Zarya/Tychus), the only thing LiMIng has going for her is a bit more range to do so.
They have 4 attack speed. Disintegrate ticks 16 times in a second. She can shred a cocoon in 1.6 seconds, more than twice as fast as Zarya or Tass who take 4 seconds to do so. That 2.4 seconds makes a big difference when your rehgar is cocooned unable to ancestral, or in other similar scenarios.
Additionally, Li-Ming is a generally more desirable hero to put on your team than the other heroes you mentioned, who are all relatively niche.

Anub is a good counter to LiMing because he has a spell armor shield and beetles. If he positions correctly he doesn’t even have to attack LiMing, he can just block and eat up her damage, almost nullifying her during a fight.
Beetles can be an annoyance, but li-ming players have found ways to play around it. She is played against him frequently at tournament level, so I don’t think you could consider her “nullified.”

Li Ming can realy strugle against tanks, most of then can avoid or mitigate her skill shots, or just tank the damage
I replied to a comment about KT and Jaina damage to tanks themselves, not tank’s ability to protect others:

With that said, Jania, and KT have a crazy burst kit that can almost nuke a tank.
Out of the 3 Ming IS the best way to kill the tank consistently (again, not counting icy veins jaina with RoF put on that tank).

Anub is a good counter to LiMing because he has a spell armor shield and beetles.
It’s the other way around. Ming is counter to Anub because she denies the only reason Anub is picked - the web. With lazer ming around, web gets max ~1-2 seconds of disable on it’s target, depending on reaction time of ming (e.g., if she saw the web blast skillshot itself or reacted a bit late to the web already present). Lazer has enormous range and the cast time is instant.
If anub picks locusts, it’s already a win, since any other tank would have been better in that case. Most of them even don’t do that (they wait max until lvl12 and then still pick the web, which is immediately followed by ming speccing lazer). It’s just ming’s own fault if she picks the lazer too early (anub needs his ult waaay more than ming does, so if neither pick it, again - it’s ming’s win).
lol, no.
Have you seen her trait, bro?

I replied to a comment about KT and Jaina damage to tanks themselves, not tank’s ability to protect others:
Wich i also dont agree, i think both Jaina and Kael can do more against not just the tanks but against the enemy team
Mage vs 1 tank is a very simple and specific situation. There’s nothing to not agree with, Ming has the numbers on her side.
The situation did not include multiple opponent targets (which is Jaina and KT’s specialty). Ming is a single target mage and she does that job very well.
If we rank the 3 mages by their effectiveness/specialty from single target to multi-target, it would look like this:
Single-------------------------------------------------------------------------------multi
Ming - minigun jaina (with elemental) - KT - shotgun jaina (with RoF)
So yeah, of course shotgun jaina is better vs the whole clumped up team, but that doesn’t mean she can compete with ming vs 1 target.
There’s a mage and build for each situation.
P.S. Minigun is Q build with icy veins; shotgun is E build with icy veins.
Again, i disagree.
Li-Ming do not have the numbers. If you are talking about orb build, good luck doing that bonus damage against an oponent that is allways in close range with you.
If you are using teleport build then you will be able to do a decent duel against a tank, but if there are no hero kills there is no reseting to your spells and your damage will be sub par, Jaina with ice lance will shot a lot more, with her slow keeping the enemy at bay. Jaina has easyer time hitting enemies with any of her spells, if you want more survival you can take ice barrier and no tank will be able to kill you.
Jaina and Li-ming are my most played heroes, and i would NEVER take Li-ming over Jaina against any warrior in this game

Is randomly throwing the ORB is the best way to play her?
If this is a genuine question then I think you should play other heroes.
This is a genuine question.
you forgot how ming has much less defensive besides being at range. Also, much less reliable combos to land, and how she NEEDS to get a kill to continue POKING
Compared to the other two wizards mentioned, especially considering much more reliable burst, ming is definitely a step down
Sure she can be good in certain circumstances.
But imo you are better off putting time in to learn pretty much any other mage lol.