There’s been a good handful of topics and discussions about tanking lately so I figured I’d contribute a little bit. I’m certainly not the best Jo in the world and not the most experienced but I’ve managed to maintain a 57% winrate with her (59.8% SL) over the course of 138 games, almost entirely solo.
I’m looking to aim this guide at players who who have little experience tanking and have trouble flexing the role. Granted, Johanna is really popular so if you don’t pick her among the first two rounds then chances are someone else will grab or ban her, so try your best to recognize when you’ll probably need to be the one tanking in the first ban phase.
Feel free to ask any questions or even dispute whatever I may claim, I’m no master and there’s a lot of aspects to tanking that I might take for granted so even if you feel like it might be a dumb question it’s all for the sake of learning so no one should be judging (too hard).
Are you new to the game? New to mobas? New to competitive environments? Well if so then welcome to HotS: the game where the MMR is made up and the kills don’t matter. As a disclaimer I’m going to suggest you build more experience with healers and ranged assassins first. Starting out as a tank is like having your Dad take you out into the middle of the lake and throwing you off the boat to teach you how to swim. When playing a backliner you’ll have a slightly less stressful time trying to observe other players and take note of their approach to the game to help build your experience up.
Are you new to tanking? Or just someone who prefers to avoid it because you don’t trust teammates to do the damage?
Expanding your roster is something I universally recommend. Being adept at multiple heroes and roles will give you a stronger understanding of the overall game. All the knowledge you learn by picking up a new role can be applied to your regular favorites because now you have a better grasp of what your teammates and enemies are fully capable of and what they’re looking at.
Not to mention that flexing during draft is an important skill to have. It’s not uncommon to end up in a lobby with 4 other players who prefer the assassin role, and it’s not that rare to have multiple healer mains on the team either.
I don’t hold the belief that some people just aren’t cut out for certain roles, and if you just don’t like playing them then maybe you haven’t tried out the right hero for that role, or possibly you just had the wrong mindset/approach to using them.
The way I see it, limiting yourself to only playing a select handful of heroes is just denying yourself the opportunity to enjoy difference perspectives and improve as a player.
I hope you can find the will within to change the way you view and play the game for the better, so yes, I do think tanking is for you.
Jo is perhaps the most well rounded tank in the game. She’s capable of just about anything, yet she doesn’t suffer enough in any department to actively be called a jack-of-all-trades. Her kit is simple yet effective making her easy to utilize well and her talents are versatile enough that she can spec against any number of scenarios.
The top 5 most picked tanks right now (and pretty much since forever ago) are Muradin, Diablo, Johanna, ETC and Garrosh, not quite in that particular order.
Compared to the other 4 Johanna isn’t as hardlined for a specific play style. Muradin and Diablo benefit from an aggressive approach and are excellent dive tanks but their ability to peel for teammates is heavily reliant on the scenario. ETC is a good all-rounder as well but in my experience he takes a little more knowledge and awareness to utilize well since most of his EHP comes from the armor granted by his trait and there’s a bit of learning curve when it comes to landing good Mosh Pits. Garrosh is a very strong tank but his damage output is pathetic to say the least, so his kill capability comes entirely from your team following up on his displacement. Knowing who to throw, when to throw them, where to throw them and occasionally even how to throw them is a skill in of itself and makes Gary a unique tank in that not much you learn from playing him translates well to other heroes.
I’d say Jo very much benefits from a defensive playstyle but by no means is she incapable of going on the offense. A lot of her utility comes from being able to play both sides of the field and being able to switch from diving deep to disengaging and peeling at the drop of a hat.
Muradin is usually recommended as the starter tank because of his simplicity, but his low skill floor is deceptive for how much awareness it takes to actually be effective with him. While he is very beefy and forgiving he’s not always what your team needs, meanwhile Johanna fits very comfortably into just about any team comp. The only times I’d suggest a Muradin over Johanna is when your team is sorely lacking damage output and/or your teammates have enough tools and utility to handle themselves without needing the tank babysitting them at all times.
Something else worth noting is that Jo is pretty decent at laning. She might not be able to bully people out of lane but she has strong waveclear and plenty of defensive abilities to prevent you from getting bullied out. As long as you’re not giving away towers for free and not losing soak then that lane is secure.
Now with the intro out of the way let’s take a look at her abilities and some general tips for each of them:
Iron Skin (D)
- Activate to grant Johanna a Shield that absorbs 674 damage for 4 seconds. While this Shield is active, Johanna is Unstoppable.
- Cooldown: 25 seconds
This right here is your bread, butter and biscuit. Your meat and potatoes, the gravy and salt. Every other tank needs to use a talent tier to become Unstoppable, but you get it baseline with a shield, for 4 entire seconds even, assuming the shield isn’t broken.
If you didn’t already know, immunity to CC is often a key factor in deciding fights since it provides you the opportunity to impede the enemy without being impeded yourself. As a tank with as much CC as Johanna you become a very real presence against the enemy team when the number of ways they can remove you from the fight are drastically limited, and they’re forced to deal with you in some matter before they can take a chance at focusing your teammates. This is exactly what you want as a tank, you need be an obstacle that the enemy team cannot ignore so your damage dealers have the room to do what they do best.
Timing is key for this one. The cooldown is decently long so you don’t want to be without it at critical moments and you certainly don’t want to waste it by not taking any shield damage when it’s active. A lot of your EHP comes from the shield, so you don’t want to use it if you’re not taking damage.
Keep the enemy comp in mind when using this, if the enemy team doesn’t have any particularly dangerous CC then you can use it more liberally. Don’t think of it too much like a panic button, you don’t want to press it too soon but you certainly want to activate it before a possible stunlock.
While laning if you’re not too afraid of ganks then you can pretty much use it off cooldown to keep the enemy laners from getting damage in on you. Depending on the enemy laner it’s not an awful tactic to sit close to the towers while it’s on cooldown and go out into the lane when it’s up again, though if you’re laning with others then you want to be up in front making sure no one is going to get picked off.
Punish (Q)
- Step forward dealing 113 damage and Slowing enemies by 60% decaying over 2 seconds.
- Cooldown: 8 seconds
The “step forward” part is mostly neglible but it does give you a very, very slight amount of extra chase. Though you should be aware when using it on enemies who are running past you as that little extra step can often be just enough let them slip by you.
The arc on this ability isn’t quite a full 180°, I’d say it’s roughly 160°. While you won’t miss enemies who are perfectly adjacent to you if their hitbox is big enough you will miss some enemies who are standing slightly behind where you point it. The AoE indicator for this ability might be misleading to some people, it hits everything inside the AoE and not just in the anchor-like symbol , so don’t be afraid of the way you angle it since no one is going to slip through the gaps.
A 2 second 60% slow is not something to be underestimated, even if it decays. It’s more than enough for your teammates to set up skillshots or keep pesky melee heroes off your squishies.
For maximum effect you want to use it 2 seconds before (really, 1 second before you cast W) or just after your W, don’t waste the slow duration on someone who’s getting ministunned in the same moment. It can be tempting to just smack your keyboard when you get into the fight but learning to space out and save your CC is what’s going to make you a good tank, though there are still times when you want to just pop off and get as much damage in as possible if you think your team is capable of getting picks in that moment.
Condemn (W)
- After 1 second, Johanna pulls nearby enemies toward her, stunning them for 0.25 seconds and dealing 55 damage. Deals 200% increased damage to Minions and Mercenaries.
- Cooldown: 10 seconds
This is your waveclear and “hard” cc. Given the charge time on it there is some difficulty trying to use it to precisely interrupt abilities, so it’s generally just spammed off cooldown. While the ministun isn’t particularly significant, it can be a bit of headache when combined with the pull. It’s a very good ability for both chasing enemies and peeling them off teammates, but it really shines against groups by making you the center of the teamfight.
Combined with her Q it makes her very effective at setting up enemies for ranged AoE attacks from your backline.
I’ve found it very effective at catching healers like Anduin and Morales, because the ministun interrupts both of their Qs.
Shield Glare (E)
- Deal 59 damage to enemies and Blind them for 1.5 seconds.
- Cooldown: 12 seconds
The main reason Jo is viewed as an “anti-AA” tank by many, though I think she’s a bit overhyped in that department. Baseline, the blind is a measly 1.5 seconds and it’s her longest cooldown.
I highly suggest being very conservative with how you use this ability. It’s damage is meager and while it has decent range it’s arc isn’t as impressive. Spamming it early game can just drain your mana pool and force you to back and spamming it in teamfights can result in you having less ability to peel when you need it.
The arc can make it difficult to land on the majority of the enemy team when you want to, and even when you can chances are most of them aren’t even looking to attack so that 1.5 second blind is completely wasted. You want to use it when both teams are within autoattack range of each other and already committed to the fight so you get the maximum effect from it.
Alternatively, you save it solely for troublesome AA heroes like Tychus, Zul’jin, Cassia, Raynor, etc, etc. But you still don’t spam it, wait for when they are actively seeking a kill and overextend in hopes of finishing someone off, that way they’re now out of position but their damage is largely nullified for a moment and it gives your team the opportunity to punish them without losing too much in return. And against Tychus you usually want to wait until he pops Minigun (and dashes in) to blind him, the sound effect is pretty audible but if you’re not sure to just a look at his weapon to see if it’s glowing (red for base skin, maybe bright blueish for speedo skin). But by all means if he’s getting in some considerable damage on someone while uncontested then go ahead and blind him, minigun or not.
Ult time.
Please, please, please let’s not make this another “But Falling Sword is good” thread.
Johanna has two good ults, but for general purposes one is vastly superior to the other.
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Blessed Shield
- Deal 114 damage and Stun the first enemy hit for 1.5 seconds. Blessed Shield then bounces to 2 nearby enemies, dealing 57 damage and Stunning them for 0.75 seconds.
- Cooldown: 60 seconds
This really brings your kit together as a main tank. It’s a fast travelling skillshot with a stun.
You might whiff it a bunch while learning it but practicing it is well worth it. It’s astronomical for securing kills or interrupting enemies at key moments. You don’t need Korean levels of reaction time to stop things like Lucio’s Sound Barrier.
Try not to aim at it enemies that can dodge/phase out like Maeiv and Valla unless you’re staying aware of their cooldowns. Though you can hit an unstoppable enemy (or even a fort) just to get it to bounce to other targers.
Aside from missing/getting dodged, the singular issue with it is that the bounce might not always work in your favor. If you’ve ever played Rehgar you might have figured out that the bounce on Chain Heal travels to the closest target, so you want to heal someone on the far end of your team and have it travel across the rest instead of starting in the middle and maybe missing half of them.
However, this is an ult and a skillshot. You will rarely have the luxury of stunning a nonpriority target just to get value out of the bounce. So sometimes you just feel like you have a Muradin Q as an ult, which isn’t a bad thing.
It’s cooldown isn’t massive and you while it’s good you don’t need it for teamfights, so just use it whenever you feel like. Even if you’re just securing a single pick or saving a single teammate before a teamfight it’s well worth it.
-
Falling Sword
- Johanna leaps towards an area. While in the air, she can steer the landing location by moving.
After 2 seconds Johanna lands, dealing 210 damage to nearby enemies, Stunning them for 0.2 seconds, and Slowing them by 50% for 3 seconds. - Cooldown: 50 seconds
- Johanna leaps towards an area. While in the air, she can steer the landing location by moving.
FS isn’t the worst damage ult to have and does cover your lack of initiations/gap-closers, however it’s impact is sorely low before you get it’s 20 upgrade. I don’t agree too much with the stasis argument on it’s behalf because it’s just overlapping with you D as a protection talent.
The main reason to pick this is when your team is sorely lacking DPS sources, in which case you shouldn’t have picked Johanna to begin with.
It’s AoE stun/slow are okay but given how broadcasted the entire move is it provides the enemy team with way too much time to prepare for it.
As I said earlier Jo’s a very flexible hero and a lot of it comes from her versatile talents.
I’m not going to post a cookie cutter build because
- I don’t want to encourage the mindset that you must pick certain talents
- Many of her talents don’t rely on synergy with each other to get full value and you can freely flex at nearly every tier
Take full consideration of both team comps at the start of the game and put some thought into what talent you’re going to pick before you even reach that level. Jo’s a strong case as to why tanks have the most flexible talent trees because in my eyes she barely has any bad talents.
I’m not gonna post the specifics for each talent to save time and space but also because I can’t find anywhere to copy/paste them from. 
Level 1
Jo’s 1s are all especially good and have a vast impact on your approach to the game.
- Laws of Hope
Your general sustain talent. Pick it if you feel like your team has a weak early game and when the enemy team lacks significant burst damage.
It’s very good during the laning phase, proper use of it and your D will give you unbelievable staying power and you shouldn’t need to Hearth at all unless you’re blowing mana like crazy by spamming cooldowns.
- Hold Your Ground
Pick it against burst comps. Can also be considered her more general talent on this tier because of how universal the CDR on her trait is.
THEORETICALLY the numbers provided by improved shield and reduced cooldown on D will vastly outdo the healing you receive from Laws of Hope. But that only holds true if you’re burning through the shield each time you activate it. In practice the healing from Laws of Hope will often be more tangible, especially if you’re not keen on popping D off cooldown.
- Reinforce
People really underestimate how much damage is contributed by regular autoattacks in this game, even without dedicated AA heroes to worry about. That’s why it’s good practice for a ranged healer to get in as many attacks as possible without positioning too aggressively.
Reinforce is a flat 60 physical armor for 2 seconds. This vastly outdos the majority of block talents since it doesn’t get burned through by auto attacks from random sources or fast aa’s like from Overwatch heroes.
It’s an amazing flex against teams with 3 dedicated AA heroes. Don’t forget that tanks can be considered AA heroes, Varian and Muradin are a given, Diablo’s popular build right now is his AA one and even ETC has some decent talents for it. It’s very effective against heroes with strong but slow aa’s like Ragnaros, Deathwing and Stukov as well.
I often pick it on maps like Battlefield of Eternity where enemy teams often end up being mostly AA heroes.
Space out your ability usage to get the most out of the duration of the block, you’ll see how it turns attacks from Raynor and Valla into something barely above tickle damage. If you did take this then more liberal use of Shield Glare is allowed if only to keep up your damage prevention, but you’ll need to be more aware of how the enemy team is reacting since you’ll be down a blind for when they make a move on your backline.
Level 4
This tier is a little tricky. Sins Exposed is often viewed as the best talent on this tier but in my experience it vastly depends on your playstyle.
What I’m trying to preach with this guide is to save your E as much as possible until you learn when it’s okay to blow your cooldowns, so I don’t recommend it for lesser experienced tanks.
- Eternal Retaliation
Very strong against teams that are melee heavy, tend to clump, or have extra bodies (The CDR comes from minions and clones as well as Heroes). Being able to spam W more means you’ll get in more disruption and keep enemies clumped around you as much as possible.
It’s great for laning as well since hitting a full minion wave will return nearly half the mana spent on it and reduce the cooldown by half as well. Two W presses and a Q will almost delete an entire wave giving you a very serviceable clear time.
- Conviction
I used to dog this talent a lot but it can be very beneficial when the enemy team sports a lot of range or mobility.
It helps cover one of Jo’s few weaknesses of not having explicitly strong initiation or gap-closers. However, it doesn’t do much to help your lack of damage, so I tend to pick it more in scenarios where I’m fully confident in my teammate’s ability to secure kills.
- Sins Exposed
It can help supplement your lack of burst damage. It’s a strong talent against teams you have issues initiating against and that don’t have any prominent AA heroes you want to save your E against, but it can be a bit of a waste if the marks it applies aren’t being consumed. For it to be fully worth picking it requires a bit more planning and clever use of your E which I’m not sure a newer tank will be comfortable with.
Level 7
I consider this tier pretty central to the way you operate.
- Subdue
Getting 2 enemy heroes in one swing is no difficult task, and an 80% slow that doesn’t decay is nearly equivalent to a root except against niche things like Medivh portals and Stitches’ Shambling Horror talent. It vastly improves your ability to set up for your backline’s skillshots and helps peel against a dive heavy team when you’re usually dealing with more than one melee hero on your backline.
The quest is just a bonus, don’t think too hard about completing it early because you should always be looking to hit as many heroes with one Q as possible anyways, it’s nice to be able to complete it early but don’t risk dying or getting teammates killed over it.
- Zealous Glare
Brings the total blind duration up to 2.5 seconds, which is noticeably better. You won’t always get value out of the autoattacks on the target, though it can be very effective against bruisers like Varian, Artanis, Imperius, Sonya and so on. It’s effects vary against melee assassins like Illidan, Kerrigan and Zeratul since there’s not much telling when you’ll be able to catch them.
- Blessed Momentum
CDR is very strong and this helps a lot when against teams with strong sustain or a heavy melee presence where you’ll be getting a lot of autos in.
A big problem with it though is that you can burn through your mana long before the fight is over, so you need to take extra care with using your cooldown for maximum effect if you don’t think the fight will be ending any time soon. Note that starting fights at 40-60% mana will start to feel like a heavy punishment.
It scales really well as you get more mana to spend (or technically just starting fights at full mana since you won’t be spending so much on lanes) but it’s impact on the early game is very give/take.
Level 13
Her dps tier. This is the only tier I’m truly adamant about because the damage from both Blessed Hammer and Holy Fury are unreliable at best.
- Roar
This is what you want to take the vast majority of the time. A simple, clean damage boost to your Q which should already be hitting multiple people. Provides some nifty burst damage which you sorely lack.
Hitting 2 people is a far more reliable scenario than anything you get out of Hammer and Fury without forcing you to change the way you position or use abilities to get the full value out of them. So I consider it to be the best one for a regular “tank” attitude.
- Holy Fury
While it has the potential to deal more than Roar the chances of it happening are incredibly slim, it requires an urgent scenario like objective or capping boss where enemies will actively stay grouped around you, and you’ll need the CDR from Eternal Retaliation to keep the damage bonus up.
- Blessed Hammer
It takes multiple hits to deal more damage than Roar, and while that can happen it’s still dependent on many factors. You’ll hit nearby enemies at least twice and it can damage enemies who are running away multiple times but if they lack the awareness to avoid it then I doubt you’d have issues killing them anyways. It also has a 30 second cooldown, and requires you to hit 3 heroes with Shield Glare in order to give it a cooldown similar to your Q, and I don’t recommend spamming E until you’re more comfortable in the role.
Level 16
The usual powerspike level for most heroes, while these talents on Jo might appear plain to some they still have a big impact on the game.
- Holy Renewal
Another E talent that I personally avoid like the plague. But I will say that it’s healing adds up over time to give you some formidable sustain against ranged poke.
- Fanatism
I usually combo it with Hold Your Ground. The increased duration plays well into the increased shield to make sure you get maximum value out of each activation. The movespeed it provides is amazing for supplementing your base lack of mobility while giving you what’s often a full 6 seconds of Unstoppable.
Best used for when you need to be more aggressive.
- Imposing Presence
Have you been having trouble protecting your teammates? This is the talent to pick. The passive attack speed slow is okay for taking a little heat off you when being focused but the active is going to massively reduce the damage that dive heroes do long enough for your team to regain their bearings.
If the enemy team has strong AA but not enough for you to have picked Zealous Glare at 7 then this usually gets the job done.
Level 20
Storm Talents are major game changers and picking the wrong one can spell doom.
- Heaven’s Fury
If you took FS then you pretty much need this. Simple as that.
- Radiating Faith
A massive upgrade to say the least, turning your Muradin Q into a mini-Mosh Pit. It’s great for counter initiation against fight defining ults like Bloodlust and gives your team plenty of time to reset or just wombo them to death.
- Indestructible
Kind of a trap talent. It’s a very selfish pick and doesn’t even let you keep fighting for too long unless your have a strong healer + Laws of Hope to sustain you after the shield expires.
It has it’s uses for if the enemy team has been focusing you down like crazy all game before rolling over the rest of your team while you’re dead.
Also even up to diamond league many people don’t check talents so the enemy team will often blow some nice cooldowns trying to secure your death only to realize you’ve got yet another Get Out of Jail Free card.
- Blinded by the Light
Very good general talent. At 25% max health it shields even more than a regular storm shield.
Pick it if your teammates have trouble staying alive and the enemy team doesn’t have too many issues with straight up ignoring you.
While I’m not partial to Shield Glare dependent talents I just consider it a bonus at this level, plus in the late game you can be a bit more liberal with it since your teammates will have many more tools to protect themselves if not just outright kill dangerous enemies now without needing you to hold them by the hand.
It’s a 3 second duration so you have to time it a little carefully. Use it when the enemy team is fully committed to the fight, and don’t be too afraid of missing a few teammates with it, it’s worth it even if you’re just shielding yourself and 1 other guy as long as you’re getting the full value out of that shield.
Note: Shield Glare talents are okay, pretty good in the right scenarios, I just like giving them flak because not many people can utilize them well enough to be worth taking over her other talents.
It’s good to spam against an enemy team with low AA damage and is mostly ranged burst, it really comes together with the 16 talent though so you might feel a bit weak before that.
Now that we’ve covered Jo herself let’s talk about tanking. You are your team’s keeper, the Shepard of the flock. It’s your job to lead them to pasture and to fight off the wolves that come to prey upon them.
Your priorities change depending on comp but generally you want to focus on:
- Not dying
- seriously, don’t die
- Not letting anyone else die
- bait enemy team into dealing with you over your teammates
- use clever positioning to make yourself a good target for the enemy team while still being able to react to the more dangerous abilities and not getting caught out
- save cooldowns whenever possible so that you can peel for teammates at a moment’s notice
- Be acutely aware of all players
- never tunnel vision the enemy team
- make sure your teammates are properly following you without overly exposing themselves or clumping up
- keep an eye on teammates who run off in the middle of a fight, are they chasing an enemy or disengaging? You don’t want to continue fighting when you’re down a man if the enemy team hasn’t lost anyone yet
- after getting a pick you can be much more aggressive when picking a fight, just don’t get too overconfident and expose your team to a wombo
- Setting up enemy heroes for your allies to kill
- don’t outright abandon your team to chase kills, none of your CC matters if there’s no one following up
- be aware of the enemy team’s cooldowns, you don’t want to go all in when the enemy has defensive abilities to negate and possibly counter your team’s
Attitude
There is a lot of Body Language when it comes to tanking. How you position and move is a big sign for both your team and the enemy team on how willing you are to fight.
As a tank you need to exude the confidence that you know what engagements are best so that your team is willing to follow you whenever you pick a fight. And you don’t want the enemy team to realize that you’re scared of a fight.
This is a competitive team game, and there will often be many elements that are out of your control. The trick to tanking is making people think you have perfect control of your environment.
I’m not usually one to endorse so-called Mind Games, but attitude is a very telling factor on most players performance. I’d go as far to say that there’s even a decent amount of bullying in this game, because when either team recognizes which players are the weakest links they will actively seek to exploit that.
As tank, even in general, you should strive to never be the weakest link. It’s not impossible for your team to turn things around without you but you serve a critical role seeing as there isn’t always an off-tank or a bruiser to serve as a frontline for when you fail. Assassins are usually far too fragile to initiate fights on their own, and even if they do see an opportunity it’s very easy for the enemy team to react if you aren’t front and center dishing out CC and eating damage in place of your DPS.
If you’re too scared to start a fight the chances of your team winning are drastically diminished.
That being said you need to learn to recognize which fights are favorable or not, and when you should bide your time or when you need to force it. There’s a difference between confidence and just jumping on every enemy you see. That however is something that comes with time and experience, or else I’d need to put in a lot more effort to explain every single heroes strengths and weaknesses.
Jo herself has only a few notable weaknesses, being low burst damage and low mobility. Basically you’re much more of a meat shield than the average tank.
She excels at a defensive/passive approach, you want to bridge the gap between teams forcing the enemy team to come to you. Her counter initiation is a step above average because of her baseline Unstoppable and W’s “weakness” of needing a second to activate can often be used defensively. I’ve personally ended a bunch of Mosh Pits by activating W before the stun goes off.
That does not mean she can’t be played aggressively though. Clever positioning and proactive use of Iron Skin can easily be used to get yourself into range, and Jo is in her element when surrounded by foes, regardless of who did the initiating.
I cannot stress enough how defined you are by Iron Skin. It can be used to negate burst poke and gives you the sustain to continue playing passively, waiting for the enemy team to get frustrated enough to dive in on you even if they’re not well suited for it. As long as it’s off cooldown you getting caught out is nearly impossible unless the enemy team really lays into you with cooldowns, which is ultimately what you want since it opens a lot of room for your team to do damage. Be very mindful of it’s cooldown at all times, but never be too afraid to jump into a fight without it. Just keep in mind how hard you can go without a safety net, try to avoid going too deep if you’re uncertain about how quickly your team can secure kills.
Laning/Early game
You’re going to be playing a lot of footsies with the enemy team in the early game. You want to be in the middle ground, close enough to either dive in or turn around and peel whenever you feel like it. Being that close to the enemy team will also give them confidence they can get in damage on you, and this is where the footsies comes into play. Skillshots are usually very avoidable when at max range, enemies will be looking to get into that sweet spot of being far enough away to be safe but close enough to deal damage. You are to become a tantalizing little target for them by constantly being just outside of that range, and when they try to close the gap you press W and run at them like a bat out of hell.
And while doing this do not take more AA damage than necessary. I said it earlier but basic attacks are severely underestimated, even during laning. Ranged AAs are basically free damage against you, you can’t dodge them and as Jo you can’t punish them without going in an exposing yourself to even more danger. This is where your blind comes in, you want to use it to negate as much damage as possible, typically when you’re going to be well within an enemy’s range for the next two seconds. (Depending on rank) AA heroes tend to panic while blinded, they’ll either back off or just continue standing there attacking their target hoping for it to wear off in time for them to get some damage in.
Objectives
This is where Jo really shines for the average player. Now there is a point of interest the enemy is going to want to occupy, leaving their options of poking and kiting you around extremely limited.
When assaulting an Objective, you will be the spearhead of your team. If the enemy lacks impressive burst damage you’ll want to save your Iron Skin to disengage in case they target one of your teammates, but feel free to use it if they’re openly using cooldowns against you.
Starting fight with W gives your team a good impression that you want to get things done with a big glowy circle and prepares them to followup on anyone you happen to catch in it. Starting fights with Q is less impressionable since it comes down instantly and your team might not do anything to follow it up.
When defending Objectives I find it better to open with Q to give your teammates more time to take in the situation and create distance, then W to interrupt them from trying to get at your backline.
Power Spikes
Jo’s most impressive leaps at 7 and 10. Her 16 talents are good but not as generally impressive as most other heroes. If there’s a time to force fights it’s before both teams get to 16.
At 16 you need to be extra careful with engagements since all your talents at that tier are Defensive in nature, even Fanaticism needs you to take a few hits before you see any movement speed.
Counter/Initiation
While you might have tools to counter ranged burst, your team might not. Be very wary of getting kited around because the real danger is presented by exposing your teammates to burst. You surviving an initiation isn’t very meaningful if your team took losses trying to follow you up.
Patience is the name of the game with Jo. You want to follow the same kind of steps for laning as fighting. You dance around until the enemy thinks they can win an engagement, then you just give them a friendly reminder that you are Johanna. That or you wait for someone of them to get frustrated and overextended or blow cooldowns before diving in on them.
Buying your team a lot of time to get their own poke off is a pretty good deal if you have better range presence than the enemy team.
Again, feel free to comment or ask for clarification and any “what if’s” that come to mind.
I’ll be looking to periodically update this guide as I hash out more ideas to help newbies in my muddled brain.
I’d support that.
But still i disagree that Muradin has a low skill floor, except you say Diablo is also rather easy? Both are very aggressive tanks, it’s quite the opposite to defensive tanks as Mei and Joh.
Bro 
have 
you 
even 
seen 
that 
model 
or when they’re just a jerk/loudmouth in general over the most menial things.