Opinions on Auriel?

General Discussion
1

I really feel like her talent diversity is lacking. her level 1, 4, 10, 16, and 20, are basically always going to be searing light, repeated offense, crystal aegis, resevoir of hope, and shield of hope. while levels 7 and 13 do have more diversity in their picks the clear favorites still seem to be energized cord and then blinding flash.

I really feel that she ought to have more builds but reservoir of hope and shield of hope are both at the very least so strong as to be nearly un-skippable and thus searing light which boosts your ability to get reservoir stacks by a lot is also essentially un-skippable. She is a fun hero to play though which is why I think its such a shame she has no viable alternative builds.

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2

That sounds like a you issue.

  • Damage and CDR on Q are way more valuable then Searing Light, especially with the added bonuses (blind/pull/decreasesing magic armor).
  • Resurrection can at least sometimes be useful (though i agree Aegis it is 90% of the time)
  • Will of Heaven and Wrath of Heaven are at least as good as Reservoir (see above).
  • Aegis Upgrade is great if you have one target in specific to protect and it´s not your entire team going low (usually).
  • In case you got a game where Resurrect is actually an option, the upgrade is silly as it makes it available very often. I agree that the flight is not very useful, should be a baseline maybe on long cooldown.
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3

Strong but awkward to play with and personally I think she is somewhat boring. I just hate when the party can’t read the cue to group up so as a solo player I find it frustrating that my healing numbers are often only half of what they could be with minimal effort from others.

Basically an Ana or Kharazim problem but you have so much less utility and unlike either of them you have literally no chance at dueling an opponent. Instead you just have a large area, mediocre strength minion sweep.

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4

She hath a Q build against AA (lvl 1 cd + lvl 7 long range + blind lvl 13) and 3 melee(without range), an E build against 3 melee and a W build against Tracer type divers (1 talent) + agaisnt burst (16’s talent stacks). The main problem is in the stacks at level 16, which have no alternative, the rest of the talents in this tier are worse and need to be up.

P.s. Something needs to be done with the tier where empathy is located, too. Everything else is just worse. For example, I would add additional magic damage from AA ( as Cromie or Li Min have) after using a spell, and I would add several charges to 3th talent.

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5

She feels a design/rework iteration behind most healers imo.

  • a number of healers have had cleanse/like tools added to their kits and she remains about the only one without any options. I’m not counting crystal aegis here so don’t @ me for that.
  • she has the fewest tools for saving an ally (piano play)
  • she’s arguably the most ‘locked in’ on talent design, but can’t talent certain synergies (eg. can’t take ‘converging force’ for an E build since that competes with piercing lash and defeats the point of setting up wombo by herself for E stuns)
  • The above stands out since most heroes where built away from relying on others for certain combos and talent triggers.
  • both heroics mostly do ‘the same thing’ for focusing on a single ally while other healers have single/aoe or defensive/offensive options.
  • her different builds don’t really play differently
  • she can’t really talent to overcome some of her weaknesses (ie, no energy on respawn)

Players tend to fixate on character having ‘3’ builds since 3 talents tend to be offered on most tiers – this doesn’t align with the dev dream of ‘many’ builds where there are incentives to take any talent regardless of previous picks. While Auriel is noted for her Q and W builds, regardless of talents, her effective range and ability combos remain the same. (q, w, & e comboes all hit about the same area and range, so regardless of build, her replay moments of team wombo all look the same)

Combine that with the above outlined issues, and she’s mostly been regulated to a particular niche where she’s played. Outside of that, she tends to feel clunky and reinforces some of the image of her being a ‘winmore’ pick for premades that take particular heroes with her.

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Unfortunately Auriel is horsesh*t tier since ages. She needs a rework because there is barely anything the hero provides which isn’t provided much more reliable by other heroes. The way the revive level 10 talent works doesn’t fit into a team fight moba. In which world can you revive somebody by standing still for x seconds, plus the fight is most likely already over by then.

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7

Baseline flight is a brand new hero.

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8

I remember an old clip, where an enemy core was near death, somewhere around 2-4%. Everyone on the team was dead. Auriel respawned, used flight from across the map, and won the game. Got mvp, and everyone on both teams voted for her. Can’t argue with a god tier play like that.

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9

You’re not completely wrong, but it would make her a second healer with a global, so perhaps that would slow the Dev’s nerfing of Brightwing’s level 1 Hyper Shift talent.

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10

baseline flight is falstad lol

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11

That’s true but, for the sake of the discussion I think it’s a intriguing idea. It would give her a new playstyle, new tool to get into position quicker.

Also, she floats and have wings… come on now… Why cant an angel fly? :innocent: :smile:

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12

Besides the fact that it happens once evey 6 years :slight_smile:

Falstad doesn’t heal. But yeah, it was kind of lazy that it’s pretty much Falstad’s flight, delay, travel time and everything.

Auriel has very little to give value to a Global though.

Then Tyrael and Imperius should have flight too. And on them it would actually matter.

13

If Auriel ever lost Searing Light and Reservoir of Hope in all their synergy she’d become unplayable for me. I need those to enable the kinda play I need outta my Supports*, Violent Support. :smiley:

Ironically the feelings above likely fuel the OP’s point. :stuck_out_tongue:

I love her L20 Angelic Flight. Gaining Global Movement always feels huge to me. It enables pseudo Brightwing-like Saves, gives her an escape if the incoming danger is seen coming in time (Those Respawn Timers get pretty big in the late Post-L20 Game…), and if she goes down, she can use it to rejoin the fight much faster after Respawning. (Useful if Angelic Flight was caught on Cooldown, but thankfully its CD is still tickin down while ya wait to Respawn!)

Also I always opt for Crystal Aegis over Rez, partially cause Crystal Aegis is the more violent option and partially cause I feel like most times ‘preventing the death’ > ‘trying to undo it after it happens’.

My Auriel Spec:

L1: Searing Light

L4: Majestic Span (Partially to synergy with L13 Talent Pick, partially to use to try to catch more things in my ‘energy fishing net’.)

L7: Energized Cord (I don’t like having to RELY on Globe Pickup. Energized Cord is with me always thus way better imho.)

L10: Crystal Aegis

L13: Blinding Flash (Always useful and synergies with L4 Talent, but especially fun to use to torment the likes of Illidan, Valla, and such. For maximum fun, luck into having allies with ya that also have blinds while lucking into a AA heavy enemy team! :stuck_out_tongue: )

L16: Reservoir of Hope (I so go outta my way to W only with full Energy after this gets online to make my Heals and Nukes as fat and huge as possible. This is where playing Auriel over other Healers gets interesting for me!)

L20: Angelic Flight (I could totally see changing this to Baseline while working as is but its CD significantly increased then the L20 Upgrade reduces its CD to what it is now + buffs its range from what it is to Global so she takes off anywhere to land anywhere.)

*Before my long hiatus, i’d been playing since long before ‘Support’ got broken up into the separate Healer/Support Designations and I never figured out how to mentally adapt and Healers and Supports in this game will always feel like ‘Support’ to me…

1 Like
14

Had no idea poor auriel was so misunderstood!

I wouldn’t say she sucks outside her niche, shes just kinda average. She’s great in straight up fights but tends to stall out a bit against to much poke. Her damage is pretty high for a healer and her CC can be very dangerous.

I agree her talents could use some work but I wouldn’t say shes railroaded in to 1 or 2 builds. Shes one of those heroes where you take the talent you need rather then picking a build and sticking to it.
She does have a lot of talents that just don’t really do anything. All of her 4s, Converging Force, angelic flight, Resurrect and its 20 upgrade.
Rez and flight in particular could really use some help. Rez and aegis do basically the same thing so one will very often stand out as the better option. Its probably to late for this but id like to just see an entirely new ult but still offer Rez as a stand alone level 20 talent.
With flight, it just comes way to late. Make it a 13 talent. Having it come earlier is all it needs I think.

Shes also got a strange power curve where she pretty strong right at the beginning of the game with her great level 1s.
Righteous Assault is completely insane if you can survive being near the front line for an extended period of time. Imo this can be some of the best level 1 damage in the game, even among assassins if your consistently hitting 2-3 heroes.
Searing light is a “does everything” talent that scales very well and helps her maintain energy when getting close enough to Q is to dangerous. The talent also lets you solo clear waves if you unheal the wave, then Q. W first will give you the most energy back.

She falls off in the mid game unless there’s something super important to cleanse with aegis.
Her level 4 and 7 talents dont really do much to make her much stronger, just feel better to play.
If you took the quest at 1 then your mid game is a little better but still not great.

Then shes got a really really strong late game with the 16 quest of course but Wrath of Heaven is deceptively strong aswell.
If you took Righteous Assault at 1 then Blinding Flash becomes a near permanent blind which can auto win some matchups and piercing lash can make her hard to approach.
Then, Shield of Hope at 20 is just a reeeally good talent.

2 Likes
15

It would change things for sure, but it fits her and is (most of the time) a dead talent on that tier at least.

Her Lvl.4s are all impactful.

Converging force is actually pretty strong, especially with the CDR. It´s effectively constant harassment in terms of positioning.

Yes, but only if your entire team is prone to damage, if one target manages to concentrate the damage on itself, Aegies Upgrade is superior.

3 Likes
16

I’m kinda indifferent on her but that is a combination of lack of playtime and being a lurker in the A.I ballpit. When I do play her though, I generally have a good time, but I usually go for the Icy-Veins builds.

1 Like
17

Generally like her, but I do find her a bit more dependent on comps and how good your allies are. If you don’t have a good energy battery on allies and they won’t clump, your healing is going to be lacking. If the enemy team has a lot of siege, then your ability to generate energy is also limited because all your abilities and AA will be out of range. But I guess those are more QM related problems due to random comps.

There is an annoying thing about her late game when minions are pushed on either side and you have no reliable way to fill up your energy before a big fight. Running back or respawning can be a real pain because you’re already coming in with your back foot.

2 Likes
18

its not a me issue.

her 7 most popular builds from the last major patch for all gamemodes and regions from heroesprofile are almost the same they all use searing light at 1 repeated offense at 4 crystal aegis at 10 and resevoir of hope at 16 and 6 out of 7 take shield of hope you pretty even splits for her 7 and 13 but thats it 5 of her 7 tiers are overwhelmingly locked into a single choice across millions of played games.

Will and wrath of heaven literally cannot compete with resevoir of hopes insane boost to auriels healing output. their pickrates are at 15% or so each and they both have a lower winrate than resevoir. Its just better in most situations. as is all the other talents except her level 20 which aside from angelic flight having an oddly high win rate which given its very low pick rate over all suggest its taken as bm when your already in an overwhelming position. but level 20’s all have fairly even win rates otherwise.

2 Likes
19

I dislike Auriel only because I primarily play in two methods

  1. in groups with players much weaker than myself (my friends, as much as I love them, are about as casual as you can get. I think only one of them would be above bronze at all)
  2. solo q

Between those two things, I prefer characters with far more personal agency in the match, and as far as healers go, that’s usually characters with strong CC/damage/utility. Characters like Rehgar, Whitemane, or even Lucio are far more preferable to Auriel or Deckard for my playstyle and in my situation.

Not to say there’s anything wrong with Auriel, though I think maybe Searing Light should just be made baseline.

4 Likes
20

Underestimate the usefulness of Global Range at your own risk. :wink:

I can’t help but to wonder if the combo of L4 Majestic Span and L13 Blinding Flash is woefully underestimated. Though I cannot be totally sure, i’ve always operated on the assumption that the Majestic Span expanding of Attack Outer Radius would also grant an increase of size of Attack Inner Radius which is what Blinding Flash puts to use. Also I still think being able to make wider Sacred Sweeps gives more Enemies hit then would be other wise which can only be good for more Energy Farming.