Allow me to speak for the majority of the player base when I say this, Sylvanas’ after rework is worth only playing because of Unfurling shadows and Festering wounds.
The build itself isn’t really OP but after acquiring festering wounds at lv 7 Sylvanas’ signs the contract with the devil, gaining tremendous power in exchange for her most unique escape ability.
So why is this build worth mentioning? Because it is an incredible tool of engage and at higher quest count can make Sylvanas’ the best 1v1 ranged assassin there is, with the healing talent from lv16.
But how does it get stacked up so ridiculously high? It is too easy for Sylvanas’ to stack her quest when she is the only one seeing her trait stack. So in a teamfight Tank players due to the ability’s slow start damage, tend to ignore Sylvanas’ autoattacks, giving her room to rack up damage before she gets festering wounds. And even then people forget that with one banshee scream they get full stack of banshee curse and Sylvanas’ can start leisurely stacking her quest by pressing e+w before and in the middle of teamfight.
I would like to ask the dev team to allow us to see how many stacks of banshee curse is put on us so we may be more aware before the dark lady consumes us all.
Honestly, I think Unfurling Shadows (lvl 1 infinite quest) should have a cap.
What? It is by far her best talent. It has great synergy with Unfurling Shadows and Cold Embrace. E+W+R (Wailing Arrow) combo can the wreck whole team. If you need escape you always can pick Will of the Forsaken at lvl 16.
Honestly, I’ve found better results with the slow talent at lvl 1 than with the quest but the I don’t play Sylvanas at a high enough rate or skill level to really judge.
I find Festering Wounds in addition to Unfurling Shadow clunky as hell, and I fight mainly against bots for the most part who don’t ever attempt to avoid it. The only time I have gotten a ridiculous amount of stacks with that combination is when the bots (who had TLV on their team) created a haphazard conga line several times for me to pull it off.
I personally prefer Unfurling Shadows with Lost Soul as the two, while no where as much burst as the Unfurling Shadows and Festering Wounds, offer constant pressure to the opposing team by repeatedly tossing daggers at the tank. With Cold Embrace at 13 that translates into a near 100% up time of the armor reduction.
For 1v1 Might of the Banshee Queen, Barbed Shot, and Windrunner is a good combination to hose someone down while also gaining extra mobility through the last talent which can be further pumped up with Evasive Fire at level 16.
Though, being that I play bots, those combinations I have not tested against other players. I cannot however imagine seeing Sylvanas flinging out her only escape against the more skilled players in HotS just to get extra damage. To me that is just begging for a death timer.
Bluntly, AI players need not apply. If you don’t play against humans, you simply don’t have a clue on anything when it comes to strengths weaknesses except on paper, which doesn’t work (Usually. Not always the case).
Dagger build does need nerfs, but I wonder if she’ll drop all the way down to dead last on win rate again when it does get nerfed. It’s not a matter of why but when. If you go dagger build, you are going all in with E/W, which is fine, what’s not fine is having a timer to where it’s a game of chicken between the enemy squishies and Sylvanas. Getting hit by E/W is instant death eventually, which I don’t think is okay.
Take it with a grain of salt though, since I prefer a bruiser meta compared to assassin meta, which nobody likes.
I said I mainly play against bots, I have not played against them 100% of the time. While I have only played a dozen or so games of Brawl and Quick Match, most of the time I have found I had a harder time dealing with Elite A.I than I have with players due to their near instantaneous reaction speed and dead accurate usage of skill shots. The only real differences between bots and players is I had to be far more aware of my surroundings, positioning, mini map, checking enemy talents, and picking the appropriate talents.
That all aside, it is the forums; I am allowed to give my two cents. I put the information that I play mainly against A.I out there for everyone so they can account/discount what I wrote (no need in stating the obvious). I have no illusions that I am some hidden grand master player who only needs to come out of his shell, but I am no brain-dead player either.
Because I never use my E for damage unless I’m trying to secure a kill. And it is really a convenience talent, not a buff talent. For me at least, clicking on someone 3 times is incredibly easy and reliable. Then again I’m probably close to 3000 games now with Sylvanas across three accounts so I have gotten really good at it.
Sylvanas has two very good builds, and one decent “dive” build.
This is probably the most mindless of the three builds, but is actually not good in every situation. If you are in the primary damage slot, you are generally better going an auto-attack build.
Sylvanas is very well-rounded right now. You can actually spec her differently based on what type of kill targets you have on the other team, and what type of allies you have on yours. I think she is probably the most well-rounded primary damage in the game currently. You can draft her into the ranged damage or flex slot on almost any team.
And I think if they showed stacks on everyone, it would just create UI clutter for other players.
yea, I don’t think this topic has the majority going for them
granted festering wounds a 7 is nice, esp for putting curse on non-heroic targets (btw, festering wounds applies banshee’s curse at full stacks to non-heroic targets for those than don’t know) but I do think she can get by with other talent builds (from my experience) but the current idea of the ‘infinitely stacking quest’ just makes people go coo coo for coacoa puffs if/when they play sylv and get quest-greedy.
Festering Wounds is great for clearing waves of minions quickly (especially with Unstable Poison at level 4), and to a lesser extent is useful at taking mercenary camps if Mercenary Queen has been taken. Combined with Windrunner at level 13 she comes fairly close to what she used to be when it comes to taking camps.
Apology accepted, and I apologize for being too aggressive with my response.
![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d3rakab8gpdsa3.cloudfront.net/en/heroes/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")