This guide is for Sylvanas players who are familiar with how Sylvanas works and understand her kit. If you are newer to Sylvanas, or want a refresher on her kit or a beginner based guide, please check out my beginner guide listed below.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/heroes/t/sylvanas-beginner-guide/45531
I will try to go in depth on how you can use Sylvanas efficiently while also trying to keep it as short as I can. Lets begin.
Intro
First things first, lets go over some requirements to efficiently play Sylvanas:
1. Knowing Sylvanas’s Role
- Sylvanas’s role is to help deal damage in team fights but also be able to clear waves with ease. She’s also proficient in pushing because of her ability to either strengthen camps, shut down buildings or both. Just be wary of ganks. Solo laning can be easy or difficult depending on the enemy hero challenging her, the map, and your own personal skill. On two lane maps, avoid solo laning. On three lane maps, its fine.
- Her role can change from being a lane clearer/pusher, camp taker, or team fighter depending on your situation (team comp, map, state of the match) so be wary of that. I can’t possibly explain every situation and what to do in that specific situation in this guide, so use your game experience to help you there. This is only to inform readers of the role she fills as a hero and what she is good at.
2.Knowing how to Stutter step
- As an auto attack hero, stutter stepping is crucial. She relies on it to keep up with enemy heroes while chasing and while retreating. Stutter stepping also allows her to be able to deal damage without getting hit by abilities easily. It makes you more unpredictable. Or you can stand still and let them kill you, your choice.
3.Knowing how to use Haunting Wave teleport
- This is her main form of escaping and chasing. Its useful to get the hang of how it works because it helps you flee, or dive depending on what you’re using it for. Not knowing how to do this well will hinder your experience playing Sylvanas. Make sure it is something you practice because it is a great tool that is extremely worth it to learn and master.
4. Know the basics of Sylvanas
- This isn’t the beginner guide, you should have some experience with this hero if you’re reading this. If not, refer to my other guide linked above.
Sylvanas has a lot of different build variants and it is important to change these builds to fit your playstyle, because in the end what works for others might not work for you. Practice different builds as they will help you fully understand each ability’s uses and potential. It also helps you understand where certain builds and talents are useful. This next section is a general aspect of how to play Sylvanas regardless of build.
Match Walkthrough
Early game
- If you’re on a two lane map, stay with the 4 man while the bruiser soaks the other lane solo. If you’re on a 3 lane map or you don’t have a bruiser on your team, go and soak the lane right off the bat. Sometimes your team will want you middle to get a pick in that middle lane skirmish that usually happens. If this is the case go ahead and do what your team wants but if someone on your team dies or no one gets a kill before the minions reach the bottom or top lane, ditch the fight and go lane.
- If you stay with your team make sure you are positioning well and land auto attacks on heroes, preferable not minions as you aren’t laning, but fighting. Use your Q’s as heroes get in range of it and then use your W’s and auto attacks to spread damage to other enemies around or to minions. After level 4 if you took Unstable Poison, minions will die pretty easily without having to auto attack them solely because W deals damage to them and allows them to explode, damaging or clearing other minions around them. Because of this, focusing on minions is not required. Just try to use your auto attacks and abilities on enemy heroes. Mainly use auto attacks, Q, and W to deal damage. Hold your E if you can help it since it doesn’t do much damage and is mainly used for your escape. Things get rough, you teleport out.
- If you are laning, no need to push the lane right away, just clear minions and XP as safely as you can. Mostly likely there’ll be someone challenging you in lane. All you need to do is make sure you’re collecting the XP. That’s your job as a laner. Don’t automatically dive the hero who’s challenging your lane with E because then you’re susceptible to ganks or being baited. You dying defeats the purpose of laning. Just use your W on the middle minion (the one carrying the globe) and then cast Q and auto attack the target you casted W on. At level 4, your wave clearing is much better if you take Unstable Poison. Be wary of other enemies entering your lane and try to position as safe as possible, even if it means letting the enemy hero clear your minions and you wait until the enemy minions come to your gate. Alternatively, you can test your mettle and target and focus the enemy hero challenging you in lane as this will make them more cautious and allow you to maintain your ground and bully them out of the lane. Simply try Qing when they are in range and then W them and focus your auto attacks on them. If things get rough, use E to teleport out and reset/heal.
- Camps are important to take as Sylvanas because your trait allows you to do so without taking much damage. Your allies can expect this from you from time to time, so get used to it as a Sylvanas player. If your trait runs out, stutter step to avoid damage while still casting Q and W when available. Do try to take camps as soon as they become available just be wary to not allow your lane to get pushed too much meanwhile because it will make the camp not worth it. If someone can cover your lane, great. If not, you can choose to take the camp and risk getting pushed or continue covering the lane and lose out on the camp. However, later in the game you become strong enough to take the camp without losing out on XP in lane causing this to become less of an issue later on. Be aware of enemy camp steals/ganks. They happen and if they see you gone off the lane and no where to be seen on the map, chances are they’ll find you at the camp and steal it. Be careful and use the mini map.
Level 10
- Both heroic abilities are good, so honestly that comes down to preference. Ideally though, you don’t want to waste your Wailing Arrow on one single hero if you can help it unless it means they’re dead 100% or you risk the chance of not being able to use it during the next fight while accomplishing nothing. Mind Control’s CD isn’t as long so its a little bit forgiving as far as CD goes and only works on one target anyway, plus it brings them toward you if you land it and makes them easier to kill.
- At this point in the match you’re fighting a lot more and should be trying your best to focus the healer/ranged damage, but if you aren’t able to reach them, that’s okay. Keeping good positioning is a good habit to have and diving to get a healer is sometimes just not smart. If you aren’t able to focus a ranged damage or healer, just wear down their tank or whoever you can target from a somewhat safe distance. You can use your E to negate enemy stuns or roots if you time it right. For example if Diablo flips you, case E in the direction you want to go and then before he’s able to push you hit E again and it should allow you to escape. Timing is important here.
Mid to late game
- Here’s where it gets a lot more technical. Do you take camps? Do you take objective? Do you team fight? A lot of this next portion will depend on your situation. Remind yourself of Sylvanas’s capabilities and role.
- You as Sylvanas should be taking camps as often as you can, however you need to assess your situation. If your team is dying a lot and you aren’t there, camps aren’t even going to be worth it because your whole team is dead and the enemy team can clear it. Its crucial to take camps at the right time before objectives to avoid this. Doing so allows the camp to either push by itself, or it takes enemies focus off the objective. They have two options at that point, stay on objective, or clear the camp. They’ll most likely send one person to clear it and that gives you the chance to go to the objective and help your team win the 5v4. If you see all 5 enemies at objective, you can also try to push the lane with the camp you just got, but let me make myself very very clear here. If you try to push and leave your team 4v5, you risk your team being wiped and then the enemies can push with the objective and get a lot more value out of it than you and your camp will. Be aware of how strong or weak you and your push is, how strong the enemy team’s counter push is, and the state of the objective. For example if you and the enemy team are both 0/3 or 1/3 on maps like Cursed Hallow or Garden of Terror, a push with a camp might prove valuable. Sylvanas can lead some strong pushes with Mercenary Queen, but it won’t matter if the enemy wins objective and takes 3 keeps while you took one.
- During team fights, try your best to stutter step around enemy abilities to negate as much damage as possible but be sure to put focus on enemies who are CC’d or wrongly positioned. Follow up damage or either of your Ults after CC your team applied to someone is something Sylvanas excels at. Use your Ult, Q and W on the target and if they try to escape you can case E to teleport in front of them, blocking their escape and allowing you to remain in range for more basic attacks and possible Q’s to hit them. If you talented for a double E, you can escape from danger using the second teleport to retreat or continue to chase as well. Mastering the use of that ability is not something I have done, but practice makes perfect and if you have the mechanical skill to do that, it should be easy to complete a kill doing so. Remember to Q as often as you can but do not use E to dive into a stupid situation. Positioning allows Sylvanas to stay safe while dealing damage from afar. If you took the Remorseless talent, you can auto attack their tank or frontline and after they have 3 stacks of Banshee’s Curse, your auto attacks can damage others around them too. Stutter stepping allows you to stay in range of enemies and allow those auto attacks to spread more damage as well.
- Since Sylvanas can clear waves really quickly, its okay to find yourself double soaking, or just roaming and clearing lanes as you pass them. That’s something she’s good at and map pressure is important for her to maintain. Be aware of enemies on the mini map though because getting ganked is the last thing you want. Do help your team when they need you though.
Team fights
- Sylvanas has a lot of damage in her arsenal and can be very useful in team fights Use your Q and W and auto attacks to focus one target and a lot of your talent choices will determine how strong your abilities are and how to use them. For example, casting E (except when finishing a kill) when you haven’t taken Windrunner or Festering Wounds is stupid because you don’t have the benefits of those talents and just blew your escape. Its best to save your E for retreats but you daredevils will probably dive with it also. If that’s the case, good luck to you.
- Use Heroic abilities as you have opening to do so, but make sure that you also follow up on them too. Too many times I have seen Sylvanas’s use Wailing Arrow and then everyone retreats. I’ve even done it at times. Do not open the fight with Wailing Arrow. It does not stun, root, or sleep and the enemies can just walk away until the silence wears off. Wait until there is an Ult to disrupt (ETC’s Mosh Pit, Nazeebo’s Ravenous Spirit, Nova’s Triple Tap, or Anduin’s Holy Word: Salvation) or use it to keep enemies from escaping (Genji, Zeratul, Valeera, Qhira, Illidan, Tracer, Hanzo, Mei, Li Ming, Nova, Valla, Fenix, etc). It can cripple their escape and allow you to finish them off. However, heroes like Zul’jin, Butcher, Illidan and sometimes Raynor and Valla are almost unaffected by Wailing Arrow since they’re auto attack based heroes and can still keep auto attacking during silences. Mind Control would be a better heroic ability to take in that case. It also has low CD, and can cripple almost every hero as well. Mind Control is also great to use when the enemy team is retreating since it forces a hero to walk towards you. I personally prefer Mind Control since the enemy is defenseless until it expires or unless they’re cleansed by someone.
- To sum up, your main job is to land basic attacks, Q’s and W’s on a single hero to burst them down and then use your E to either chase or escape. Stutter stepping keeps you from danger while also allowing you to chase a little better. Landing Ults at the right time can mean the difference between winning a fight and losing one. Try to use Wailing Arrow to hit as many heroes as you can, allowing your team to finish them off easier or to cancel Ults. Try to use Mind Control to single out one enemy like a damage dealer or healer so that your team can take them off the board and have a higher chance of winning the fight. Just don’t Mind Control Malthael when he uses Tormented souls, unless you want to be marked by his trait.
Haunting Wave tactics
- If an enemy is chasing you and you need an escape, you can teleport over walls with your E. This works on any wall that the E can reach over. The longer you wait before casting E will determine whether or not you get over the wall. Using walls can help you get away much more efficiently than just teleporting away from them with no wall, Unless you’re being chased by a Genji, good luck.
- Another thing you can try to do is trick them. If they are chasing you, you can cast your E one direction and run the other way. If they chase your cast of E you can keep running. Just know that this won’t work if you run out of room. It does work however if Genji anticipates it and uses his dash to meet up with your wave, or if Tychus slides as well. It can take them off guard and you have time to run away and let your E reset so you can continue to escape. OR, you can cast the direction to safety, run in the other direction hoping they’ll chase you, not your wave, and then cast E again to teleport a large distance. That will work too but someone who knows what you’re doing will react to it and send a Li Ming orb at you, or teleport to you wave and you’ll have a hard time. Most of the time if your wave reaches over a wall, or a gate, you’ll be fine since you will land behind the wall when you cast E again. You can also do this perpendicularly like cast to the right, and walk upward, or whatever. You can cast in any direction and walk in any direction depending on where you are and how the terrain is, but this won’t always work. Don’t be repetitive, don’t use it the same way ever. Being unpredictable will allow you to evade them since they don’t know what you’re going to do next.
- You are unstoppable while teleporting so you can also use it to negate CC like Butcher’s stun or Xul’s root. Timing it will make you very hard to lock down and can save your life. Any CC before you begin teleporting will shorten your window to escape or leave you a sitting duck. Be sure to get the timings down because one Diablo stun combo will leave you helpless.
Video Demonstrations
I used the Try Hero mode for most of these demonstrations. They’re only being added to help you get somewhat of a visual. Real life situations are different. Targets move, damage you, and can counter you too so do try to practice and get these mechanics down before using them in real situations.
Taking camps using stutter steps, Q and W:
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AhGPw4b1FSyXmzbiior2IfJmDdL9?e=2aumZP
Talents Used:
Black Arrows (Trait)
You can do this at any level. Higher the level, the quicker taking camps will be.
This is to demonstrate how to take camps while taking no damage and minimizing mana use. E ability not needed unless you’re teleporting through a wall to access the camp quicker.
Windrunner talent diving and retreating with E
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AhGPw4b1FSyXmzRc4gW9rTT-5Keb?e=8SvQQw
Talents used:
Level 13: Windrunner
Windrunner allows you to cast E a second time. Just note that you cannot cast it again if you did not teleport during the first cast of E. Q resets when teleporting so spam that as much as you can. This takes practice.
This is just to demonstrate how to dive and retreat using your double E. This will allow you to dive into the enemy team with a ticket out. I personally do not recommend against Uther, Brightwing, or anyone with heavy CC. You’ll dive, then get CC’d to death. And don’t dive teams. Dive 1 or 2 enemy heroes max. Any more than that and you’re asking for trouble, but you do you.
Chasing with double E
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AhGPw4b1FSyXmzOng_49ObUgW51I?e=iyfRcL
Talents used:
Level 13: Windrunner
Windrunner allows you to cast E a second time. Just note that you cannot cast it again if you did not teleport during the first cast of E. Q resets when teleporting so spam that as much as you can. This takes practice.
This is just to demonstrate how to chase using your double E. You can dive with a single E, but a double E allows you to chase farther. It is used exactly the same way as you would if you retreated but instead of aiming the second E to a safe area, simply cast your E in the direction the enemy is heading. I casted upwards, but you can cast in any direction. I wouldn’t chase when other enemies are close because you can find yourself easily outnumbered and it won’t be worth it. Judge for yourself though.
I added stutter steps in the video but if you can’t auto attack the target, just chase them again with E until you can.
Remorseless talent and stutter stepping in team fights
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AhGPw4b1FSyXmzX5JBpvsePdWfu2?e=becuxG
Talents used:
Level 1: Might of the Banshee Queen
Level 13: Remorseless
Might of the Banshee Queen allows for quicker auto attacks and more spell damage. Remorseless is used to damage another enemy farther away.
This is just to demonstrate how auto attacking one hero can damage another farther away. Combining this with your other abilities like Q’s and W’s can help you deal more damage, even to farther away enemies.
please forgive my miss clicks when stutter stepping…
Sylvanas team fight potential
https://1drv.ms/v/s!AhGPw4b1FSyXmmyYtnd-Ibkw0yFW
To be honest this is horrible Sylvanas play but somehow I was able to finish off 4 of them. I did a lot of things stupidly like not stutter step when Cassia used Fend and other times I retreated when there were potions available only steps away. This isn’t to show off extremely good Sylvanas gameplay because to be honest its crappy as heck and I’m just waiting for other forum members to call me out on it, but it does show the difference between an objective taken and an objective lost and in what situations soaking isn’t important. I was not pushing, had no map pressure and my team was 4v5. The right call was exactly what I did. After some nagging from my teammates we, together, almost wiped the enemy team and secured the objective. Had I kept soaking, like some people do, the results would have not been the same. I’m not trying to show off, because that gameplay is not something to show off, but it was the only available clip I had of Sylvanas in a team fight. I lost the clip that was previously in my Beginner Guide.
Last Thoughts
Sylvanas is a great and fun hero to learn because of how versatile she is. She’s able to adapt to many situations and the better mechanical skills you have, the better you will be with her. This didn’t seem too much like a Sylvanas guide since a lot of things talked about here can apply to many other heroes as well, but because of the role Sylvanas plays, things like soaking lanes, taking camps, and pushing forts are important for people to do when they play her because her kit allows her to do all of it fairly easily. She is great in team fights as well as long as she can land auto attacks, but that’s no different than other auto attack heroes. This guide was supposed to demonstrate her strengths and how to effective take advantage of them. Once you get all of this down, the next step is just practice and improving.
I hope this guide helped someone out there get better at Sylvanas. That’s the whole point of me writing it. Practice will help you be better in anything you put your time in. If anyone has any other input, feel free to share it, but do so in a constructive way. I probably missed things and any additional input can help others learn Sylvanas.