I want to learn mommy dragon and be really good at it.
So far I like going Q build most of the time but I fail to maintain my health and keep everyone in check.
Also when is W/E build ever good?
3 Likes
Good decision, she is quite awesome.
Well, thats the catch on a build that technically allows infinite healing. The best tip i can give is to play it safe and not go Q-build in case they have good dive or poke.
Getting the positioning right might be a bit challenging at first, especially if the regular heroes are more upfront, but it is worth it.
The first thing about W is to know who you are with and what against. If they have many AoEs use your W as a sustain tool similar to a mobile. Casing it directly under your frontline can be ok if either the only way to keep them alive or if they control the enemy so they can not do too much (or their AoEs are already used). Otherwise putting it anywhere they can reach is usually a bad idea.
The main difference between W and Q is fast single target healing vs longer CD burst heals. In the latter case your team needs to be able to not go down too easy in between, either by controling the enemy, having damage reduction or sustain of their own. In the former case AoEs are your enemy because they damage many targets and possibly yourself, while you could use W during their AoE is not available to negate the damage.
The first thing to know about E is to not go E. I have seen people make it work under the right circumstances – close standing enemy comp with preferable not too much early game damage – but that is rare.
Even though i would discourage going E, once you have figured out how far you can go you should see to use E often. As long as you hit it is essentially permanent slow and additional damage for no cost.
3 Likes
I don’t have much time to make a long post but I’d like to say, E+Dragon build is a fantastic late-game build. You’ll be able to carry teamfights post-20, but you have to keep in mind it’s not a build that shines before level 10 (when Cleansing Flame greatly increases Dragonqueen uptime).
Another thing to keep in mind when going E build is that you’re the healer, so you must prioritize healing your allies before finishing your quest - and not put yourself at risk for juicy DQ cooldown reduction. It was something I often forgot as an E-build newbie, but it’s now my go-to build in most of my games, except if my team is already really strong in late game and I’d like to balance power levels a bit to make the run go more smoothly and allow my team to at least reach late game. In this case, I tend to go Q build. I’ll explain how to use the E build in a later post (cause it’s a noticeable shift in playstyle) if nobody outspeeds me while I live my life elsewhere 
1 Like
I play a lot of W build alex.
Its ofcourse good with heroes that have infinite regen like kt and stitches.
But with a diablo who has devils due its also super. ( I mainly pick it for myself because I dont want to run out of mana, and because I really spam my E so I dont need to worry about my health)
I pick it it when they have a lot of poke dmg.
Why with a lot of poke? Because I wont have to worry to stay above 75%
Just spam E on a target, your range is long. It refunds mana. Pick the fattest target who is there and spam it. I also go with the lvl 4 slow when I pick W build.
Save your W when there is more then hero to heal, and they will love you because you always have 1 ready, and deploy them defensive.
There is a notparadox alex heal combo so I wont have to explain that.
Life binder is the same as ancestral
3 Likes
Good choice. I play Allie all the time, she’s very fun to play. Since the others already talked about her builds, I’m just gonna leave some tips for her trait.
- Keep it for important teamfights/the objective. It is too good of a trait to just use it for a single person getting ganked, since it can turn around a teamfight on its own
- When you turn into dragon or back into human form, you enter a form of stasis for like half a second, you will be invulnerable during this time and remove all negative effects. Hard to really time it… but I sometimes got lucky and survived a Pyroblast because of it
- Auto attacks during Dragonqueen heal your teammates, so position yourself that you can both damage the enemies while also healing your team
- Her Cleansing Fire Ult is instant during Dragonqueen
- If you don’t take the lvl 16 upgrade for Dragonqueen, you will only be able to get out one W because of its long cooldown. However while you are in the air during Cleansing Flame, Dragonqueens duration is paused but not the cooldowns. So you can actually drop another W when you land
- Before you activate your trait, make sure you used all your heals. Anything can happen during the cast time
4 Likes
Try to stay in the backline even if you see the Life Blossoms (or what’s the flower provided by the Q talent at 7 is called).
Don’t set W where you team is, place it where they’ll be 3 seconds later (be it in front of them when you push forward or behind them when you guys retreat).
Keep Dragonform for objectives mostly.
If you go Dragon form CF has no windup time.
If you picked CF, don’t forget to place a Dragon W before you use it so you can have it twice which is otherwise impossible (CF pauses Dragonform but not its cd-s).
Try to hit allies with your breath as well when you AA in traitmode, because it heals them.
And imo, E build is the best for QM and learning.
2 Likes
Seeing is better than telling i guess, so here a recent replay with W-build including some mistakes. The replay thread should have some more with W and Q builds.
Now i am really curious how you do it, as whenever i see someone pick it is a 90% loss due to lack of early game healing, and even late game when they finish the quest.
2 Likes
My first 12-13 lvls were pure E build in QM with 55-57% wr.
With it, you can pop Dragon Queen basically whenever you want, and you can keep yourself high hp with the least fear of the enemy diving you successfully thanks to the lvl 4 extra slow and lvl 7 10%hp/Hero from every E.
If you can’t be focused, you heal more and oh boi at lategame when Dragon AA applies your humanform E :3
Sounds good, but as said my experience with anybody using E build is the exacat opposite. Nobody gets healed, Alex dies anyways, Dragon just gets erased the second it popps.
Any trick that helps make it work?
I think they’re doing something wrong 
Hmm… I don’t know if I did anything else specifically other than what I said earlier.
don’t pick Alex against Junkrat and Kael’Thas. There is nothing more i can teach you.
2 Likes
Well, i guess i will try around with E build a litle in QM and see for myself.
The replay i linked is funnily enough against a Kael … and we won with me healing about double the amount of their Lucio.
Good luck!!!
And as I’m thinking more and more about it:
- I just tried to hit as many ppl as I could with my E so they can’t move as freely and I’m constantly healed so I can use my Qs without worrying.
- I placed my Ws where even my counters couldn’t reach them or where they wouldn’t because my allies are not there yet (but will, motivating them to “go-go, push forward, it’ll be alrigth, momma dragon gots your back”)
- Well timed DragonQueens to force a fight or a retreat to secure objective and if they tried to focus me down CF to escape (and if they tried to get away at low hp)
But I have to say, I usually play Healers rather aggressively.
- She has percentage healing so pick her with high health comps.
- Put your healing circles safely
- Well, play safe with her in general - your health is very valuable resource
1 Like
Three games, three losses. I don´t think thats the builds fault though, rather a psychic MM that feels one is trying something new and provides the most terrible teammates.
Got the quest completed rather fast each time and will use it a bit more often, Q and W will probably stay my favourite builds though.
2 Likes
I am soon gonna hit level 90 with Alexstrasza and played like a total of 4 or 5 matches with E Build lol. It just ain’t for me.
I think W build is the best starter build.
Because the thing you need to focus on most is placing your W and maintaining your cooldown on W D and R
3 Likes
You’re obviously going to get a lot of people saying to never go for an E build. I’m here to tell you they’re all wrong. All of her E talents are utility based, not damage. The CDR on dragon queen, debatably the strongest trait in the game, is sooo good at lvl 1. However, I don’t actually pick it. Almost ever. Why is that? Well, I play a “hybrid” Alex. Let me break it down for you.
Lvl 1: Live and Let Live
The CDR in her Q while at high health is very good. Especially early game where you’re going to suffer when healing regardless of talents until lvl 7. We’ll come back to this in a bit
Lvl 4: Heat Exhaustion
You could pick anything here really, but since we’re gonna need to get good at landing those double flame buffets anyway, a 60% slow is insane.
Lvl 7: Fire Within
This is where the magic happens. Hitting a burning enemy with flame buffet heals you for 10% of your max health. This allows you to stay above the 75% threshold for Live and Let Live much more reliably than Lifeblossom. I don’t hate lifeblossom, but as soon as someone sneezes on you, and it’s always allergy season in the nexus, you lose the ability to spawn flowers. You should never solely rely on your W to top you off. It’s the most telegraphed heal in the game and your team is going to need it more than you.
By constantly slowing and healing off of the enemy team, you’re a Q spamming machine. These two talents pair so well together I rarely go for a typical Q build these days. Anyway, back to the rest of the talents.
10: Cleansing Flame
I"ll add a Life-Binder variant at the end
13: Life Unbound
It’s a good spot burst of healing, with the added benefit of damaging any enemy around your target. Sadly can’t be used on yourself. I almost always take this talent, unless I absolutely need Pacify more.
16: Draconic Discipline
Dragonqueen is an insane trait. Always buff its duration. The only other talent I’d consider is Tough Love, but I’ve taken it maybe two or three times since I started playing her.
20: On Ruby Wings
Free Dragonqueen for calling down cleansing fire on your allies and enemies a mere 8 times? Yes please. You can use this at the end of your current DQ to extend it for another full duration, or use it to get DQ during a fight without burning your high cost trait and saving it for later.
But what if you want to go Life-Binder? It is the superior Ancestral Healing after all. Of course it’s weakened by healing reductions, but that’s a weakness every healer has to worry about. So obviously you’re going to take LB at 10. The only other talent change to the above build is at 20, where instead of picking up Ritual of Life (just don’t ever take it) we’ll be taking Ancient Flame. This makes it so her AA while in dragon mama form applies flame buffet. You know, the thing with the 60% slow and 10% self heal for every enemy hero hit.
Pop DQ in a team fight and you are nothing short of a god. Dragon auto attacks already hurt, but now nobody can escape your wrath, or kill you for that matter. You heal it all back up too fast. With the extended duration from the lvl 16 talent, the fight will be over before it expires.
Some LB tips. Unlike AH, there’s a HoT that’s applies to both you and your target before the big heal goes off. If the hero in the pair with the higher health isn’t quite at max hp yet, the HoT can help them get to that point before the big heal brings the other partner in the pair up to that % of health as well. I’ve worded it in such a weird way because while Alex should mostly use it to bring an ally from the brink of death, it can also be used on a full(ish) health teammate to bring up your own hp should the need rise.
Lastly, some Cleansing Flame tips. Always make sure to hit multiple heroic targets with the ability. You also don’t have to use the ability for its damage and healing. While I wouldn’t recommend doing this unless absolutely necessary once the upgrade is picked, you can use CF as a pseudo global. The range of CF is reset after each hit (of which there’s 5 before you land) so you can use this to quickly return to a teamfight, or fly away to safety if the entire enemy team is about to skin you alive.
Any other questions I’ll be happy to answer, unless it’s about a W build. I refuse to severely gimp my team and play W build.
2 Likes
Thanks for the tips everyone! I will put these into good use for sure. 
WARNING LONG POST!!
Alex is one of my most played healer and my most enjoyable hero. I hope this novel will help you. 
Firstly, Alex is map dependent healer. You want to pick her on a map, where you can have Dragonqueen available for every objective. Her best map is by far Infernal Shrines due to timers and size of the objective, but she is also good on Volskaya and I like to pick her even on Sky Temple and Braxis.
Secondly, this is the reason why I like her so much: She is the most defensive healer in the game, mainly because she is the only healer who can’t immediately heal herself (even Ana and BW can, even though BW needs a talent and some practice). When You play her you try to take as little damage as possible, because every dmg taken reduced your healing (I have games with more than 200K healing done and just 10K dmg taken). My play stile is: stay back, heal, watch the minimap to avoid flankers, more heal, dodge everything I can, even more heal…
Som tips to her kit:
-
Positioning is the key in mastering Alex.
-
Don’t put W where teammates currently are, put it where they will be in 3 seconds.
-
Always use Dragonqueen only in teamfights, it is a waste to use it just to save someone out of position.
-
Dragonqueen resets W cooldown, always try to use it in WDW combo (untalented version heals everyone for 50% Hp!!).
-
Keep in mind W has 3 seconds delay, you have to use it before enemies blow their abilities, not after, for example if you play against Jana with Ring of Frost you have to predict when she casts it and use the combo right before.
-
Always remember you are a healer, especially when you use E. I saw many players who forget to heal or they overextended and die. Focusing on doing damage with E may work in QM, but as soon as you meet experienced players it will be useless. E is great utility tool, but you have more important job to do.
-
When objective is up watch the minimap. You want to be (or enter objective) directly on the opposite side of objective as enemies. For example: On Infernal top shine. If enemies play on the right side of the battleground they will enter the shrine from bottom right side. Ideally you want to hide in bushes on left top corner. They can’t reach you and you cast WDW combo from there.
Don’t overestimate Dragonqueen. It is very strong, but also your hitbox is huge! You can tank with it, but you aren’t Rambo!
Builds
Alex has 3 builds - Q,W and (I will discuss why I don’t like mixed builds later). All her builds are defined by lvl 1 and lvl 7 talents. Generally you want to pick both talents together, their synergy is great. I play mostly Q and W builds, I barely touch E build.
- Q build
Really god build, even though I personally prefer W. Positioning and dodging are the best worlds how to describe this build. You must run around, heal, collect Lifeblosoms and don’t take dmg. because you bet everything on one card. Either you are above 75% and you can heal forever, or zo are under and you are useless. My advice is to pick Exuberance, it will make dodging much easier.
Tips:
-
LBs are important, but your life is even more. You don’t have to collect each one of them!
-
Always try to be at 100% HP with Lifeblossom collected, even if it means to randomly heal someone who is missing just 5 HP and then using W on yourself (LB lasts indefinitely). The reason is that this allows you to use 2Qs, not collect following 2 LB and you still don’t lose talent bonuses (You will cast first Q and because you have LB it wouldn’t cost you anything, so you will remain at 100% HP. Then you will cast second Q which will sacrifice your HP, but you still will be over 75HP, so you will still have lvl 1 cd reduction. Additionally, even third Q will still create LB, even though casting 3rd Q will get you below 75%HP!). In this scenario you should be at max Q range and ideally you and your teammate should both try to run away from them.
W build
This build is super strong on Infernal. It has great synergy with all heroes with regen globe quests or talents (Ming, Kale, Stitches…).
So when should you pick which build?
Well, it mostly depends on your and enemy team! If you have more mobile team go Q. if you play with good Guldan, also prefer Q (it gives him infinite mana). If enemies don’t have many AoE go W.
E build
I barely pick this one, because Q and W are much better. Additionally, there are some serious potential bad habits connected with E buitd, you can sometimes forgot to heal, which is actually quite common in QM Alex mains…
I already mentioned on which map Alex is strong. I think lvl 1 E talent was created to make Alex useful on maps with more frequent objectives (like Cursed Hollow of Garden…) by allowing you to use Dragonqueen more often. The problem is you have n However, there is one major problem: There is no guarantee that you will have available Dragonqueen for every objective. What if it won’t be available for the most important one (like when on Cursed Hollow both teams have score 2/3)? Do you want to risk it in Storm League?
This means you have to sacrifice very strong lvl 1 and 7 talents only to become a monster at lvl 20. Plenty of games end much earlier. Additionally, even at lvl 20 it isn’t a free win (enemies can just walk away till Dragonqueen ends, they can still CC and kill you if they have enough skills and burst).
Mixed builds
Combining Q and W talents is bad. If you go Live and Let Live (Q lvl 1) and Verdant Flourish (W lvl 7) you will actually heal less, because you will sacrifice more HP with more frequent Qs, but 30% bonus healing with W every 14 seconds can’t compensate that. Circle of Life (W lvl 1) and Lifeblossom (Q lvl 7) have no synergy.
I see it is very strong, but situational. It could be very good on Infernal, but W build is better there. On Volskaya or Other maps, objectives are bigger so enemies can easily get out of E range.
-
Lifeblossom requires only skill
-
Your mixed QE build requires skill and enemy hero and I can see a problem there.
LB gives you infinite healing all the time. You can here before teamfight, after the teamfight, while taking camp, while travelling from one lane to another, hen all enemies are dead…
On the other hand your QE build gives you infinite healing only if enemy hero is nearby. It can be great in a teamfight, but as I mentioned earlier, ideally you want to be in Dragon form every teamfight. What if you play with good enemies who know how to dodge (you can dodge E even if you are slowed), but most importantly what if you play against players who don’t fight all the time, players who don’t initiate pointless skirmishes?
Other talents
1. Lvl 4
-
All talents are viable!!!
-
If you need more movement speed (when you face shillshot heavy team) or if you want to feel safer pick Exuberance.
-
If melee heroes need more movement speed pick Surge of Vitality.
-
When your team needs more CC pick Heat Exhaustion. As other people mentioned it can be good in E or mixed builds. I don’t play them so I can’t say. However, in my games I don’t pick it very often.
2. Lvl 10 - Ultimates
-
Life Bander is ma way to go. After all its buffs it is really strong and it has really short CD.
-
Cleansing Flame is also very strong, but it has much longer CD. You need to make sure you can hit multiple heroes with it. It is good if enemies have AoE CC (Like Malf and Deckard, you it in addition with WDW combo) but the most important thing is while using Cleansing Flame, your CDs doesn’t stop! This ult allows you to cast second W during Dragonqueen, it is good at prolonged teamfights (Cleansing Flame is 9,25 seconds long and Dragonqueen baseline lasts 15 seconds, while Preservation has 16 secodns CD).
3. Lvl 13
-
I usually go Pacify. It is great at securing kills and it helps against divers like Zera or Genji. If you know how to position yourself it can also destroy burst mages.
-
Life Unbound is situational. Keep in mind, the target must have at least 2547 HP to allow Life Unbound heal more than Q. It can be good with multiple high HP teammates. Its dmg radius is 3,5, so ideally you need AoE CC tank.
-
Dragon Scales is total trash!
4. Lvl 16
-
Draconic Discipline is obviously the best choice here.
-
Tough Love is also good, but why wouldn’t you want to be longer in dragon form? It used to be better before armor changes. It is good addition to Q, but it has no chance to compete with more armor oriented healers like BW or Uther.
-
Overprotective sounds good on paper, more protection against burst. However I can’t imagine a single situation when this would be better than longer Dragonqueen. I think good WDW combo is enough.
5. Lvl 20
-
Both ult upgrades are viable and very strong.
-
Blessing of the Red is very good if your team has good diver or more squishy heroes. Good Tracer or Valla with 500 more HP can be unkillable. Sometimes people are mad because it is always 500 HP, it doesn’t scale. However, you have to look at it as 500 regenerative shields with infinite duration. It would be super broken with standard 4% lvl scaling (1095Hp at lvl 20).
-
Others mentioned Ancient Flame turns E build Alex into a monster. However I don’t play her that way and I already mentioned my arguments, why I disagree with this statement.
I really hope you didn’t fall asleep while reading this long novel. 
4 Likes