I want to start using Li-Ming.
I have never been good with mages or use them but I would like to start with Li-Ming; What advice do you give me? What are her best and worst builds? Is it worth using her in Master?
Li Ming is good at all ranks as for the builds you can give these a try also there’s not worst build or best build it depends mostly on your playstyle yes so many people dislike orb build but it’s mostly useful vs bad player’s no one tries to gank you whatsoever you just spam orbs freely
this is what i usually go.
- 1( Aether Walker removes the mana cost on your teleport + gives your missiles +10% bonus damage or Power Hungry for spell power after you get a regen globe that depends on the map mostly i wouldn’t pick power hungry in BoE map since the objective is in the middle and top and bot lane are far away from it
- 4( Triumvirate reducing your orb cooldown when you hit someone at max range pretty good or if you prefer restoring health on heroes kills then go Dominance
- 7( Calamity is very useful almost like a must pick for me dealing damage on targets by diving them with your teleport works as a great finisher as well
- 10( Wave of Force knocking back enemies / interruption and can be used to land your combos easily if you practice to knock them right towards your missiles / orb
- 13( Glass Cannon or Illusionist depends if you want more damage but get less health which is risky if you don’t play carefully else go Illusionist for teleport range which is also a good choice
- 16( Mirrorball you gain 2 addition missiles and if you land them on a squishy that will most likely RIP most of their health with an orb they’ll die requires aiming well predicting their movements etc.
- 20( Repulsion for Wave of Force range and knockback distance or Tal Rasha’s Elements but i prefer Repulsion can split the enemy from each other and get picks even easier that way i love knocking a squishy into my team with it and knocking their team far away that they can’t even save that player
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Remember what an ex hgc pro said
If you are using force armor you have bad positioning
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i have never in my life used force armor even vs any mage that can deal so much damage to me or 1 shot me with combo so i totally agree if you get hit that much as li ming then you really need to work on your positioning
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Its for those orb spamming mings who dont know how to controll their mana. Only reasonable excuse is pyro. But ive seen your profile i dont have to tell you anything
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i watched a painful game a ming went orb build with glass cannon in BoE and was blaming valla for the loss cause valla didn’t go Q build i was like how do you go orb build in that map and blame someone else other than yourself? it’s crazy
The above talent guide is really all you need. I sometimes might not get calamity and go for orb if i know enemy team will let me sit in back and orb dump them. Dont get orb talent at 16, please. Both q talents are fine or shield if you got calamity and think you need more protection.
Edit: yea probably not orb talent in master haha.
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I think your “pro advices” are rather outdated. For starters Force Armor in HGC era used to be just spell armor and nothing else. Since then they buffed Astral Presence while effectively merging it with Force Armor. Meaning it’s a go-to-talent in terms of mana management if you are on maps with lots of fights away from lanes. That’s what Astral Presence was used for and that’s what Force Armor currently does. Plus it’s your only source of spell armor as Li-Ming so while I am glad people are no longer dissing Aether Walker you should learn to respect Force Armor.
50 spell armor that can stack up to 4 uses is huge against the right comp. While it certainly has the most use for meme builds where you can bully 2-3 mages by your lonesome (so, during QM as the infamous “bruiser ming”) it can still be highly useful if you are expected to face heavy hitting abilities. What you should note that Force Armor procs against ANY instance of spell damage. Your full 4 stacks for example last for 0.75 seconds against Deathwing if you stand in fire. High-tick abilities just burn your armor. Same goes for some DoTs but poison is curiously an exception from most enemies. It seems the amount of poison damage you get is decided by the first hit. Meanwhile frickin’ Living Bomb counts as separate instances of damage and evaporates your armor. Not like Kael is capable of countering the “bruiser ming” but he at least has some counterplay against it. Too bad it doesn’t make Pyroblast any less of a joke since all it takes another Q to earn a stack and mitigate most hurt from that ult (combine it with Diamond Skin and you basically take chip damage).
Li-Ming in general is extremely versatile in builds for anything but Orb. Also for most cases Disintegrate is hard to get value out of. I mostly pick it for waveclear so I can deal with dense stacked up multi-wave pushes with mercs where the limitations of Arcane Orb show the most.
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She’s a great burst poke dmg dealer. Like most mages, she needs a setup from tanks like Anub, E.T.C. and taunt Varian.
Don’t draft her if your solo laner has a weak wave clear like Imperius and Thrall unless your other dps has a really good one like Raynor with exterminator, Valla W, Sylvanas or Lunara with Nature’s Culling and Splintered Spear. Hanamura Temple is the only map where you don’t need any of them.
She’s also weak against dive like Tracer, Zeratul, Valeera, Greymane, Illidan and Samuro. They should be weaken by your multiple pokes before committing with calamity.
She’s best for the Ana nano, race on the immortal, vs D.Va, Hammer and Junkrat.
The best mages right now are Orphea trait build and Mephisto w build, but go for Li-Ming if you’re having fun and taken into account what I’ve wrote.
Yeah, for a rather long time Li-Ming is hardly the top mage competitively. She’s picked a lot because she’s just fun to play as. Another curious fact I noticed that a lot of Genji pros used to play as Li-Ming prior to that hero’s release. The two heroes don’t have too many similarities but their overall fun factor may match.
Just a personal observation of mine.
the most important thing to remember with Li-ming is to “Never stop Not dying”
Don’t die, and keep on not dying. She even has some talents to help her not-die, so if people aren’t as familiar with playing her, it can be worthwhile to pick up some of her safety/defensive talents so they can continue on the wonderful path of not-dying.
That’s not what the defensive talents are for. While it may help as a safety net those are meant to give you a limited bulk while getting close and personal. Because as much as Li-Ming is decent at poke and could even land great damage thanks to talented up Qs, the most typical way to be impactful with her to effectively dive and land your Qs up close alongside with unloading everything else. Li-Ming is a hedgehog if hedgehogs can teleport and hurt you by even breathing the same air as you. Li-Ming can be talented up to deal significant damage with anything other than your move and mount commands.
2 things, dont go orb build and dont go orb build.
Honestly, i would start with jaina. Way steeper curve, but way better.
Lena plays Tracer among others so a hero with a mobility tool is already more attractive.
Anyways, it’s a bit late for me here so I don’t have time to write an exhaustive post about playing Li-Ming, hence I mostly limited myself to just responses.
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Blast them with the blasty end.
Don’t go Orb Build if enemy team has Iron Fist Kharazim, who can destroy you in several seconds.
All you had to say. 
this. super fun hero
Force Armor is about mana sustain. Some maps Li Ming does not have access to globes to proc Power Hungry reliably. Especially in ARAM if the enemy team is pushing in hard there might be periods where globes are very rare and once fountains are down one can end up without other mana restoration sources. With Force Armor she always has access to mana by herself.
If one wants toughness usually Aether Walker is better. Being able to spam teleport to dodge skill shots and hazards is a tone better than 50% spell armor.
Power Hungry is the ideal choice if globes will be gained regularly. This implies she is with decent wave clear and enough tanks/bruisers to collect the globes. It loses values on maps where the objective is significantly off-lane and must be contested for a lengthy period of time. In theory this will also work with Brawls, but it is very much a risk since one can end up with comps not allowing allies to grab lane globes and the globe spawners may be denied by enemies if you get pushed back too far.
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I still think orb build is better for a “I have no idea how to mage” mage. A fair bit can go wrong with calamity based Ming.