Greeting, fellow players.
I create this thread to introduce you guys some other ways to play and handling Tyrael.
Especially outside the draft mode.
Despite there’re rarely hard CC in his tools to manipulate the direction of a fight/enemy team, still understanding the big picture enough and using his tools wisely he can be the tank you’ve never perceived him to be, and might be enjoyable to play with/as one.
Your questions and opinions are always welcome, so feel free to make one or two or more whenever you guys prefer.
I’m gonna write 2 mainly major parts, builds and my opinion on every single talent and some little bit of tips here and there, let me cut to the chase and start with the builds part first.
Builds
Well, despite I use the word “build” I don’t really mean it to be an absolute way to represent each way of plays, picking just a talent differently doesn’t mean your build is “wrong”, please do “tailor” your talents to suit each of your match, I just wanna share my often used picks, that’s all.
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Brusier & sustain build
T:332(F)133 for fully dedicated build to be an off-lane & tank/ bruiser, nice assaulting/dueling and stalling/holding an area.
T:232(F)133 for less dedicated on yourself and more for your ally.
*(F) stands for flexible.
Replay*
[Match Details | 42892957 | Heroes Profile](https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=4152616&battletag=InPhantoM®ion=1&replayID=42892957) 2nd build
[Match Details | 43356717 | Heroes Profile](https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=4152616&battletag=InPhantoM®ion=1&replayID=43356717) 2nd build
[Match Details | 42893019 | Heroes Profile](https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=4152616&battletag=InPhantoM®ion=1&replayID=42893019) 2nd build
[Match Details | 43139080 | Heroes Profile](https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=4152616&battletag=InPhantoM®ion=1&replayID=43139080) 2nd build
[Match Details | 43138739 | Heroes Profile](https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=4152616&battletag=InPhantoM®ion=1&replayID=43138739) 1st build
[Match Details | 43125807 | Heroes Profile](https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=4152616&battletag=InPhantoM®ion=1&replayID=43125807) 1st build
[Match Details | 42892992 | Heroes Profile](https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=4152616&battletag=InPhantoM®ion=1&replayID=42892992) 1st build, rare occasion even for me, Tyrael vs Tyrael, exact same build.
Tanking idea for the build: hit hard on the front, even harder on the back, in and out, back and forth, be significant threat(?) everywhere.
As I briefly described above, playing this way you focus on enhance yourself to be that dangerous to the point enemy always keep their eyes on you rather than your allies, so you capitalize on that to manipulate the direction and attention in a fight.
With this build, you have both decent sustain and damage, so evaluate enemy and keep seeking for potential best target at a time and pressure on that one, use your double Q with TSOJ talent for multiple purposes consist of
- Baiting and bamboozling enemy abilities to waste on you, making them less ready to fight afterward.
- Diving to harass or kill enemy backline while be able to reposition to support your team/replenish yourself.
- Juking and dodging incoming hostile abilities.
- Zoning and fending enemy off of an area to make it harder for enemy to regroup and support each other or reveal them beforehand to cause them hesitate to enter your area.
Notice: This style really depends on how well you move around and position yourself, be mindful that it’ll be hard for your team to support and even understand you properly, so do communicate with them beforehand if they’re not your regulars to play with.
- Speed & support build
T:233(F)133 Speed & Slash, enhance your ally with speed buff while you also rush to slash and sustain yourself.
T:233(F)12(F) This still function as a support and be versatile as extra damage, wave & camp clear and useful to expose stealth heroes.
*(F) stands for flexible.
[Match Details | 42893004 | Heroes Profile](https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=4152616&battletag=InPhantoM®ion=1&replayID=42893004)
[Match Details | 43390967 | Heroes Profile](https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=4152616&battletag=InPhantoM®ion=1&replayID=43390967)
[Match Details | 43207462 | Heroes Profile](https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=4152616&battletag=InPhantoM®ion=1&replayID=43207462)
[Match Details | 43307509 | Heroes Profile](https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=4152616&battletag=InPhantoM®ion=1&replayID=43307509)
[Match Details | 43207472 | Heroes Profile](https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=4152616&battletag=InPhantoM®ion=1&replayID=43207472)
[Match Details | 43207450 | Heroes Profile](https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=4152616&battletag=InPhantoM®ion=1&replayID=43207450)
[Match Details | 43090798 | Heroes Profile](https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=4152616&battletag=InPhantoM®ion=1&replayID=43090798)
This style of play make you stay around your team more often, you still have to dive into enemy occasionally but less often compare to the previous build, focus to grant speed buff to your team for their advance and retreat, while attack & sustain yourself do keep monitoring the flow of battle, should you call to retreat or advance, be careful on your mana usage as well since you need to Smite quite often.
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Burst and blow up build
T:1111321 blow them up and hope for instant follow up or get blown away yourself.
T:2111331 adjusted to be more team fight oriented, still as risky as above build… for yourself of course.
Replay*
It’s a tragedy that I rarely try it despite I think of it since his rework, the ones I tried didn’t look to be good enough examples as well, so it’s kinda make this less credential to call a build but still I wanna present it, who knows one may be successful with this and enjoy it!
This style is quite hard to execute properly due to how conditional it is, it should be considered viable when you have kinda fragile but high dmg output heroes that can’t fight side by side with you, if you consider it’s ineffective/almost impossible to protect your team in most fights, then you may try to throw away your shield and sharpen your sword witn everything you got, cast W to get buff from ally bodies, charging in and burst your targets with E-Q-AA and expect for swiftly follow up to get a kill then try to win fight after you outnumber enemy.
Talent tier
Tier1: it’s all about who you wanna sustain.
Summary
- Salvation(W): the least useful one imho, the extra shield seems nice on the paper, but in the same time it opposes the healing part of the talent coz if your shield is not destroyed then you receive no heal, so as off-lane which mostly 1v1 environment your shield is less likely to be destroyed, thus you don’t get full value of the talent, in TF your 4 allies get less shield and it’s not worth it even you got all dmg on you, even worse if enemy ignore you and aim your team instead.
Moreover, it kinda forces you to use your W to protect&sustain yourself more than to save it for your allies, thus makes it more complicate on your CD and mana management.
Simple improvement I would suggest is remove the condition of shield must be destroyed, so the talent feels more consistent and reliable, his healing is medicore at best and he can’t cast it too often in a short duration anyway.
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Justice for All(W): the best one as a tank to pick, tbh the extra shield is not grand but surprisingly it’s enough to cope up with many incoming dmg to your allies, save my team from last shots, Consume soul, Pyroblast, DoT, etc. countless of times, it’s the delicacy of winning by have 1more point sort of, you barely see the obvious different but it’s enough when you do it right, only downside is you simply get “nothing” to yourself at this tier
////////////// - Ardent Restoration(Passive): Another delicacy of winning more by small amount, but honestly it’s not that small, the quest is indefinite, and can be use only AA to activate, abilities also activate it but you don’t have to.
If you’re secondary tank/off lane, this talent is recommended, manoeuvre your hero well and you can just keep tickle your opponent in a lane with only AA and use W once in a while for mitigate incoming dmg and let your sustain gradually create more and more of HP advantage, also protection your wave to ensure little win more of advancement in your lane, at mid to late game your sustain is gonna be quite high to withstand in a prolonged TF and keep you alive long enough to turn the table.
Tier4: What is the best way to make yourself stay alive longer?
Summary
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Stalwart Angel(Q): grant you armour, more toughness, simple to understand, easiest to get value, generally must pick for being a full solo tank, especially in draft mode.
////////////// - Bound by Law(Q): give you some sustain and lock down capability, imho the least useful one on the tier, his Q has 12secs CD, throwing it out each time should prioritize on how you position yourself to the fullest, not for obtain a fraction of your HP, 3% of his max HP per enemy is not worth his CD and mess of repositioning, if you want to make it worths, then at least 3 enemies should got hit and how often that happens? Especially at the right moment in a messy TF?
Even as a lockdown aspect, the impact is so little compare to its previous version which add more slow from 25% to 35%, many heroes now either has movement speed ability or be able to dash/blink, so any slow from 25% to lower is imho, considered to be just minor slow, among tanks, Tyrael has the slowest slow in the baseline ability, other tanks has at least 30% of slow and can talent to make them even slower, minor slow doesn’t make target so struggle to dodge skill shot, even running away.
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- Divine Vigor(E): My favorite one, the talent itself may feel underwhelming choice to pick, but its true potential shine when combine with later talents, so if you won’t get burst so fast in TF, this can be an appealing choice since most of the time you gotta AA.
Tier 7: It’s time to be more aggressive, but who and how?
Summary
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Reciprocate(w): the least favorite of mine, despite the AOE, the number is not impressive for 9 secs CD, it may be if it ignores armor but it’s not. it’s somewhat conditional coz it requires your shield to be destroyed or expired, thus more reliable than his Salvation on tier1, it’s still useful as extra dmg in fights, clearing wave and merc.
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Purge Evil(E): My go to 90% of the time, gotta pair this with Divine Vigor on tier 4 to make the most of it because in order to stay in fights longer you need to be able to sustain yourself, you’re now have potential to severe enemy team discreetly, you need another talent on tier 16 to unlock its true potential (or ask a grandma to inject you a shot
), before that you may need to place your Smite well to get worth value out of the talent.
////////////// - Swift Retribution(E): The famous and renowned iconic ability of Tyrael, percieved as the best talent on the tier, it’s truly versatile talent but the best? it depends on match you’re in, the first 2 talents of the tier enhance yourself to be useful, this one shift the power to the team, thus if your team performance is…meh, then you’ll lost significant part of your power thorough out the match, so observe and evaluate your team honestly before pick this tier.
Tier 10: the heroics, well there shouldn’t be any thing to talk about, pick what you need , in fact there are but I’ll let you guys ask about it and start from there then.
Tier 13: let’s the tactic begins!
Summary
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The Sword of Justice(Q): A versatile tool, also my go to 95% of the time, for repositioning, baiting out attack/abilities, scouting, dismounting, stalling, evading/dodging abilities and so on, this is the only talent on the tier that synergy with all talents on Tier 16, it’s not easy to use this talent properly, I can give example of it all day, so do try it and come back for any inquiry you may have.
///////// - Holy ground(Q): Another unique & iconic ability, speaking of Tyrael speaking of Holy Ground, almost always must pick to build him as a full tank, especially in draft mode(coz this is one of the reason you pick him for), area blocking, stealing camps and boss, split and isolate target for your team, everyone knows this, the only downside is you’d better make sure of your destination, despite the blocked area around you, it doesn’t stop range and some long range melee attack toward you, that’s why 25 armor on tier 4 is needed.
A tip from me, this talent is a bane against Valeera, due to her so short of attack range(it’s just 1, dagger range ) Holy Ground area is beyond that, thus it makes her target immediately out of her range, AA and also abilities, perfect to peel your ally with it if you aim your Q to place at the center of your ally.
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- Law and order(E&W): the last talent for his W, still conditional, to get its value constantly, you’re encouraged to stay near your team, so you can W as many and also Smite as many.
Well, there’s a mysterious about this talent, even I still don’t know for sure that what is the maximum stack of body counting for the buff?, for example at lv.18 you deal 730dmg a Smite if you W 4 ally bodies, in the past I got more stack than that coz those clones of Nova and Samuro also counted, extra bodies of Chen, Misha and Rexxar and so on.
The question is, is there be a max stack?, if there is, then it should be 10 stacks as E build is, but if there’s no max stack, we can draft heroes to make 12 bodies at once to gain 12 stacks for the highest output, build Tyrael with Burst & blow up build as I suggest above and start the deadly charge combo , but perhaps it’s too much of preparation and effort to do just that.
Tier 16: Improve your tools or unlock true potential of some talents.
Summary
- Horadric Reforging(Q): the one I pick the least but it doesn’t mean it’s bad, this talent do synergy with previous Q talents, you improve the consistency to benefit from Q talents that you pick due to you’re now be able to use your Q more often, more repositioning, body locking, more last shot, more healing & armor& Holy ground if talents picked.
Moreover since recent adjustment of this talent, you can make double Holy Ground if you can time it right but you need either atk speed buff on Tier 7 or Storm talent one at 20.
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Burning Halo(Q): most synergy with TSOJ on previous tier, it gives you extra spell damage to anti the blind like effect (Blind and Evade), reveal stealth heroes and hidden object such as Chromie trap, Abby mines and Zag Creep Tumors, useful to clear wave & mercs, push lanes and disrupt obj channeling from enemy, another versatile choice to take.
//////// - Smite the Wicked(E): This is the least useful if you don’t pick the previous synergy talents with it, it’s the crucial talent for E build and can be used with Law and Order on previous tier.
With E build(at least Purge Evil on tier 7 is a must pick), this talent shorten his CD on his Smite (as long as Q still active and 2 seconds more after his last teleporting) to be able to stack more from the later cast, the maximum stack is 10 stacks,
‘’’’’‘Special thanks to a forum poster, mr. lucifer who correct my misunderstanding last year in my previous thread’’’’’’
if you can achieve more than 3 stacks, then your AA starts to hit like a truck and could be a train higher than 6 stacks, TSOJ is the talent to help you gain stack easier coz it maintains the activation of your Q to the longest, if you need to reposition from reasons your Q is still there activating thus you can continue to gain stack with your E. without TSOJ you need to leave your Q on the floor and have to reactivate it at the last moment to ensure the higher stack than 6 which limit your movement a lot
Storm talent
Summary
I’ll skip the upgrade ultis, it’s simple to understand, still any inquiry is welcome later.
- Seal of El’Druin(Passive): if you don’t need your ulti upgrade, then I recommend this option, it boosts your AA but your previous talents that has AA as a part of their condition also get benefit as well, and it makes your E build to be very fun and ferocious at this point.
- Defense of the Angel(1): 50 armor that can be extend for 0.5 secs longer each AA you hit, to me I seldom take it due to my play style is more on the aggressive side, I rather pick ulti upgrade over this talent.
So, is it a bad talent?, definitely not but compare to other choices, it just less appeal to pick, most ppl pick 25 armor at tier 4 already, this make it a bit excessive to pick, the extend duration part seems easy on the paper but it’s rare to have enemy in your range trade punch with you so you can keep extending the duration of the armor, even if they do it’s almost impossible that you don’t get some CCs to make it harder for you to AA properly, you can get stunned, slowed and they walk away as stutter step, dash to maintain their distance with you, so you can at least expect 4 secs at minimum duration.
but the main reason to make it less appeal to pick due to the impact from it compare to the other 3, the other talents have potential to create some opportunity to turn the table, this one offer just your survival, you alone thus it makes this choice to be the least favorite imho.