Consider the following QM comps in Volskaya Foundry:
My team:
Enemy team:
All else being equal:
Really curious to see what people think. Thanks in advance.
QM is a wild place with players of very mixed skillset. I would ask MMR range but to be honest unless it’s on the very top it makes no difference in this scenario.
Team 1 has a more “balanced” comp, as far as a comp without tanks or proper frontlines could be. They have decent distribution of AA and spell damage, beefier front, better dive and still have a nuke mage. If they play optimally they should be favored.
Team 2 on the other hand has a bunch of mages versus a team without easy answers to that. If the enemy team doesn’t dive them they should chew down team 1. In addition they have Greymane and Li-Ming, both who can thrive in this frontliner free environment.
Team 1 has the better composition but Team 2 has more options for solo carry. Another funny thing is armor on both Cassia and Greymane. This negates some of the benefits of even having Uther as a healer. Also Uther can be both good against dives and supportive of blowup comps.
After a bit of deliberation I’d prefer the chances of Team 2 because I’m a bit skeptical of an entire QM team doing well while the possibility of a good player on Team 2’s side carrying is a fair bit larger.
Remember son: if enemy team first picks Genji - pick Uther to destroy him. But make sure your frontline (main tank and bruiser) will have some sustain. Plus - go Q quest at 1 lvl, it will be easier for you to act like solo heal with Uther.
I can’t say something about Uther’s team without seeing an enemy one.
This is an Utherly mirror match I’m afraid.
I’m sorry that this wasn’t clear: the comps given fought each other in Volskaya.
Uthers were in both teams?
Yes, that is correct.
Team A Uther:
Team B Uther:
I think Team A has the upper hand.
Hanzo is harder to dodge than Ming.
Lunara’s dot is easier to apply than Guldan’s and more consistent (hard for Uther to heal).
Cassia op.
Jaina best mage, hard to kill.
But this is on paper, anyone can screw up 
Thank you for your response.
I was Team A Uther. I briefly considered W build because I knew there would be a tonne of incoming AoE damage. But I reasoned that if my allies were good at positioning, then they would not be clustering and might even be out of range. I decided on E build, to try and help in the front line (such as it was).
However, it quickly became apparent that we were badly out-gunned. I ended up morphing into the following, which is close to your suggestion:
https://www.icy-veins.com/heroes/talent-calculator/uther#51.1!3131311
Notes:
Team B Uther went with the following:
https://www.icy-veins.com/heroes/talent-calculator/uther#51.1!3122233
It is pretty obvious who knew that he was on the defensive, and who knew that he was on the offensive. But to be honest, he did not get much use out of his build in terms of stun-locking anyway. He could not get that close very often!
We lost pretty badly. Gul’dan and Kael melted waves so there was nothing between us and Orb Ming in the lanes. In team fights, the long range and spread of Gul’dan and Orb Ming wreaked havoc; if Greymane did manage to dive or Uther to stun, then it was immediately 4v5. My allies frequently jumped (Hanzo, Lunara) out of my range. I died once, and only got one heal off as I tried to chase a fleeing Lunara.
My mistakes, on watching the replay:
Moreover, this is the build I would have gone in retrospect:
https://www.icy-veins.com/heroes/talent-calculator/uther#51.1!1131331
Though I completed my E quest, it was not much use. The increased range on Q would have been invaluable, especially with Benediction (damn you, mis-click!).
I was abused pretty badly for my healing numbers throughout the game. By the end I had logged 45k versus 70k for the other Uther. But I watched the replay, so that I could learn what he was doing so much better. He was not a better Uther.
He simply used his heals on cool down, out of combat, and frequently had to tap/hearth. This didn’t end up mattering because his team killed mine so quickly. I bet that if you added in my shielding, it would be more like 60k+ to 70k.
Side rant: Blizzard really needs to add a damage prevented (i.e., shielding) stat. Not enough players understand how Uther works, and it can actually be damaging to a team’s morale when they look at healing numbers alone.
This. Giant numbers in the stats bar can kill morale so much. That said there is always hope in dire situations. I won’t go into too much detail, The map was Sky Temple, we couldn’t hold an OBJ to save our lives. The enemy team; Varian, Butcher, Kharazim, Kael’Thas, and Anub’Arak, It was meant to crush someone in Ranked or some jazz. My Team; Nazeebo, Murky, Auriel, Ragnaros, and Xul… before his rework, QM was a fickle beast to us, we got not a single kill to the enemy teams 24 or so, the butcher was Phat, but boi did we push and push and push, we suicide bombed by the end of it. We threw our corpses at the core and failed successfully.
Team one I want CDR to gun out fast heals and armor uptime. Team two I I probably want number ampage because Greymane is going to need to dive hard on KT/Li burst, so we’re going to need me to help Greymane seize windows of opportunity.
I’d probably do storm on 1 for the hard control chain with Hanzo and Jaina plus Ball memes on Cass. Team 2, shield for Greymane.
That said I pick Uther into premades. As a pug healer goes I far prefer BW or Anduin (trying to practice better pull out game) since their panic buttons tend to be a bit more oomph. Defo not a main so I may be off the mark here. It’s also been a while since I played Uther.
I am having a terrible time with Uther in QM. My gut tells me I am unlucky: getting stuck with players who pick so, so many stupid fights. Like, I will literally save them and they will run back in with a thread of health and die. But I am honestly starting to wonder if I am just really bad at Uther. My win rate with every other healer that I play in QM is higher than the average on Heroes Profile – in a couple of cases, much higher – yet for Uther it is much lower. I struggle very hard with deciding on build in any given match, and also with being more aggressive. Oh, well. Just more practice, I guess.
Uther is a hard healer to play. His skill floor as a solo healer is pretty high. You need to learn how to draft him, how to talent him, and when to blow your cooldowns. I wouldn’t worry too much about winrate.
Many genji mains play the hero really well but have him at a 40% winrate. In qm alot of my main heroes have lower winrates.
I pretty much always go Silver Touch and Holy Shock.
Against Lunara or Kael’Thas you can have it completed extremely quickly.
Taking a Ming Orb at point blank with armor up does 101 damage to you, which you self heal with a free shock to the enemy.
As opposed to dodging the Orb and letting an ally take a full sized one for 405 damage, which you don’t even fully heal with Q, and the cooldown will be double because you didn’t Shock.
This is why I consider Shock pretty much invaluable for tanking.
Hand of Protection against Jaina’s team (more slows than stuns), Armor of Faith against KT.
Against Greymane and possible Calamity Ming, Divine Storm.
Against Jaina and Lunara’s slows with a Greymane ally, probably Divine Shield.
I usually find Well Met to be better than Spell Shield, because with Holy Shock I have 25 armor near constantly.
You could take it and save it for Pyroblast I guess, if he uses it on you.
Beacon of Light if I’m actually able to intercept a good amount of damage up to that point. Benediction otherwise.
At 20 I always just upgrade the heroic.
I just don’t see you getting that many autos in, Hammer Of Lightbringer and Persuit of Justice just don’t make sense to me unless you’re fighting like 3 melee and/or have a second healer.
The problem is Uther is more of a window than a door healer. Lemme cover that.
Door healer is Morales. Hooks up, now your plays are enabled until she stops. She can pump more to boost that, but ultimately she’s provided a longer term, lesser payout playstyle.
Window healer is Uther. He waits for the opportunity then bam; he can keep an uptime of 4sec’s worth of armor, drastically enabling plays or disabling opponent’s. It happens faster too; unlike seeing Morales or Li Li stick in, Uther can veritably be doing anything else, whip around and dump his heal and buff, and then away he goes to whatever.
Another thing, though, is that Uther also benefits from dying. When he dies, his healing capabilities increase. There’s the implication of eating burst to do your job better, soaking cooldowns for your allies, and of course suddenly enabling far riskier plays. And that’s a handful of seconds they can’t even so much as silence those heals. Don’t turn into Leoric, but do factor in that you may just benefit from baiting the enemy into blowing an ult or two.
Like I said, I play Uther in premades, because it’s basically an “okay, now I’m gonna dive” button. And in a teamfight, I go and soak up the heat, die, and then my buddies-- usually a combo of Zeratul and Valeera in this example-- can fly in with both armor uptime and heals, as well as some of the danger allayed with enemy cooldowns active.
On the other hand, QM. You are 100 a burst healer as Uther and if your buds think you’re gonna sustain heals, you’re all gonna have a bad time.
Since you didn’t mention it, I have to mention it: When you complete ST and cast holy shocks on people, instead of losing mana by casting Holy Light you gain mana.
I wonder if he’s the only hero in the game who gains mana by casting spells?