Valeera: Levels 1, 4, 7, 16, and 20 have mandatory talents

[HailFall-1234]

Title, Valeera is required to use a very specific build with almost zero build diversity in order to function. This isn’t a “she has one build that’s better than the others” situation, she needs this build to do her job.

Level 1: You need Crippling Poison. Plain and simple. You could maybe sometimes make a case for combat readiness, but if you want to be able to consistently deal your damage you need the slow. Without it, you can’t chain sinister strikes with mutilate (assuming they’re running away), which is her main source of damage.

Level 4: You always need to pick Relentless Strikes. It’s what stops you from having massive energy issues. Neither level 1 energy talent can really fix her inherent energy problems like this. Initiative is sort of an energy talent, because you don’t need to use as many abilities to get a 3cp eviscerate, but even without mutilate, the cheaper sinister strikes are much more useful (why would you choose to use less of your damage dealing abilities just to use eviscerate earlier? It doesn’t make sense). Picking wound poison leads to painful energy issues, and Hemorrhage isn’t good anymore now Crippling Poison and the damage bonus is nerfed (cant stick as well, and mediocre reward for sticking).

Level 7: Always Mutilate. This is THE talent that makes her playable. More than doubling the damage of one of her base abilities. Fatal Finesse is completely useless. It could not even have the quest requirement and still be the worst talent in the tier. 80 bonus damage is a pitiful reward for an ability that isn’t exactly spammable. No reason to pick it when you could have mutilate. As for Slice and Dice, the crippling poison and hemorrhage nerfs rendered it obsolete.

Level 16: Always Seal Fate. It’s a pretty good talent, and the other talents at the tier totally suck. Assassinate is bad because nobody is going to be wandering around alone at 16, and even if they were you’d probably rather open with CC so your team has a chance to engage. Thistle tea is just a meme and nobody should ever even consider picking it.

Level 20: Always Elusiveness. Rupture is a good talent, but the build supporting it sucks. Both ult upgrades are awful

Do you guys see an issue? Because I do! She has one viable build, which relies solely on mutilate because it’s her only way to deal actual damage to things nowadays.

PLEASE give valeera’s talent tree some love. It has lots of useless talents, and its very messy. It needs to be worked on.

[MortalWombat-2755]

Is this some kind of spam competition between hailfall and AA Zeratul guy?

[incubus-21936]

@MortalWombat-2755

Is this some kind of spam competition between hailfall and AA Zeratul guy?

Atleast this time she is not asking for nerfs to < insert hero name here > .She now asks for buffs to her main hero instead.

So…there is that.

[HailFall-1234]

i think theres a difference between “valeera only has 1 viable talent at most tiers” and “i cant play zeratul like artanis blizzard help”

[ImaFknGod-1773]

I disagree completely on a lot of those... so ill break down some optional builds (especially Garrote which is the best imo)

1:

Vigor is useless in meta - due to subtlety supporting playstyles needed for success. Crippling is a strong pick but I toss between the 3 based on enemy comp.

Example: Slow AA but tanky team - we are going Garrote AA build w/ combat readiness. If i have to be lockdown for my team and enemy team has mobile ADCs we are going Cheap Shot Evis build so Subtlety is a must. If they have 2+ mages and squishy support - we take crippling for Ambush/Mut build.

4:

relentless is useless since its just energy cost reduc. Hemorrhage still does good dmg especially when dealing with a heavy front line team - you can punish dives or undecided commits by them (you are not going backline till lvl 10). Initiative is for Ambush/Mut build AND Util Cheap shot. (wound poison is useless)

7:

Mutilate is for 1 build only - being ambush/mut. Fatal finesse is for cheapshot util (although tossed up between slice n dice depending on how enemy team is playing against you). Slice n dice is the real energy regener now - and is strong in both garrote/util builds

10:

Cloak of Shadows is severly underrated

16:

seal fate is good for garrote build - assassinate is for ambush - and thistle is for util build

20:

Also wrong - Smoke bomb upgrade is good vs melee heavy comps as util build.

Cloak of shadows upgrade - is super strong vs mages and cc heavy teams as any build

Rupture is best for garrote (still great dmg)

Elusive is really a weak talent taking into consideration all other offers at 20. Really shes not a 1 shotter anymore and requires a different approach and game style.

[DrSuperGood-1327]

@HailFall-1234

Level 1: You need Crippling Poison. Plain and simple. You could maybe sometimes make a case for combat readiness, but if you want to be able to consistently deal your damage you need the slow. Without it, you can’t chain sinister strikes with mutilate (assuming they’re running away), which is her main source of damage.

You do not need it if your team is slow heavy, or if you have access to speed boosts such as from Lucio. For example if the target has already been hit by Jaina it brings nothing to the table as slows do not stack.

@HailFall-1234

Level 20: Always Elusiveness. Rupture is a good talent, but the build supporting it sucks. Both ult upgrades are awful

Rupture works well as long as you are opening with Garrotte, which you will be if up against mage or escape heavy teams. Additionally you will be refreshing its duration every time you dash into someone so the damage bonus from it is non trivial.

Most of her other talent tier choices are kind of “make the best of an impossible situation” choices. For example improving her area damage if your team has no area damage for clearing waves. Or going Garrotte auto attack if the enemy has tons of spell armor and your team could deal with more auto attack damage.

Assassinate at 16 is useful if you take Death from Above at 13 since you will likely be opening with Ambush all the time. The area to trigger the improved damage is not that large, and it is very useful at finishing off fleeing heroes.

[SpicyMayo26-1710]

i play valeera a lot and i don’t think these are all mandatory talents

[Tazrizen-1464]

@HailFall-1234

Level 1: You need Crippling Poison. Plain and simple. You could maybe sometimes make a case for combat readiness, but if you want to be able to consistently deal your damage you need the slow. Without it, you can’t chain sinister strikes with mutilate (assuming they’re running away), which is her main source of damage.

Not true, if you’re following up a tank, like you should, the tank will either provide slows or stuns for you to do damage.

@HailFall-1234

Level 4: You always need to pick Relentless Strikes. It’s what stops you from having massive energy issues. Neither level 1 energy talent can really fix her inherent energy problems like this. Initiative is sort of an energy talent, because you don’t need to use as many abilities to get a 3cp eviscerate, but even without mutilate, the cheaper sinister strikes are much more useful (why would you choose to use less of your damage dealing abilities just to use eviscerate earlier? It doesn’t make sense). Picking wound poison leads to painful energy issues, and Hemorrhage isn’t good anymore now Crippling Poison and the damage bonus is nerfed (cant stick as well, and mediocre reward for sticking).

If you are spamming it, you are going to have energy issues. If you are only drafting her for the mutilate burst combo then let me tell you, you could’ve picked thrall for a much better time.

Her wound poison is THE most ridiculous healing mitigation in the game, it easily shuts down malganis, malthael, dehaka, healers in general, if you are not even considering picking it then you’re at fault for not exploring all options in her kit.

Also if you are only spamming sinister strike, you are actually losing out on damage. If you’d just do the math, autoing twice with her 2 AA speed means you’ve done MORE than spamming sinister strike would have. The only time that’s a good thing is if you’re going for mutilate build which again, if that’s the only thing you’re drafting her for, then you’re already making a mistake.

@HailFall-1234

Level 7: Always Mutilate. This is THE talent that makes her playable. More than doubling the damage of one of her base abilities. Fatal Finesse is completely useless. It could not even have the quest requirement and still be the worst talent in the tier. 80 bonus damage is a pitiful reward for an ability that isn’t exactly spammable. No reason to pick it when you could have mutilate. As for Slice and Dice, the crippling poison and hemorrhage nerfs rendered it obsolete.

Making your Q shorter range means one of your escapes is less potent unless your playstyle is suicide in and hope they’re too squishy to respond.

Slice and dice is perfectly fine for the extra 4 per second regen if you’re fighting melee heavy comps and need extra energy to use flurry and apply poisons or want the extra burst after an eviscerate.

I’ll grant, flurry quest is a bit underwhelming, it should probably come with some CDR on completion, IMO, but it’s decent AoE damage on an assassin that otherwise has none.

@HailFall-1234

Level 16: Always Seal Fate. It’s a pretty good talent, and the other talents at the tier totally suck. Assassinate is bad because nobody is going to be wandering around alone at 16, and even if they were you’d probably rather open with CC so your team has a chance to engage. Thistle tea is just a meme and nobody should ever even consider picking it.

I can’t really argue that hard with this tier because in many cases they’re niche picks, but again, only picking one talent is going to make you think that talent is mandatory.

@HailFall-1234

Level 20: Always Elusiveness. Rupture is a good talent, but the build supporting it sucks. Both ult upgrades are awful

Movespeed. You’re saying movespeed is better than 3 seconds of 75% spell armor and unstoppable upon your choosing to activate, every 8 seconds. I can even make a case for the energy regen since she can spam her abilities much more freely in the smoke.

@HailFall-1234

Do you guys see an issue? Because I do! She has one viable build, which relies solely on mutilate because it’s her only way to deal actual damage to things nowadays.

I totally see the issue! You think that valeera always must be the top assassin to deal damage, when she’s much better at being a support assassin to stop whoever needs stopping!

[Planar-11507]

TL;DR:
level 1 OP seems to be wrong.
level 4 OP seems to be correct
level 7 OP it could go either way
level 16 OP seems to be wrong
level 20 OP is debatable.

Now onto the post…

Okay, so I used data from hotslogs taking as many weeks as needed to get data for all abilities.
I used Platinum + Diamond + Masters (top 30% of players uploaded approx)

I had to use Plat as well because no way to get data on some abilities in URD otherwise.

From that point I took all data from 11/4/2018.
Since that point in time, Valeera’s only change has been updating her heroic Smoke Bomb. So internal balance changes should not change results.

@HailFall-1234

Level 1: You need Crippling Poison.

Nope.
In draft modes, Combat Readiness is better.
When you add in QM data, Crippling poison is only .4% higher winrate. Which I think is a reasonable spread to be “equal” when you’re looking at the top bit of the population.

@HailFall-1234

Level 4: You always need to pick Relentless Strikes.

This appears to be absolutely correct.
All the other talents on this tier should be buffed slightly, and again if that first buff did not bring them up.

@HailFall-1234

Level 7: Always Mutilate.

Fatal Finesse is 1.3% lower winrate in draft modes. I think that is just on the border of being “close enough” despite using only the top ~30% of games.

When you add in QM games, Mutilate is clearly better than the other choices.

@HailFall-1234

Level 16: Always Seal Fate.

Assassinate performs better in ranked play, and is only 1.1% lower winrate with QM added in.
I think Assassinate is hence a perfectly viable choice based on data.

@HailFall-1234

Level 20: Always Elusiveness.

It is the highest winrate in both just draft, and draft+QM…
But given the relative winrates the other choices seem fine, as they are very situational.

But, make up your own mind:

draft mode:
Adrenaline Rush 65.4
Envloping Shadows 61.8
Rupture 65.4
Elusiveness 67.4

draft+QM:
Adrenaline Rush 59.7
Envloping Shadows 59.6
Rupture 62.4
Elusiveness 64.1

[anon77884306]

AA Zeratul guy is here.

[RayRay-1571]

So generally I read posts like this and say: “Op is crazy, there is so much more that is viable”.

That being said, I’ve started playing Valeera a lot on the Asia server, and Op is 100% correct. This build is just better in every way and is the one I run literally all the time. If Valeera is good in your draft (she should only be drafted as last pick and as a counter to certain things), this is the build you go with. Her other builds just make her a weaker version of other heroes.

[HailFall-1234]

@Planar-11507

Assassinate performs better in ranked play, and is only 1.1% lower winrate with QM added in.
I think Assassinate is hence a perfectly viable choice based on data.

I can only assume you’re already stomping if you’re picking assassinate.

@Tazrizen-1464

Movespeed. You’re saying movespeed is better than 3 seconds of 75% spell armor and unstoppable upon your choosing to activate, every 8 seconds. I can even make a case for the energy regen since she can spam her abilities much more freely in the smoke.

Yes. It lets you rotate faster, initiate faster, run away faster, and its just a generally great talent. Cloak of shadows upgrade is pointless, because you typically engage from stealth and once you vanish you’ve pretty much already escaped.

@Tazrizen-1464

Making your Q shorter range means one of your escapes is less potent unless your playstyle is suicide in and hope they’re too squishy to respond.

Valeera shouldn’t really need an escape when her primary job is bullying dive assassins after they come to her. Even if you do choose to initiate on their healer or something, cloak of shadows + sinister + vanish should be enough to get away. Assuming you’re not foolish enough to dive without support from your team.

@Tazrizen-1464

Slice and dice is perfectly fine for the extra 4 per second regen if you’re fighting melee heavy comps and need extra energy to use flurry and apply poisons or want the extra burst after an eviscerate.

You’ll deal far more damage vs melee heroes by spamming mutilate q than with the 3 autos. The area of effect of blade flurry isnt all that fantastic, and even if you do want to spread poison, you can still use it, its just less damage for more energy than mutilate.

@Tazrizen-1464

If you are spamming it, you are going to have energy issues. If you are only drafting her for the mutilate burst combo then let me tell you, you could’ve picked thrall for a much better time.

No, you’re drafting her for the silence. Mutilate is just her only way to deal actual damage to things.

@Tazrizen-1464

Her wound poison is THE most ridiculous healing mitigation in the game

Ana says hi

@Tazrizen-1464

Also if you are only spamming sinister strike, you are actually losing out on damage. If you’d just do the math, autoing twice with her 2 AA speed means you’ve done MORE than spamming sinister strike would have. The only time that’s a good thing is if you’re going for mutilate build which again, if that’s the only thing you’re drafting her for, then you’re already making a mistake.

But you should be picking mutilate because her other level 7s are garbage.

@ImaFknGod-1773

relentless is useless since its just energy cost reduc.

Just energy cost reduction… So i take it high inquisitor on whitemane is useless because its just a mana talent? I’m sure i could find more examples of this, but that’s a very feeble argument. Relenteless enables the q spam that lets her deal decent single target damage to a target that’s slowed.

@ImaFknGod-1773

Fatal finesse is for cheapshot util (although tossed up between slice n dice depending on how enemy team is playing against you). Slice n dice is the real energy regener now - and is strong in both garrote/util builds

You don’t provide a single reason why. Cheapshot build isnt a thing. The only cheap shot talent is blind, which is useful sometimes but hardly constitutes its own build.

Mutilate is amazing, and garrote build doesn’t really work right now. If you’re trying to punish frontline tanks with garrote build, why arent you playing malthael or tychus?

@ImaFknGod-1773

seal fate is good for garrote build - assassinate is for ambush - and thistle is for util build

You fail to provide a single reason for any of this. Obviously assassinate is meant for ambush build, but ambush build is long gone now.

[Planar-11507]

@HailFall-1234

I can only assume you’re already stomping if you’re picking assassinate.

The fact it is better in ranked play probably shows one of two things:

1. over the weeks selected, Valeera was stronger in the Meta at some point.
2. Assassinate is better in a draft as you have a specific target in mind and you build valeera around that target.

You 100% bring up major concerns around her 2nd tier of abilities… Like. wow. The other three need small buffs (and another round if that is not enough).

buffing Slice and Dice and Thistle tea slightly would also be good for Valeera’s talent health, I think.

I just don’t see Assassinate or Fatal Finesse being so much weaker statistically that they need changes.

[Shmorrior-1523]

@HailFall-1234

Level 1: You need Crippling Poison. Plain and simple. You could maybe sometimes make a case for combat readiness, but if you want to be able to consistently deal your damage you need the slow. Without it, you can’t chain sinister strikes with mutilate (assuming they’re running away), which is her main source of damage.

The slow is definitely helpful but to say you need it to be able to SS multiple times is not correct. SS has a dash so you should be able to keep up, even with Mutiliate range unless the enemy is using some kind of mobility tool. I can see the case for Vigor and Subtlety deserving some buffs.

@HailFall-1234

(why would you choose to use less of your damage dealing abilities just to use eviscerate earlier? It doesn’t make sense).

Because sometimes you don’t just have free reign to poke your target endlessly. Getting to the 3cp evis faster gets your damage in a smaller window so they have less time to react.

@HailFall-1234

Level 7: Always Mutilate. This is THE talent that makes her playable. More than doubling the damage of one of her base abilities. Fatal Finesse is completely useless. It could not even have the quest requirement and still be the worst talent in the tier. 80 bonus damage is a pitiful reward for an ability that isn’t exactly spammable. No reason to pick it when you could have mutilate. As for Slice and Dice, the crippling poison and hemorrhage nerfs rendered it obsolete.

I’d agree, but really this is a case of her other options being garbage. Really I think part of the problem stems from her only being able to generate combo points against heroes. That makes a talent like Slice and Dice terrible because you’ll almost never be in a scenario where you’ll be allowed to just sit there auto attacking heroes. If you could reliably get combo points from non-hero sources, you could make a case for Slice and Dice as a PVE tool on maps like BoE.

@HailFall-1234

Level 16: Always Seal Fate. It’s a pretty good talent, and the other talents at the tier totally suck. Assassinate is bad because nobody is going to be wandering around alone at 16, and even if they were you’d probably rather open with CC so your team has a chance to engage. Thistle tea is just a meme and nobody should ever even consider picking it.

Assassinate is bad because Ambush is a bad opener. At 20, Ambush w/ Assassinate on an isolated target hits for only 428 dmg. At 20, Chromie has just over 3000 health, so Assassinate doesn’t even do a quarter of her hp.

I think the main issue is that her SS build works very well together but none of the other talents synergize that well with each other. Similar to how Zeratul’s Cleave build just synergizes so well that all the other options pale in comparison.

[Werbs-11423]

I see what your problem with Valeera is, you are not able to realize when you should be switching talents up on her. Try other talents and based on the other team’s makeup and your own team’s makeup.

[anon63608959]

If anything I think Combat Readyness is a must-have on lvl1, rest of them are, whatever

Haven’t played Valeera in quite a while now, not my cup of tea, but as far as I remember without it she’s pretty squish and she kinda needed the block charges to make sure she can add a second round of her basic abilities over her foe…

[Beefcannon-11581]

The only talents not worth taking, ever, in any circumstance, are ambush talents. Ambush is the most useless ability in the entirety of HotS. All other talents are viable and ultimately change her playstyle. I think she has one of the better talent trees in HotS compared to other heroes.

[Anakaris-1284]

That’s because you’re probably good at playing Valeera.

[Planar-11507]

@Beefcannon-11581

All other talents are viable and ultimately change her playstyle.

they’re not viable at all looking at winrates, for her second tier (level 4) talents. They’re all have way lower winrates than Relentless Strikes. Substantially weaker, like 5-10% lower winrate…

And that’s for about 2 months of data.