Viable healers in higher ranks?

Competitive Discussion
1

Currently I’m crawling my way back into Gold and hopefully this time out of it entirely and it seems like I can only play Lucio or Alexstraza if I want to win.

I enjoy healing and generally people don’t fight too much for the role so most of my games have been as healers but I don’t want to play 200+ games as the same two on rotation.

Is there any point where Rehgar and Uther become more competitive?

I know Brightwing and Stukov are really good but is it map or comp specific? I see her picked/banned a lot on Dragon Shine but not on Immortals (where I see Stukov banned unless healers have picked) in addition to Rag / Azmo.

Ana is another one I see people play into me a lot as Alex but unless there is more going on than healing grenade debuff, like varian healing debuff on CS, its’ not enough to deal with dragon or even regular healing output on its own and the enemy team eventually dies because she doesn’t have the output to keep them up throughout the entire objective if there is no downtime in the fight.

My perception is not of high ranked play so the picks/bans/gameplay are probably not the most accurate but every other healer seems severely behind in healing output compared to the top 2.

2

Everything written down below according to my personal playing experience (so far)

Viability of healers isn’t much affected by ranks (I mean obviously is) but the key part/factor you have to understand is the COMPOSITION of your team and/or your opponent’s

That being said here’s a small little “cheat code” of consisting of tips (general experience-based guidelines) for the the role I can provide:

CRITERIA #1

Opponent’s dps main/most-impactful type… Try put an artificial number between 1 and 10 of each healers into the following 5 categories… (5 is a bit of an overkill but should be a good way to emphasize the point somehow)

  • How much your healer’s able to cope with burst blowup
  • How much your healer’s able to cope multiple bits of dps suffered
  • How much your healer’s able to heal out-of-combat or prevent DoT
  • How much your healer’s able to cope with defying/denying gank
  • How much your healer’s able to cope with self-defense (i.e. survive when the HEALER ITSELF gets dived)

For example (just artificially blunt numbers between 1 and 10, 10 being most-efficient, 0 being totally non-efficient)

Uther numbers would be something like (10, 3, 2, 4, 7)
Tyrande numbers would be something like (7, 10, 1, 4, 2)
Ana numbers could be something like (3, 10, 10, 6, 2)
Malf numbers could be something like (1, 7, 7, 10, 5), and so on

Just basically keep those “charts” roughly in your head to understand WHAT KIND OF HEALING TYPE your team needs to have

CRITERIA #2 => Efficiency-depencency of healer: Does your healer’s efficiency depend on YOUR team’s composition or rather it’s strength is opposing/neutralizing the opponent’s one’s…

Often when your draft is good you can focus on ENHANCING your own team (If you ask me personally I’d prefer option every single time), OR, your team has made a huge mess/mistake drafting so now your focus should be put on NEUTRALIZING opponent’s most deadly weapon/s

Here’s a small “cheatcode” based upon that criteria that kinda “grew up on me” along the playing experience

Healers dependent on YOUR TEAM’s composition:

  • Tyrande
  • Ana

Healers enhancing your OFFENSIVE capabilities by being co-divers (and enhance dive impact):

  • Kharazim
  • Uther

Healers dependent on your OPPONENT’S composition:

  • Everyone else except Alexstrasza

What does Alexstrasza do you might wonder ?, well => basically 5 across the board on all stats… ON TOP of that small tip there’s a small “cheatcode” regarding the 4 heroes abovementioned and herself, and that is:

  • 4 of the abovementioned and Alexstrasza can work in DOUBLE-HEALER compositions

So if your opponent is super deadly and you’re kinda late to “deal with it”, a good way could be to approach a double-heal composition in which the 1st and 2nd or just 2nd healer consists from those 5… OFCOURSE they’re not all the same but basically with playing experience you can kinda realize the way how they operate/function (as each of them has their own “trait” i.e. utility that they bring to the table)

Team-cooperative TOP 5's

Tyrande enhances in-combat performance of everyone during a fight as long as she’s safe but close enough to have a relatively-safe target for autoattacks

Ana = basically she works as a sudo-Tyrande without the effect of enhancing combat performance of others (other than nano-boost a mage on your team) but her downside isn’t as backfireable and is generally less-exploitable than Tyrande in comparison… Ofcourse, Tyrande’s stun is AoE based and Ana can “control combat” in a form of line

Kharazim enhances diving eficiency cause he himself has dash and small burst but ALSO increasing movement speed (and potentially some other stats depending on talents taken) of your dives/ganks

Uther enhances OVERALL PEEL of team by having the ability to act like a sudo-bruiser/off-tank

Alex I mentioned above = well, what SHE BRINGS to the table that other healers don’t is SUPER STRONG CONTROL of objectives in game and the ability if your opponents didn’t take a ranged solo-laner that she can solo-lane herself quite efficiently with her E through the entire wave of minions herself

So yes = as a general cheatcode/guideline I’d strongly advice to FOCUS on playing (and understanding the effect) of those 5

Everyone else’s sort of a “waste of research-effort time” (mainly cause they can do plays, but what they usually do excell at is DENYing OPPONENT’s strengths a one or few potentially-dangerous aspects they might have)… Frankly I dislike this approach cause it basically means => Screw your opponent over something they already screwed up (not much reliable is it ?, especially logically-acceptable to say it also has less chances to work in higher ranks)

Some notable “exploits” of your healer’s choice that can be done:

  • Lili SEVERELY punishes opponent teams that don’t have a main tank (i.e. some reliable source that can/would stop Jugs)
  • Morales SEVERELY punishes opponent teams that have super-strong focus on outpoking your team rather than flank/dive for the commit-kill themselves
  • Brightwing severely punishes opponent teams that have a SINGLE FLANKER that doesn’t go on par (or doesn’t match well) with the rest of team’s composition/s playstyle… Ofc. she’s global so can be used for faster rotations/ganks
  • Rehgar severely punishes main tanks and bruisers that engage a tad bit too far (meaning if your opponents have a Muradin or Diablo that overextends, Rehgar would be the one to be their nemesis one way or another)… Simply by placing the totem next to them and denying their escape if (and the role OFTEN lacks a one)
  • Lucio SEVERELY punishes opponent teams that don’t have any form of CC/lockdown

And so on…

Sure = it can at the end of days be (and usually IS) at the preference of the player playing the heal themselves whether they’d prefer to counter opponent’s danger or rely on teamwork to overcome… USUALLY when I’m the one playing the healer prefer doing the overcome/oversustain part, but then again = when doing so have to know the potential weaknesses of your team’s ability (or unavailability) to save you yourself from being the first victim and know “how far you can gamble” (Tyrande being the highest gamble bet) in order to achieve what you want

Hope this kinda cleared some things/aspects/tips (and maybe even guidelines potentially) regarding the role

GL HF :slight_smile:

3 Likes
3

This definitely gives me a lot of things to consider.

My picks right now are based on what I feel like I can handle after seeing the enemy team so next time I’ll start making more educated picks and hopefully in time the win/rate on some of my healers starts to increase.

I’m in the MVP program on the World of Warcraft forums and I don’t frequently see posts this in depth and well written. :+1: :+1: :+1: Really good write up.

1 Like
4

What do you mean more? Both of them are some of the best healers with quite unique specializations. Rehgar may be replaced by a lot of other healers in most cases, but uther is literally the only bruiser healer we have. So if you need to strengthen your frontline, uther is kind of the only choice.

Some unique strengths these two bring to consider when drafting:
Rehgar: godly waveclear and fast rotation (with the lvl1 movespeed talent), can take camps solo in good time;
good kill finisher (especially with lvl1 and 16 wolf talents) (high burst damage and chasing ability)
very high healing output if you expect to be healing 3 targets all the time
best picked when you don’t need cleanse (the cooldown reduction talent at 7 is a very big contributing factor to his healing output)

Uther:
high hp pool, self heals (and gains armor too) without wasting cooldowns, has stun(s), above average size hitbox - great for zoning and acting as 2nd tank; best and pretty much only choice if you lack frontline (e.g., 2 ranged + abathur + stitches - without uther that draft is very weak, with uther it can be VERY strong)
best anti-burst healer: high burst heal, gives armor, divine shield is instant cast and the best anti-burst ultimate; also has multiple means to deal with stuns (e.g., low cooldown cleanse)
anti-dive healer (e.g., as great counter to genji) - the 2 stuns (with storm) pretty much ensure that the diver dies immediately (so he simply cannot dive near uther) - not as effective as bw’s hex, but his burst healing and self-durability are much better suited to counter dive-burst teams
Apart from these, 2 other factor can turn uther into a monster:

  1. high number of stuns in opponent comp (especially skillshots that you could catch intentionally) can turn uther into a monster healer through the lvl7 talent (that reduces cooldown) (couple it with lvl16 200% self healing and uther is unkillable while healing others at the same time)
  2. If uther can constantly autoattack in fights and his teammates are generally around him, the lvl13 talent (that heals on aa’s after using Q) outputs crazy amounts of healing (5 autoattacks = 75% of Q’s healing; so it can increase Q’s healing output almost 4-fold if all 5 heroes are healed and uther does 5 aa’s) (4x healing with every Q is an absolutely insane amount for 1 talent; even if you do only 2 aa’s and heal only 2 targets with them, it’s already a 60% of Q’s healing - super strong for a single lvl13 talent)

My favorite rehgar build is full wolf build (lvl1-4-7 and 16) - emphasizes his niche the most. If you drafted him correctly, you would get the most of such build.
Totem build (lvl1 + lvl16) is a great set up for kills and zoning, but other healers can do that better (e.g., malf).
(lvl13 is the standard shield and ult is of course ancestral)

So summing this up, uther shines best if you can play him as a bruiser and opponent comp is dive and/or burst oriented (e.g, uther is pretty bad against zarya comps); and rehgar shines if you can spend a lot of time soloing on him (team doesn’t need too much babysitting) and need an extra assassin.

P.S. Kharazim is MUCH more of an assassin than rehgar, but his healing output is usually much lower (the damage lvl1 talent is usually the only good choice for khara if you draft him correctly) and more conditional and he can’t clear waves on his own. So if all you need is dive and more damage, kharazim is the choice, but if you need to also add some extra clear and map presence, rehgar is the better choice.

AS for healer viability, I’d say all of them are equally good (well maybe Ana is currently a bit too good (as long as you don’t miss sleeping darts (if you do, you die))), except deckard and whitemane. Only pick those 2 if you really think they fill some niche very well and can’t be exchanged for anything else. Out of the others, pick the one that fits the situation best for best results. An example for deckard: BoE map (cramped and stationary objectives) where you are certain you would reach lvl20 and multiple opponents are likely to get often rooted by his triangle (for high damage output).
Also, be careful with lili - if you don’t get blind value and/or very high uptime on her trait, her viability plummets very fast (especially if there’s risk of her ult being cancelled (since that’s her main healing source and only burst heal option)). Lili is somewhat overpicked in lower ranks (after her nerf).
Another dangerous healer would be auriel - you really need to either have a good battery or be godlike with crown cycling, otherwise you will never have a heal when you need to have one.
But in the right situation, both lili and auriel can be completely dominating.

1 Like
5

I think you’re underrating Whitemane quite a bit. At lvl 4 she gets infinite sustain as long as you’re competent with mana management and using your E effectively. For late game healing she is a monster. Like most healers, stuns are your only severe weakness.

1 Like
6

Her problem is that in order to deal/heal damage she has to stand still… Which makes her self-defense even worse than Tyrande in some ways… She also has no waveclear, like zero waveclear quite literally, something like Deckard, better slightly

Sure her ults are crazy good & impactful but good players will simply walk away or wait for expiring (or focus a squishie regardless of your ult probably not enough to peel/save)

Sure she’s fun, especially the “glass cannon” build where you sac armor to deal more spell damage (and the DPS+heal ult if can get away with) but yah, she’s requires all team peel for her, having self-defense grade less than Tyrande is quite the huge liability that not just your positioning but also teammates need to contribute/make-up for (in my book at least) isn’t quite the way, especially in higher-lvl (I assume ?) games