Who are the worst healers and why? and what suggestions would you make to improve them? Talent wise or spells
Personally, feel Tyrande could use a little help
nah, she cool. the trick is to get everlasting light at level 1
She aint that fine if shes got one talent.
Some healers are just niche, or very team dependant. It can be hard to rank them. You certainly will have higher numbers with healers like Brightwing or Stukov. Perhaps not as much playmaking as lower healing number heroes like Khara, Rehgar, and Uther though.
There are definitely some bad talents/builds out there, or perhaps essential talents. I donāt play all the healers enough to list their underperforming builds. Tyrande might be one.
Everytime I think a hero is weak though, somebody shows me how theyāre actually really strong. Most recently I saw that with Malfurion.
A few opinions:
I personally think that Khara needs his talents reworked. The last mini rework he had messed up some of his builds.
I wish BW had her old Greater Polymorph back.
Auriel needs to not have Resurrect at all, itās either broken or useless.
I donāt really think thereās a āWorst healerā, they all fit in different comps or used to counter certain things or has different levels of skill floor.
Like Tyrande. She doesnāt have much healing compared to other healers and her healing is quite reliant on her AAāing and hitting spells, so sheās quite reliant on having a team thatās meaty enough to have extended teamfights that can allow her to be in the fight, shooting. While I donāt play her much, I canāt imagine sheās very useful in a 1 healer 4 assassin vs 1 healer 4 assassin match.
And while she lacks healing, she provides vision, stuns and armor reduction.
Before level 16 I vote lucio. Heās not really a healer, just increased regen.
Healers fit different comps. For example, I hate Stukov when playing Valla, but love him for zoners.
The only healer I view as universally weak is Alexstrasza, and thatās because Dragonqueenās power spike doesnāt offset how ungodly vulnerable her base healing kit is to punishment. This is not just for her, but for her team. Abundance is decent, but the quest is overbearing and somewhat unrewarding given how painfully risky it is for her to use. Her only other reliable heal eats a consequential amount of health and becomes weaker and weaker as a result when outside of Dragonqueen. Overall, she could use a buff to her healing function; she doesnāt need it in utility or offense.
Any of the healers are usually defined by particular flaws, and so what seems the āworstā is going to vary a bit based on play level, team expectations, and the players ability to juggle those issues.
Healers that require action:
Tyrande, Whiteman and Lili are examples of heroes that need to do more than just stand behind someone and heal; if a team doesnāt engage enough to have the space for them to act, theyāll seem like subpar heroes
Heroes with limited Resources:
Heroes like Malfurion, Uther, Whitemane and Auriel can easily burn out on their casting resources and feel terrible to play
Reliant on Mitigation:
Heroes like Lili, Uther, Morelas and Brightwing donāt really showcase all their contribution, so it can feel like theyāre underperforming compared to other characters, or poorly timing their abilities can seem lackaluster.
Need ally Cooperation
Heroes like Stukov, Decard Cain, Ana and Alexstraze are reliant on the positioning and movement of allies to get the most of their healing; at times it can feel like their team is intentionally sabotaging their efforts
Limited Range of Influence: Heroes like Rehgar, Kharasim, LIli and Brightwing can feel like theyāre not in a position to contribute much and spend more time watching than playing.
Late Bloomers:
Healers like Deckard, Lucio, and Lili can feel weaker than other heroes and spend the rest of their game trying to ācatch upā on numbers, tools, contributions etc.
Lacking Variety
Heroes like Medic, Ana, and Deckard can feel like theyāre just "healbotsā that only contribute with one mindless ability and otherwise donāt waveclear, deal significant damage, change much of how they play with talents, etc etc.
That isnāt to say this is the all-encompassing list, but itās rather a sample of traits that can lead to situations where the hero feels like a drag to play or that anyone else is doing more than they do. Some I mentioned more, some I didnāt mention and some parts of that could be taken to try to ārateā the heroes as being more flawed or less flawed than others (therefore better) but it ignores situational strengths that may offset the flaw.
Because thereās different styles to āhealingā and different maps with different types of fighting and different hero combinations that lead to different formations, the strengths and weaknesses of a healer is going to be in flux and shift up and down at a given moment.
The usual demand for healing is on recovering poke damage and making āclutchā saves so healers that donāt particularly thrive off of poke exchanges ( such as those demanding action) or those with limited resources (that try to trade pokes) can seem much worse compared to heroes that do offset poke, or, alternatively, despite having lots of healing numbers, some heroes can feel like they canāt āsaveā any of their allies.
The more particular a healer is on thriving on key moments and consistent action (such as uther, tyrande and lili) the worse theyāll feel compared to other heroes that can otherwise sit in the back and wait.
Personally, I think Morales and Tyrande.
Yes, Tyrande is a niche pick, but I think they need to push her to one side or the other. Either increase her damage so she is a DPS with some utility or increase her healing a little more so she can keep up with the other healers in fights.
Morales seems really weak, this meta is so favourable towards dive and cc and morales really has no way to deal with that. Whitemane is essentially what morals should and could be. Morales is niche with certain AA heroes, but blinds are too easy to counter that and drop ship is cheese strats.
you need to get that flower talent, life blossom i think, it makes her Q heal cost nothing. absolutely mandatory
I would say lili and BW.
I havenāt played HOTS for 1.5 years, and returned last week. And Iāve played a lot of healers before and now.
Hereās what I feel:
Some healers are definitely worse than the others. And I mean simply worse. In a similar environment, they can be either harder to play to reach the same result, or they simply underperform.
Underdogs:
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Tyrande is clearly underperforming compared to other healers. Sheās more of a mix of DPS+Healer, which is a fine niche, but it requires your team to be a bit more self-sufficient. If pairt with an Abathur or self-healing characters she performs the best, but otherwise she loses out as a profile healer. Sheās a hybrid, and thatās all I can say about her.
Iāve played as her about 5 games, and against her a few times, and every time I saw her win it was more thanks to the team doing fine even without a dedicated healer, rather than thanks to her awesome healing. -
Whitemane. Now, sheās probably not bad. But she kinda falls in the same category as Tyrande. Every time I seen her win - was not really thanks to her as an awesome healer, but thanks to the team being well-rounded. I was most disappointed with Whitemane changes, as she was THE favorite of my healers. Itās sad that she was changed. I really enjoyed that I could have infinite mana before by replenishing mana with Inquisition. I also really enjoyed the ability to root people starting from level 4 or 7, and later to root MULTIPLE people with chain inquisition.
Thatās all gone. Now she feels much more healing-focused than aggression-focused, and honestly, I donāt like it. She became much less safe to play with rooting being pushed all the way to level 16, and she canāt root 2 enemies anymore because chains are on the same tier. She canāt regen mana by playing well - she has more passive mechanics now to help with that.
Overall - a huge disappointment.
And again, every time Iāve seen her win - I didnāt ever seen her make the winning play. Sheās kinda just hangs back there and supports a bit. - Lucio. This one, I hadnāt personally played yet. But Iāve played against him. From what I can see, he does well healing large ammounts of spread-out damage, but he struggles to do anything if a squish is being focused. If the enemy plays well, I feel that Lucio just canāt handle the numbers.
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Brightwing. Much better than Lucio if she plays well, but I feel that she has the same drawbacks. She just doesnāt have enough focused heal options while staying safe, to out-heal a focused ally. Her ult heals well, but it puts BW herself in danger. Not the best pick, IMO.
I realize she makes up for it with CC and global presence, but I think sheās really niche.
Great healers:
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Auriel. She can solo-carry the team. With a good battery, the healing is insane. She has a drawback when she had teammates that suck, but then again - every healer falls flat if the team simply doesnāt do any damage. She has nice focus / butcher counters with her Aegis and āwet towel strikeā, she can blind, she deals OK damage, and her heals are strong and AOE. She has infinite staying power thanks to no-mana mechanics, and is pretty safe thanks to powerful knockback. She synergises well with any team comp, and can make Hypercarry even more Hyper thanks to LVL 16 buff talents.
I think sheās probably one of the strongest picks right now. -
Alexstraza. If played well, sheās extremely annoying and almost impossible to counter. If she needs to, she has escape with her ult. She is pretty safe. Her healing has a good range. FInally, she has one of the best burst healing openers that can make an engage super-trivial in form of W-Q-D-W-Q-Ā®. This can result in the eintire team being topped-up while the enemy is at half. Her D is very strong both for healing, CC and damage.
I think sheās also one of the strongest picks. - Ana. If you can hit your snipes and learn how to self-heal, sheās a god. She has less AOE heal, but much more frontline sustain, and her heals are quick. She almost never runs out of mana, and her CC is very strong. She is also healer-counter with her granade that makes picking off people much easier. Sheās by far the hardest healer on my list, but she works extremely well.
Things I hadnāt yet played after returning.
- Stukov - seems really strong and well-rounded
- Deckard - can be a mixed bag. I suppose he can be very strong if he positions his pots correctly, but I also seen situations when he was almost irrelevant and a non-threat. I think heās one of those that can work really well if the team is winning, but be completely useless if youāre losing.
- Lili - she was always a medium pick which is extremely easy to play. I think sheās just that. She can be an absolute bane for AA compositions though, so she has strong sides, just not an all-around great healing.
- Uther - A great choice if you lack frontline. But heās very easy to pick off because of that, I find.
- Kharazim - a great frontline healer, but will have trouble sustaining if the backline is abused a lot. Also, he has counters in people who can keep him at range. He can be great as part of a jumb-in comp, but I havenāt seen a great performance so far. Also his ult is much worse than Aurielās, IMO, his CC weaker, his healing also weaker. I mean, all he has is melee damage.
On the same tier thereās āAbundance and globes heal her 100% moreā, which is most of the times more effective, I find. You get more health from that than you conserve with the flower.
In my experience at least.
Iād love to see some changes to Tyrande, sheās a rough healer to keep up with and very limited to certain setups
You lost me at āhavent played hots in 1.5 years and heres what i think.ā
Tyrande is far from bad lol.
Asking tyrande changes is counterproductive.
I mean before rework owl skill was more usefull skill, now itās not an usefull skill. Now you canāt play so aggresively as in the past. You can prevent the enemy attacks with the stunn and healing like an idiot while you keep the distance. By asking the changes you just destroy her current skills.
I enjoy playing healers and one could call me a healer main, even if Nova is my highest level hero.
Before making my post, I want to make a little statement: Iāll be judging heroes only by their ability to heal, and will not account for their other aspects, such as CC, or utility. Therefore āgood supportsā may be labeled as ābad healersā.
So the 1-st one on my list would be Tyrande. Technically she can keep up with other healers, but the effort one must put in to achieve that is huge.
Basically Iād give her a damage build and a healing build, and sheād be a viable healer when she goes for the healing talents. Part of the changes, concerning her healing would be:
- Light of Elune (Q) has a single charge, with 12 seconds cooldown.
- Level 4: Healing an ally below 50% HP with Light of Elune (Q) heals them for additional 130 HP over 4 seconds.
- Level 7: Reduce Light of Eluneās (Q) cooldown by/to 6 seconds, but attacks and abilities no longer reduce its cooldown.
- Level 10 Shadowstalk: Heal all allies (whereever they are) for 190 HP + 190 HP over 10 seconds, and grant them stealth for 10 seconds.
- Level 13: Light of Elune (Q) heals additional nearby ally (most damaged one, could be yourself as well).
- Level 16: Light of Elune (Q) gains a 2-nd charge. Both charges replenish at the same time.
- Level 20 Shadowtalk upgrade: Increases Shadowstalkās instant healing by 50% and its duration by 5 seconds. Allied heroes are unrevealable for 1 second upon cast, and they can re-enter stealth after not taking/dealing damage for 2 seconds, while Shadowstalk is active.
2-nd healer Iād like to nominate would be Malfurion. Iām a were that heās a meta pick, but the reason for that is his root (as well as Twilight Dream), and not his āextraordinary healingā. He is good for following up on CC, and for zoning enemies, but his HEALING is⦠questionable.
There are several things that can be done to mend that tho:
- Make his W heal allies in its AoE, so he can heal allies, even if there are no enemy heroes around.
- Make his W heal allies when it hits monsters/minions too (for reduced amount), not just heroes. So heād be able to heal when there are no enemy heroes around.
- Give him back the instant heal from Q.
- Make Tranquility apply Regrowth on all allies within its AoE upon cast.
Even only 1 of these changes can make him a viable healer, that would be much more plesent to play.
Then comes Lord Uther. He has extremely long cooldowns on his heals, as well as huge mana costs. The utility he provides is pretty insane, but his healing is truly lacking.
Iād do with him something similar to what I did to Tyrande - give him a healer build and a utility build. Where the healer build would include talents such as:
- Level 4 Silver Touch: Reduce damage from heroic sources with Devotion. Reward upon 40 stacks = Reduce Holy Lightās mana cost by 20 and coowdown by 3 seconds. Reward upon completion: Reduce Holy Lightās mana cost by further 20 and cooldown by 3 seconds.
So heād have a 6 sec cd 40 mana heal. - Level 7: (replaces Armor of Faith) Healing an ally below 50% HP reduces the cooldown of Holy Light and Holy Radiance 1 second, and restores 40 mana.
- Level 13: Holy Radiance reduces the damage of enemies it hits by 35% for 3 seconds. (Well Met will need its functionality adjusted)
- Level 16: Utherās healing grants a shield, equal to 40% of the healed amount, that lasts for 3 seconds.
- Level 20 (optional): Redemption - upon taking fatal damage, instead of dying, heal yourself for 50% of your max HP, and all allies around you for half that amount. (180 sec cooldown)
And last, but not least in my list would be Kharazim. Iāve seen Kharazims with over 200k heals. But itās rare⦠he really requires the enemy team to lack any form of hard CC/blinds in order to heal. Other healers donāt suffer from this as much, as even if they need to use basic attacks in order to heal (Tyrande, Whitemane), they are ranged, and itās much easier to do so.
Iād give him some talents to reduce his Q cooldown, that isnāt tied to him basic attacking stuff.
This thread made me so sad.
Apparently, harder and more team focused heroes are not welcomed in this game, otherwise I cant understand this Tyrande hateā¦
Thank you Sami.
Why? Because she is team dependent, she is harder to play, and she sucks against 4 mages in chaotic QM enviroment? She is great, she just requires one small thing - at least semi competent team.
She can absolutely do thatā¦
This was actually funny game, because Dehaka, Cassia and Falstad were premade and they dislike my Tyrande pick, because in their words her healing sucks. On the other hand, they first picked Cassia only to face two magesā¦
I think this is the problem. Some players just think healers are supposed to stay back and quietly heal allies while doing nohing else.
HEALERS ARE NOT HEALBOTS! If you look at healers only through pure healing done, you clearly donāt know how healers work.
For example, I last picked Uther against Ilidan and TB Varian. I ended with less healing done than enemy healer, but who cares, because we won every single teamfight and Ilidan with Varian were both killed very quickly every single time due to my CCsā¦
Yeah, Alexās W build really needs buffs. I want to out heal enemy healers even more.
Good E build Ana who can hit multiple heroes with Sleeping Dart definitely isnāt kind grandma who is baking cookies for her grandchildren, it is a freaking monster!