Comprehensive Tyrande guide

image source:
http://narga-lifestream.deviantart.com/art/Tyrande-cosplay-565985287

Contents

Introduction
Lore
Abilities and Talents overview
General Pros and Cons
Hero role and aim in fight
Standard Utility Build
Talent choices
Build Pros and Cons
General style of play and Tips for the Build
Situational Talent choices and Build Variations
Tips on how to play against Tyrande and the Build
Heroes that work well with and against Tyrande
Conclusion(s)

Slang Dictionary

Meta – conditions of the game in which some heroes are more popular than the others due to the nature of the game environment. For example, Meta game in professional games and Hero League will be different. In first case people have voice communication and spend a lot of time in the game, so they can play various heroes on extreme level and do organized moves as a team. At the same time, Hero League is an environment of players of different skill and understanding of the game, so heroes that are easier to play and provide effective results will be more valued there.

AOE – Area of Effect.
to Poke – to deal some amount of damage to the enemy while staying at the safe distance.
Wombo-Combo – a setup of spells or Heroics that brings overwhelming results, like bringing every enemy team member down almost simultaneously. Usually, it involves spells with tricky mechanics.
to Burst down – to use high damaging spells and abilities in quick succession. 
DPS – damage per second.
Divy hero – mobile hero that is able jump in and out of the fight, while bringing in moderate damage numbers.
DOT – damage over time.
Stutter-stepping – movement technique that utilizes cooldown between the auto-attacks to move a bit towards the targets. As a result, a player is able to dish out more right-click damage.
to Peel – to use disruptive abilities, as well as body-blocks, to protect your allies. Usually, it is done by Warriors.
Gap closer – escape ability used to shorten the distance.

Introduction

Welcome! Welcome to in-depth Tyrande guide! This guide is done for people that are new to the game and players that have experienced Tyrande gameplay, and looking to increase their skill, or want to try playing different builds. The guide is divided into four parts. First part will be an introduction to the hero. Here you will find general description of abilities, lore, and other basic information. Other three parts will be about different builds that are used to play for High Priestess of Elune. Each build will have its own very detailed and in-depth description, with tons of tips and other useful info that will help you master the build and the hero.

Once discovered in professional Meta, Tyrande is being played here and there for almost a year. She is not a first pick material, but often times she is seen in aggressive line-ups. Her kit makes her very good at rotations and aggressive line-ups. Often times you can see her paired with Muradin, Diablo, ETC or even Kerrigan, for roaming across the map.

In Hero League or Quick Match environment you won’t see her as often as she appears in tournaments. However. If played by experienced player, she can turn the tides of battle with ease. Her kit is excellent at everything her team needs, and you can think of her as one of the strongest heroes in the game.

part 1,
general hero info

Lore

image source:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/media/artwork/wow-characters?view=artwork-tyrande-whisperwind1

This lore will also start with “once upon a time”. So. Once upon a time lived Tyrande. Tyrande Whisperwind. High Elf and High Priestess of Elune. She lived in harmony with the nature, and was riding white tiger across the lands of Kalimdor. Everything was fine until Archimonde, the villain, decided to invade the Azeroth with Burning Legion. It was the second time Burning Legion decided to invade Azeroth. Somewhere in the timeline of her life, after the events described above, she also managed to visit the Nexus, and lose her white tiger. If I am to be serious, Tyrande is one of the core characters in Warcraft universe. She have participated in many events and fought many battles. She has interesting and complex lore. Personally, i suggest you to dive into her history. You might also find out why she not riding tiger in Heroes of the Storm.

In-depth lore description:
http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Tyrande_Whisperwind

Abilities and Talents overview

Blizzard has labeled Tyrande as a Support. However, she has hard time keeping up the whole team alive. In competitive environment she is referred to as semi-support. But don’t let that label fool you. Tyrande is suited for aggressive play far more than she is suited for supporting her team. She is hero that is geared towards aggressive gameflow and has some supporting capabilities. You almost never see her being solo Support. Sometimes you do, but it’s either in competitive environment, from team that knows what they are doing, or in casual environment, from a player that has no idea what he is doing. To better understand Tyrande’s kit, let’s dive in her basic abilities.

Light of Elune
“Q”

Is first basic ability. It costs 45 Mana and has 8 seconds of cooldown time. The ability can be used on self or allies. When used on allies, it heals them for 680 ( 148 + 28 per level ) health and Tyrande for 340 ( 74 + 14 per level ). If you use it on yourself, it will just heal you for 340. So, it is best to always use it on allies, as you will be automatically healed for half of the healing amount in any case. Light of Elune has the range that is a bit bigger than your auto-attacking range and equals to 6.5 range, approximately.

“Q” will be your main source of burst healing and is one of the reasons why Tyrande is strong semi-support. Sometimes, you can even see her as solo Support. Usually, it is done on small, very momentum based maps like Tomb of the Spider Queen. “Light of Elune” has few talent upgrades. They can reduce the Mana cost, provide increased healing numbers, and even add speed buff. There is talent build devoted to supporting, which is based on such talents.

Sentinel
“W”

Sentinel is second basic ability of Tyrande. The ability costs 65 Mana and has 18 seconds of cooldown time. This ability fires a projectile in form of Owl. The width of the projectile is small and it flies across the Battleground until he hits the hero, or leaves the map. While flying and upon hitting enemy hero, the projectile will reveal the area and deal damage. You will retain the vision over the map area, and hero affected by the Owl, for 5 seconds. The projectile will deal 380 ( 76 + 16 per level) damage.

This spell is very powerful scouting tool. With its help you are able to constantly stalk enemy team, be aware of their positioning, and anticipate their movements and action. At the same time, this spell does damage and will be nice addition to overall burst damage output. Lastly, there are talents, on different talent tiers, that will buff this ability allowing it to hit multiple enemies and deal heavy damage. There is a variation of the build that is based around these talents. Such build is usually used on big maps.

Lunar Flare
“E”

This ability has 12 seconds of cooldown time and costs 60 Mana. The ability has decent range, which is more than your auto-attacking range, something like 8 range. “Lunar Flare” lands an AOE stun, in the pointed location, with a 0.5 second delay. The spell does 450 ( 108 + 18 per level ) AOE damage and provides 1 second of AOE stun. During the delay time, the area of the stun will be marked by a blue glowing circle. It will be visible to allies and foes.

Lunar Flare is one of the strongest spells in Tyrande’s kit. It may be difficult to master for new players, but is essential for good Tyrande players. This spell will be good at saving your allies, engaging your foes, and following up your mates. It can be also crucial tool against some channeling Heroics. Of course, there are talents that will buff this spell, and one of them is presented in almost any build for High Priestess of Elune.

Hunter’s Mark
“Trait”

The “Trait” is activatable ability. It has 20 seconds of cooldown time and costs no Mana. “Mark” is targeted ability, which has range that is slightly less than your auto-attack range. The ability applies Vulnerable debuff to the target, for 4 seconds of time. It can only be used on the enemy. The debuff will increase the damage target takes from all sources by 25%.

Tyrande’s Trait is one of the reasons she is so strong when it comes to rotations and bursting down targets. With proper focus fire, Trait allows killing enemy heroes in the blink of an eye. Combined with other Tyrande abilities, it will be huge blow to the enemy, in form of burst damage, and overall damage buff for your team.

As i always do, I’ll describe talents and Heroics directly in build description. This way it will be easier to get into the steam of things.

General Pros and Cons

image source:
http://mr–jack.deviantart.com/art/Tyrande-Whisperwind-High-Priestess-of-Elune-441463746

Based on the basic info provided above, let’s see what we can tell about Tyrande. Let’s start with her strong spots. Priestess of Elune is geared towards assisting her team with aggressive play style. She has Trait that is excellent for bursting down the target. Her “E” and “W” abilities will also help with burst, while “W” is also good at scouting. Lastly, “Q” will help to mitigate some damage. So. In general, Tyrande is hero that is suited for aggressive, fast paced and momentum based gameplay, while also having a possibility to support her team with some healing.

Now, let’s see what weak spots Tyrande has. She has no mobility. She has no escape tools. That means she is very weak when in terms of repositioning. Her self-sustain is almost non-existent, as self-heal from “Q” is very weak. All this means that Priestess of Elune is very positional dependent and has almost zero self-sustain. While you want to land good “Lunar Flares”, the positioning is a first thing you want to master as a new Tyrande player.

Hero role and aim in fight

So. As we know from previous part, Tyrande is semi-support. She will be looking to provide a scouting for her team with “W” ability. What that mean is you will be constantly throwing Owl’s, to anticipate enemy positioning and movement. When i say constantly, i mean from time to time. If you already know where enemy is, there is no need to waste your cooldown. However. If you anticipate the fight in next few seconds, it will be a good decision to throw an Owl to know exact enemy positioning. It will be crucial against enemy heroes that are very position dependent, but I’ll talk about this later, in tips section.

Now that we are done with the Scouting, let’s move on to burst down. With the debuff from “Trait” and lockdown from “Lunar Flare”, Tyrande is exceptionally good at rotations and bursting down the target. What you want to do in both cases is fire your “E” as a follow up stun, and while it is landing apply your “Trait”. This way the damage from “E” will also be buffed by Trait. And yeah. Until you learn how to “Lunar Flare”, you want to use it as follow up stun.

Basically, that is it! You have to provide occasional scouting with “W” and assist team focus with “E” and “Trait”. Of course, you have to also mind your positioning, as Tyrande is insanely easy to kill if she is out of position. Oh! I totally forgot about “Q”. Well, there is nothing fancy here. You want to use it on the ally that is being focused, or the one that is most damaged.

part 2,
 Utility Build

Standard Utility Build

image source:
http://narga-lifestream.deviantart.com/art/Tyrande-High-Priestess-of-Elune-563106258

This is popular Tyrande build. You can see it played in tournaments and in high level Hero league games. It has many variations. I’ll provide the pattern that in my opinion is easy to pick up for a newcomer, and then, in situational talent choices section, I’ll describe viable variations of the build. 

Here you can see few examples of Utility build being played in professional scene:

In this series first game was played with Tyrande, at 1 minute and 20 seconds. 

In this series seconds game was played with Tyrande, at 25 minutes and 53 seconds.

Talent choices

Please note: the pattern of talent choices shown below is the build I consider to be the best for a newcomer. The talents displayed here are not of the maximum efficiency for this build.
However, they offer nice learning curve for new player.

image source:
http://www.heroesfire.com/hots/talent-calculator/tyrande#kdj_

The talent pattern of this build is aimed at buffing all Tyrande capabilities. Her healing potential will be increased. Ganking and utility potentials will also be buffed. This build tends to be very well rounded and suits almost any composition. The build is very well suited for map rotations, healing your allies, bursting down targets and being useful to your team.

Ranger’s Mark
(level 1)

This talent will buff Tyrande’s “Trait”. The cooldown of “Trait” will be reduced by 8 seconds of time, making it 12 seconds. Such change is exceptionally good for rotations on small maps like Tomb of the Spider Queen or Dragon Knight. You will be able to gank one lane, mount up, move to other lane, and your Trait will be up for another action. You won’t need to wait some time and waste ganking momentum. Also, this talent will be a buff to your team damage output. In fights, you will be able to cast it more frequently, resulting in more burst damage provided and more team assistance.

Focused Attack
(level 4)

Just like previous talent, this one is also exceptionally good at rotations and on small maps. Each ten seconds your auto-attack against enemy hero will deals 75% more damage. Each auto-attack reduces the cooldown, 10 seconds, of this talent by 1 second. The damage this talent provides will be also buffed by your “Trait”. Apart from being a boost to your burst down potential, “Focused Attack” is also good for two types of fights. First one is when you know that you won’t land more than few right-clicks. Second one is when fights are very long and drained out. As the talent is passive and costs no Mana it will be very handy in long fights.

Lunar Blaze
(level 7)

The talent will increase the range of “Lunar Flare” by 50%. First of all, this talent will boost your survivability. The talent will allow you to stand in far backline, but at the same time provide nice follow up and pressure with your “E’s”. Second of all, the talent will allow you to initiate with your stun, as the reach of the spell will be big. Doing so will require some practice and game experience, but once you master it; it will be fearsome tool in your kit. Lastly, “Lunar Blaze” provides excellent opportunity to cancel some key, channeling enemy Heroics from far backline, or even across terrain from a hideout.

The Heroic
(level 10)

Both Heroics are viable choices for Tyrande. It is a matter of preference and game variables when it comes to decision between them. But. At first, before I describe scenarios in which each Heroic will be better, let me describe actual Heroics.
Starfall. Has 100 seconds of cooldown time and costs 100 Mana. Is a spell with huge AOE, which does 140 ( 26 + 6 per level) damage each second. Heroic lasts for 8 seconds and slows movement speed of the enemies for 20%. Starfall is exceptional Heroic when it comes to zoning your enemies and fighting for stall objectives like Temples on Sky Temple map. It will be also good when fights are going on in narrow spaces. For example, the fights for Tributes on Cursed Hollow, or fights for Towers on new map named “Towers of Doom”.
Shadowstalk. Has 50 seconds of cooldown time and costs 75 Mana. The Heroic will cover in stealth each allied hero and Tyrande for 8 seconds. During this time heroes are healed for 507 ( 112 + 21 per level ) health, over 8 seconds, and when the stealth expires heroes are instantly healed for 340 ( 74 + 14 per level ) health. The stealth mechanic is of common stealth, like Nova and Zeratul have. Meaning you can interrupt the stealth effect, but not the healing, by using AOE ability on the position of stealthed hero. Generally speaking, this ult is used to either engage the enemy from the stealth, or to heal small portions of damage during\after the fight. Don’t expect this ult to provide wonderful healing numbers. It is more of disengage and strategic tool.

I tend to choose Starfall on maps where I anticipate long stationary fights for the objectives, like Sky Temple, Towers of Doom, Cursed Hollow, Battlefields of Eternity and Infernal Shrines. On the other hand, if i see that the stealth engage can work, or my team really lacks additional self-sustain, I’ll go for Shadowstalk.

Sprint
(level 13)

This is activatable talent. It has 60 seconds of cooldown time and has no Mana cost. Upon activation, talent instantly gives 75% movement speed boost for 3 seconds. “Sprint” is perfect tool for repositioning. It can be used for offensive and defensive moves. You can use it as an escape tool, when you made a positional mistake. You can use it as a form of initiation, when you see that you can land superb “Lunar Flare”. Lastly, it can be used to quickly reposition yourself to help your ally, to chase enemy hero, to cancel some objective capture and so on.

Trueshot Aura
(level 16)

This is passive talent in form of aura. The radius of aura equals to the range of “Q” ability, which is 7 range, approximately. What this aura does? It increases the right-click damage of every allied unit within its range by 15%. This means Heroes, Mercenaries, Catapults and Minions. This aura is nice buff to overall DPS of your team. It will have greater effect in prolonged fights, as it doesn’t consume any resources.

Hunter’s Swiftness
(level 20)

This talent is an upgrade for your Heroic. Now, each time you activate the Heroic, every allied hero will receive 40% movement speed buff for 8 seconds. The buff works even if you broke out of stealth. In right hands, this upgrade can be overwhelmingly strong. You can think of it as of mass “Sprint” each 50 seconds. And. Just like “Sprint”, it can be used in many ways. You can use it to grant an ally Hero, or whole team, a form of initiation. You can use it to disengage from a fight with a team, when you see that things are not going your way. It can also be used to save your ally from dire situation and so on. This upgrade has even more utility than “Sprint” does, as it affects whole team.

Build Pros and Cons

image source:
http://narga-lifestream.deviantart.com/art/Tyrande-Heroes-of-the-Storm-II-533828555

Now that we are familiar with talent pattern, let’s see how these talent choices affect strong and weak spots of the Hero. This build increases rotation and burst down potential of Tyrande. At the same time, she provides more support for her team. Even the absence of mobility is compensated by the talent choices. You might think that Priestess of Elune is ideal Hero with this build, but no. There are some weak spots and challenges.

Pros

Additional burst down and follow up potential

Usually, Tyrande is used for rotations between the lanes. With decreased cooldown time on her “Trait” and bonus damage from “Focused Attack” she becomes even better when it comes to ganking. At the same time, increased range on “Lunar Flare” and addition of “Sprint” makes following your mates easier task, as you are able to assist them with stun from afar and be more mobile.

Additional team utility and mobility

Priestess of Elune gameplay is very team oriented. Usually she follows up the moves of the teammates, and sometimes can use “Lunar Flare” for initiation. In this build, her utility is greatly increased with help of healing ultimate, “Trueshot Aura”, mobility that is granted by ultimate and “Sprint”. The Heroic itself, especially with upgrade, has the potential to not only turn the fights in your favor, but also to win games. This is especially true for end-game fights.

Cons

Mobility based on the talent choices and high skill cap

While “Sprint” is exceptional spell when it comes to defensive or aggressive plays, it is also a weak spot for Tyrande players. The spell has 60 seconds of cooldown time. In HOTS cooldown time of many escape abilities vary from 6 to 13 seconds, allowing heroes to constantly reposition themselves and play more careless when it comes to positioning. Tyrande doesn’t have such luxury. She has low self-sustain and low health pool. Once you use your “Sprint” for any move, you have care about your position even more. On level 20, you need to mind the positioning less, as you have second “Sprint” in form of Heroic upgrade. However, before level 13, it is a great concern.
Also, Tyrande has relatively high skill cap. Part of the reason is the stuff described above, while other part comes from her gameflow. While playing Priestess there are a lot of things you have to mind and anticipate. Apart from constantly checking your position, you also have to watch out for target to heal, target to stun, target to use Trait on and so on. As the gameplay is diversified, you will have to think and do a lot of stuff at once.

In that regard, this build is very new player friendly, as I’ve tried reducing the amount of active talents to minimum. You only have “Sprint”. But. There are some variations of this build, and other builds. They can have up to 4 active talents.

General style of play and Tips for the Build

image source:
http://narga-lifestream.deviantart.com/art/Tyrande-Whisperwind-562380828

Tyrande is a type of hero that is very well suited for rotations and aggressive plays. Most of the times, during the laning phase, you will see her roaming around the map and taking down enemy heroes. Such play style is dictated by her basic kit. Priestess can also be played in a lane, in a tri-lane. At the same time, your kit is designed in a way that you are exceptionally good at momentum based fights and ganking.

Down below, I’ll describe general style of play for Priestess of Elune. However, keep in mind that the way you play the hero is highly influenced by many variables. The stuff you will read below will be suitable for most situations, however, as HOTS is very complex game, there are a lot of variables like map, specific hero compositions, and other stuff that can influence on the effectiveness of your gameflow and decision making.

The laning phase

 It can be played in two ways. You can roam around with some hero that is exceptionally good at roaming, or roaming with Tyrande specifically, like Kerrigan/Butcher/Muradin. You can also be a part of pushing tri-lane. Something like Malf/Tyrande/Zagara or Zagara/Sylvanas/Tyrande. These two types of play will be different.

In first scenario, when you are roaming, you want to quickly follow up the aggressive plays of your roaming partner. Let’s take a pair of Diablo/Tyrande as an example. In this pair Diablo will make plays and you have to follow him up. Usually it looks like this: Diablo charges in with his “Q”, you throw a “Lunar Flare” spell behind his back, during the delay time that “Lunar Flare” has he uses his “E”, “Overpower”, to reposition target behind him, into your stun. The whole action is finished with you, him and other ally hero quickly using all the abilities on the target that is stunned by “Lunar Flare”. To make effective use of your “Trait”, you want to use it right after you cast “Lunar Flare”. This way almost all the spells, “Lunar Flare” included, will benefit from the “Trait”.

The roaming pair described above, Diablo and Tyrande, is not so easily executed – there are tons of mechanical and positional stuff that is needed to be done properly, with right timings. So, I’ll provide advices and suggestions in Tips section. They will help you succeed with the ganking in general, and with Tyrande in particular.

Now, let’s talk about general roaming stuff. What is very important to keep in mind is your positioning. You have to always be close to the hero you are following up during the rotations. There are two reasons for that. Firstly, it is done because almost all the heroes you are going to roam with will use their gap closer ability to reach the target. And. If you were not behind such hero before he used the ability, you won’t have enough time to reach the target and follow up actions of your mate with “Lunar Flare” and other spells. Secondly, and most importantly, it is done because the range of your “Trait”. The range is damn small; it is less than your auto-attack range! And. You want to cast “Mark” before most of the abilities of your allies are used. You don’t want to lose 25% of the burst damage because you were badly positioned and couldn’t cast your “Trait” in the right time.

In second scenario, when you are part of the pushing tri-lane, you want to play more reactionary and play poking game. You want to dish out as much free, auto-attack, damage as you can, while saving your spells for zoning and scouting. If the enemy has roaming double, you want to anticipate their movement and reposition yourself behind the gates. This is done to dodge their rotation. Scouting with “W” will help a lot. Once the danger is gone, you are back to pushing the lane and poking enemy heroes. Other spells are used to trade HP effectively and zone enemy heroes from your lane.

Usually, this way of laning is played with specialist hero and hero that is good for overtime supporting, like Malfurion or Brightwing. Let’s say you are playing tri-lane of Malfurion, Nazeebo and Tyrande. What you want to do is help clearing wave/attacking the structures with your auto-attacks. Heals from “Q” are reserved for the situation when Malf or Nazeebo start trading HP with enemy hero(es). Owl is used for scouting if you anticipate some rotations, or camping. “Lunar Flare” is kept for follow up move when enemy hero will be trapped in Malfurion’s roots, or Nazeebo’s “W”. It can also be used to help ally heroes retreat to the gates, when enemy is ganking you.
Generally speaking, you are playing it slowly, in tri-lane. You don’t rush for kills. If you can, you score a kill, or assist in doing so. If not, and enemy escaped with 100 HP, you are fine. Main idea here is to do as much structural damage as you can, while not risking being killed and using enemy positional mistakes/rotations for your favor. 

The fights

They can also be played in two ways. And. The way you will be playing them is directly influenced by team composition. If you have aggressive comp that is designed for quick fights, you want to quickly follow up your mates and help bursting down the target. On the other hand, if team line-up is suited towards long fights and poking wars, you want to play it slowly. You want to wait out positional mistakes from the enemy and follow up the disables of your teammates.

Let’s take a closer look at scenario when you have an aggressive comp. For example, you have Butcher, Uther, Johanna and Kael’thas in your team. Main initiation force here will be Johanna with Heroic and Butcher with “E” ability. Your goal will be to land a follow up “Lunar Flare” on Butcher’s or Johanna’s target. Unlike in rotations scenario, you don’t want to be right behind them, as it will heavily compromise your positioning. Landing a good stun is enough. It will buy time for other teammates to land their abilities and stuns. Of course, you would like to cast your Trait as soon as you can, as well as Owl for additional burst damage. But. You don’t want to do that at the cost of your positioning and life if enemy can punish you for that. This exact team comp has enough damage to deal with single target. The “Trait” will just speed up the process. So, your main goal is to land stun with a proper timing.

Tyrande has long range on her stun. So, what you can do is land a stun on the hero that is not being bursted down by your team, but an enemy hero who can save your team’s target. This will be a viable play when you see that your team is in range of the target and can kill and chain control it, but there is an enemy hero nearby that can prevent that by using his abilities, or he can negate the burst. The damage output of your team is enough to quickly obliterate the enemy hero in 1-2 seconds of time. By landing a stun at right time you will prevent other enemy hero from saving your team’s target.

For a better understanding here is an example. Your team is going to kill enemy Sylvanas. Sylvanas is very squishy hero. You know that she will die very fast. You see that she is almost in reach of the spells of your mates and they won’t have trouble taking her down without you. But what you also see is that there is enemy Monk nearby. He can negate all the burst with his Heroic. There are few things you can do. If you are good with game prediction and have decent “Lunar Flare” accuracy, you can stun Monk right at the time when Sylvanas is being killed. Or. You can time your “Lunar Flare” to stun Sylvanas right after she leaves the Stasis from “Divine Palm” and is healed. In both ways you will secure a kill for your team.

Now, let’s talk about hero line-up designed for long fights. As it is for laning in tri-lane, you want to play it slowly. Basically, you are playing it the same way you do in the tri-lane. You wait for enemy to make positional mistake. You follow up the disables of allies and so on. Main goal here, instead of structural damage, is to secure map objective advantage or number advantage. For example, you have Zagara, Malfurion, Leoric and Zeratul in your team. This comp is very strong at poking. At the same time you have perfect disengages, or initiations, in form of “Maw”, “Void Prison” and let’s say Tomb.

In fights, every team member will be poking enemies with spells, and Zeratul and Zagara have a luxury of landing auto-attacks. Leoric and Zeratul, they have escapes. So, you need to watch out for Malf’s and Zagara’s HP and positioning. You need to follow up roots and slows from your mates with “Lunar Flare”. You need to heal damaged heroes with your “Q”. Usually, it is Zagara and Leoric. Lastly, you want to follow up any focus with “Trait”. That is it! This setup has tons of zoning. Usually, the fight will look like poking war, until one of the enemy heroes overextends. At that time he will be the target of focus while other enemies will be isolated by one of the Heroics. Or. If one of the allies messed up their positioning, or being initiated by enemy team, the Heroic will be used to disengage. Sometimes, it may be enough to just use Malf’s roots.

The Heroics

image source:
http://narga-lifestream.deviantart.com/art/Tyrande-Whisperwind-Starfall-539011387

Both Heroics can be played in defensive/offensive scenarios and in slow and quick hero compositions. In burst-down team you can use “Shadowstalk” to start fights unexpectedly. With level 20 upgrade, “Shadowstalk” becomes powerful tool used start fights and make retreats. Same can be done with slow line-ups. You can use it as mitigation tool for the damage done to your team, or you can use it as disengage tool.
“Starfall” can be used to zone enemies out of objective in any comp. You can also use it to retreat for both comps. At the same time you can throw it out to deal additional damage and provide slows. It can even be used for initiation if you see that your allies will be able to follow up. Lastly, it will be a trigger for “Executioner” talent, as it applies 20% slow.

Tips 

“Shadowstalk”

When it is used in offensive way, you want to cast it when enemy doesn’t have a vision over your allies. This way he won’t know for sure that you used your ultimate and won’t be able to make reactionary plays. This is valid for level 10 Shadowstalk. Once you have level 20 upgrade, you don’t need such precautions.
Lastly, the stealth from Shadowstalk is instantly applied upon the activation of the Heroic, and it takes 3 seconds of time to re-stealth if you broke out of it. So, it has usual stealth mechanic.

“Sprint”

You can use it to body-block enemy hero. It can be done to do more damage, or to save your ally. In both cases you need to be aware of situation on the map and enemy cooldowns. You don’t want to throw yourself at enemy that can kill you. After you used the Sprint, think of Tyrande as a hero that don’t have escape ability, because you actually don’t!

“Lunar Flare”

Once you master this spell and will have great accuracy with it, it can be used to start a fights. Also, you might consider keeping it as an interrupt for key enemy Heroics. For example, “Mosh Pit”, or “Ravenous Spirit”.

“Trait”

Always keep in mind that the range of your “Trait” is less than the auto-attacking range. That means that you will be in reach of the spells of your target, and its allies if they are situated nearby. So, you want to anticipate the flow of the fight, and don’t mess up your positioning when using the “Trait”. Also, don’t forget to reapply your Trait in fights. It has only 12 seconds of cooldown time, 4 of which he is applied to some target.

“Owl”

While Owl, “Sentinel”, is great scouting tool, it is also additional spell in your burst damage kit. If it is the 5×5 fight that is going to happen, you can allow yourself to use it for scouting. Moreover, it is best to do so, as it can grant you a visional and soon positional advantage over the enemy. And. On the contrary, when you are ganking with someone, you don’t want to use it for scouting, unless you know that the damage you have is enough to kill the target, because it can lead to failed rotation and enemy retreating with low HP.

“Roaming with Lord of Terror”

The tip is mostly about the mechanical stuff. The stun of Diablo’s “Q” lasts for 0.5 second. The stun on Diablo’s “E” lasts for 0.25 second. What that means is the hero that is standing in front of Diablo will be repositioned behind him in 0.25 seconds of time. That is why the rotation of Diablo’s spells will be “Q”>”E”>”W’. And. Your rotation should be “E”>”Trait”>”W”. What are important here are these things. First. You need to cast “E” right after the target is stunned by Diablo’s “Shadow Charge”, his “Q”. Second. While your “Lunar Flare” is flying down, it has the delay that equals 0.5 seconds of time, during this time Diablo will use his “Overpower”, his “E”, and you need to use your “Trait” before “Lunar Flare” hits the target. Third. Right after the “Trait” is applied and target is stunned by “Lunar Flare”, you, Diablo and other ally should use other spells they have. “W” for you and Diablo, and all the spells for the ally. Your ally has to wait for “Trait” to be applied before using his spells.

Lastly, if the target of your gank doesn’t have escape ability and can’t disable Diablo, you don’t need to rush and can tear away some HP by right-clicking. You just need Diablo to be close to target so he can cast his “Q” before target reaches the gate. And. The distance to the gates has to be such that the target won’t be pushed behind the gates by Diablo’s “Q’. You can do it even with hero that can disable Diablo, but doesn’t have escape ability. For this, you need to either be good at landing “Lunar Flares”, or you need laning ally to have a reliable stun\slow\disable, to use it at the time when Diablo is disabled.

Lastly, lastly. The stuff described in paragraph above can work not only with Diablo, but with any roaming partner.

part 2.1,
alternative builds and talents

Situational Talent choices and build Variations

Variations

image source:
http://narga-lifestream.deviantart.com/art/Tyrande-Whisperwind-Someone-threatens-the-wilds-565985275

Utility build has tons of situational talent choices. Also, it has few build variations. Let’s proceed with variations. There is a build based around “Lunar Flare” ability. And. There is a build based around “Sentinel” ability. There is also build based around “Q”, but is more of standalone build than the variation of the utility build, as you invest too much in healing.

”Lunar Flare” variation. Nothing fancy here. You just take Lunar Blaze at level 7 and “Shooting Star” at level 16, instead of “Trueshot Aura”. What level 16 talent does? It increases the damage of “Lunar Flare” by 50%, and refunds Mana cost if you hit the hero. Usually, you pick this talent when you see that you won’t really benefit from the additional right-click damage, as fights are quick or positional with almost no right-clicks. If you have trouble landing “Lunar Flares” on your own, just use it as follow up stun. Lastly, “Shooting Star” will be handy in long fights, as it refunds Mana cost of the ability.
“Sentinel” variation. This variation will affect your gameplay. It is heavily based on your map reading and “Sentinel” accuracy. You want to take all Owl upgrades. At level 1 you go for “Empower”, at level 4 you go for “Pierce” and on level 16 you go for “Ranger”. All these talents will change your “Sentinel” mechanic in such way: Owl will now fly through heroes and won’t stop, so it will pierce all heroes granting vision and doing damage. It will fly from your location and across the map. It will now instantly reduce the cooldown of your abilities by 2 seconds, Heroic included, for each hero hit, making it maximum of 10 seconds cooldown reduction if you hit all 5 heroes. Lastly, Owl’s width is doubled and it deals up to 200% more damage based on distance traveled, means x3 of the original damage at max range. Maximum range is not the end of the map, but a specified distance. Approximately, it is around the distance between the gates of your Keep and the gates of enemy Fort in the middle lane.

The gameplay

With such talent choices you want to constantly poke enemy team with Owl’s. This is done to control their movement across the map and apply poking damage. If you are able to consistently hit enemy with Owl’s, they will be forced to retreat to fountains, or base. It will be harder for enemy team to do the objectives and camps, as you will have a vision and HP advantage over them. This will allow you to apply pressure and increase the advantage – force a fight in more favorable spot/having more HP, or secure some objective/camp. This build is suited more towards teamplay and teamwork. You want to move/act as a team to take advantage of the vision and damage granted/dealt by the Owl’s. It can be a viable play even in more solo oriented environment. You just need to wait till late game, level 16 and further. It is the time when Owl’s start doing some ridiculous damage and you can do crazy twist.

Other than that, you have usual semi-support gameplay. The stuff described earlier, in general style of play, didn’t go anywhere. You still need to heal mates, assist with “Mark” and follow up disables and so on. You don’t just sit at base and shot Owl’s! Owl shooting is done during the time when don’t have fights, or directly in/before/after fight.

Lastly, i would say that this build is suited more towards slow setups. They have the ability to zone enemies and control battlefield, or reset fights, and that is where the build works best.

Suitable maps

Sentinel build will be good at big maps with positional objectives, like Sky Temple, Blackheart’s Bay, Cursed Hollow, Garden of Terror and so on. On these maps you can predict enemy location and movement, as it is a nature of objectives that will require enemy heroes to stay in the same location for some time. This will allow you to terrorize them with Owl’s. The size of the map is also important, because on bigger maps you are guaranteed to reach level 16, which is very crucial for this build. It is huge power spike for the build. Once you hit level 16 and learn “Ranger” talent, it will be much easier to hit heroes with Owl’s and they will start doing tremendous amounts of damage.

Tips

To start building up your gameflow and game understanding with this build, try Owling enemies at expected locations during objectives. For example, during Shrines on “Infernal Shrines”, when you see enemy fighting big Terror on “Garden of Terror” and during Temples on “Sky Temple”. This way you will adjust yourself to fly speed of the Owl and will start training your Owl accuracy. This approach will also work on some obvious map objectives like Boss camps and overall 5 man pushes.

Generally speaking, the effectiveness of this build is purely based on Owl accuracy and map reading/feeling. So, you need to train those two to have an overwhelming result.

Once you’ve had the experience of playing this build and trained your accuracy, you can try playing with “Rewind” or “Celestial Wrath”, as level 20 choices. They both can have devastating effect over enemy team. While “Rewind” is purely team fight based, “CW” can serve as good sieging weapon between long fights. It may even be ready for next fight, as the Heroic cooldown is also reduced each time you score the Owl.

Demonstration

Of course, you won’t make such plays right from the first game, but this is a good demo of what this build can do with a bit of luck and experience. Average Owl game won’t have such plays, but you can deal enough damage to force enemy to retreat to base, or fight with half/not full HP. 

Situational talent choices

Please note: the pattern of talent choices shown below is one of the variations of Owl build.
These are not the talent choices you should follow each game.
image source:
http://www.heroesfire.com/hots/talent-calculator/tyrande#rtoK

There are plenty of them. In this regard Tyrande is one of the most flexible heroes in the game when it comes to talent choices. You have tons of viable alternatives at level 4, 7 and 13. Some of them are specific and best work with exact build, but most can be used and combined with any build.

Level 1

On this tier, your viable alternative is “Empower” talent. “Hunter’s Mark” is one of the reasons Tyrande is valued so much. That is why you don’t want to skip “Ranger’s Mark” talent, unless you are going “Sentinel” build. The upgrade for “Q’, “Celestial Attunement”, and “Seasoned Marksman” talents are parts of other builds i will describe below and aren’t really viable for the Utility build.
“Empower” is first core talent for the “Sentinel” build. After you skill it, each time “Sentinel” will hit the target all your cooldowns will be instantly reduced by 2 seconds. Heroic included. This talent will allow shooting more Owls between/in the fights, and use spells more frequently in fights. It is also nice tool to reset the cooldown of your Starfall.

Level 4

This tier offers many playable choices. Let’s start with “Pierce”. It is second core talent for Owl build. Once you learn it, “Sentinel” will go through heroes and won’t stop upon hitting one. This talent can be a viable pick even if you are not playing the Owl build. Here I’m talking about maps like Cursed Hollow or Towers of Doom. With this talent you can delay the objective capture for multiple enemy heroes. As for the Owl build – the talent will be a foundation for insane hero damage numbers, combined with “Ranger” talent, and additive cooldown reduction time for each hero.
Next one is “Protective Shield”. This is activatable talent. It has 60 seconds of cooldown time and costs no Mana. The talent shields a hero for 15% of their max HP. The effect lasts for 5 seconds. This talent is great tool when you know that you need additional sustain against enemy burst damage. As the numbers are percentage based, the effect will be greater if used on Warrior heroes.
“Healing Ward”. Is nice talent to have on maps with prolonged fights for objectives, like Infernal Shires, Battlefield of Eternity, Garden of Terror and so on. The talent is activatable ability. It has 60 seconds of cooldown time and costs no Mana. What it does? It places a ward that heals units in area for 2% of their max HP. The ward lasts for 10 seconds. The important thing to mind is that the ward can be destroyed by enemy right-clicks and spells. So. The way you position the ward will directly impact its effectiveness. It can also be used to mitigate damage received from poking fights, or during the siege.
Last, but not least, is the “Searing Arrows” talent. It is Tyrande’s version of common “Searing Attacks” talent. It is the same talent, it just situated one talent tier earlier. Also it has icon that is familiar to Warcraft III, or World of Warcraft, players. The talent is activatable ability. It lasts for 5 seconds. During this time, each auto-attack you land does 50% more damage, but burns away 10 Mana. The talent has 25 seconds of cooldown time.
Even if you are not playing auto-attack Tyrande, this talent is great tool to have. It will have most efficient use in rotations and burst-downs. Basically, it is a better version of “Focused Attack” if you are able to land more than 2 autos. I guess it is needless to say that this talent will sky rocket your bust down potential.

Level 7

This talent tier is specific. Ideally, you always want to go for “Lunar Flare” upgrade, as it is extremely sweet. But. There are viable choices that can work in specific situations.
“Quickening Blessing” is a buff to your “Q”. While this is core talent for Support Tyrande, it can find value in team setups with dive heroes like Kerrigan, Butcher, Illidan and so on. It works well versus enemy setups that you want to quickly dive in, do 1 kill and retreat. It is because this upgrade will increase movement speed of the target you healed with “Q” by 25%. The buff will last for 3 seconds of time. Please note that it doesn’t work on Tyrande.
WALLE”MULE” can be your choice on maps where map objectives deal direct siege damage. For example, Blackheart’s Bay and Sky Temple. With this little robot you will be able to repair structural damage and decrease the value of map objectives used by enemy team.
Lastly, let’s look on “Battle Momentum”. It can be great talent for burst-down line-ups, when you see that enemy can’t really punish you for not being in the backline. It will also be a handy tool if you took Starfall and fights are happening all the time. The talent decreases cooldown times of your abilities and Heroic by 0.5 seconds for each auto-attack.

Level 10
The Heroics

As you already know, both ultimates are viable choices and depend on game variables, or are matter of preference. So, I’ll just describe additional tip.
As of now, there is a weird interaction between “Shadowstalk” and Tyrael’s “Judgment”. If a hero that is being “Judgment’ed” goes into stealth from “Shadowstalk”, Tyrael’s ulty is put on 10 seconds of cooldown as if you interrupted it. For this feature to work, you need to use “Shadowstalk” during the cast animation of Judgment, which is 0.75 second.

Level 13

This one is also full of alternatives. At start, you have ”Overflowing Light”. It is another core talent for healing Tyrande that can be played in other builds. The talent is great against burst damage and provides great healing numbers in general. If you feel that your team needs additional sustain it is good talent to go. “OL” will increase healing numbers of Tyrande’s “Q” by 33% when she is above 50% health threshold. With this talent in play Tyrande turns into solid burst healer. The numbers of healing she will be able to provide are insane. For example, at level 13 Uther heals for 655 points of damage for 90 Mana, while Tyrande heals 653 points of damage for 45 Mana!
“Shrink Ray” will be next great talent. It is activatable talent, which can be used on enemy heroes and active map objectives like Dragon Knight or Garden Terror. It has 60 seconds of cooldown time and costs no Mana. The talent reduces the size, damage and movement speed of the enemy by 50%. The debuff lasts for 4 seconds. What is important to know is that it reduces not only auto-attack damage, but any damage. Heroics included. It is a great tool to use on enemies that have channeling Heroic, as it will reduce its damage by half! For example, if you cast it on Diablo, while he is channeling “Lightning Breath”, the damage of the ultimate will be reduced by 50%.
“Huntress’ Fury” will be the only talent we skip on this tier. It is a great tool for auto-attack Tyrande. But. It requires you to stay in basic attack range and it effectiveness purely depends on your auto-attack damage.

Level 16

Apart from “Trueshot Aura”, you can go for “Ranger” and “Shooting Star”. “Ranger” is core talent for Owl build. You can try playing it in standalone variant, without talents at level 1 and 4. However, it effectiveness will be drastically reduced, as you will only hit 1 target with it. This upgrade increases the width of Owl by 100% and damage by up to 200% based on distance “Sentinel” traveled. Outside of Owl build i don’t see it being effective. It can be skilled to buff your burst damage a bit, but the buff will be small. In that regard you better look at “Shooting Star”. The talent will not only buff the damage of your Lunar Flare by 50%, but will also refund full Mana cost if you hit enemy hero with “E”. With this talent you will have better burst damage potential, much better than “Ranger” offers. And. It will also return you Mana. This can be very handy in drained out fights.
The only talent left on this tier is “Mark of Mending”. This is specific upgrade. It can work for healing or auto-attack Tyrande. But, I don’t see it working for utility build.

Level 20
Heroic upgrades and other Shenanigans

This tier is full of pleasant surprises. Apart from already discussed and insanely good upgrade for Shadowstalk, named “Hunter’s Swiftness”, we also have here upgrade for Starfall – “Celestial Wrath” and “Rewind”, “Nexus Frenzy”, and “Storm Shield”.
“Celestial Wrath” will change the range of Starfall to global, meaning you can cast it wherever you want on the map, and will buff the damage by 30%. This might seem a mediocre upgrade, unless you are playing with “Battle Momentum” talent or Owl build. With “BM” talent the Heroic can be used for sieging/base trading scenarios. Or. You can have it available every fight. On the other hand, with Owl build you will have it not only every fight, but you can also manage to squeeze occasional Strafalls to siege enemy structures/Core. This will wholly depend on the ability to land Owls, as they will cut Starfall’s cooldown by 2 seconds for each hero hit.
“Rewind” is one of the most used talents on this tier. It suits many builds and many purposes. You can turn the tides of battle with some insanely good pair of Owls in “Sentinel” build. It can be used for additional burst healing if you are playing versus very heavily burst/dive oriented compositions. Lastly, it can be used for some end gaming burst down action, when you are able to single-handedly kill enemy Assassin with doubled rotation of your spells, or dish out insanely big burst damage numbers. Now that the hype is over, let’s see what this talent actually does. The talent is activatable ability that has 60 seconds of cooldown time and costs no Mana. Upon activation, “Rewind” will reset the cooldowns of your basic abilities. It doesn’t work on “Trait” or Heroic.
“Nexus Frenzy”. Apart from being one of the standard talent choices for auto-attack Tyrande, this talent will be also good if you choose to play with “Battle Momentum”, or feel like the game is going the way that you can allow yourself to right-click much. The talent buffs your attack speed and range by 20%. Now it will be 6.6, for attack range, and 1.50, for attack speed.
Lastly, it is the savior of allies – “Storm Shield”. It is activatable talent that has 45 seconds of cooldown time. The talent costs no Mana and shields all allied heroes, Tyrande included, for 20% of their max HP. The effect lasts for 3 seconds. You can think of this talent as of AOE “Protective Shield”. “SS” is good for negating some of the burst damage. It will also find a great use in absorbing some of the enemy AOE Heroics. Keep in mind that its usage is more momentum based, as it lasts only for 3 seconds.

part 2.2,
the ways of playing against Tyrande

Tips on how to play against Tyrande and the Build

image source:
http://narga-lifestream.deviantart.com/art/Tyrande-Whisperwind-Endu-di-Rifa-564130834

General approach on how to play against Tyrande

I’ll start with the basics. Tyrande is very weak hero in terms of mobility and self-sustain. These are two weaknesses you want to exploit when playing versus her. She has low HP pool and no escape abilities. In the build i described above, the mobility issue is compensated by the “Sprint” talent and upgrade for Heroic. But. They are available at level 13 and 20 respectively. Also, they are not your usual escape abilities with low cooldown time. They have long cooldowns, 60 and 50 seconds. So, once used they leave Tyrande in very uncomfortable spot, when it comes to mobility. And that is the time when you want to strike and secure the kill.
Like it is with any squishy hero, you would like to base your play either on positional mistakes of the player or force the action yourself. In case of Tyrande, playing on positional mistakes will be very productive. Tyrande is very hard to play hero versus dive heroes and hero line-ups that have a lot of disables. Versus such match-ups Tyrande will have hard time positioning herself properly.

Securing the kill based on positional mistake

I’ll mention full range of heroes versus Priestess in Hero section below. I mean heroes that will be effective versus Tyrande. For now, I’ll provide general pattern with few examples. Tyrande has low-self sustain and not really suited for duels or any solo actions. Once she is isolated from the team, or got caught during the rotation, you can have an easy time chasing her down with any Melee Assassin. Tyrande’s strength lies in staying with team and moving with team. Once she is separated from the team, she is like creep with bigger health pool, for any hero with chase-down and solo kill potential.
For example, let’s take classical chasing guy, Illidan. He will have easy time killing her 1×1, as he has better dueling potential with life steal from “Trait”, damage absorption from shield of “E” and mobility spells like “Q” and “E”. They also can be used to dodge her stun. If Tyrande is to retreat, Illidan has no problem chasing her down with “Q” and “W”, and will eventually kill her during the chase. The situation is true for the 1×1 case, but once Tyrande has 1-2 allies it will be a reversed situation. You will become the victim.
If you are not found of Melee Assassins, you can use any hero that has decent solo kill potential, or you can secure the situation described above with 2 heroes. One of them has to have the mobility spell and do the body-blocks while the other will be constantly doing damage. It can be right-click damage, it can be magical damage.
For example, let’s take Muradin and Kael’thas. Kael has enough damage to blow away 70-80% of Tyrande’s HP on his own. As Muradin, you just need to provide some body-blocks and slows with “W”, while he will be casting “Ignites” and “Flamestrike”. You might not even need to use “Stormbolt”. Now swap Kael for Raynor and you will have same scenario. It is just the damage source will be Raynor’s auto-attacks and it will take a bit longer. You might need to use “Stormbolt” here, apart from “W” and few bodies!

Securing the kill based on your own actions

The stuff described above was about the situation when you have Tyrande isolated from her team, because she made positional mistake or got caught during map rotation. But. That won’t happen over and over again. Also, you might encounter experienced Tyrande players. They have no problem maintaining decent positioning. In such case you need to start make action and plays.
What you will be looking to do is attack Tyrande with heroes that can lockdown enemies in place and quickly burst them down. Such play is based on small HP pool and low mobility that Tyrande has. For this you need one hero that is able to quickly dive in with a spell and disable Tyrande for some time, while the other hero can burst her down. The example of Muradin and Kael will work here too. As they both, can melt down Tyrande in few seconds, and they both have disables. Muradin will jump in with “E”, slow and damage with “W”, and lockdown with “Q”. Kael will just have to finish half-dead Priestess with quick burst form double “W’s”. There are tons of heroes that can follow this pattern. I’ll provide more examples in the hero section below.
This was the example when you are fighting with basic abilities and Tyrande allies can help her out. What you can do is either wait out the use of saving abilities. Or. You can use some zoning and controlling AOE Heroics like Zeratul’s “Void Prison”, Thrall’s “Sundering” and so on, to isolate Tyrande from the team.

Laning versus Tyrande and how to counter it

Let’s talk laning first. When laning you want to anticipate, judging by enemy line-up, versus what type of Tyrande you will play. If it is Tyrande that will rotate around the map ganking your team, it is one approach. If it is Tyrande that will stay in tri-lane it is the other approach.

Rotations and Tyrande

Popular rotation comps, nowadays, are Diablo, Butcher, Kerrigan, Muradin and Tyrande. You can also see Thrall, Jaina, Anub, Arthas, ETC, Nova, Sonya and Tyrande, as they have the same or even greater rotation potential but are less popular. In general, there is nothing hard playing against rotations. You just have to watch the map, and hug the gates when you see that it is enough time passed for rotation duo to be in the bushes near you. That is easy on paper. For it to work in each game, each of your teammates has to do this. You also don’t want to push the lane, so lane will be near your gates and you can safely jump behind them. But. Enemy creeps shouldn’t be attacked by the cannons, as the lane will be pushed by them towards enemy gates.

That is one approach. To play it safe and sound. Based on enemy positioning with good teamplay and map awareness. But, that won’t happen in each game. Especially. Especially, in solo environment, where people have different game understanding and so on. So. What you can do is take more aggressive approach and have your own roaming duo, to mess up with enemy rotations. You just need hero with good lockdown and hero with good burst damage, like already mentioned Muradin/Kael duo.

If you are more of a solo player, you can rotate on your own. But. You will have to play more defensively. You need a hero with either disable or stun. And. You want to use in a way that will mess up the rotation of spells that enemy duo will be executing. For example, let’s take already mentioned Diablo/Tyrande. Let’s say you are playing Muradin. To break the rotation of spells of this duo, you just need to stun Tyrande right after Diablo uses his “Q” on your ally. If your laning ally hero is someone with huge burst damage potential like Jaina or Zeratul, you might even end up killing Tyrande. With a bit of teamplay and few body-blocks. That’s the best case scenario. On average – you should just prevent enemy from killing your laning teammate. That’s one approach of breaking the enemy rotation of spells. Another would be to stun Diablo, or any other hero that starts chaining the stuns, to prevent duo from engaging your ally.Lastly, i guess it is needless to say that you need to follow this duo around, and have understanding where they are and whom they are going to gank, to make such YouTube plays :).

Tyrande and tri-lanes

Usually, pushing tri-lanes are very successful when it comes to securing XP advantage based on sieging enemy structures. This is the case when they are left uncontested. So. What you can do? You can contest them, by having your own tri-lane and negating their success, or pushing another lane(s) and securing same XP advantage if you have weaker tri-lane. You can have rotation duo that will be ganking enemy tri-lane, or another lanes, to not allow them do enough siege damage, or take away their soaking powers on other lanes.

For example, enemy has pushing tri-lane in form of Zagara/Malf/Tyrande. You can draft your own tri-lane. Let’s say it will be Brightwing/Tassadar and Sylvanas. With this lane you can break even in terms of sieging potential, or even get ahead as Tass has the ability to protect structures and your comp has better wave clear. The exact result will depend on the execution but strategic wise the work is done. The main idea is to draft the setup that can stay even or win a lane. It doesn’t have to be exactly the pattern of Support/Semi-Support and Specialist.

Of course, countering enemy with a draft is a matter of organized groups and teams. But, what if you play solo or with one friend? Here you can go roaming duo. This will be also viable approach for team based or organized group gameplay. Basically, you want to draft a pair of heroes that will be good at killing at least part of enemy heroes. I mean effective at ganking tri-lane. Ideally, you want to dominate the whole map, but if it is not the case, you are fine with it. At least, you will be able to destroy structures on other lanes, even if you didn’t manage to kill hero on solo lane. If you gank him and he escapes, he will have low resources and won’t do much when you start destroying his gates. This will allow you to compensate the siege damage done by tri-lane. It can also secure you some XP lead if you manage to drive enemy hero out of the lane, or kill him. Of course, if you will be able to successfully gank tri-lane, you will not only deny enemy from pushing your lane, but you will also secure XP advantage, and you can do some siege damage on that tri-lane.
For roaming duo you want to have hero with disables and hero with burst damage. If you feel strong in your execution you can even go with two burst damage heroes. The idea here is to shut down the tri-lane and secure level advantage. For example, you can with previously mentioned Kael\Muradin, for classic disable/body-block + burst damage setup, or you can go purely burst damage like Zeratul/Jaina setup does. I’ll provide more examples in heroes section. The exact heroes that are suited best for such idea will depend on enemy comp, as you want to effectively pressure weak spots of enemy line-up. In general, the more disables you have the better is. If you are good with executing plays, you can go more burst oriented and less lockdown dependent heroes.
Lastly, what are you going to do if you play alone? Well, you can do the stuff described above at your own. Of course, it won’t be as effective as it is done by organized group. But, hey! The times when organized groups are matched versus solo players are gone, so enemy team also consist of solo players. And. They won’t also play at maximum efficiency.

The plays against Tyrande abilities
Lunar Flare

Here I’ll talk about “Lunar Flare” and both Heroics. Let’s start with “E” ability. So, as you already know it has 0.5 sec delay before it lands. And. That is the stuff you want to use to your advantage. If you have fast reaction, you can use escape ability to move out from AOE, or you can even manage to walk away in another direction and no be hit. This is mechanical stuff. It can work. It may not. What is more important is to learn to predict the time when “Lunar Flare” will be used. Ideally, you want to play as Tyrande to understand that. But. There are few obvious points you can learn/understand right away.

First one is that the spell will be used towards your direction of fleeing/moving, once Tyrande is in cast range. Here, I’m talking about the situation when player tries to land a stun based on his accuracy and game understanding. To understand/feel and counter it, you need to know/feel the range of the spell, and once you will be in casting range, you just need to unexpectedly change direction of moving for 1-2 seconds of time.

Second one is about more team based gameplay when the stun is used for follow up. In this scenario you can use a spell to interrupt the rotation of enemy spells if you are not the target of the burst. If you are, you want to disable the guy who is starting the chain of disables/stuns. Or. If you will have the possibility, you can disable Tyrande right before she uses her stun on you, to buy a time for retreat and juking. Not all Tyrande will have perfect execution and timing. It may or may not save you, but it is best if you give it a try.

Starfall

Here I’ll talk about the situation when it is used as zoning tool near some key map objective. For example, it is used to dismount your team and delay them from reaching the Tribute, on Cursed Hollow. And situation is such that enemy will score the Tribute if you don’t rush in with Heroic or gap closer.

This is classical situation that leads to either overextension of the Tribute value, or overestimating of Starfall’s potential. And i see it in many solo games. Here you have to clearly anticipate and understand the circumstances of your actions and enemy moves. If it is not the last Tribute, enemy has 1 of them, is it really worth overextending to cancel the channeling? Maybe it will be much better to give enemy a Tribute now, and force a fight 10-20 seconds later, as they used some of their Heroics to zone you out and you will have Heroic advantage over them? Even if it the 3rd Tribute for enemy team the question of overextension is still there. Because again, if they used some key abilities to secure this Trib, you can just fight them 10 seconds later. You will most likely win the fight and their Curse will be wasted. Also, in such cases you might fake your dive to bait some spells and Heroics.

Now, let’s reverse the situation. There are cases when you really want to cancel the Trib capture and force a fight, even maybe sacrifice a hero. Usually, it is the case when you have nothing to lose and you definitely know that the game will end if you give up the Curse. Or. You clearly have better fighting setup, but enemy manage to wipe few of the lanes and secure few levels of advantage.

Shadowstalk

This is mainly about spotting the usage of the ulty and what to do against level 20 upgrade. The basics are, you want to be aware of Tyrande’s level 10 choice and not get caught by surprise, and don’t give that advantage of one lost fight at level 10. Next stuff is about map awareness and map control. Against “Shadowstalk” you want to understand where enemy is and check the lanes if any hero just got suddenly invisible. You also want some means of revealing the stealth. And lastly, you want to learn to actually notice those damn invisible heroes running near you! If you really have troubles noticing stealth, try playing with different video settings. Personally, i find it very easy to detect on Medium-Ultra textures and Medium effects. Probably, i also have to mention Low post-processing and Medium terrain.

Now comes hard part. What to do with enemy team running around with 40% movement speed buff, for 8 seconds of time? Well, you can’t really escape them, unless you can hop over large part of impassible terrain, or hind behind the gates. To deal with this stuff you need some kind of AOE disengage spell. Main idea here is to buy yourself/team enough time for large part of the buff to expire, or to run to safety/safe distance. The spells can be Falstad’s “Mighty Gust”, Leoric’s “enTomb”, Zeratul’s VP and so on. This was the situation when you ran away. But, you can use same spells to block the path/delay enemy that runs away with the buff.

Plays against Utility build

Finally! We got here! This part will be about playing against Owl build, “Trait”, “Sprint” and “MULE”, ‘Rewind’, “Searing Arrows”. Gosh, so much to talk about! Oh, wait there is more! “Storm Shield”, “Protective Shield”, “Healing ward”…
I’ll be merciful and will only write about the part before “Gosh” 🙂 If you are interested about the other talents feel free to ask in the comments.

"Owl build"

Here is weird thing. Despite this build dishing out huge damage numbers, especially post 16. You actually want to have a form of constant overtime healing versus it! This is because the nature of the build is poking. And the best thing you can have against poking is overtime heals. That means Malf/BW/Morales will be your best friends.
Other stuff you can do is play on the randomness of the build. On the anticipation and reading of Tyrande player. The build is very random. You need to be RNGsus to constantly hit enemy with random Owls. Usually, the plays are predictable and are tied around global stuff that will definitely happen. For example, you play on Sky Temple versus Owl Tyrande. You know that she will definitely fire Owl towards the objective and it will be flying, most likely, towards it center. So, by just moving a bit to the left or right of it, you can have a luxury of not playing Malf/BW/Morales and your Support won’t need to use its cooldown.

"Trait"

Ideally, you want to count in your head the next time Tyrande will use her Trait and have an answer for it, but that’s too YouTube much. So, you can bind it to the cooldown of your spell, as it is shown on the UI. The Trait lasts for 4 seconds, and has 12 seconds of cooldown time. Meaning, after it is finished being active, it will be reapplied after 8 seconds of time. What I’m talking here is overall fight awareness and anticipation of use of key enemy spells.
You can anticipate being marked if you are focused, and it will be the best time to use escape ability, form of self-sustain and etc., obviously. If you are not the one who is focused/”Marked”, but you can help, do it! As fast as you can, because heroes under the Mark of Tyrande have tendencies to pop up like balloons in a blink of an eye.

"Rewind and Searing Arrows"

Same logic is applied here as it is with “Trait”. I mean counter play moves and anticipation. But. Unlike it is with “Trait”; versus these two you have another way of dealing with threat in form of disabling its source. While you can’t disable all five enemy heroes, to prevent damage from “Mark”, unless you have some huge AOE spell, or ultimate, in case of “Rewind” and “Searing Arrows” you just need to disable Tyrande, or deny her using the talents effectively.
This two will be popped up in same scenario – while bursting down the target. The source of the damage for “Searing Arrows” will be Tyrande’s auto-attacks. So, you want to use means available to disrupt it. Eventually any stun will work, but what will also work is blinds, auto-attack debuffs, movement speed slows/disables and lastly body-blocks.
Same logic is applied to “Rewind”. However, it will be harder to execute mechanically as its use and effectiveness is almost instant, it doesn’t take 5 seconds to fully come in play. 

"Sprint"

Basically, the logic here is the same as for the talents above. This talent can be used for offensive/defensive plays. And you can use the ways described above to counter it.

"MULE"

Just like it was with previous talents… Oh, wait! It’s another talent. This one is actually interesting! To counter play WALL-E you want each sieging play to be finalized and reach its goal. If you push a Keep, you have to prepare the siege in such way that you will definitely take it down. If you won’t, guess what, it will be MULED repaired. And all the efforts you’ve made, all the sacrifices you’ve done, all the epic moves and other YouTube stuff you pulled off, all this will be lost and negated. Because of small lil robot that will bring back the HP of the Keep.
I guess, it is needless to say that you want to kill WALL-E each time you have a possibility to do so.
Last, but very important thing to keep in mind for maps with Objectives that do direct siege damage. Same logic is applied. You want to have a result with your map Objective that can’t be repaired. For example, if you are playing on Blackheart’s Bay map kill the tower in the middle lane. This way, the barrage from Pirate will destroy the Fort. It won’t be standing with 20% of HP. Being repaired. And it won’t consume shots from next barrage.

part 2.3,
Heroes of the Storm

Heroes that work well with and against Tyrande

Allies

image source:
http://mr–jack.deviantart.com/gallery/48533937/Heroes-of-the-Storm

There is insane, no! Tremendous amount of heroes that do work with Tyrande. So, I’ll comment on the heroes that are more or less in the current Meta and will also throw out some kill combinations and stuff that can work.

Rawrriors

Rawrriors for roaming and aggressive plays. Well, with Rawrriors it is simple. Most of them are roaming friends of Tyrande. Best buddies are Muradin, ETC, Diablo, Arthas. They are popular in the Meta and are relatively easy to execute for rotations. They all are straightforward. You engage with escape/engage ability on target. Q, or Q + E, for Muradin, Q for ETC, Q + E for Diablo, Q for Arthas he has to engage by walking up, Blizz hates him. Then after Tyrande hits target with “Lunar Flare” and “Trait’, they all unleash the abilities that left. Actually, despite dev hate Arthas will do the best burst damage, out of all listed Warriors. He used to be one the best tanks and roamers, back in the days when “Envenom” was strong and he actually had it on level 4! o_O. He also had healing from Ghouls that was much stronger than now. No kidding!!!
Apart from heroes listed above roaming with Tyrande can work for Anub and Stitches. It will be harder to execute mechanically and these heroes are more specific in terms of viability. With Anub the rotation is dive in from bushes/unseen location/over the terrain with “E” and then immediately throw “Q” on the target. You’ll need to activate Quickcast, to properly do that. Tyrande should use “E” + “Trait” right after the target is stunned by “E” of Anub. This way “Lunar Flare” will hit the target just before the stun from Anub’s “Q” will wear off.
With Stitches it is even harder to pull off, but much more exciting and rewarding. What you do is you cast “Lunar Flare” in front of Stitches as soon as he throws his hook. This way the target will be stunned right as the hook animation will be finished.
Lastly, if you are YouTuber have good mechanical skills, you can try roaming with Tyrande as Sonya, Tyrael, Rexxar, Leoric and Artanis. These heroes have enough damage/disables to pull off a kill. But it will be mechanically intensive, as you will need to do a lot of body-blocking to succeed. Right timing of spells will also play key part in the result. Lastly, i should say that Sonya, Tyrael and Leoric are top in the Meta for aggressive line-ups. But. They are not so good for rotations for average player or newcomer. The heroes described in bold, above, are also top in the Meta for aggressive setups.

You think this is it? No, no, no! We need to also discuss Warrior heroes that will be good for poking comps/slow positional plays and tri-lanes. For such setups you want to have heroes that are good at wave-clearing like Leoric, Arthas, Johanna, Tyrael or heroes that are good in sustained fights like Leoric, Arthas, Johanna, Tyrael 🙂 Chen, ETC and Muradin can also work for sustained purposes. They just need specific builds and minor alterations of gameplay. Also Chen and ETC will feel game-breaking versus enemy setups without stuns. Chen will be able to push the lane all day and have insane survivability with split Heroic, while ETC will have a good time Rocking Trash Metal out of enemy heroes stunning enemies with “Mosh Pit”.

Assassins

Melee and Ranged. For rotations and for rotations :). Well, you might pull of the pushing tri-lane with Assassin, but usually if you bet on the Tri-lane you don’t fight for top Assassin, during the draft. The Specialist, Support and Warrior roles are more contested and valued in that regard.

The Assassin that will be good for roaming is the one that has tons of burst damage. And then you are betting on good mechanical skills and execution, or with disables and burst damage. Then the rotation is easier to pull off. Let’s start with Meta heroes. In current Meta, for rotations, from pool of range Assassins you want to have Kael or Jaina. They both are burst down spell casters and have disables. Blondie is a bit better (Come on! Kael is male :D). It is easier for new players to hit targets that are slowed. And it is overall easier, to hit target that is slowed.

With Jaina you want to “hook” target with Q, wait for Tyrande to land her rotation and then use “Blizzard”/”Ice lance”. As Kael, you need to be a man and land a stun first. It will be good to not miss it, as then you can delete enemy hero in the blink of an eye.

Less popular and harder to execute, because of additional mechanic/execution pressure, will be Nova, Falstad, Tychus and Zeratul (Yeah, he is referred to as ranged Assassin unless you play full auto-attack build!). In Nova setup, Nova starts with “W”, waits Tyrande’s “E” + “Trait”, and scores another “Gathering Power” stack. Zeratul either open’s up with slow or body-blocks, and after Tyrande’s rotation finishes up the target. It is better to walk close to the target and save the blink, as sometimes body-blocking actions last till enemy gates, and you want to escape turret fire. Falstad will be the hardest to execute. As Falstad, you don’t have disable and need to body your victim. Good news is you have tons of damage, both magical and right-click, and mobility. Same can be said about Tychus, but it is a bit easier to gank with him. On his own, he deals enough damage to burn away 60-80% of enemy squishy. You just need to finish off the target, or use a “Mark” in the beginning of the burst. That is it for Ranged guys and gals!

Time to move on, towards Melee guys and gals. Kerrigan and Butcher will be your top Melee Assassins for aggressive line-ups and rotations with Tyrande. As Kerrigan, you want to do usual Kerrigan stuff. Landing the Q>W>E combo (Yeah, it is stun first and then grab. This way your target will be grabbed onto stun). It will be a job of Tyrande to be close to you, and land a “Mark” before you hit W>E. If the target doesn’t have escape, or stun, you don’t need to rush and can punch it to half-dead state, or until you find 100% working combo spot. As Butcher, you charge in with E, right-click target until Tyrande’s stun wears off, and only then use Q!

The above stuff can also work with Thrall. I mean it will work. It is just he is not in the VIP club top Meta. As Thrall, you wolf the target to the ground, and after Tyrande’s combo you unleash your burst. If target can’t disable you and don’t have escape you can right-click it until stunning effect fades off.

I won’t torture you much with tri-lane and pushing stuff. Just want to say that if you are going to play with Assassin in triple lane, it should be the one with good wave-clear. If not, it should be the one that can provide decent solo laning, as it is what he will be doing until you start moving as a team. Good wave-clear with AOE spell, from VIP club: Valla, Zeratul and Sylvanas (Please! She is Assassin/Specialist hybrid!). If your Assassin will be exiling at solo lane, then take Raynor or Sylvanas (P… ah, you already know it.). Thrall, Falstad and Illidan will also work, but they are not in the SWAG Meta. Be careful with Illidan and Thrall, as their solo laning relies on hitting minions with autos, as well as healing of them. They will have hard time laning versus heroes that have good wave-clear and burst damage.

Specialists

This is easy! If you are pushing with tri-lane you want to have Zagara, Sylvanas and Nazeebo. In some setup variations Abathur can work. As for aggressive line-ups, the topic is very special and depends of tons of different stuff, whether the hero/setup will work. So. I won’t talk about it here, as it can consume the amount of space this guide does. In comments, you can ask the questions about whether the exact scenario will work in the exact situation.

Supports

This will be also easy, as you don’t have some specific requirements for Tyrande. It is more a matter of preference and game variables, like map/meta/team setups. In general, i can say that for aggressive setups you would prefer Supports that are good when it comes to momentum based fights, like Uther, Kharazim and Rehgar. On the other hand, more slow/pushing/poking based setups favor Malf and Brightwing. Lastly, in some setups Morales and Li Li can work, but as I’ve said, with Supports it is all very situational. Feel free to ask about the exact setups in the comments.

Foes

image source:
http://mr–jack.deviantart.com/gallery/48533937/Heroes-of-the-Storm 

Main criteria here will be what type of setup/Tyrande you are facing. If it is roaming Tyrande in aggressive composition, it will be one set of heroes. If it is pushing setup in the tri-lane, with overall slow line-up, that’s the other approach.

Warriors

“We are the Warriors that built this town…” Oh, it’s different game :). So. If enemy Rawrriors aren’t destroying your town, but do that to your heroes, you want to have mobile Warriors with escapes that grant Unstoppable effect! Such heroes are extremely useful against ganks. What they do, is they allow using their escape ability right before enemy engage spell is used. This way this spell is wasted, and enemy duo can’t stun-lock you. Because, you are moving away under Unstoppable effect. Muradin, Johanna, Leoric, Diablo are such heroes. Muradin’s E, Johanna’s D, Leoric’s E and Diablo’s Q, they all grant unstoppable and allow absorbing enemy ganks like described below. Tyrael and ETC can also do the trick, but they don’t have unstoppable effect. So you can’t absorb the spell with them, you need to evade it. While it is relatively easy to do with Tyrael, ETC players have keep in mind that ETC’s Q can be interrupted by any stun/root/silence. You can also escape ganks with Chen and Sonya, but they are highly susceptible to stuns. And, escaping with them will require good amount of juking and Q’ing into creeps to do some spell dodging. Lastly, the hero i haven’t mentioned, but he has Unstoppable on his E, is Anub. He can do the tricks that are available to bolds with Unstop effect, it just he is not in the Meta and is a specific hero. Other than that, he is nice bug. Especially, in Love Bug skin.

So. All this rant above was about scenario when you are passively outplaying enemy rotations by having heroes on solo/just lanes that have no problems negating the core features of roaming duo.

But as I’ve mentioned before, you can take more aggressive/activate/disruptive approach and mess up with enemy plans on your own, or with friend (named Gall :D). I think i already described the concept of disruption, for both solo and duo. That is why I’ll point out more heroes that are good at doing so. You will be looking to disrupt enemy duo on you own, or with friend (named Cho :D). For that you need heroes that have either spells good for zoning or spells good for disabling. Also, you would like them to have gap closer, so you can retreat if you mess up or can reach your ally faster. I’ll just provide few strings of Meta heroes. I think you can elaborate on the non-Meta Warriors. Leoric, ETC, Muradin and Tyrael.

As for plays against pushing setups, you want to have good wave-clearing capabilities and sustain, or aggressive comp with dive in and engage. The logic behind this is you don’t want to be pushed hard in early game, and give up too much of a lead. Because, even with better fighting setup you can still lose to poking/pushing setup of the enemy if they are few levels above you.
The heroes are the same, that have good wave-clear, or suitable for aggressive plays, and they were described earlier in Allies section. I’ll remind them for guys that hate scrolling. Good for wave-clear, have good sustain, suit aggressive plays and are in Meta: Leoric, Arthas, Johanna, Tyrael. With less wave-clear, but with all other perks: Muradin. With less wave-clear and susceptible to stuns, not much in the Meta and specific: Chen and ETC. You can also play Arthas, Diablo for aggressive plays/comps. They are viable if you are fine in terms of wave-clear /depush with other part of your setup.
Lastly, I wanted to say that when you are playing aggressive setup you can also catch pushing setups on rotations to big map objectives and events. You see, their comfortable spot is on the lane or in the controlled environment, which they can setup by playing slowly. But. Traveling to a location is weak spot for such setups, as it is very easy to flank them and force the speed and tempo of the fight that favors your setup.

Assassins

Let’s start with guys that like to be closer. I mean Melee Assassins. I’ve already described the concept and the idea of why they are good versus Tyrande, and in what scenarios. If you missed it scroll to orange section about how to play versus Tyrande(Securing the kill based on positional mistake). Here, I’ll just add more examples that will work for mentioned concepts and scenarios.
Apart from the guy that is really into Tyrande, Illidan, you can also play Butcher and Kerrigan. Butcher has enough damage, in chase down fight, to kill Tyrande. He has a means of constantly slowing her down with Q, he can also use E as a way to absorb Tyrande’s stun(Butcher’s E grants Unstoppable). Lastly, he has no problems with self-sustain. You might not even need to use the ulty, but that depends. Kerrigan follows the same approach. Moreover, as Tyrande doesn’t have escape and stun is not targetable, you don’t need to rush with your combo. Just damage her with autos, they do more damage than Tyrande’s and provide shields. And land combo when you see it will hit for sure. You can allow yourself to dodge the stun by moving away, as you have Q as your gap closer. Also, you can use heroes from non-Meta club. I mean Thrall and auto-attack Zeratul. They both will have easy time killing Tyrande. However, for Thrall it will be a bit challenging in terms of W accuracy and stun dodges.

Now. Let’s move on to heroes that like to keep the distance, and see what heroes can work for above scenario. Jaina, Valla(Q build), and Sylvanas(with “Evasive Fire”) are Meta heroes that will perfectly execute the exact scenario. Demon Hunter has enough damage with “Strafe” and 2xQ’s to finish Tyrande off. She needs to evade the stun, and has nice chasing potential with “Trait” and “Vaults”. Don’t forget that you can “Vault” while “Strafing” if needed. Same we can say about Banshee Queen, but her form of chase down will be the “Evasive Fire” talent. Valedictorian blondie Jaina will have easy time killing Tyrande, as she has constant slows and enough burst damage/over time damage. Just like two previous gals she needs to evade the Stun.
As for heroes that are not special, Tychus, Nova and Falstad have enough damage/mobility to do the trick. With Tychus you want to be up close to Tyrande, just like Illidan :D, to channel full duration of Q, reposition Tyrande closer to you with Grenade, and finish her off with few autos. What is important to remember is that Tychus can use other spells while channeling Q. And. Most likely. You will need to use E to dodge stun, and not allow Tyrande to interrupt your Q. Also, you might want to use Grenade earlier, so Tyrande doesn’t escape range of your Q/auto-attack range. I’m talking about Tychus with Q build. For Nova, it will be a matter of execution if she gets the kill/stack of Gathering Power or not. I personally prefer to play with Nuke, as Triple Gap can be easily interrupted by Tyrande’s stun. If you are to play with A-A Shells and double clone, you can easily take Tyrande down, even without using Heroic, post level 16. For that, you need to position yourself close to her, and do the rotation of spells like this: E>Q>W. Please note that casting Decoys doesn’t reveal you, and Decoys are in stealth mode before they start using spells and fire. Lastly, for Falstad it will be matter of bodies and right-clicks, to secure the kill. He has enough damage combined, magical and from autos, just needs to stay in range of Tyrande. He can dodge the stun by using E, but remember that it doesn’t grant Unstoppable. That means you can be stunned by “Lunar Flare” during the flight.

Last thing is about not solo killing, but organized play. I mean the setup of two heroes with disables and burst damage, or just burst damage. As I’ve promised I’ll tell you more examples. Apart from already mentioned Kael/Muradin, you can take any combo that has enough burst damage to quickly kill Tyrande, or for the duration of disables.
So. Examples. Arthas/Kerrigan, Zeratul/Jaina, Butcher/Tychus, Thrall/Valla, Nova/Uther, Brightwing/Zeratul, Zeratul/Abathur, Zeratul/Zeratul 😀 and so on. Heroes that have big body can easily body-block other heroes, like ETC or Diablo, have an easy time killing Tyrande with Abathur’s hat. You just need to have enough time/space for a bit of chase down action.

Specialists

Just as it was with Allies, it will be with Foes. If you face tri-lane you want to someone from trio of Sylvanas/Nazeebo/Zagara to negate the pushing power of enemy line-up. But. That doesn’t have to be a rule you always obey, as tri-lane can be countered with heroes that just have good wave-clear like Tass/BW/Valla. In some comps Abathur can work. He is top pick in professional Meta, after all. He will negate the push and be handy for fights/XP soaking and so on.
As for aggressive line-ups. The topic depends on tons of variables. So. If you are interested, ask in comments.

Supports

Just as it is for Allies section. General tendencies. And. You might want to prefer Supports with disables, against Tyrande. Like Uther, Rehgar, Malf and BW.

part 2.4,
end of the guide

Conclusion(s)

image source:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/media/wallpapers/fan-art?view=wallpaper26

Here I want to thank everyone who read the guide. Especially. Especially, to those readers that managed to read everything and understood punts and jokes. In comments, tell me if you wish a guide about auto-attack, healing Tyrande. Also don't hesitate to ask questions.

Lastly, I wanted to mention that i used cosplay of Narga. The shots were taken by Pugoffka-sama. You can find the links to their profiles down below.

Deviant-Art profile of Narga: http://narga-lifestream.deviantart.com
Deviant-Art profile of Pugoffka-sama: http://pugoffka-sama.deviantart.com