Heroes of the Storm news » Alexstrasza Tips from Jun

Alexstrasza has just soared into the Nexus, formidable dragon aspect and all. To help get you started with our newest healer-who-transforms-into-a-giant-fire-breathing-dragon, we spoke with star Tempo Storm Support player Jun ‘Jun’ Jang to get his first impressions build.

Jun says that he’s never seen someone quite like Alexstrasza in Heroes yet, thanks to her “unique kit and her dragon form.” If he had to make a comparison to existing Heroes, “she’s probably a mixture of Rehgar, Kharazim, and Lt. Morales.”

Focus on Q as a Solo Healer

As with many Supports these days, Jun thinks that you can try building Alexstrasza a few different ways depending on what other Heroes are on her team—particularly if there’s another Support in the mix. For a full Support build, Jun recommends you focus on upgrading Gift of Life (Q)—“her main source of healing”—and try to capitalize on four different talents that give the dragon upgraded abilities when she is above 75 percent health. In its basic form, Gift of Life heals an ally and also sacrifices 15 percent of Alexstrasza’s health each time it is cast, so a primary focus of this build is on empowering her Q’s healing and reducing its cost as much as possible.

This Q-focused build will turn Alexstrazsa into a “powerful and consistent healer who’s good against enemy poke but bad at dive Heroes,” Jun says. But taking all of her best-at-high-health talents comes with the obvious risk of needing to be at high health more often than not to reap the maximum benefits.

Stay at High Health

“Alexstrasza has four talents that all utilize her health being above 75 percent HP,” Jun says. “If you are able to do that, it’s very strong.

“But if not, you’re basically not a Hero anymore,” he says, “GG no re.”

These four talents are as follows:

• Live and Let Live (Level 1) - While Alexstrasza is above 75 percent health, Gift of Life's cooldown recharges 100 percent faster.
• Exuberance (Level 4) - While above 75 percent Health, gain 15 percent Movement Speed.
• Lifeblossom (Level 7) - While Alexstrasza is above 75 percent Health, Gift of Life creates a Lifeblossom at the target's location. Alexstrasza can collect the Lifeblossom to make her next Gift of Life cost no Health.
• Tough Love (Level 16) - While Alexstrasza is above 75 percent Health, Gift of Life grants its target 20 Armor for 2 seconds.

“The core talent on this build is Lifeblossom at level 7,” Jun says. “This allows you to begin casting Gift of Life (Q) without losing your own health, so you can remain at full health as long as you are not being attacked—or if a teammate is effectively blocking for you.”

Once Lifeblosson is active, Gift of Life will drop a small flower (the eponymous blossom) at its target whenever Alexstrazsa casts the spell while at over 75 percent of her full health. She can then pick up the Lifeblossom to make her next Gift of Life cost no Health. Since you can keep doing this indefinitely, it’s a great way to keep your whole team topped off health-wise as long as you can manage to dodge the enemy team’s attacks.

The one talent Jun is willing to trade off for in this build is Exuberance at level 4; he says that the increased slow from Heat Exhaustion (E) could be useful for peeling or chasing down enemies.

Try More Flame Buffet Talents in Duo-Support Comps

If you’re picking Alexstrazsa alongside another Support, Jun thinks that you can play her more aggressively than as a solo Support by upgrading her dragon powers. He recommends taking the Level 1 Question Flames of Fury with the plan to ultimately complement it with the Level 20 Storm talent follow-up Ancient Flame. When done right, a Flame Buffet-centric build like this lets Alexstrasza romp around and wreak havoc in her massive dragon form far more often…and being in dragon form more often obviously means that you’ll have many more opportunities to set your enemies on fire and shove them around the battlefield with your powerful Dragon breath.

The Flames of Fury quest requires you to hit 20 Heroes who are already burning from a previous Flame Buffet (E) strike with another one—which isn’t that hard to do since the cooldown for Flame Buffet is, conveniently, all of two seconds long. After completing the quest, you can reduce the cooldown for Alexstrasza’s Dragonqueen trait by five seconds every time you hit a burning hero with Flame Buffet. Taking Ancient Flame at level 20 makes this even more powerful by automatically applying Flame Buffet to everyone hit with her Dragonqueen Basic Attacks. Jun recommends taking Draconic Discipline at level 16 if going the Flame Buffet route since the extra Dragonqueen duration will help dish out more damage and area-of-effect healing as well.

Jun is curious to see what form Alexstrasza will end up taking in Heroes of the Storm, so we encourage you all to experiment with all the different ways you can set things afire with this new Hero now that she is live in the Nexus. Now get out there and start saving lives—and ruining some others!