Tyrael REWORKED

[Valhalen 1,484]

Fucking finally.

[Leadblast 28]

EDIT- Well, I'm not liking this rework. For one, it destroyed his tank and bruiser builds completely. And all these new talents only make him harder to use. And, they did NOT add ANY option to make him regenerate mana faster than usual, they just reduced his manacosts a little, so he'll probably continue hungering for mana.

Take Purge Evil for instance, it's now moved to level 7 and instead of making Smite deal more damage on heroes, it will just increase Tyrael's attack damage by 35% for 4 seconds.

 

I'll have to keep playing more with him and watching what other Tyrael users do but I'm almost certain this rework was a complete nerf, and one that was uncalled for, because he needed mana regeneration and a better trait, but they just twisted his talents. Everything seems to be a compromise, every talent needs to fulfill a certain condition to work. He's not that easy to use anymore. They gave him the Malfurion treatment.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Leadblast

[Leadblast 28]

Burning Halo (level 16 talent) appears to be bugged. According to the talent's description, it makes both Tyrael and his sword damage nearby enemies while El'Druin is active, but the damage aura actually is always active on Tyrael himself. This might be fixed with next patches. It doesn't seem like this is intended.

People are talking about going Ardent Restoration at 1 and then for Smite-related talents to boost his damage. I suppose it goes like this:

1 - Ardent Restoration

4 - Divine Vigor (?)

7 - Purge Evil

10 - Judgement (or whatever, really)

13 - Law and Order

16 - Smite the Wicked

20 - Seal of El'Druin (?)

this kind of build makes him effective against enemy heroes but bad at disposing of minions/mercs/Bosses and Monsters.

I can tell you that his mana problems still persist. Apparently Blizzard deems a talent that gives mana overpowered on him. Same for having a better Trait.

his level 20 talent now has his old spell shield changed into a physical armor shield, this can be for better or worse depending on the other team's composition. I would like to read opinions from others, preferably from others who played Tyrael in depth before the rework. But all in all, it seems like it did nothing useful for him (trait still useless, mana problems still persist) and in fact nerfed him a lot for PvE situations like clearing camps, or helping against Bosses and Monsters.

Edited January 17, 2018 by Leadblast

[Valhalen 1,484]

10 hours ago, Leadblast said:

Burning Halo (level 16 talent) appears to be bugged. According to the talent's description, it makes both Tyrael and his sword damage nearby enemies while El'Druin is active, but the damage aura actually is always active on Tyrael himself. This might be fixed with next patches. It doesn't seem like this is intended.

People are talking about going Ardent Restoration at 1 and then for Smite-related talents to boost his damage. I suppose it goes like this:

1 - Ardent Restoration

4 - Divine Vigor (?)

7 - Purge Evil

10 - Judgement (or whatever, really)

13 - Law and Order

16 - Smite the Wicked

20 - Seal of El'Druin (?)

this kind of build makes him effective against enemy heroes but bad at disposing of minions/mercs/Bosses and Monsters.

I can tell you that his mana problems still persist. Apparently Blizzard deems a talent that gives mana overpowered on him. Same for having a better Trait.

his level 20 talent now has his old spell shield changed into a physical armor shield, this can be for better or worse depending on the other team's composition. I would like to read opinions from others, preferably from others who played Tyrael in depth before the rework. But all in all, it seems like it did nothing useful for him (trait still useless, mana problems still persist) and in fact nerfed him a lot for PvE situations like clearing camps, or helping against Bosses and Monsters.

I think it's important to have him more defined at his role. Sacrificing his waveclear for better PvP fits his kit much better, in my opinion. If anything, I think Ardent Restoration should have been made a baseline of his trait.

[Leadblast 28]

Look this build. I call it the Mobile Suit Tyrael. Or, the Archangel of Jukestice. Whatever.

https://www.icy-veins.com/heroes/talent-calculator/tyrael#29.7!.231111

it has a LOT of mobility in it. I think high level players will like this one.

 

I'm having some fun with it in QM (again, QM = disorganized play. Generally.)

 

This build in particular is interesting to me because they really enhanced his mobility A LOT. It's like, new levels of mobility, he didn't have this before. It's a bit gimmicky, but fun. The Bruiser build is really nothing out of the ordinary, it makes him a bruiser, but he's far from the best bruiser there is. Same story with his Tank build.

But this one is special. :)

Edited January 18, 2018 by Leadblast

[Lorebot 1]

After some time playing with the rework I've found a few builds that I really like for him now, most of which serve the same purpose as builds I've used with his previous incarnation. One new build that I've used to great effect in TL I'll share:

https://www.icy-veins.com/heroes/talent-calculator/tyrael#29.7!2132333

Tyrael:

lvl1: Justice for All: Increasing your shield on allies has a lot more effect on team fights than you'd think at first glance and has an even greater effect in the late game that I'll explain later. It doesn't do anything for Tyrael immediately, but giving every ally around you a 336 point shield (at lvl1, 737 at lvl20) instead of a ~140 point shield makes a huge difference in team fights where there's lots of aoe being used.

lvl4: Stalwart Angel: 25 armor is a pretty big deal and being able to keep it up for about 7-8 seconds is amazing. Armor is usually more valuable than regen as long as you have a good healer on your team, so I use this less in QM but in TL it's my go to talent at lvl4.

lvl7: Swift Retribution: The speed bonus alone makes this worth taking because it makes engaging and disengaging from a team fight a lot easier for you and your allies (if you position it well). But the attack speed bonus is extremely effective when paired with AA based heroes like Greymane, Raynor, Valla, etc.... It won't improve Tyrael's personal numbers that much, but being able to give that bonus to your allies can drastically affect a team fight's outcome.

lvl10: Sanctification: Same as always, protect your team, confound your enemies. With proper placement and timing Sanctification will secure victory (or at least escape) in almost any team fight.

lvl13: Law and Order: Using Smite to shorten the cooldown on Righteousness is great for exploiting the extra shields given by Justice for All and the bonus damage on Smite from shielding your whole team at once is a great power spike for Tyrael in the late game. This talent is especially useful if you've got TLV, Rexxar, or Samuro in the game on either team because the increased damage on Smite isn't capped so being able to shield 8+ heroes (clones count!) at once will triple Smite's damage and the decrease to Righteousness' cooldown isn't capped either so in the unlikely situation that you can hit more than 5 enemy heroes (again clones count!) with Smite you can almost completely reset Righteousness. And if you're hitting that many heroes at once with Smite you'll probably be in desperate need of those shields! :D

lvl16: Smite the Wicked: More Smites mean more Righteousness thanks to Law and Order and more shields are always good.

lvl20: Defense of the Angels: And this is where the build is all leading too. Fourty armor for 5 seconds, combined with the 25 armor from Stalwart Angel turns Tyrael into a nigh unkillable bulwark in a team fight. This is also the main reason for picking Justice for All at lvl1, more shields on more targets means more hits being absorbed and more cooldown reduction on this amazing ability. A 120 second cooldown that's reduced by 3 secs each time Righteousness absorbs damage, the amount of damage doesn't matter just that it's absorbing something. An ally getting shot by Tracer, D.Va, Tychus, or any other hero that hits quickly for low amounts of damage takes huge chunks off that cooldown. Shielding a minion wave as they get hit by an aoe is many targets taking damage at once, another huge chunk off that cooldown. And with extra shield casts from Law and Order and Smite the Wicked, in team fight situations I've been able to cast Defense of the Angels multiple times in succession and keep Tyrael's armor very high for very long periods of time while at the same time absorbing large amounts of aoe damage to protect my team.

With this build you probably won't see huge damage numbers at the end of the match, there's not much here to help increase Tyrael's personal damage. But you will see significant shielding and more often than not push team fights in favor of your team by mitigating damage and providing buffs for you allies. He ends up playing more like a support/tank than anything else, similar to Zarya in many aspects but far more mobile. The one downside to this build is that it all depends upon your healer doing well. You give up all your health regen talents in favor of shields and armor, so if your healer isn't up to the task then it's not going to work. Timing your abilities for the greatest impact can be challenging as well and if your team doesn't capitalize on the buffs you give them you'll feel like you're under performing.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Lorebot

[Leadblast 28]

I didn't realize that Defense of the Angels had such way to reduce cooldown. But on the other hand, these abilities typically have like a 60s cooldown instead of a 120s one. Take Muradin's for example - not only it gives him +75 armor in a single spell cast (while Tyrael gets +65 with 2 abilities together, making Muradin an inquestionably superior tank) he also gets 60 seconds cooldown with his. Do you believe Righteousness could help in reducing Defense of the Angels' cooldown by as much as 60 seconds? Things like this one make me think Tyrael's undoubtely nerfed. His old Nullification spell shield was so nice it made him a niche pick, an anti-mage tank that Muradin could not compare to.

[Valhalen 1,484]

10 minutes ago, Leadblast said:

I didn't realize that Defense of the Angels had such way to reduce cooldown. But on the other hand, these abilities typically have like a 60s cooldown instead of a 120s one. Take Muradin's for example - not only it gives him +75 armor in a single spell cast (while Tyrael gets +65 with 2 abilities together, making Muradin an inquestionably superior tank) he also gets 60 seconds cooldown with his. Do you believe Righteousness could help in reducing Defense of the Angels' cooldown by as much as 60 seconds? Things like this one make me think Tyrael's undoubtely nerfed. His old Nullification spell shield was so nice it made him a niche pick, an anti-mage tank that Muradin could not compare to.

Indeed. But again, Tyrael is not much of a Tank, he went full Bruiser. With that in mind, one could say that Sonya is superior to both him and Muradin because the combination of Ignore Pain + Nerves of Steel + Whirlwind makes Sonya ridiculously resilient.

HOWEVER, the tooltip specifies that every time Tyrael's Righteousness absorbs damage the cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds. If we're talking about any kind of damage, then this applies to minions, Mercenaries and other sources of damage such as DoTs (so if we assume that each tick reduces the cooldown by 3 seconds, it'll be insane). So with that in mind, Defense of the Angels can be considered superior IF you manage to maintain the uptime of shield absorption. It is definitely a very complicated gimmick, but I assume that once mastered it becomes very powerful.

I still think Blizzard will tweak his numbers in the following weeks because this rework went straight to the Live Servers, without a chance to be PTR'ed. On another matter, I hope Blaze is also part of the tweaks, because I feel his potential could be improved.

Edited January 19, 2018 by Valhalen

[Leadblast 28]

50 minutes ago, Valhalen said:

Indeed. But again, Tyrael is not much of a Tank, he went full Bruiser. With that in mind, one could say that Sonya is superior to both him and Muradin because the combination of Ignore Pain + Nerves of Steel + Whirlwind makes Sonya ridiculously resilient.

HOWEVER, the tooltip specifies that every time Tyrael's Righteousness absorbs damage the cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds. If we're talking about any kind of damage, then this applies to minions, Mercenaries and other sources of damage such as DoTs. So with that in mind, Defense of the Angels can be considered superior IF you manage to maintain the uptime of shield absorption. It is definitely a very complicated gimmick, but I assume that once mastered it becomes very powerful.

I still think Blizzard will tweak his numbers in the following weeks because this rework went straight to the Live Servers, without a chance to be PTR'ed. On another matter, I hope Blaze is also part of the tweaks, because I feel his potential could be improved.

But still, with that huge 120s cooldown it's gonna be hard to reduce the cooldown to a "decent" 60 seconds. And even though any ally unit can help you in further reducing the cooldown, you're not going to cast Righteousness just on a minion wave only for the sake of reducing it's cooldown. You still have to use Righteousness primarily for shielding allied heroes.

This is the problem with a lot of Tyrael's new talents. Old Tyrael had basically like 3 or 4 talents that simply enhanced his abilities (Purge Evil, Zealotry, Angelic Absorption etc if you went the tank route), and the rest was pure passive buffs (eg. Vigorous Strikes, Burning Rage, Nexus Blades) This actually helped a bit with his mana problems because he could still work to an extent when he ran out of mana (even though you STILL had to return to fountain every 5 minutes or so). The new talents, however, most of them just encourage a Tyrael to just keep spamming abilities. Divine Vigor's sustain cannot work if you cannot cast Smite (either silenced or being out of mana), Law and Order also encourages spamming, Smite the Wicked and Seal of El'druin also encourage spamming, and if you cannot spam your abilities then all these talents have zero value.

That's why I chuckle so much upon reading noobs saying how much he rocks now and how they're so much "in love with new Tyrael" when the fact is, old Tyrael was so much better lmao. You didn't have to deal "critical damage" hits with Purge Evil or, just keep spamming Smites to get your sustain, you could just simply attack them and all these passive talents would do their job (which again, was a good thing considering he depleted his mana every now and then).

 

I forgot to say how much it annoys me how they are making all these dumb hero reworks without even giving players a chance for testing them in PTR before putting them into live servers again.

Edited January 19, 2018 by Leadblast

[Valhalen 1,484]

1 hour ago, Leadblast said:

I forgot to say how much it annoys me how they are making all these dumb hero reworks without even giving players a chance for testing them in PTR before putting them into live servers again.

I think this is actually the very first rework that went straight to Live.

[Leadblast 28]

The Malfurion one was in PTR too? heh I didn't remember.

Perhaps they were thinking like "This doesn't need a PTR test, we only changed Tyrael's talents, we didn't change his abilities", but still. They changed him completely in the long run.

Edited January 19, 2018 by Leadblast

[Valhalen 1,484]

12 minutes ago, Leadblast said:

Perhaps they were thinking like "This doesn't need a PTR test, we only changed Tyrael's talents, we didn't change his abilities", but still. They changed him completely in the long run.

I'm not sure. I think they did it out of good will to coincide with the Mecha skins, but that's just a wild guess. Not every reworked character had changes to their Basic Abilities. If I recall, Zul'jin didn't get any changes to his base kit when he was reworked, for example.

[Lorebot 1]

20 hours ago, Leadblast said:

I didn't realize that Defense of the Angels had such way to reduce cooldown. But on the other hand, these abilities typically have like a 60s cooldown instead of a 120s one. Take Muradin's for example - not only it gives him +75 armor in a single spell cast (while Tyrael gets +65 with 2 abilities together, making Muradin an inquestionably superior tank) he also gets 60 seconds cooldown with his. Do you believe Righteousness could help in reducing Defense of the Angels' cooldown by as much as 60 seconds? Things like this one make me think Tyrael's undoubtely nerfed. His old Nullification spell shield was so nice it made him a niche pick, an anti-mage tank that Muradin could not compare to.

As I stated in the build description, I have been able to cast Defense of the Angels repeatedly within a single team fight. So yes, it's possible to reduce the cooldown by much more than 60 seconds under the proper conditions. Any target shielded by Righteousness that takes damage counts toward the reduction. So Mercs, Minions, Monsters, and Summons all count. When combined with Justice for All's increased shields on allies it allows Righteousness to soak up many more attacks than it would otherwise be able to thus maximizing the cooldown reduction. Between team fights I take time to use Righteousness to shield minions fighting in lanes to help make sure Defense of the Angels is ready for the next team fight, this has the added benefit of keeping allied minions alive longer to help push.

The build works especially well against heroes like Tychus and DVa who hit quickly for low amounts of damage and have the potential to do so over a area hitting multiple targets at once. Against such opponents you can routinely reduce the cooldown of Defense of the Angels by more than 60 seconds with a single cast of Righteousness while fighting on top of a minion wave. A full minion wave is 7 targets, with Tyrael that's 8 targets, so 24 seconds removed from the cooldown for every tick of damage from a Tychus' Overkill or Jaina's Blizzard. The shields may only survive 2 or 3 ticks of Blizzard, but they'll last 5+ of Overkill and potentially reset the cooldown of Defense of the Angels completely. It gets even better with more allies around, a Knight/Mage merc camp adds 4 more targets, another 12 seconds per tick, in the late game you'll be able to include catapults in the mix for 3 secs each per tick, etc.... I'm not exaggerating when I say 'repeatedly within a single team fight', I truly mean that I have been able to keep the ability up for entire team fights by having the cooldown completely reset before the effect has ended. Combined with the 25 armor from Stalwart Angel that's 8-9 seconds of 65 armor and a 1-2 seconds of 40 armor, Righteousness' cooldown should be finished by then and you could probably get another full reset for Defense of the Angels under the right conditions and have 40 armor until Might of El'Druin is off cooldown so you can get 25 armor after that. I can't say it's the easiest thing in the world to pull off, but with practice it's not terribly hard to manage once you know how to do it.

Q, 1, W, E, Q, 1, E, W, 1, Q, E,....

I agree with the sentiment that I miss Tyrael as a niche anti-mage tank but I can't argue with the effectiveness I've seen from his new talents.

Edit: I will also concede that he's more of a mana pig than ever before. I find myself backing for mana far more often than I like, using a fountain is often not enough to sustain Tyrael through a team fight if you're already low. I've begun hearthing for mana before virtually every obj on every map with him because if he runs out mid fight he's a goner and probably so is your team. I would like to see some of these new talents adjusted to compensate for this by either reducing his casting costs or providing him mana regen as well as health regen.

Edited January 20, 2018 by Lorebot

[PrivateJoker 27]

20 hours ago, Valhalen said:

Indeed. But again, Tyrael is not much of a Tank, he went full Bruiser. With that in mind, one could say that Sonya is superior to both him and Muradin because the combination of Ignore Pain + Nerves of Steel + Whirlwind makes Sonya ridiculously resilient.

HOWEVER, the tooltip specifies that every time Tyrael's Righteousness absorbs damage the cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds. If we're talking about any kind of damage, then this applies to minions, Mercenaries and other sources of damage such as DoTs (so if we assume that each tick reduces the cooldown by 3 seconds, it'll be insane). So with that in mind, Defense of the Angels can be considered superior IF you manage to maintain the uptime of shield absorption. It is definitely a very complicated gimmick, but I assume that once mastered it becomes very powerful.

I still think Blizzard will tweak his numbers in the following weeks because this rework went straight to the Live Servers, without a chance to be PTR'ed. On another matter, I hope Blaze is also part of the tweaks, because I feel his potential could be improved.

If every tick of damage triggers another 3 second reduction, then getting hit by Blaze's ignited Oil suddenly doesn't seem all bad. Same for Ragnaros' meteor, or Tracer's basic attacks. Definitely worth looking at how your opponents deal damage.

Edited January 20, 2018 by PrivateJoker

[Lorebot 1]

10 minutes ago, PrivateJoker said:

If every tick of damage triggers another 3 second reduction, then getting hit by Blaze's ignited Oil suddenly doesn't seem all bad. Same for Ragnaros' meteor, or Tracer's basic attacks. Definitely worth looking at how your opponents deal damage.

That is exactly how it works. The source and amount of the damage doesn't matter, only that it's absorbing something. You don't even need to be nearby, run by a minion wave in combat and shield them and take another 20+ seconds off that cooldown as they fight the opposing wave or get cleared by the enemy team as you move to another lane.

Without Justice for All at lvl1 Defense of the Angels doesn't really see much from the cooldown reduction effect, the shields you give to allies aren't enough to soak more than 1 or 2 hits. But with Justice for All you're giving 700+ shields to nearby allies and that soaks a LOT of hits and gets you major cooldown reductions for Defense of the Angels.

[PrivateJoker 27]

Seems pretty potent. Might even cal it a buff. It's almost as if they thought about how his talents might interact with each other. It's been awhile since I played Tyrael but he's a lot of fun. I'll be sure to try him out again.

[Morcalivan 86]

The mobility reminds me of Murky. Tanking through hit and run small pokes to draw attention and keep opponents busy with you instead of fighting teammates.