Alexstrasza Build Guide “Witness the power of the red dragonflight!”
Welcome to our guide for Alexstrasza, a Healer in Heroes of the Storm. Within these pages, you will find everything required to understand how best to play this hero, in both different map styles and team compositions.
Alexstrasza's Overview
Alexstrasza is a Healer who provides raw healing power but does not have access to hard crowd control.
She is particularly efficient if protected by a solid frontline, since she does not have any real escape mechanism.
During important team fights, she uses Dragonqueen to improve her Abilities.
Alexstrasza's Strengths and Weaknesses
- Good waveclear
- High healing output
- Relatively low Mana consumption compared to other Healers
- Dragonqueen gives a huge advantage during team fights
- Limited self-healing capabilities
- Lack of crowd-control
- Underwhelming mobility
- Weak while Dragonqueen is not available
- No access to Cleanse or similar tools to remove crowd-control effects
- Unable to provide Unstoppable frames
Alexstrasza's Talent Build Cheatsheet
Abundance Build
RecommendedAlexstrasza's Abundance Build focuses on area of effect healing and increases your survivability against dives.
Considering that you are spending multiple Talents on Abundance, this Build will be harder to play against area of effect damage and crowd control effects because they can prevent Heroes from benefitting from it.
Flame Buffet Build
SituationalAlexstrasza's Flame Buffet Build provides good self-sustain to increase your survivability during team fights and massively improves your Dragonqueen in the late game.
Once you get to the late game, Ancient Flame at Level 20 greatly empowers Dragonqueen, allowing you to single-handedly win team fights if the enemy team does not play around it by disengaging while you Slow them with Heat Exhaustion at Level 4 and heal yourself with Fire Within at Level 7.
Gift of Life Build
SituationalAlexstrasza's Gift of Life Build provides high single target sustain healing, regardless of being in combat or not, but it comes online only after unlocking Lifeblossom at Level 7.
The major weakness of this Build is that its healing output goes down when Alexstrasza takes damage, so it should not be played when the enemy team has Heroes who can easily dive her.
ARAM Build
ARAMAlexstrasza's ARAM Build focuses on area of effect healing and increases your survivability against dives.
Considering that you are spending multiple Talents on Abundance, this Build will be harder to play against area of effect damage and crowd control effects because they can prevent Heroes from benefitting from it.
Alexstrasza's Synergies and Counters
Alexstrasza has an affinity with Heroes that have high maximum Health (such as Diablo) because Abundance baseline, Life-Binder at Level 10, and Life Unbound at Level 13 provide percent-based healing.
As she lack crowd control, she should be played together with a few Heroes who can provide that (such as Kael'thas thanks to Gravity Lapse), in addition to similar effects provided by the main Tank of your team to peel for her.
Alexstrasza offers a lot of raw healing and barely any utility, therefore she struggles against enemey Heroes that have access to healing reduction effects (such as Deckard Cain with Emerald at Level 7).
She suffers against area of effect Abilities (such as Concussion Mine by Junkrat) and/or burst damage (for example Flamestrike by Kael'thas) used on Abundance's location.
Heroes that can stick to Alexstrasza and interrupt (such as Yrel) Dragonqueen and/or Cleansing Flame can put serious pressure on her.
Dragonqueen can be countered by making Alexstrasza unable to act (for example Cocoon by Anub'arak) or by forcing a disengage (like Mighty Gust by Falstad).
Alexstrasza's Maps
Alexstrasza heavily prefers Maps that feature a static Objectives with a long cooldown, a single location, and a moderate duration (notably Infernal Shrines) because Dragonqueen can unfold its full potential for a team fight that, if won, will directly translate to taking down a Fort or even a Keep.
The worst Maps for Alexstrasza are the ones where having good sustain healing during the early game is extremely important (in particular Braxis Holdout, but also any other 2-lane Map).
Alexstrasza's Tips and Tricks
- Gift of Life costs Health instead of Mana, so try to keep your Health high.
- Abundance should be positioned trying to predict how your team will move in the next 3 seconds and without putting them in danger to get the healing.
- Flame Buffet costs a lot of Mana, unless you hit the same target multiple times in a row, so stop using it for a dozen of seconds when you missed too many times in a row and you want to keep your Mana high.
- Life-Binder should be used on a Hero who has low Health when Alexstrasza has high Health or on a Hero who has high Health when Alexstrasza has low Health, but not when they have a similar percentage of Health.
- Cleansing Flame can be used as a form of escape or as a global if you are away from your team and want to help them immediately.
- Dragonqueen is an important Ability that must be used strategically, when the enemy team cannot disengage because they are committed or because there is an Objective to contest.
- Breath of Life costs no Health and no Mana, so you should usually cast it on cooldown.
- Preservation should usually be positioned aggressively, forcing the enemy team to fight in an unfavorable scenario while they try to disengage and wait for Dragonqueen to end.
- Wing Buffet can be used to peel, interrupt, or even disengage if really needed.
- Life-Binder has more range while Dragonqueen is active.
- Cleansing Flame has no cast time while Dragonqueen is active and can be used to extend its duration.
Alexstrasza's Role in the Current Meta
Alexstrasza is usually played as a solo Healer and shines on Maps with static Objectives (such as Infernal Shrines) where she can easily get value from Dragonqueen.
As the majority of her power comes from her Trait, you have to use it strategically in order to get an edge over the enemy team. Start team fights only when Dragonqueen is available and avoid them when it is on cooldown, basically the same strategy most Heroes use for their Heoric Abilities as they usually have a long cooldown. If the enemy team invades one of your Mercenary Camps, just mitigate the loss and wait patiently for the next Objective to unleash your power.
Changelog
- 12 Dec. 2023 (talents page): Guide reviewed.
- 12 Dec. 2023 (abilities page): Guide reviewed.
- 12 Dec. 2023 (this page): Guide reviewed.
- 23 Sep. 2023 (talents page): Guide reviewed for the latest Bug Fixes.
- 20 Sep. 2023 (talents page): ARAM Build added.
- 20 Sep. 2023 (this page): ARAM Build added.
- 09 Aug. 2022 (talents page): Builds updated.
- 09 Aug. 2022 (this page): Builds updated.
- 30 Mar. 2022 (talents page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 30 Mar. 2022 (abilities page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 30 Mar. 2022 (this page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 25 Jun. 2021 (talents page): Builds updated.
- 25 Jun. 2021 (this page): Builds updated.
- 22 Mar. 2021 (talents page): Builds updated.
- 22 Mar. 2021 (this page): Builds updated.
- 03 Mar. 2021 (talents page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 03 Mar. 2021 (abilities page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 03 Mar. 2021 (this page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 21 Feb. 2021 (talents page): Builds updated.
- 21 Feb. 2021 (this page): Builds updated.
- 10 Nov. 2020 (this page): Maps updated.
- 05 Nov. 2020 (talents page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 05 Nov. 2020 (abilities page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 05 Nov. 2020 (this page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 11 Oct. 2020 (talents page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 11 Oct. 2020 (abilities page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 11 Oct. 2020 (this page): Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 22 May 2020 (talents page): Talent Build fully revised to match new standards.
- Talent Build and Talent Build Cheatsheet modified to reflect the current metagame.
- Talent Descriptions modified to better describe when to pick them.
- 22 May 2020 (abilities page): Ability and Strategy fully revised to match new standards.
- Tips and Tricks modified to add important tips that were missing.
- Ability Descriptions modified to better explain how to use Abilities effectively.
- 22 May 2020 (this page): Introduction fully revised to match new standards.
- Overview rewritten to better describe the Hero.
- Strengths and Weaknesses modified to give a better idea about the Hero when being played right.
- Talent Build Cheatsheet updated to reflect the current metagame.
- Synergies and Counters modified to mention notable Heroes that were missing and to remove misleading Heroes that were listed.
- Maps modified to focus on the main aspects of the Hero when evaluating a Map.
- Tips and Tricks modified to list important tips that were missing before and to delete more obvious ones.
- Role in the Current Meta modified to reflect the current metagame.
- 05 Apr. 2020 (talents page): Talent Build partially revised to match new standards.
- Talent Build and Talent Build Cheatsheet modified to reflect the current metagame.
- Talent Descriptions modified to better describe when to pick them.
- 05 Apr. 2020 (this page): Introduction partially revised to match new standards.
- Talent Build Cheatsheet updated to reflect the current metagame.
- Maps modified to focus on the main aspects of the Hero when evaluating a Map.
- Role in the Current Meta modified to remove the unnecessary part about the now fixed Experience Globes.
- 06 Dec. 2019 (this page): Added an entry about the current Anomaly to the guide.
- 25 Nov. 2019 (talents page): Revised Alexstrasza's guide and added the Flame Build. Also updated her talents in accordance with the latest Balance Update.
- 03 Jun. 2019 (talents page): Changed Fire Within from Not Recommended to Situational and also updated Alexstrasza's talent builds accordingly.
- 03 Jun. 2019 (abilities page): Applied some minor updates to Alexstrasza's ability descriptions.
- 31 Jan. 2019 (talents page): Changed Life-Binder from Situational to Recommended and applied additional changes to Alexstrasza's Talent Builds.
- 31 Jan. 2019 (abilities page): Updated Flame Buffet's description.
- 31 Jan. 2019 (this page): Updated Alexstrasza's introduction text.
- 15 Oct. 2018 (talents page): Changed Blessing of the Red from Not Recommended to Recommended.
- 19 Feb. 2018 (talents page): Added the Abundance Build and deleted the Flame Build. Updated Alexstrasza's talents accordingly.
- 12 Dec. 2017 (talents page): Added in-depth talent descriptions and changed various talents in terms of their viability.
- 05 Dec. 2017 (talents page): Changed Life-Binder with Cleansing Flame in the Heal build.
- 23 Nov. 2017 (talents page): Changed Draconic Discipline from Not Recommended to Recommended.
- 23 Nov. 2017 (abilities page): Updated Cleansing Flames' description.
- 23 Nov. 2017 (this page): Added a new TL;DR tip featuring the interaction between Dragonqueen and Cleansing Flame.
- 14 Nov. 2017 (this page): Guide added.
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Elitesparkle is a multiple times Master player in Europe who plays Heroes of the Storm since its release. He is an active member of the community who likes to teach new and veteran players all he knows about his favorite game.
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