Alexstrasza Talents
Welcome to our Talents page for Alexstrasza. Here, we give you an overview of how strong each of Alexstrasza's talents is. Then, we present several viable builds, before analyzing each talent row separately, so that you can make informed decisions.
Alexstrasza's Talent Build
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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.
Level 1 Talents for Alexstrasza
While Alexstrasza is above 75% Health, Gift of Life's cooldown recharges 125% faster.
Live and Let Live is a good Talent that reduces the cooldown of Gift of Life when Alexstrasza has high Health, increasing her already great single-target healing output even more.
To keep Alexstrasza at high Health, you have to rely on Abundance and either Lifeblossom or Fire Within at Level 7. If you are in danger, you can even use Life-Binder on a high-Health allied Hero to go from low to high Health yourself.
Quest: Collect Regeneration Globes.
Reward: After collecting 10 Regeneration Globes, Abundance heals for an additional 5% maximum Health.
Reward: After collecting 15 Regeneration Globes, Abundance's healing burst creates a Regeneration Globe.
Circle of Life is a strong Quest-based Talent that empowers the healing and utility provided by Abundance, not only for allied Heroes but also for Alexstrasza herself.
The first Reward provides more healing while the second Reward provides a Regeneration Globe—even more healing, some Mana, and synergy with a few Heroes (such as Mephisto with Spite at Level 4). Keep in mind that, after 3 seconds, Regeneration Globes become neutral and thus enemy Heroes become able to pick them up.
This is the only Talent in this Tier that directly increases Alexstrasza's survivability, by healing her more with Abundance and by healing her with the spawning Regeneration Globe. These effects work even during Dragonqueen, but only if you cast Abundance right before transforming, making it an interesting Talent for when building around Ancient Flame.
Reduce the Mana cost of Flame Buffet from 50 to 40.
Quest: Hit 20 Burning Heroes with Flame Buffet.
Reward: Hitting a Burning Hero with Flame Buffet reduces Dragonqueen's cooldown by 5 seconds.
Flames of Fury is a decent Quest-based Talent that makes Flame Buffet reduce the cooldown of Dragonqueen each time it hits an enemy Hero.
The weakness of this Talent is that it forces Alexstrasza to stay nearby enemy Heroes when she is weak due to Dragonqueen being on cooldown, especially considering that not going for Live and Let Live or Circle of Life will make her even weaker at that.
The strength of this Talent is that gives Alexstrasza the opportunity to use Dragonqueen more often, something that may be useful when at least on of the following points is true:
- allied Heroes have access to self-sustain and enemy Heroes do not have access to too much poke damage;
- the Map allows you to easily get Level 20 for Ancient Flame and you can get value from Dragonqueen on a shorter cooldown.
Level 4 Talents for Alexstrasza
Abundance's healing burst grants allied Heroes 30% Movement Speed for 3 seconds.
Surge of Vitality is a good Talent that can be a good choice if your frontline lacks mobility and can get value from additional Movement Speed (for example Garrosh).
As for many other Talents and Abilities which can hit multiple targets, you do not necessarily need to hit multiple allied Heroes with Abundance to get enough value from this Talent.
Increase Flame Buffet's Slow from 40% to 50% and cause it to no longer decay.
Heat Exhaustion is a strong Talent that empowers the Slow provided by Flame Buffet. In particular, it increases its value and it removes its decay, helping yourself to land consecutive hits and allowing allied Heroes to deal more damage.
While above 75% Health, gain 15% Movement Speed.
Exuberance is a good Talent that gives mobility, something that Alexstrasza lacks and that is always useful to have because it helps to get a better position or even to escape when needed. This effect works during Dragonqueen too.
Thanks to the Movement Speed provided, Exuberance has synergy with Lifeblossom at Level 7.
Level 7 Talents for Alexstrasza
While Alexstrasza is above 75% 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.
Passive: Reduces the cost of Gift of Life to 10% of Alexstrasza's current Health.
Lifeblossom is a good Talent that reduces the Health cost of Gift of Life in two ways:
- from 15% to 10% of Alextrasza's current Health as a passive effect;
- from 10% to 0% if Alexstrasza collected a Lifeblossom, a special item that appears on the ground after casting Gift of Life while being above 75% maximum Health and disappears after 7 seconds.
Considering that their effect does not expire if not used, you should always try to have a Lifeblossom stored for the next team fight, so that you will be full Health for a few more seconds, something that indirectly increases your healing output—the less Health you have, the less Gift of Life will heal.
You do not have to collect each and every Lifeblossom, especially if you prioritize healing yourself with Abundance. If you expect to take damage while collecting a Lifeblossom, then do not collect it because its only purpose is to keep your Health high and taking damage in the process would be a useless or even detrimental move.
Thanks to her Health not being consumed like when not having Lifeblossom, Alexstrasza can get more value from Live and Let Live at Level 1.
Alexstrasza receives 40% more healing from Abundance and 100% more healing from Regeneration Globes.
Verdant Flourish is a strong Talent that gives Alexstrasza more self-healing via Abundance and Regeneration Globes, therefore it has great synergy with Circle of Life at Level 1.
Hitting a Burning Hero with Flame Buffet heals Alexstrasza for 10% of her maximum Health.
Fire Within is a good Talent that increases Alexstrasza's self-healing, but it does not work when there are no enemy Heroes nearby.
Thanks to the Health being restored when hitting enemy Heroes with Flame Buffet, Alexstrasza can get more value from Live and Let Live at Level 1.
Level 10 Talents for Alexstrasza
In this section we discuss when and why to pick a given Heroic Ability. If you want to read how they work in detail and/or you are looking for some tips on how to use them, check them out on the Abilities and Strategy page.
- Mana: 50
- Cooldown: 50 seconds
Bind Alexstrasza's life force with an allied Hero. Both her and her target are healed for 480 (+4% per level) Health over 2 seconds. Afterwards, the Hero with a lower percentage of Health is healed to the same Health percentage as the other Hero.
Life-Binder is a strong Heroic Ability that, after linking Alexstrasza and a target allied Hero, it heals both Heroes by a small amount and then heals the one of the two that has less Health percentage up to the same Health percentage of the other Hero.
Pick it when the enemy team tends to focus all their damage on a single Hero, but remember that its main healing effect takes 2 seconds to go off, so you should cast it as soon as you realize who will be focused down to death.
- Mana: 100
- Cooldown: 100 seconds
After 1.25 seconds, take to the sky and drop 5 fireballs over 6 seconds at the position of the mouse cursor. Fireballs deal 135 (+4% per level) damage to enemies and heal allied Heroes for 300 (+4% per level) Health.
2 seconds after dropping all fireballs, Alexstrasza lands at the position of the mouse cursor.
Cleansing Flame is a strong Heroic Ability that mostly heals allied Heroes in the target area but also deals some damage to enemies hit, making it a great addition during team fights.
We find this Heroic Ability particularly useful as it not only heals but it also makes Alexstrasza not targetable for its duration, often saving your life. Dragonqueen is paused during it.
Level 13 Talents for Alexstrasza
Gain 50 Armor while Stunned, Rooted, or Silenced, and for 2 seconds after. Can only trigger once every 10 seconds.
Dragon Scales is a good defensive Talent that, every 10 seconds, can give you a high amount of Armor for a duration equal to 2 seconds plus the duration of the longest valid crowd control effect—Stun, Root, or Silence—that hit you while it isn't on cooldown.
When you get hit by one of the aforementioned crowd control effects, the effect goes off and you gain Armor. When you get hit again by one of them while the effect is active, the effect continues and its duration gets extended. When all of them expire, the cooldown starts ticking and the effect continues for 2 more seconds and then expires.
To counter this Talent, the enemy team should wait for a crowd control effect to end before using the next one, otherwise Dragon Scales stays active for longer and Alexstrasza becomes harder to kill. Armor reduction effects help them, but it is still better for them to play around it.
- Cooldown: 60 seconds
Activate to Slow and reduce an enemy Hero's damage by 50% for 3 seconds.
Healing a Stunned, Rooted, or Silenced ally reduces Pacify's cooldown by 30 seconds.
Pacify is a useful defensive Talent that provides a form of peeling to Alexstrasza, something that she definitely lacks.
Pick it while playing against Heroes who can dive in the backline of your team (such as Illidan).
Remember that healing Heroes affected by Stun, Root, or Silence effects will reduce its cooldown by 30 seconds. You can easily get value from this by healing allied Heroes with Dragonqueen's Basic Attacks.
- Cooldown: 90 seconds
Activate to heal an allied Hero for 15% of their maximum Health and deal 200 (+4% per level) damage to nearby enemies.
Healing a Stunned, Rooted, or Silenced ally reduces Life Unbound's cooldown by 30 seconds.
Cannot be used on Alexstrasza.
Life Unbound is a solid healing Talent that increases your healing output even more, especially if used on Heroes with high maximum Health (such as Stitches or Tanks in general), and deals some area of effect damage around the chosen allied Hero, but it cannot be used to heal Alexstrasza.
Remember that healing Heroes affected by Stun, Root, or Silence effects will reduce its cooldown by 30 seconds. You can easily get value from this by healing allied Heroes with Dragonqueen's Basic Attacks.
Level 16 Talents for Alexstrasza
Gift of Life grants its target 10 Armor for 2.5 seconds, increased to 30 while Alexstrasza is above 75% Health.
Tough Love is a good Talent that makes Gift of Life give a fixed amount of Armor to the target allied Hero, increased if Alexstrasza has high Health.
Note that Alexstrasza cannot get Armor from this Talent because Gift of Life cannot be self-cast. Reducing the damage allied Heroes take, however, indirectly helps you pay less Health to save them.
If you struggle to keep your team alive against burst damage, this Talent is quite useful. You can also use it as a buffer, to ensure that Life-Binder goes off before the targeted allied Hero dies.
Heroes healed by Abundance gain a Shield for 6 seconds equal to 70% of the amount healed.
Overprotective is a strong Talent that adds additional protection to allied Heroes affected by Abundance in the form of Shields.
You can get more value from this Talent if your team has a lot of melee Heroes and the enemy team does not have ways to completely deny its value. Alternatively, you can pick it to increase your own survivability, which can be useful when playing against dive Heroes.
Increase Dragonqueen's duration by 6 seconds, and Basic Attack healing by 50%.
Draconic Discipline is a good Talent that makes Dragonqueen last a few seconds longer and increase its healing done via Basic Attacks.
After picking this Talent, you can cast Preservation twice per Dragonqueen without using Cleansing Flame to extend its duration. Similarly, you can use Breath of Life a few more times before Dragonqueen ends.
Level 20 Talents for Alexstrasza
Life-Binder activates 3 times over 6 seconds.
Ritual of Life is a strong Talent that makes Life-Binder heal three times, effectively making Alexstrasza and another Hero in your team very hard to kill for 6 seconds.
Healing or damaging Heroes 8 or more times with Cleansing Flame activates Dragonqueen for 15 seconds upon landing.
On Ruby Wings is a good Talent that allows Alexstrasza to get a bonus Dragonqueen if hitting at least 8 allied and/or enemy Heroes during Cleansing Flame.
If you use Dragonqueen and then cast Cleansing Flame before it expires, the transformation will last for a total of 30 seconds. When doing so, you will skip the channel time for Cleansing Flame because it is instant cast during Dragonqueen. Based on the situation, you may want to use both Abilities together or split them.
On Ruby Wings does not benefit from Draconic Discipline at Level 16, however, it will still make your transformation last 6 more seconds when used in conjunction with Dragonqueen. This is not a synergy because they do not amplify each other's value.
While Dragonqueen is active, Alexstrasza's Basic Attacks apply Flame Buffet.
Ancient Flame is a good Talent that makes each Basic Attack during Dragonqueen count as a cast of Flame Buffet, including any related Talent.
In order for this Talent to be worth picking over the alternatives, you need at least Fire Within at Level 7 and preferably Heat Exhaustion at Level 4.
Draconic Discipline at Level 16 helps you benefit from this synergy for longer and Flames of Fury at Level 1 allows you to do it more often.
- Cooldown: 40 seconds
Activate to grant an allied Hero 500 bonus maximum Health until they die.
Cannot be used on Alexstrasza, or on a Hero who already has Blessing of the Red.
Blessing of the Red is a situational Talent that can be used to provide 500 non-scaling bonus maximum Health to an allied Hero until they die, making them more resilient to burst damage.
Use it on Heroes who struggle to survive when being focused down by the enemy team because they have low maximum Health (for example Tracer). You can also pick it when you are going for the enemy Core and it makes no sense to empower your Heroic Ability or Trait as they are on cooldown.
Changelog
- 12 Dec. 2023: Guide reviewed.
- 23 Sep. 2023: Guide reviewed for the latest Bug Fixes.
- 20 Sep. 2023: ARAM Build added.
- 09 Aug. 2022: Builds updated.
- 30 Mar. 2022: Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 25 Jun. 2021: Builds updated.
- 22 Mar. 2021: Builds updated.
- 03 Mar. 2021: Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 21 Feb. 2021: Builds updated.
- 05 Nov. 2020: Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 11 Oct. 2020: Guide reviewed for the latest Balance Update.
- 22 May 2020: 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.
- 05 Apr. 2020: 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.
- 25 Nov. 2019: Revised Alexstrasza's guide and added the Flame Build. Also updated her talents in accordance with the latest Balance Update.
- 03 Jun. 2019: Changed Fire Within from Not Recommended to Situational and also updated Alexstrasza's talent builds accordingly.
- 31 Jan. 2019: Changed Life-Binder from Situational to Recommended and applied additional changes to Alexstrasza's Talent Builds.
- 15 Oct. 2018: Changed Blessing of the Red from Not Recommended to Recommended.
- 19 Feb. 2018: Added the Abundance Build and deleted the Flame Build. Updated Alexstrasza's talents accordingly.
- 12 Dec. 2017: Added in-depth talent descriptions and changed various talents in terms of their viability.
- 05 Dec. 2017: Changed Life-Binder with Cleansing Flame in the Heal build.
- 23 Nov. 2017: Changed Draconic Discipline from Not Recommended to Recommended.
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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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