Imperius Talents

Level	Choices
1	? ✓ ?
4	✓ ? ?
7	? ✘︎ ✓
10	✓ ?
13	? ✓ ?
16	? ✓ ?
20	? ? ? ✓

Impaling Light is a good Talent that, based on how many Valorous Brands are up when its Stun ends, increases the damage dealt by and reduces the cooldown of Celestial Charge, indirectly empowering any related Talent.

If you want to maximize the benefits of this Talent, you should hit your target with Solarion's Fire before using Celestial Charge on them—something that is generally good to do as the Slow makes dodging harder—and then use Molten Armor a moment before the animation of the previous Ability ends.

Consuming Flame is a strong Talent that increases the damage done and Slow applied by Solarion's Fire, while also giving some Mana back when hitting any number of enemy Heroes.

Pick this Talent to improve Imperius's waveclear when playing him as Offlaner, else you will struggle at clearing Minions.

Burn the Impure amplifies Imperius's early game damage output tremendously. The additional percent-based damage works particularly well with Molten Armor if Imperius maintains a consistent Basic Attack sequence after each tick.

We find this Talent particularly good when playing against Heroes who have high maximum Health (like Azmodan) and/or Armor (such as Deathwing).

Sovereign Armor is a strong Talent that boosts Imperius's survivability for almost 2 seconds, right after using Molten Armor. It has great synergy with Divine Rage at Level 13, allowing Imperius to be have the Armor almost constantly.

Battle Hunger is a good Talent when paired with Holy Fervor, greatly increasing Imperius's self-sustain in fights.

Press Forward is a very useful Talent during duels in the laning phase, but with almost zero value during team fights, where Regeneration Globes are rarely found. It can be an optimal choice if you are losing the lane in Braxis Holdout or Dragon Shire.

Flash of Anger is a good Talent that provides a Shield and boosts your damage when hitting enemy Heroes with Celestial Charge and then consuming the corresponding Valorous Brand's mark with a Basic Attack.

After picking Brand of Solarion at Level 20, Flash of Anger will go off for multiple Basic Attacks, for up to 5 seconds after using Celestial Charge.

Given how much damage and healing you can get from Holy Fervor through the course of a game, we find this Talent lackluster when not combined with Brand of Solarion at Level 20.

Blaze of Glory is a weak Talent that increases the damage done by Solarion's Fire with a short delay, by leaving a fire trail on the ground that explodes shortly after. The damage dealt by this Talent can be increased by hitting its target with other Basic Abilities first, to mark them with Valorous Brand.

We do not recommend this Talent because it does not provide enough value compared to the other options in the same Tier.

Holy Fervor is a strong Talent that empowers your Basic Attacks, causing them to deal 130% damage on the main target and cleave for 30% damage. You can manually activate this Talent to buff your next 4 Basic Attacks or cast Molten Armor to empower your next 2 Basic Attacks.

The 25-second cooldown of the active component—which starts after the first empowered Basic Attack gets used—allows you to easily take care of Minions as they spawn once every 30 seconds. We recommend not using Molten Armor too much for clearing Minions because it costs a lot of Mana, however, do not hesitate to use it while clearing neutral or enemy Mercenaries.

If you have spare Mana, you can cast Molten Armor outside of combat to prepare 2 charges of Holy Fervor for later use. Just keep in mind that the Holy Fervor counter in the bottom-left corner will not show until you use a charge because that is when their expiration time starts.

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.

Angelic Armaments is a good Heroic Ability which comes with everything an aggressive Bruiser like Imperius needs: its massive Shield prevents enemies from bursting him down while the damage from reactivation can help you securing kills, making him an even scarier foe to face.

Wrath of the Angiris is a strong Heroic Ability which can be used to crowd control enemy Heroes who are relatively easy to hit with skillshots.

If you are still learning how to play Imperius, keep in mind that Wrath of the Angiris is easy to dodge due to its brief cast time, making it a high-risk high-reward Heroic Ability if not used as a follow-up to allied crowd control.

You may need it for counter specific enemy Abilities (such as Phase Shift by Brightwing) and/or to provide additional crowd control effects to your team.

Pathetic Mortals is a situational Talent that drastically reduces the damage done by enemy Heroes hit with Celestial Charge for multiple seconds while also Slowing them for a moderate amount.

The damage reduction effect is great to shut down enemy Heroes who deal a lot of damage, regardless of their Role. The small Slow provided is nice to have because it can help you land a few more Basic Attacks on retreating enemy Heroes.

Divine Rage significantly lowers Molten Armor's cooldown, which greatly increases Imperius's survivability. Furthermore, it possesses great synergy with both Sovereign Armor at Level 4 and Melting Touch at Level 16.

Heat of Battle is a situational Talent that comes with stronger healing the lower Imperius's Health is. You may need this Talent when playing against Heroes who can inflict a good amount of percent-based damage (for example Tychus with Minigun).

Celestial Swiftness increases Imperius's Attack and Movement Speed after Stunning foes using Celestial Charge. This Talent can be good when paired with Brand of Solarion and Flash of Anger. However, it is very dependent on hitting your Celestial Charge, so go for this if you are very confident in doing that.

Melting Touch is the default Talent for this Tier, it has strong synergy with Divine Rage, which allows Imperius to consistently lower nearby enemies' Armor. You can weave Basic Attacks across different targets or rely on Holy Fervor at Level 7 to reduce the Armor of multiple enemy Heroes at the same time. This Talent will greatly increase your and your teammates' damage.

Valorous Pursuit is a decent Talent that gives you access to mobility on a moderate cooldown. You may occasionally want this Talent as a counter to kite.

Heavenly Host is a situational Talent which puts a powerful Shield on nearby Heroes. After 6 seconds, each Shield that is still up will expire and deal damage to the nearest enemy Hero.

Compared to Storm Shield, this Talent generally gives a 30% stronger Shield on Heroes with high maximum Health and even more on Heroes with low maximum Health.

Given how powerful the other Talents in this Tier are, you should rarely need this Talent. That said, we find this Talent useful for keeping your most vulnerable allied Heroes (for example Valla) alive.

Unrelenting Descent is a strong Talent which restores a good chunk of Health and Mana when hitting enemy Heroes with Wrath of the Angiris. In addition to that, consuming a Valorous Brand will reduce its cooldown by 10 seconds.

Assuming you do not get bursted down by the enemy team, the cooldown reduction provided will usually allow you to halve the cooldown of Wrath of the Angiris.

If you picked Wrath of the Angiris over Angelic Armaments at Level 10, then you should heavily prefer upgrading your Heroic Ability.

Brand of Solarion is a good Talent that heavily increases Imperius's damage and self-healing by making Valorous Brand's marks last only 5 seconds but empower Basic Attacks without being consumed.

This kind of effect has synergy with Burn the Impure at Level 1, to deal more percent-based damage, and with Flash of Anger at Level 7, to constantly refresh your Shield over 5 seconds and deal more damage.

Impervious is a strong Talent which can be activated to give Imperius a huge amount of Spell Armor and to make him Unstoppable for a few seconds.

We find this Talent particularly useful when playing against Heroes who have the potential to burst you down with their Abilities, especially when they are paired with Heroes who have access to crowd control effects.