Johanna Talents

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

Zealous Glare is a strong Talent that gives you an additional charge of Shield Glare and increases its damage by a considerable amount. Do not hesitate to use a single charge for burst damage when going for a kill, except when you really need that charge for countering an enemy Hero.

Pick this Talent when playing against Valeera to get her out of Stealth, when playing against Garrosh to dismount him while he is trying to engage, or when facing Heroes who can get a lot of value from Basic Attacks—not only because of the damage they deal (such as Zul'jin) but also to reduce their self-healing (for example Alarak with Overwhelming Power at Level 1) or their healing output (like Tyrande).

The additional charge allows you to check a bush while still having your Blind available and has synergy with Holy Renewal at Level 16, increasing your self-sustain and damage in the late game.

Divine Fortress is a situational Gambit-based Talent that immediately gives you extra maximum Health, however, dying reduces its amount. In addition to that, Johanna receives 10 Physical Armor while hitting enemies with Basic Attacks, stacking up to 40 Physical Armor after 4 Basic Attacks within 4 seconds from each other.

The additional maximum Health makes you harder to kill with burst damage and increases any percent-based healing you receive (such as Life-Binder by Alexstrasza). As a consequence, it has synergy with Holy Renewal at Level 16 as well as with Blinded By The Light at Level 20 who uses a similar mechanic, however, those Talents have better synergy with Zealous Glare at Level 1.

Consider picking this Talent to counter enemy Heroes who can deal a lot of damage via Basic Attacks and your team features two Healers, especially on Maps where team fights happen near Minions and/or Monsters. More healing will amplify the value you can get from the Physical Armor it provides and also because it will be easier to keep it fully stacked until the late game. If needed, you can further increase your survivability with the help of Hold Your Ground at Level 4, Steed Charge at Level 7, and/or Falling Sword.

Laws of Hope is a good Quest-based Talent that provides you a powerful on-demand healing effect with a 40-second cooldown. You can increase its power by collecting Regeneration Globes during the game.

If you are not in a team fight, your Healer is not nearby, and you have less than full Health, it is correct to use Laws of Hope to heal. Otherwise, the heal should be saved for upcoming team fights.

Be careful when playing this Talent against Heroes who have access to healing reduction effects (for example Ana with Biotic Grenade). Wait for them to use that kind of Abilities or just use Laws of Hope to sustain yourself between team fights and while laning.

On the other hand, consider going for this Talent when playing against Heroes who have access to Shield-breaking effects (such as Shattering Throw by Varian) to diversify your survivability into different types: not only Shielding, but also healing.

Prefer picking this Talent when your team has a burst Healer (such as Uther) and not a sustain one (for example Malfurion) to help them keeping your whole team in a good shape without wasting too much Mana for you.

Avoid picking this Talent on early game Maps and/or 2-lane Maps because it is harder to get many Regeneration Globes there. The worst Map is Braxis Holdout, followed by other 2-lane Maps and Cursed Hollow.

Subdue is a strong Talent that empowers the Slow applied when hitting two or more enemy Heroes with a single Punish and makes it no longer decay over time before it expires. In addition to that, hitting 4 enemy Heroes with a single Punish will complete a Quest and empower the Slow from Punish even when hitting a single Hero.

We highly recommend this Talent when playing Johanna as main Tank. The best part of this Talent is the decay removal on the Slow, together with the moderate increase of the Slow amount, to the point that it does not matter if you cannot complete the Quest and you should never bother trying to do so.

Eternal Retaliation is a situational Talent that marks enemies hit by Condemn for 10 seconds. Consuming marks with your Basic Attacks will reduce the cooldown of Condemn, give you some Mana, and instantly kill enemy Minions. You cannot consume marks with Abilities.

We recommend this Talent only when playing Johanna as Offlaner. The ability to instantly kill enemy Minions with Basic Attacks is useful when you need more waveclear, however, the requirement to hit each Minion once makes this Talent less effective when playing as main Tank because enemy Heroes will easily pressure you away from enemy Minions by damaging you.

Hold Your Ground is a situational Talent that empowers the Shield provided by Iron Skin while also reducing its cooldown a little.

You may need this Talent as an additional tool to survive when playing Johanna as main Tank against team compositions who don't have tools to break Shields (such as Shattering Throw by Varian) and rely on crowd control and burst damage to take you down.

Making the Shield bigger indirectly translates to being Unstoppable for longer because said effect ends when the Shield gets destroyed, not only when it expires or after a fixed amount of time.

Having a better Shield can be good for Divine Fortress at Level 1 because you will be more durable while trying to retreat, something that will help you keep its Gambit component fully stacked.

Sins Exposed is a situational Talent that gives you access to a moderate healing reduction effect right after using Punish on enemy Heroes. The effect lasts 3 seconds but you can refresh its duration with Basic Attacks.

Consider picking this Talent when your team needs extra burst damage against a team featuring a high amount of healing (Whitemane comes to mind) and/or a lot of self-sustain (for example Stitches), especially if your team lacks powerful healing reduction effects.

Conviction is a strong Talent that passively gives you a moderate amount of Movement Speed and further boosts your Movement Speed while Condemn is charging.

Johanna is a relatively immobile Hero, therefore she benefits a lot from this kind of Talent as it increases her mobility for either defensive or offensive uses, especially when her Heroic Abilities are not available.

Steed Charge is a situational Talent that can be activated to instantly Mount and run away without being dismounted by damage. In addition to giving you mobility, this Talent passively increases the duration of Iron Skin by 2 second. Johanna will be automatically dismounted at the end of its effect.

If it is not dangerous, you can even use Steed Charge aggressively, immediately after casting Condemn, to engage without Heroic Ability. That said, Conviction will give you about the same value in a similar scenario.

Keep in mind that you can still be dismounted by crowd control effects unless you combine it with Iron Skin to become Unstoppable right before using it.

Having an escape at your disposal can be good for Divine Fortress at Level 1 because it will help you to get away from danger without dying and, as a consequence, keeping its Gambit component fully stacked. Similarly, it can be useful when playing as Offlaner in order to further increase your survivability against enemy ganks.

If you do not want to waste your Heroic Ability to interrupt powerful channeled Abilities (such as Ravenous Spirit by Nazeebo), you can use Steed Charge as a gap-closer for using Condemn instead.

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.

Falling Sword is a situational Heroic Ability that can be used defensively to escape or offensively to dive into the enemy backline to damage and briefly Stun enemies hit.

The ability to make allied Heroes below you Unstoppable is versatile as it can be useful for both offensive (for example to enable Kerrigan to play aggressively) and defensive plays (to free teammates from scary crowd control effects).

Some team compositions will put so much pressure on you that you will need to pick Falling Sword to escape (for example Leoric with Entomb before Level 20 or without Buried Alive at Level 20).

Blessed Shield is a strong Heroic Ability that provides you a powerful Stun, making up for the lack of hard crowd control among your Basic Abilities.

You can use it to engage enemy Heroes, to peel for your team or to interrupt powerful enemy channeled Abilities (such as Ravenous Spirit by Nazeebo) when Condemn is on cooldown or lacks range.

Roar is a good Talent that increases the damage done by Punish, even against non-Heroes, and provides a solid amount of burst damage when hitting 2 enemy Heroes with a single Punish.

The main benefit of this Talent is that it gives you a solid amount of burst damage when you can hit multiple enemy Heroes with Punish, which helps your team finish them before they can use defensive Abilities and/or their Healer can react.

Holy Fury is a weak Talent that allows you to deal area of effect damage around you, empowered after hitting Heroes with Condemn.

We do not recommend this Talent because it requires to hit 4 enemy Heroes with Condemn and Johanna to stay nearby at least one of them for 5 seconds to get enough value compared to the other options in the same Tier.

Blessed Hammer is a strong Talent that causes every third Basic Attacks against enemy Heroes to spawn a small hammer of light which spiral outwards from Johanna and deals damage to all enemies hit. Once every 30 seconds, you can manually activate Blessed Hammer to spawn 2 hammers that work in the same way. You can reduce the cooldown of the active component by hitting enemies with Basic Abilities.

Pick Blessed Hammer when you want more sustain damage or when all you need is single-target damage, and/or more waveclear. You can activate it to quickly clear multiple Minions or Monsters at the same time, however, its passive component only works when using Basic Attacks against enemy Heroes.

Shrinking Vacuum is a situational Talent that reduces the damage done by enemy Heroes hit with Condemn and Slows them a little.

When playing against Heroes who can shred your Shields with dedicated effects (notably Varian with Shattering Throw), you can use this Talent to increase your survivability and make up for that extra damage the enemy team will deal to you, unless they can kill you in 1 second.

You can combine this Talent with Conviction at Level 7 to make it easier to hit enemy Heroes with Condemn, however, it is already good on its own.

Holy Renewal is a strong Talent that heals you for a significant amount when hitting enemy Heroes with Shield Glare, in addition to reducing its cooldown. Both effects are multiplied for each enemy Hero hit.

The potential healing coming from this Talent can be useful to reduce the stress on your Healer when playing against a poke-composition. While hitting 5 enemy Heroes is too optimistic, you can reliably hit 2 Heroes with each use, restoring a good chunk of your maximum Health.

Being based on your maximum Health, the healing provided by Holy Renewal can be increased with Divine Fortress at Level 1, assuming you do not die too much. Alternatively, you can benefit from this Talent more often thanks to the second Shield Glare provided by Zealous Glare at Level 1.

Blessed Momentum is a good Talent that, when hitting any target with Basic Attacks, boosts your Attack Speed and reduces the cooldown of your Basic Abilities.

Pick this Talent when you want to use your Basic Abilities more often, either defensively or offensively, or when your team needs more damage as the other Talents in this Tier do not provide any offensive bonus.

Heaven's Fury is a good Talent that heavily empowers Falling Sword in 3 ways: more damage against enemy Heroes, healing allied Heroes, and cooldown reduction based on the number of Heroes hit with the previous two effects.

The damage bolts can hit up to 3 enemies (not only Heroes) while the healing bolts can hit up to 3 allied Heroes. The cooldown reduction is equal to 8 seconds per Hero affected, therefore the cooldown remaining will end up being:

• 40 seconds for 1 Hero;
• 32 seconds for 2 Heroes;
• 24 seconds for 3 Heroes;
• 16 seconds for 4 Heroes (at least 1 per team);
• 8 seconds for 5 Heroes (at least 2 per team);
• 0 seconds for 6 Heroes (3 per team).

The possibility of using multiple Heroic Abilities per team fight is great, especially in the late game when your Mana pool is big enough to pay for the extra casts without problems.

Radiating Faith is a good Talent that allows Blessed Shield to hit up to 5 enemies (prioritizing Heroes) and Stun all of them for 1.75 seconds.

We strongly recommend this Talent because it has the potential to win a late game team fight on its own by setting up a powerful engage for your team.

Indestructible is a situational Talent that will not only keep you alive in team fights, but discourage enemies from targeting you altogether.

To prevent the enemy team from simply ignoring you and focusing the rest of your team instead, you need to force them to deal with you by playing extremely aggressive, a strategy that will not always work because the enemy team could theoretically decide to ignore you anyways.

Once Indestructible gets triggered, you must immediately retreat from combat, unless you are immediately healed, or you will die once the Shield ends. Holy Renewal at Level 16 and Laws of Hope at Level 1 can help you with that.

We recommend this Talent only when playing against teams who want to kill you through Iron Skin (for example Leoric with Entomb and Buried Alive at Level 20).

Blinded By The Light is a strong Talent that can be helpful if the enemy team has so much area of effect burst damage that your team cannot do anything to win the team fight.

Like any other Shield-based Ability, to avoid wasting it, only use it immediately before significant burst damage. The cooldown reduction provided by hitting enemy Heroes with Shield Glare has the potential to let you use this Talent twice in a single team fight.

The second charge of Shield Glare provided by Zealous Glare at Level 1 can help you quickly reset the cooldown of Blinded By The Light.

Being based on maximum Health, the Shield provided by this Talent will be bigger if you took Divine Fortress at Level 1 and you did not lose too many stacks of its Gambit.