Li-Ming Talents

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

This Tier improves Li-Ming's Mana efficiency.

Force Armor is an excellent counterpick to Ability-heavy team compositions. It is notably effective against Jaina, Kael'thas and Nova, as they all rely on a few hard-hitting Abilities to take you down. Further, it provides a deceptively large amount of Mana Regeneration when it matters most. In a team fight situation, particularly during a winning one, Force Armor lets you get extra Ability casts to further push your advantage. At all stages of the game, it allows you to use Magic Missiles on-Cooldown for sieging or other purposes without ever running out of Mana. Force Armor is a particularly smart niche pick on the Battlefield of Eternity Map due how much Mana must be expended to battle the Immortal, and due to the unavailability of Regeneration Globes to trigger Power Hungry reliably.

Aether Walker promotes careful play by providing you with a form of Mana conservation and a significant cooldown reduction for Teleport, granted you are able to avoid damage. Although this Talent synergises particularly well with every other Teleport-related Talent, its effects can be difficult to maintain without proper care and knowledge. Abuse the Mana cost and cooldown reduction to avoid damage and quickly reposition for good Arcane Orb hits.

Power Hungry provides you with a small damage increase as well as Mana Regeneration at the cost of reliability. Power Hungry is generally a solid choice all-around, though it is particularly useful on Maps where Regeneration Globes are plentiful, such as Dragon Shire, Tomb of the Spider Queen, and Towers of Doom.

This tier situationally improves Li-Ming's damage.

Although Charged Blast has quite the damage potential, and particularly in PvE, it requires Li-Ming to endanger herself to reliably exploit due to the Basic Attack requirement. It should be noted that this Talent synergises particularly well with Fireflies due to the cooldown reduction it provides. Charged Blast has niche use against Tracer, who is difficult to hit with Abilities but vulnerable to Basic Attacks.

Triumvirate is a Talent with great potential that requires a very specific playstyle to exploit. Typically chosen along Arcane Orbit, Triumvirate excels in Maps that feature static Objectives with long-lasting team fights, such as Cursed Hollow and Infernal Shrines. Triumvirate's nature, however, makes it not that good versus teams with plenty of dive potential.

Dominance exploits Li-Ming's greatest strengths to mitigate her main weakness. If Critical Mass is a compelling reason to get kills, Dominance accentuates this by vastly improving Li-Ming's team fight survivability.

This tier improves Li-Ming's burst damage.

Seeker provides a solid damage increase to players with pinpoint accuracy. If you cannot reliably land triple Magic Missiles hit, avoid picking this Talent. It is worth mentioning that Seeker provides Li-Ming with a considerable increase to her PvE damage, making it useful on Maps featuring two Bosses such as Cursed Hollow and Warhead Junction. However, Calamity is a powerful, time-proven alternative.

Zei's Vengeance complements Triumvirate and Arcane Orbit, and is generally picked in area of effect crowd control-heavy teams that seek to capitalize on Arcane Orb's capacity to deal Heroic-like levels of damage when Talented for. This is difficult to pull off against dive-heavy teams, however.

Calamity turns Teleport, an essentially defensive Ability, into an offensive one. Calamity provides a hefty amount of damage that works very well with Critical Mass. Be careful, however, as aggressively using Teleport may spell the end for you if you do not manage to secure a kill for the reset.

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.

Disintegrate perfectly complements Li-Ming's Ability set by providing her with one crucial things she lacks: a way of dealing damage that pierces through enemies. Disintegrate further provides Li-Ming with just enough damage to allow her to finish off the more fragile Heroes of the roster with a single Magic Missiles + Arcane Orb combo. In a pinch, Disintegrate also provides her with a respectable option for more waveclear.

Wave of Force provides Li-Ming with something else that she lacks: crowd control. Wave Of Force is usually picked as a defensive tool against aggressive team comps or as a reliable interrupt stationary-channeled Abilities.

This tier improves Li-Ming's damage.

Illusionist is a versatile Talent that provides both offense and defense. The range increase is particularly useful when combined with Calamity, whereas the reset feature works well with Diamond Skin to provide that extra layer of protection. Pick this if you have been dying often, and generally, against Stealthed Assassins.

Cannoneer is only situationally recommended under the same circumstances as its Level 4 Basic Attack counterpart, Charged Blast: reliably weaving in Basic Attacks is generally too dangerous for Li-Ming players to do. Again, it should be stated that this Talent works well versus Tracer.

Glass Cannon is the go-to choice if you feel particularly safe against the opposing team composition, although for Li-Ming, offense is very often the best defense. Glass Cannon is also a solid choice for an Arcane Orb Build, as they tend to promote a safer playstyle.

This tier significantly improves Li-Ming's damage.

Fireflies increases the damage output of Magic Missiles by making them faster, and thus easier to hit with, and by reducing their cooldown. Generally, the Mirrorball Talent is preferred, as it provides an equivalent damage increase in terms of pure damage-per-second output, but benefits more from Critical Mass, as resetting a longer cooldown for more damage ends up leading to more overall value. Fireflies does benefit more from other Magic Missiles-related Talents, but Mirroball provides more burst.

Arcane Orbit complements Triumvirate and Zei's Vengeance, and is generally picked in area of effect crowd control-heavy teams that seek to capitalize on Arcane Orb's capacity to deal Heroic-like levels of damage when Talented for. This is difficult to pull off against dive-heavy teams, however.

Diamond Skin is one of the strongest existing defensive Talents, and makes Li-Ming extremely difficult to take out even for dedicated Assassins, especially when combined with Illusionist for the additional cast, or simply through the resets provided by Critical Mass.

This tier provides powerful offensive utility.

Temporal Flux makes Disintegrate slightly harder to dodge and has can potentially be used to trigger Talents of allied Heroes which require the target enemy Hero to be Slowed. All that said, we do not recommend this Talent because it does not compete with the damage boost provided by Tal Rasha's Elements and the utility of Repulsion.

Repulsion more than effectively doubles the utility provided by Wave of Force. The cast range increase is particularly valuable for pushing opponents within the range of your Abilities or that of your teammates. If your Tank struggles to engage, you can help them by using Wave of Force behind an enemy Hero. If your teammates need peeling, you can protect them by casting Wave of Force in front of whoever is attacking them.

Tal Rasha's Elements provides a solid damage increase in both poke and burst scenarios. To benefit from its effect, use your Abilities in a mixed order, so without casting the same Ability twice in a row. If you have Aether Walker at Level 1 and you feel safe enough, you can use Teleport to get the first stack.

Archon: Pure Power is a peculiar but ultimately ineffective Talent that does very little that Li-Ming may not already do. While sieging, it may be tempting to simply Disintegrate away at Structures. However, Magic Missiles would generally yield more DPS, especially when appropriately Talented. During team fighting situations, Archon: Pure Power essentially leaves you very vulnerable without synergising with Critical Mass, a key element in playing Li-Ming.