Lunara Abilities and Strategy
Welcome to our Abilities page for Lunara. Here, we give you an overview of every ability in Lunara's kit. For each of them, we explain what it does, how to best use it, and how it works in combination with Lunara's other abilities. We also give you strategy tips to play Lunara efficiently.
Lunara's Tips and Tricks
- The fact that Lunara cannot use a mount is a both blessing and curse. In team fights, make sure to use your increased Movement Speed to kite enemy Heroes. Out of combat, do not forget about informing your allies about your position during rotations if you are falling behind.
- Leaping Strike is a great escape mechanism against hard-engaging Tanks and melee Assassins like Illidan or Muradin.
- Lunara's efficiency sometimes depends on the type of Healer Hero the enemy team chose during draft. While she counters single-target Healers like Lt. Morales or Uther, her AoE damage over time gets countered by strong AoE Healers like Stukov or Malfurion.
- On larger maps, Hippity Hop allows Lunara to rotate as fast as any mounted Hero, which greatly helps her to stay close to her allies.
Noxious Blossom
- Mana: 60
- Cooldown: 8 seconds
After 0.5 seconds, cause an area to explode with pollen dealing 160 (+4% per level) damage.
Noxious Blossom is a solid ability to spread your first stacks of Nature's Toxin with from a safer distance, since its casting range is larger than your normal Basic Attack range. It is also a very useful tool to scout vision obscured terrain before facechecking it.
Crippling Spores
- Mana: 50
- Cooldown: 10 seconds
Enemies currently afflicted by Nature's Toxin have its duration increased by 3 seconds and are Slowed by 40% decaying over 3 seconds.
Knowing when to use Crippling Spores efficiently is one of the most important things to master when playing Lunara. This ability is the key to enable powerful late-game damage granted by Unfair Advantage at Level 16.
If a team fight goes well, feel free to use it early in order to maximise your damage. If the fight does not go well, try to utilise Crippling Spores' slow effect to keep enemy Tanks and melee Assassins away from you.
Wisp
- Cooldown: 30 seconds
Spawn a Wisp to scout an area. Can be redirected once active. When the Wisp is in a bush for more 2 seconds, its vision radius is increased by 75%. Lasts 45 seconds.
Lunara is not an easy Hero to master since she requires great positioning and quite a lot of multi-tasking. Consequently, Wisp sometimes becomes an underrated ability, which many players seem to forget about at some point during the game. However, Wisp turns out to have a significant impact on the game since it provides a lot of useful vision on your enemy team if placed wisely. Thus, always try to keep Wisp on cooldown and remember that is has a global casting range.
Thornwood Vine
In this section we discuss how this Heroic Ability works and give some tips on how to use it. If you are looking for a detailed explanation on when and why you should pick it, check out the dedicated section in the Talent Build page.
- Heroic
- Mana: 35
- Charges: 3
- Recharge Time: 15 seconds
Send forth vines that deal 184 (+4% per level) damage to all enemies in a line.
Stores up to 3 charges.
One of Lunara's biggest strengths is the fact that both of her Heroic Abilities can be used to great effect. Thornwood Vine is an excellent long-range poking ability, which applies Nature's Toxin to each enemy it hits. Due to the relatively short cooldown of 15 seconds per charge, Thornwood Vine can be used to clear Minion waves as well, which makes it a formidable Ability on maps like Dragon Shire or Tomb of the Spider Queen, where pushing and de-pushing lanes is crucial.
Leaping Strike
In this section we discuss how this Heroic Ability works and give some tips on how to use it. If you are looking for a detailed explanation on when and why you should pick it, check out the dedicated section in the Talent Build page.
- Heroic
- Mana: 50
- Charges: 2
- Recharge Time: 20 seconds
Leap over an enemy, Slowing them by 80% for 0.35 seconds and dealing 271 (+4% per level) damage.
Stores up to 2 charges.
Mobility is of the essence when playing a fragile ranged Assassin like Lunara. Thus, Leaping Strike proves to be a very important asset to her kit, especially if you choose to play a Basic Attack oriented talent Build. However, Leaping Strike does not only provide Lunara with a powerful engage and disengage mechanic, it also deals a significant amount of damage and Movement Speed slow to its target, which makes it a strong finishing ability.
Keeping track of your target's positioning is important when using Leaping Strike, since it will always place Lunara behind her target in a straight line. Thus, you should avoid using it if the entire enemy team is still located behind your target. Instead, wait until a team fight has erupted and the enemy team has spread out. Keep in mind that Leaping Strike can also be used on Structures, which makes it a great escape mechanism if you get caught too deep inside the enemy team's base.
Nature's Toxin
- Passive
Lunara's Basic Attacks and damaging Abilities poison their target, dealing 33 (+4% per level) damage a second for 3 seconds. Every additional application increases the duration by 3 seconds, up to a maximum of 9 seconds.
Nature's Toxin is a strong damage over time trait, which allows Lunara to poison multiple enemies at the same time using her Basic Attacks and damaging abilities. Experienced Lunara players usually try to stack Nature's Toxin as quickly as possible and maintain the stacks active using Crippling Spores to refresh their duration.
Stealthed Heroes like Nova, Valeera, or Zeratul, in particular, can be kept visible thanks to Nature's Toxin, as its poison damage prevents them from re-stealthing.
Dryad's Swiftness
While Dryad's Swiftness causes Lunara to be one of the most mobile Heroes during team fights, it can also cause her to fall behind her teammates when covering large distances around the map. Thus, we strongly recommend using any means of communication (voice chat, ingame ping notifications, or chat messages for instance) to alert your allies if you need more time to catch up to them.
Lunara's Level 20 talent called Galloping Gait adds an incredibly powerful activatable component to Dryad's Swiftness, which allows her to outrun any other Hero in the game. Use it to escape dangerous situations, to rush to your allies' aid in time, or to chase down retreating enemies.
Changelog
- 02 Jul. 2020: Guide has been reviewed and no changes are needed.
- 25 Jul. 2019: Reviewed Lunara's Abilities section.
- 23 May 2018: Updated Lunara's abilities in accordance with her most recent rework.
More Ranged Assassin Guides
Outofmilk is an avid Heroes of the Storm player, and has been playing this game since the first wave of Alpha invites. He currently plays around the Grandmaster / high Master area and is now here to share his knowledge with you.
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