EPT
Lunara
First Impressions
Analysis and Pro Opinions
"Lunara is an agile ranged attacker who effortlessly bounds in and out of the fray, doling out the fury of the wilds without prejudice. Those who snap even one twig underfoot will quickly be met by a volley of twisted spears and afflicted by deadly, debilitating toxins that will make them easy prey. Once crippled by her poisons, enemies will be left with nothing from their encounter with Lunara, First Daughter of Cenarius, but a flash of hooves, the flicker of leaves, and the haunting memory of her distant laughter."
The hype surrounding Lunara's release into the Nexus was incredibly high, and for the first several days of her tenure there were Lunaras everywhere. It became quickly apparent that Lunara could dish out some serious damage if left to her own devices, but was very fragile if caught out of position (or focused at all). Most people tried to play her like a normal Assassin who could take someone out in an instant, only to be turned on and killed. That just isn't how Lunara works. She's good at taking out a chunk of someone's health with a quick combo and annoyingly running away. She doesn't have to duel someone because of her potentially huge range and her Trait.
One week after release, she is picked less often than 23 other Heroes in Hero League according to Hotslogs, with a meager 36% win ratio, and that's pretty low even for a new Hero. Let's take a closer look at Lunara and see what she's all about.
Strengths
- Strong poke damage
- Decent vision with Wisps and the Natural Perspective talent
- Good wave clear, especially with Thornwood Vine
- High talent diversity at each talent tier
- Very mobile
Weaknesses
- Extremely low health pool
- Can't mount, and is therefore slow at long rotations on big maps
- No early game escape tool
- Her damage is mostly over time, so no real burst potential
Abilities
Mount
- Dryad’s Swiftness
- Lunara cannot use Mounts. Instead, you move 20% faster by leaping short distances.
Trait
- Nature’s Toxin
- Your Basic Attacks and damaging Abilities poison the target, dealing damage each second for 3 seconds.
Basic Abilities
- Noxious Blossom (Q)
- After 0.5 seconds, cause an area to explode with pollen, dealing damage.
- Crippling Spores (W)
- Enemies currently afflicted by Nature’s Toxin have its duration increased by 3 seconds and are slowed by 40%, decaying over 3 seconds.
- Wisp (E)
- Spawn a Wisp to scout an area. Can be redirected once active. Lasts 45 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
- Thornwood Vine (R)
- Send forth vines that deal damage to all enemies in a line. Can hold 3 charges.
- Leaping Strike (R)
- Leap over an enemy, attacking and slowing the target by 80% for 0.35 seconds. Can hold 2 charges.
The first thing to know about Lunara is that she has no mount, but has a passive movement speed increase from Dryad's Swiftness. It's a bit like Falstad's Tailwind, giving 20% movement speed, but it does not deactivate in combat. Lunara leaps to move around, and this gives her the ability to dodge skillshots more easily than most other Heroes. The downside for this is that Basic Attacks cannot be used while moving, and it takes Lunara longer to come to a stop sometimes if she is midstride. The timing on her Basic Attacks and bounding animation make it difficult for new Lunara players to get used to stutter-stepping with her.
All of her other abilities are based around the damage over time effect of her Trait, Nature's Toxin. Her damaging attacks and abilities will apply one stack of Toxin to the target, which lasts three seconds and deals damage per second. Additional stacks up to three increase the duration to a potential nine second duration. This innately means that Lunara's burst damage is not too high, but in a prolonged fight the Toxin damage will quickly add up, making it difficult for the enemy healer to keep everyone topped off.
Her first Ability is Noxious Blossom. After a short delay it deals damage to all enemies in the target area. It's a good poking tool to apply Nature's Toxin to multiple targets at once to set up your next ability, Crippling Spores. The use of this ability is what can separate a good Lunara from a great one. Many talents trigger additional effects on the use of Crippling Spores, such as Starwood Spear, Wild Vigor, and Invigorating Spores. The key is to not use it too early unless the goal is to burst a single target. For maximum use, however, you want Nature's Toxin on as many enemies as possible. Just throwing out one Noxious Blossom and immediately using Crippling Spores is typically not an effective use. Try to use Thornwood Vine to proc the poison, attack another Hero in range, then use Crippling Spores. It will add stacks of Toxin to more targets (dealing more damage per cast), and also apply the slow to more Heroes, giving more control over the fight and even more damage if you get Unfair Advantage.
Lunara's Wisp is often forgotten about in the heat of battle. Make sure to use it on cooldown. If you don't know where to place it, just think about your positioning. Would you die if enemies came through a path and ganked you? Put a Wisp there. Searching for a Murky egg? Send your Wisp to scout. Not sure if there are enemies around the corner or at a boss? Wisp.
Her Heroics give her a much harder choice than most other Heroes, as either one could be good in different circumstances. Thornwood Vine is a long range ability that really amps up her poke game. It's a reliable way to apply Noxious Toxin to multiple enemies quickly to start your combo. It's also very strong at clearing creep waves. Leaping Strike does more single target damage and is by far the most fun ability Lunara has, but it makes you very vulnerable in large fights. It can be used to escape bad situations as well, but more often than not a poorly timed Leaping Strike will result in a dead Lunara. The interesting thing about her Heroics is that both have quick cooldowns and multiple charges. It gives Lunara players more options in battle, and allows almost liberal use of them.
Talents
We've come to the conclusion that Blossom Swell just doesn't add enough actual area to Noxious Blossom to be worth it. It sounds like a big difference, but the increase is barely noticeable. Photosynthesis is not needed when you can get mana refunded with Cruel Spores and have the additional cooldown reduction it provides. Natural Perspective gives a lot of vision on the map, and makes all Novas you are against cry.
For the Wisp tier Nimble Wisp seems to be the best, but Skybound can be great in tight corridors or in vents/bushes around objectives such as Infernal Shrines. There are situations to get the other two options, but the majority of the time these two are better.
Siphoning Toxin is one of the strongest healing talents in the game for Assassins. It heals you every second as long as you have Nature's Toxin on an enemy. It doesn't have to be a Hero; any creep or minion will do. So basically unless you stand around doing nothing you have passive healing. If you're going for damage, Wild Vigor is the best offensive choice here. Note that there is no time frame on this -- it is applied to your next attacks no matter when they are (this applies to Splintered Spear as well). Combine that with Starwood Spear and you are a very mobile Siege Tank.
Lunara's Heroics are good in that they actually give players a real choice, as both can be very viable in different situations. Leap is excellent for dueling and single target damage, and can also be used as an escape or dodge. Precision Strike right on top of you and you are slowed? Leap out of it. The level 20 upgrade lets you Leap over allies as well, which makes it a reliable escape. Thornwood Vine gives great wave clear and poke damage at large range. It's the safer option over Leap, but it also leaves you without a real escape, necessitating the Galloping Gait or Abolish Magic pick at level 20. Combining Thornwood Vine, Crippling Spores, and Starwood Spear gives Lunara some formidable poke damage with a very long range.
Lunara's level 13 talents are completely up in the air, and all of them are worth picking at some point. While Pestering Blossom is probably the weakest, against other range-heavy teams it can be good. Unfair Advantage gives quite a lot of additional damage to slowed targets, so if you have an Arthas, Jaina, Leoric, or any other Hero with heavy slow abilities, it's the obvious choice. Without additional slows however, it might not be more damage than Giant Killer. Giant Killer is of course great against high heal pools. It's especially strong with Invigorating Spores at 16, as the extra Attack Speed gets good use out of Giant Killer. And of course Greater Spell Shield is an amazing defensive tool. If you are against Nova, Kael'thas, or Jaina, it's downright required. Lunara is so fragile that any spellcaster will just obliterate her without it.
At 16, there are two options: Starwood Spear or Invigorating Spores. The better choice is mostly dependent on the enemy team. Are they mostly ranged or a poke composition? Starwood Spear is probably better. Are they melee or tank heavy? Invigorating Spores does more damage especially combined with Giant Killer against those targets, and the range will probably never come into play anyway.
At level 20 her upgraded heroic choices are very strong, but if you get Thornwood Vine an escape is probably necessary in Galloping Gait or Abolish Magic. Boundless Stride is great for escapes though if you chose Leaping Strike, as the ability to Leap over allies gives Lunara so many more options to choose a safe spot to land instead of most likely having to jump towards your enemies. Galloping Gait is just a good speed boost, not much to say about it except it's really fast. Abolish Magic doesn't get picked very often, but against teams with heavy crowd control it can probably get Lunara to safety more often than Galloping Gait can.
Professional Opinions
On Kit, Design and Implementation:
Grubby, Caster
The most interesting parts about Lunara are her movement style, her damage "type" (poison) and her W ability. The Crippling Spores is really flexible in use. You can poison someone for between 1 to 9 seconds essentially, and in that time, you can choose WHEN to activate your slow on them, even if you're far away from them. That's really awesome, especially if you upgrade the level 16 slow to 60%.Her Wisp is interesting but I still find it somewhat worse than WC2's Cho'Gall Eye of Killrog. I expected it to function somewhat similarly, so I was very surprised to see it had a fairly large cool down (45s), which leads some people to joke that it's her Heroic ability, as her real Heroics are what you would refer jocularly to as " 4th basic ability" (like Kael'thas Phx, Hammer's Napalm and Tassadar's Forcewall).
I hoped Wisp would be castable more often, for the Wisp to have more alternative utilities or better vision. Comparing the level 4 talents, Skybound Wisp sees over obstacles but doodads and walls in this game are usually sufficiently large for the radius to nearly not even matter. At most you can use it to see in a shrub/smokescreen over a wall, or Blackfoot an enemy fort on BoE in conjunction with Hammer or something. Of course Skybound wisp can also see the 2 mid upwards and downwards jungle lanes from the Mid lane on Cursed Hollow so it has some value, but it seems the radius is somewhat small.
Besides a few very unimportant QoL things like not being able to see Wisp CD directly at your E-ability slot, if it's moveable, and not seeing CD of 2nd or 3rd charges in your Heroic, the main sticking point is her auto-attack timer. Though it seems I am reaching almost perfect stutter-stepping, I still feel that occasionally there's a cancel in her attack animation which makes me miss a shot. Compare Lunara to Morales, as a random example, and I never miss a shot on Morales as Morales' attack timer feels very on-point actually. I really love Lunara And playing her, she is incredibly fun, but it was kinda sad that I felt like it was way more comfortable to play Morales even though I'm only level 5 on her.
Leaping Strike is tons of fun, even if the first few times I used it I just jump straight into death, I've learnt a bit more self-control on it and it's awesome. The other Heroic Thornwood Vine is also very fun and a great way to spread poison damage. Her Q ability is slightly underwhelming for me, I feel most investments into Q talent blossom are a bit of a waste. At level 1 you go from tiny radius to less tiny but still tiny. You hit 4 minions without upgrading it, and still hit 4, MAYBE 5 minions if you upgrade the Q. It makes it slightly easier to hit Heroes I guess, but not by much. At level 13 you increase the range, but that's arguably one of the best Lunara talent tiers as you get either insane poison damage, Giant Killer or a 75% spell shield.
At 16 you upgrade the Q damage on poison targets from 300 dmg at lvl 16 to 450 damage, critting for a bonus 150 damage in the right circumstance. As an Assassin with an 8s CD on it, that certainly doesn't seem anything to write home about. By comparison, Johanna (a Warrior) sends a Blessed Hammer at that tier for 80 damage, which seems really low damage as well, but she's a warrior after all. And her W is cool down reducible (by a lot, in fact) unlike Lunara's Q.
KendricSwissh, Caster
Lunara's combines Heroes of the Storm's biggest strength in my opinion. Flexible talent builds, fun playstyle, and beautiful graphical design. What I probably like most about her is the fact that the devs gave Lunara an anti-magic talent at Level 13 and a talent that allows her to dispel crowd control and damage over time effects at Level 20. This reminds me a lot of the Dryads from Wc3, which is still one of my most favorite games ever.Kaelaris, Caster
Lunara's kit makes for a powerful assassin. With a diverse range of utility available to her, she also has the potential to secure kills through other means than damage alone (Natural Perspective lvl 1 for continued vision, Wisp talents lvl 4). Overall Lunara feels like a hero designed with a huge array of talent choices that are viable for different situations. Level 13 talents are a brilliant example of a talent tier providing massive choice, and I would consider it to be one of the most valuable list of talents on any Hero in the game so far, at a particular level. The poke build seems most predominant at the moment, as obviously she can be very easy to kill once you get on top of her. Level 16 "Star Wood Spear" is the MVP talent for me, as it allows you to out-range buildings, and certainly most heroes on the battlefield.
Also it's especially nice to have a new hero implemented where I often times cannot decide which Heroic I want to take. Thornwood Vine for great poke, Leaping Strikes for strong escape potential, and also a finisher more than anything on a fleeing target.
Equinox, Murloc Geniuses
I really enjoy her kit, the feel of the Hero with the build I go is strong when you aren't highly threatened and even then you can pull out a lot of damage with enough range to hit the backliners. Her Passive (Nature's Toxin) and the way it works with the rest of her kit is very strong, it kills minions and buildings quickly allowing you to not have to spend a lot of time in lanes to clear it or siege towers which makes her more versatile, I also like how it stacks and adds to that spreading poison feel. Her Q (Noxious Blossom) is a good harass that has a very smooth animation and is very rewarding when you land it because of how much damage it applies with the base damage + your passive, it's also easy to land thanks to your W (Crippling Spores). You can chunk a squishy for 1/3 or more of their HP just by getting an auto-W-Q off on them and getting all 3 stacks of your passive on someone. Her E (Wisp) makes that harassment feel of her kit really round out because of the vision you get, catching a squishy rotating and chunking them out or getting a pick on them is really key in playing her to her maximum potential.Her Heroics are OK. I think Leaping Strike can be good, but I feel you have to have an Uther on your team or a very heavy front line so you don't get punished incredibly hard. Overall, I think Thornwood Vine works with her kit and playstyle a lot better. It's not nearly as fun, but it's overall effectiveness is much higher due to the base range and damage of the spell coupled with the charge system it has.
Her design seems good, but they need to fix her auto attacking. It feels very clunky and becomes problematic with trying to do DPS while kiting. When you do figure out the rhythm and animation she feels very strong with a lot of control. Once you kite out gap closers, you can chase people down. She's very good at killing targets with low mobility if you go in after their CD's are gone. Example: killing Nova, Thrall, Tyrande, Kael'thas, stuff like that you can take heavy advantage of when their CC's and CD's are down.
On Professional Play and Meta Changes:
Grubby, Caster
I expect we'll see some Lunara from some of the more adventurous teams in NA or EU, as we often see experimentation in leagues which do have prestige, but maybe aren't as weighted as for instance a BlizzCon or a DreamHack. There are always players eager to show off their flair with a Hero, essentially making history in winning the first competitive match with a new Hero. There's honor and prestige in that too. So I do think we'll see her at some point soon, maybe before the year is over or at least in January, but she won't be a first pick/first ban. The meta is still quite controlled by Stun and Gun -- focus fire down a pinned down target -- and she doesn't have as much to add there as a Kael'thas or Falstad. Her damage type is a lot like Spiders-Nazeebo, though instead being squishier but more mobile, and he's pretty much out of the meta not because his damage is low but because there's a call for Heroes with single target Burst, and it seems Lunara is best played by spreading out her damage and slows.KendricSwissh, Caster
Hard to say. Lunara requires good positioning, on-point decision making, and strong mechanics. Thus, I could see her becoming quite popular in Korea, since Koreans have proven multiple times that they're the strongest region when it comes to mechanics and ability usage. Oh, and let's not forget about the Wisp. This tiny little servant becomes particularly powerful in the upper echelons of competitive play. So yeah, just like Kharazim and Lt. Morales, I think it's going to take a while for the competitive scene to get used to her kit and unfold her full potential.Kaelaris, Caster
There are some nay-sayers out there, but I'm almost positive she'll see competitive play, but will face the same issues Morales has, careful of dive comp (I'm looking at Thrall + stuns that could be an issue in the current meta).Equinox, Murloc Geniuses
I see her popping up in NA and possibly EU because she suits the meta pretty well right now at least in my opinion. She's very good at kiting and punishing people who waste their CD's or backliners who position too forward. She is very positioning reliant though, but she has long range capability and mobility to make up for that. I think once people get good at her and learn the comps she's best in she'll fit very well into the meta as a strong ranged DPS. Her damage output early game good and it's amazing post-16. She feels strong throughout the game but not overwhelming or underwhelming at any point.However, she can feel overwhelming to play against when you have no way to deal with her, which is where good drafts come in, and I think when you have no way to punish her, she's a Hero that can really have an impact on the game. Maybe not to the extent to someone like KT or Raynor but a large impact nonetheless.
On Map and Composition Viability:
Grubby, Caster
I have played around with viewers playing a mass ranged AoE spread damage style and that was actually both a lot of fun and seemingly effective. You place a Warrior expert at disengage, self-sufficiency, and peel in front of your team. You take a sustained healer like Malfurion who can cover a retreat with entangle, feed the team with mana and keep everyone up, and you play a out-poke them off objectives while pressuring the map and whittling down the opponents' HP or their healer's mana.Maybe all Nazeebo needed was a brother (or sister) in arms to exacerbate the long-range AoE poke spread. Imagine: Nazeebo, the restored Azmodan, Lunara in a team together. Play Thornwood Vine, ranged poison or auto damage types, maybe Johanna or Muradin in front, or even Leoric with the slows, Nature's Toxin at level 13 and you've got a lot of poke damage! If it doesn't work at competitive, it still may work in HL or QM. And it's tons of fun.
KendricSwissh, Caster
I think she fits into a vast number of team comps due to her excellent talent tree. She can be played as an Basic Attacker similar to Raynor or Valla if she picks talents like Wild Vigor at Level 7 or Giant Killer at Level 13. By the same token, she can also fulfill the role as a mage, focusing mainly on her poison damage by picking talents that focus on Noxious Blossom. Personally, I've been enjoying the poison builds quite a bit, especially when playing in a wombo-combo type of composition!In terms of maps, I think Lunara is alright on most of them. She shines on maps like Battleground of Eternity on which she does not have to rotate a lot between lanes. On maps like Cursed Hollow or Garden of Terror, however, where teams often have to cover large distances, the lack of a mount really causes her to fall behind the rest of her team sometimes.
Equinox, Murloc Geniuses
She's very strong in tri-ranged comps with a healer that can save her if necessary. An example comp would be Uther, Jaina, Sylvanas, Lunara, Muradin. All heroes that are pretty strong in the meta but compliment her strengths pretty well, she has a lot of poke and the ability to punish people who got caught and Jaina/Muradin are good at catching people. She's also very good with a strong front line, another example comp Thrall, Lunara, Zagara, E.T.C, Uther. You have a very beefy (quite literally) frontline who the enemy team has to deal with and so that leaves Lunara free to do what she wants which is poke and get her auto attacks and trait on people. If you build her in comps like that she has a very strong impact.The maps she's good on are any maps that revolve around rotations and capture points, Cursed Hollow, Dragon Shire, Tomb, Battlefield, Towers. All of those maps you can get great value on your wisp and your pokey playstyle by stalling capture points and catching people on rotations. Play her on maps that you can get the most out of those strengths.
Final Thoughts:
Grubby, Caster
Overall, a few slight improvements could make Lunara from one of my favorite Heroes to my favorite one. I feel Blizzard is "almost there" with Lunara, but she's already great enough to be played.KendricSwissh, Caster
I think Lunara is a very interesting Hero and her design really shows how Blizzard continues to introduce beautiful Heroes with flashy mechanics to the game (just think of Lunara's Leaping Strike Heroic Ability for instance). Greymane's hybrid kit -- half human half worgen -- follows suit, which gets me very excited about the future Hero designs. These steps really increase the aesthetic value of Heroes of the Storm as a whole - not just for the players, but especially for the viewers during tournaments and leagues.
Kaelaris, Caster
I wanted to give my preferred build too but, her talent choices are SO situational depending on the enemy comp, it would be a long write up.Equinox, Murloc Geniuses
Lunara is a Hero that can seem either really useless or really strong depending on the person playing her and what comp you're in/against. Overall, she's very strong if you pick her in the right scenarios. However, the only thing I think needs to be changed on her is her clunky auto attacks; I'd like them to speed up the animation is a bit or something like that. Other than that I really love the Hero.I enjoy her pokey playstyle and the natural mobility she has, she can also get off some pretty good ganks, which is my style of play, so she's a Hero I've grown to love and I feel she's quite strong.
So what do you think about Lunara? Do you agree with what the pros have to say? Let us know!
.
