Li-Ming
First Impressions
Analysis and Pro Opinions
”It’s a generally agreed upon fact of life among the denizens of Sanctuary that wizards and magical mayhem are never far apart. Although she understands people’s concerns, Li-Ming is entirely unapologetic for the destruction in her wake. She delights in unleashing devastating spells on her foes from afar, then teleporting away to frustrate her enemies’ attempts at striking back. Small minds may fear this kind of power, but Li-Ming wields the arcane forces of the universe with confidence and unmatched skill.”
After an exciting reveal of Li-Ming, the Diablo 3 Wizard, she was perhaps the most highly anticipated Hero release since Artanis. Diablo fans raved about the new Hero and looked forward to seeing quintessential Wizard spells such as Disintegrate, Calamity, and Archon translate over into the Nexus, and excitement rose to a new high in several months. When asked about the Li-Ming’s design, Blizz developer Kent-Erik Hagman mentioned that they were looking for a different kind of mage compared to Jaina or Kael’Thas, so the idea of a super mobile reset mage was appealing and exciting. As always, Blizzard managed to implement a completely new Hero design into their growing Hero roster, and Li-Ming lives up to her iconic Diablo lore and design as a high-octane evasive Assassin. In addition, Blizzard did an excellent job of bringing the character to life; her haughty attitude and colorful personality is highly entertaining and fun :D.
![[image loading]](http://www.playmassive.de/uploads/news/newspic-64102-thumb.jpg)
”I am so good, I astound myself!”
Unlike the last few Heroes, Li-Ming came out quite overtuned in the PTR with high range, high burst, and near-broken sieging abilities. After testing her for a week, players were expecting some minor tweaks before release, but alas, she stayed untouched. Another week has passed with her in the live version of the game, and many people would argue that she is grossly overpowered and in need of some nerfs. Nonetheless, most agree that she is unbelievably fun to play and, even with a nerf to her damage or some of her talents, her standalone kit is exciting enough to keep her relevant moving forward. Let’s take a closer look at Li-Ming and find out what she’s all about!
Strengths
- High burst damage
- Excellent mobility
- Long-range poke
- Snowballs in favorable teamfights
- Funny quotes and attractive personality
Weaknesses
- Poor waveclear
- Low health pool
- Vulnerable to dives
- Mana hungry
- Dependent on bursting Heroes down
Abilities
Trait
- Critical Mass
- Getting a Takedown refreshes the cooldown on all of your abilities.
Basic Abilities
- Magic Missiles (Q)
- Fire three missiles toward an area, each dealing 152.15 (+3.5% per level) damage to the first enemy hit.
- Arcane Orb (W)
- Fire an orb that powers up as it travels, dealing 154.50 (+3% per level) damage to the first enemy hit. The amount of damage dealt is increased the further it travels, up to 463.50 (+3% per level).
- Teleport (E)
- Teleport a short distance instantly.
Heroic Abilities
- Disintegrate (R)
- Channel a powerful beam, dealing 462 (+5% per level) damage over 2.5 seconds to enemies while they are in it. The direction of the beam changes with your mouse cursor direction.
- Wave of Force (R)
- Knock away all enemies from an area and deal 168 (+5% per level) damage.
Li-Ming’s playstyle revolves around poking with her skillshots while remaining an evasive threat that can mop up team fights with ease due to her Trait Critical Mass, which resets the cooldown of all of her abilities. Whenever she gets a takedown, she can keep up the momentum to keep chasing, making her a huge threat if she isn’t taken care of quickly. Against characters like The Lost Vikings or Murky, she has the potential for doing huge damage due to constant resets as long as she doesn’t run out of mana. However, she has a low health pool which makes her susceptible to dives, particularly from melee Assassins.
As a typical mage, her basic attack damage is very low. Nonetheless, she makes up for it with Magic Missiles, a basic ability with decent damage and a short cooldown which allows her to spam it and poke away at her opponents. Since it outranges towers and most other Heroes, Li-Ming can poke away forever with this low mana spell and whittle her opponents down.
Arcane Orb adds another layer to her sieging potential by giving her another long-range spell that does more damage the further it goes. At maximum range, especially with talents like Zei’s Vengeance and Arcane Orbit, it deals devastating damage and can easily knock down forts and towers. Currently, a popular strategy is to use her sieging potential to destroy early towers and wells, but a potential damage nerf in the future may render this strategy less effective. Unfortunately, neither ability does well with waveclear, and blocking minions can serve as a real nuisance to Li-Ming players trying to hit enemy Heroes. The combination of these two things makes her significantly weaker in lane and better suited toward gank squads.
The last tool in her basic kit is a short-range Teleport that allows her to hop around the battlefield and dodge skillshots. Although she is very mobile with her Teleport, she is vulnerable to being flanked or caught out of position because her damaging abilities rely on space and time to kite her opponents.Taking talents like Illusionist and Diamond Skin can significantly boost her survival, but come at the cost of potential damage, especially for builds centered more around her Q or W spells.
Li-Ming’s Heroics are unique in that they both have very low cooldowns (20 seconds on both) and can be used often without “wasting” them. Overall, the two Heroics seem interchangeable depending on the situation. Wave of Force is an AoE ability that deals moderate damage and pushes opponents away from the center, allowing her to manipulate the battlefield. It can be used kind of like Tassadar’s Force Wall to push enemies into your team, to separate Heroes from a group, or to push enemies away for a safe retreat, making it a multi-purpose ability for more of a “control” style. On the other hand, the iconic D3 Wizard spell Disintegrate pumps out a ton of damage and can be used to chase down injured Heroes, especially with the paralyzing 60% slow from the Storm talent upgrade Temporal Flux.
Talents
For the third Hero in a row, Blizzard has shown that they are getting a good grasp on making viable and diverse talent trees. Li-Ming has no generic talents, and many of her talent choices are taken directly from D3 runes and abilities, making her feel like she’s been directly ported over from the Diablo universe. The main talent builds for her focus on buffing one of her three basic abilities with various talents.
The most common build at the moment revolves around buffing Magic Missiles to deal maximum damage. Talents like Seeker and Mirrorball significantly increase the damage and give her a powerful poking tool. Using the inward pull of Ess of Johan, Li-Ming can reliably hit all of her Magic Missiles at once on a target, making this build an unbelievably bursty and dangerous build to play against, especially when Li-Ming opts for Glass Cannon to pump out even more damage. The balance team has identified Ess of Johan as a problem talent that requires some tweaks because of the increased control it gives, but number adjustments could also prevent this combo from becoming too powerful.
Another Li-Ming build centers around her Arcane Orb. Picking up Zei’s Vengeance and Arcane Orbit significantly boosts the damage on her W and allows her to deal siege mercilessly. Glass Cannon and Tal Rasha’s Elements can even be picked up as well for a maximum boost in ability power. Paired with Triumvirate, Li-Ming can dish out tons of damage on a relatively low cooldown and crush her opponents in a drawn-out siege. Sometimes the level 20 talent Archon: Pure Power can be picked up with this build for even stronger sieging opportunities -- (plus, it’s just really really cool!).
The final, and probably most fun build, involves investing into Li-Ming’s Teleport talents for an in-your-face, bursty build. The build centers around the damage from Calamity while relying on talents like Aether Walker and Illusionist to provide utility and extra escapes for her. Grabbing Dominance and Diamond Skin makes Li-Ming surprisingly tanky, especially if she starts to snowball takedowns, and keeps her going to deliver more and more damage.
All in all, there are a ton of great builds for Li-Ming players to choose from depending on the compositions and their playstyle, from a hyper aggressive Teleport style to a patient poke build centered on either Magic Missiles or Arcane Orb, and there are several variations and situational picks that branch off from those too. Her kit is incredibly versatile and lends itself to a high skill cap. Plus, it’s fun! Get out there and make some plays!
Professional Opinions
On Kit, Design and Implementation:
Shad, Professional Player

Roflcopter, Team Blaze

Gillyweed, Caster

Nurok, mYinsanity

All in all, I think her kit is really fun, but obviously her numbers are a 'little bit' too strong at the moment. She can just one-shot any squishy with almost one Q spell with a certain level 16 talent.
JHow, Caster

Her kit in its entirety is quite powerful, as there are already multiple builds that people are enjoying and performing well with. I think it's a matter of time until someone at the top level goes against the grain and performs well with something other than the current "One Shot" build we've seen as the most popular so far. At level 13, there is a large group that really likes Glass Cannon for the extra damage, but I really feel like Illusionist may allow for an extremely aggressive approach from some players, which can really have Li-Ming make or break a fight. Lots of potential for her kit means the best is yet to come.
Kaelaris, Caster

Magic Missiles gives a good sense of flexibility, and as much as there are lots of people out there who are big fans of level 16 Diamond Skin, I’m a lover of Mirrorball. Some people like Calamity (admittedly, I too take it sometimes now depending on the situation) at level 7, but my first pick was Seeker. Yes I like to live “dangerously”, if you can call combo-ing from the back line 1 kilometer away dangerous.
I say I like to live on the more hazardous side, but I prefer Illusionist over Glass Cannon at 13. Extra mobility for me is a big deal when it comes to Heroes, especially when that extra mobility can come before the usual pick on other Heroes, level 20 Bolt of the Storm. Illusionist makes Li-Ming feel almost unkillable even without the other Teleport talents, increasing her mobility as a base, then even further if in peril with the instant CD refresh.
It’s already been mentioned by Dbro himself that Ess of Johan for Arcane Orb is going to be looked at, as it allows the combos from an early stage of a game to be hit a little too easily, reducing her skill cap. Ultimately, I have to agree. With the range at which you can cast and combo the abilities, as well as their very low mana cost overall (which probably should be looked at too), you can just throw the synced up spells every other Magic Missile cooldown and almost guarantee yourself 50-60% of a Support or Assassin’s health.
The two abilities above give her a very powerful level of push early against structures. The enemy team needs to pay close attention to which lane Li-Ming is in, otherwise you will lose your towers rapidly. My early game Li-Ming strategy right now revolves around finding vulnerable locations, exploiting the towers, then rotating to get even more if there is the chance to.
I’ve already mentioned a few of the Teleport talents above which are my choices or some that people feel are popular. A lot of people are particularly fond of the Calamity build, which currently works because her base damage is more than enough to make her viable. Teleport, however, gives Li-Ming a very strong and responsive answer to avoiding threats during teamfights and a brilliant resource to allow her to extend that little bit further when sieging. You’re already out of range of Towers and Forts when pushing them solo, then as long as you’re not being flanked, threats emerging from the same lane are neutralized completely by a Teleport, mount up, run away. The Calamity talent can feel like a pretty strong finisher when heading into a 1v1 situation or dealing with a pest that is trying to jump your back line for you. Be wary though, not the best “finisher” when in a tight teamfight situation. Stay at good distance because even an asthmatic child’s cough will knock you down to death-timer town.
Alright, juicy time. Disintegrate being the first of her Heroic abilities, and as you probably know by now, is the most popular choice by quite a margin. With a 20 second cooldown, I observe a lot of Li-Ming’s actually not popping it as often as they should. Even to clear mercenary camps it definitely has a lot of viability. Outside of that utility though, it’s a great follow up to the Arcane Orb, Magic Missile combo. Then at level 20, Temporal Flux makes this spell godlike. Slowing people for 60% movement speed after landing a first kill with a combo, Teleporting aggressively and capturing another person in the beam for your team to swoop in is extremely strong. Initially when I was playing Li-Ming, I thought Tal Rasha’s Elements would be the clear choice, and while it is strong, Temporal Flux allows for so much more kill potential.
Wave of Force is something that has gone completely unnoticed, for the most part. Sadly the level 10 version of the ability doesn’t provide anywhere near the kill potential of Disintegrate unless you are pinpoint accurate with its cast to knock back players in to your combo. But even then, you risk putting yourself in danger because of the range at which you may cast it. I suppose the level 10 version is more for your own safety than anything. If your patience can hold up though, and you manage to get to level 20, Repulsion is surprisingly strong. Bakery and I were theorising the applications of it, and it can actually blow up high hp targets 95% of the time if you cast it correctly behind a target when combo-ing them. Food for thought.
I don’t really need to detail the power of Critical Mass, her trait. Let’s put it this way; Li-Ming is like a snowball -- more like an avalanche -- if the avalanche were made entirely of rusty needles about to implode in on themselves causing severe damage to anything near them.
KendricSwissh, Caster

Her kit is very skill oriented, which means you have to time and aim her abilities very carefully in order to maximise her potential. However, some of her talents (Ess of Johan in particular) negate that factor. Her trait, Critical Mass, is very interesting and makes for flashy plays and, in my opinion, it will really set apart the really good players from the good players.
KilicK, Resurgence

other players. Right when I saw that she had a teleport, I knew there would be a lot of potential to use it to evade lots of skillshots and enemy abilities, making it so you need to have a decent amount of game knowledge to be effective with her versus other Heroes.
On Professional Play and Meta Changes:
Shad, Professional Player

Roflcopter, Team Blaze

Gillyweed, Caster

Nurok, mYinsanity

JHow, Caster

Kaelaris, Caster

KendricSwissh, Caster

However, in my opinion, some players overestimate Li-Ming's power level, since she does have her weaknesses. She is extremely vulnerable to hard-engaging Warriors and Assassins and Heroes like Chen do not really care too much about her damage. Yet, all in all, I am convinced that she will remain a top priority ban or pick in the upcoming tournaments.
KilicK, Resurgence

On Map and Composition Viability:
Shad, Professional Player

Roflcopter, Team Blaze

Gillyweed, Caster

Nurok, mYinsanity

JHow, Caster

Kaelaris, Caster

With her current threat level, Li-Ming can open up a different combination of Heroes and role choices when she actually gets through the initial ban phase of the draft. We’ve already seen Heroes like Cho’gall actually have play this patch, and I could foresee a dream draft where you take as strong a backline as Li-Ming, with a sturdy tank and then off-tank to supplement, which could come in the role of Cho if their comp doesn’t have a correct counter drafted. Admittedly, there are many, but teams are caring less and less about some of them recently.
There are few threats to Li-Ming going into a game when it comes to straight up team fighting. The main one though is flanks and heavy divers. Vision is very important for her to feel safe in the back line and thus pump out as much damage as physically possible without being interrupted. Choices like Zagara and Tassadar to compliment her, providing her that little extra vision, and in Tassadar's case even stealth detection, are very strong additions as her companions. As for dive protection, this comes back to Warriors helping out, peeling and aiding her survival. A well-coordinated stun from a Muradin for example, then a Teleport away from the target, into blowing that target up for over-extending makes for a tasty treat.
Also, pick Rehgar because the reincarnation of Green Jesus is here, even though Thrall isn’t dead yet in the meta. 2 Jesuses are better than 1!
KendricSwissh, Caster

Also, I am pretty sure that we will not see a lot of The Lost Vikings and Murky, who have been picked by some teams every once in awhile, when Li-Ming is available. Her cooldown resets would just be too powerful against these squishy Heroes.
KilicK, Resurgence

Final Thoughts:
Shad, Professional Player

Roflcopter, Team Blaze

Gillyweed, Caster

Nurok, mYinsanity

I'm still waiting for the Gazlowe talent reworks

JHow, Caster

Kaelaris, Caster

KendricSwissh, Caster

KilicK, Resurgence

So what do you think about Li-Ming? Do you agree with what the pros have to say? Let us know!