TYRAEL Guide - by dignitas/Athero

VIDEO

INTRODUCTION

The thing that's unique about Tyrael is the fact that he can not only disable enemy stun lock but he also enables melee assassins like Thrall. So you can use his Sanctification to pretty much be a five-man Divine Shield, which you saw a lot at BlizzCon. The reason he was banned in the Finals is exactly that: we were using him as a five-man Divine Shield, everyone gets inside and does damage for free, and noone can really react to it, as there was no counterplay.

Competitively, I wouldn't say Tyrael is a first-pick/first-ban, but you can definitely see him in first rotations, and almost always in the second set of bans. He's sort of the tank that you go to if you don't get Muradin or E.T.C. right now.

ABILITIES

Q - El'Druin's Might: This is your normal engage or disengage tool. You use it to slow down enemies while you're chasing them. The teleport on the second activation is a great escape tool.

W - Righteousness: This is a shield that you can cast on yourself and all of your allies. It's good for healing and for not taking unnecessary poke damage. You use it when your allies are just about to take some damage, or if you're about to get bursted. 

E - Smite: You normally use this for the movement speed, as it gives both you and your allies a 25% movement speed buff. Generally you use it to speed up your allies to engage or disengage. I don't normally use it for myself, because I have my Q to escape sticky situations. 

R - Judgment: You charge the enemy and stun them for 1.5 seconds. It's not really in the meta right now, because every tank has a stun anyway, as does almost anything that is in the meta, so you don't really need it, as it's overkill. That's why you go for Sanctification normally.

The situations in which you want to get Judgment are when you look at your team and think to yourself "I'm not going to get any Sanctification value here". An example would be when the enemy team is based around killing your frontline with sustained damage. Then you can take Judgment, charge one of their backline threats, and look to blow them up with the rest of your team. 

R - Santification: After 0.5 seconds you create a field around you, which makes your whole team invulnerable as long as they're inside the field, lasting 3 seconds. It's probably the most broken ability in the game, it's so good, it can work like a five-man Divine Shield.

Depending on your team, you want to either dive, pop Sanctification near your melee assassins, and allow them to go really deep. Or, if you don't have a melee assassin but instead want to protect your backline, you want to stay right next to your carries that will get focussed, and pop Santification as soon as they are being engaged on. As long as you get a good Sanctification off, you'll probably win the fight off of that.

D - Archangel's Wrath: This is Tyrael's passive where when you die, you become invulnerable and explode after 3.5 seconds. This is pretty much THE weakest trait in the game, but I feel like it can sometimes be useful for picking up kills which are just out of your team's reach.

TALENTS

Level 1: Normally you want to go for Regeneration Master in most cases, as it's the best talent in the tier.

However, on maps where you won't get a lot of health globes, like Haunted Mines or Battlefield of Eternity, you want to take Purge Evil, which increases Smite's damage to heroes. This is the other viable option, as it will allow you to stick on the enemy backline and actually have a kill threat against them.

The third choice isn't really viable as such, but you can pick it in very niche scenarios: Protection In Death. Upon death you'll grant nearby allies a shield. The only time I ever take this is when you have an Illidan, and you want to trade your life for one of the backline enemies, and put a 50% shield on the Illidan, so he cleans up the rest of the fight. That's the only situation in which this talent is the best choice.

Level 4: The only talent that I think is viable here is Amplified Healing, as it will increase healing done to you as well as your Righteousness shield.

Level 7: Here you want to get Battle Momentum. It's a great talent which reduces the cooldowns of the rest of your abilities, and you need a short cooldown on all of your abilities, so you can play more agressive in their face. Once you get this talent, you can dive into their backline with your Q, and you will have it back up by the time you need it to get out again.

Level 10: I feel like the only viable option in the meta right now is Sanctification. It shields your whole team if they're inside the field, it is simply so strong. Think of Uther who was at the top of the meta for such a long time, simply because of his Divine Shield. Sanctification can act as a five-man Divine Shield.

Level 13: Here you want to get Imposing Will, which is one of the main reasons that people pick Tyrael. It slows attack and movement speed by 50% if someone attacks you while either you or one of your allies are shielded through Righteousness. Whenever someone is looking to go on your carries, pop your Righteousness, it will slow the enemies down, and from there you can look to get a pick. 

I don't think you ever want to pick Burning Rage, but I see some people do it. I just don't think it's a very good talent.

Level 16: You 100% need Holy Ground here. It allows the Tyrael player to solo carry the game, if you play well with your Holy Ground. If the enemies have a tank that doesn't have an escape, like Johanna, Holy Ground splits them from their team, after which they can be bursted down. I did it quite a lot at BlizzCon and that's probably a big reason why he got banned in the Finals, as Cloud9 didn't want to deal with it.

Level 20: You want to get Hardened Shield 90% of the time. It allows you dive as deep as you possibly can, and not get punished for it.

The only times that you take Holy Arena is when you're in a situation where you just aced the enemy team, you've hit level 20 off the ace, and want to go for their core. It will add more damage and duration to your Sanctification to finish bursting down their core.

PLAYSTYLE

In Lane: In the early game with Tyrael, in a lot of situations you will be able to use El'Druin's Might onto enemies and get a lof of damage done. It allows you to act more like a melee assasin in the early game, as you can normally solo kill almost any ranged assassin in the game, as long as it's not a Valla or someone else with escapes.

In Teamfights: You want to sit back with your team, keep using your Righteousness over and over again, until you see someone out of position. Then use your Holy Ground talent to split them from their team and together with your team kill the seperated target. Ideally one person will be split from the rest of their team, meaning they will not receive much healing. It works especially well against Kharazim, as to save his ally, he has to jump into you and have his attack speed slowed thanks to your Imposing Will talent, so he will be healing less.

WHEN TO PICK TYRAEL

You want to pick Tyrael with someone who gets enabled by your Sanctification. E.T.C. for example: once he goes for a Mosh Pit play, you can Q in with him, drop the Sanctification on him, so there's no way that he can get interrupted. Other situations are when you have a melee assassin like Thrall or Illidan, jump in with them, drop Sanctification on them, so they can't be killed. This forces the enemy to either run away or get destroyed by your melee assassin.

There are two situations that you don't want to pick Tyrael against. Against E.T.C. it's really hard to get much value out of Sanctification without getting into Mosh Pit range yourself. Also, against stun lock comps where you yourself will be their only target, don't pick Tyrael, as he will just get killed in a lot of situations.

PLAYING AGAINST TYRAEL

It's quite brutal playing against Tyrael. You can either pick a stun lock comp with which you kill him before he can get any Sanctification value off, or a comp with a lot of single target damage. If you pick a comp with a lot of area-of-effect damage, you will all be affected by his Imposing Will debuff. Instead pick a lot of single target burst, and kill Tyrael or someone else before he can use Sanctification properly.