Justice demands that you play Uther if you’re looking for a Support class in Heroes of the Storm. OK, so that’s not really the case, but if you’re going to play Uther you need to embrace his personality, right? Uther is one of the Support class heroes in Heroes of the Storm, but like many of the heroes in the Support class, how you play this character is different from how you play the other heroes.
Uther doesn’t have the crowd control that someone like Malfurion possesses. However, what he lacks in crowd control he makes up for in raw heals and the occasional stun. As a Support class Uther won’t dish out a ton of damage, but that’s fine. He does have a few abilities that damage enemies, but your role is to keep your teammates alive for as long as possible, and Uther is good at doing that.
Holy Light
This is Uther’s primary healing spell. It’s a raw heal that will likely be your most-used ability. It has a fairly long cooldown at 12 seconds, so make sure you use it on the teammate who would most benefit from it, especially when there are two or three players who need assistance. If it’s just you and one or two other players, you can toss a Holy Light out, then follow it up with Hammer of Justice to stun the enemy causing the damage and give your team a bit more breathing room to hopefully finish off your foe.
Holy Radiance
Holy Radiance is Uther’s second healing ability. It’s a straight line heal that will both heal and damage anyone in its path. The spell heals allies that it touches (heroes or minions) and damages enemies it comes in contact with (heroes or minions). It also heals Uther whenever it’s used.
Your teammates won’t always be in a nice line that allows you to hit them all with Holy Radiance, so you’ll have to heal based on which teammate(s) needs it most. Try to get at an angle so you can hit at least two teammates or a teammate and an enemy so you can get more utility from the ability. If no one is in immediate danger of dying, try to space this out after using Holy Light to help manage the 12-second cooldown period of both spells.
Hammer of Justice
Hammer of Justice is Uther’s primary stun. It can be extremely useful when used correctly to shut down an enemy casting a spell, or to give your heroes a little breathing room to finish off an opponent. The stun doesn’t last long, but it’s long enough to stop whatever the target is doing. The only downfall of this attack is that it has very short range. You need to be right on top of the target to use it, but since it stuns you can make a quick getaway right after.
Eternal Devotion
This is arguably one of the best Support abilities in Heroes of the Storm. It allows Uther to continue fighting for 10 seconds after he’s been killed. His healing and damage are cut by 50 percent, but his stuns and other abilities remain just as potent as if he were alive. Use this time to continue healing allies or interrupt your opponents with one of Uther’s stuns. You also shouldn’t flinch when it happens. You only have 10 seconds here, so ignore the fact that you just died and keep assisting your team for as long as you can.
Divine Storm
Divine Storm is Uther’s second stun ability. It stuns enemies within a moderate radius of Uther’s position, and inflicts a decent amount of damage as well. This is perfect for team battles when you’re fighting against several enemies at once. It’s also good for stopping abilities with lengthy casting periods, although you should use Hammer of Justice for that if at all possible. Divine Storm also has a 70-second cooldown, which is short for most Heroic abilities (which are generally around 90 seconds).
Support Build
Level 1 – Conjurer’s Pursuit
Level 4 – Protective Shield
Level 7 – Cleanse or Wave of Light
Level 10 – Divine Storm
Level 13 – Shrink Ray
Level 16 – Gathering Radiance
Level 20 – Divine Hurricane or Storm Shield
There aren’t a lot of varieties of Uther play styles. You’re a Support class and that’s basically all you do. You have a few options at some levels, but for the most part your Uther build should be fairly straightforward. He doesn’t have the damage or abilities to make much of an offensive push, and you’d lose some of his better abilities if you tried to go for an offensive build. However, the metagame is always evolving, so things could change.
For now, start off the game with Conjurer’s Pursuit and go after the healing minions to get the orbs they drop and increase your mana generation. This is especially important during the early game when mana conservation can be an issue. At level four, pick up Protective Shield to go right along with Uther’s two heals. You can think of the shield as a third heal since it protects against a decent amount of damage for five seconds.
At level seven you should probably go with Cleanse, but there are good reasons to use Cleanse or Wave of Light. You can even make a good argument toward Clairvoyance here, but if you haven’t been playing Heroes of the Storm long, that may not be the best ability for you. Cleanse requires that you keep a close eye on your teammates so you can remove status ailments as quickly as possible. Wave of Light lowers the cooldown of Holy Radiance and replenishes mana, which can be important due to Uther’s less than stellar cooldown times on Holy Radiance and Holy Light.
Divine Storm is the only ability you should look at when you reach level 10. Divine Shield can be useful, but Storm has so much more utility it’s hard to pass up in favor of a single target ability like Divine Shield. At level 13 you should be taking Shrink Ray in order to slow down and reduce the damage of an enemy target.
Gathering Radiance is the only good choice at level 16. It’s possible to get away with Hardened Focus to help with cooldowns, but that’s also one of the reasons not to get Hardened Focus. If your life is below 80 percent, you probably need to heal someone else anyway, meaning you won’t push your life above 80 percent until the battle is over. Meanwhile, Gathering Radiance increases the damage and healing of Holy Radiance, which is never a bad thing.
When you reach level 20 you have a few options. The primary two choices should be Divine Hurricane or Storm Shield. However, you can pick up Resurgence of the Storm if you’re having trouble staying alive and need to do everything you can to get back into the fight as quickly as possible. Still, Divine Hurricane should be your primary choice because it doubles the range of Divine Storm and lowers the already low cooldown. Storm Shield is good if you’re close to making one final push as it gives your teammates great protection, but only for three seconds.
We’ll have more on Heroes of the Storm over the coming weeks, so keep a close eye on Prima Games.
Published: Jan 28, 2015 11:31 pm