Hi I'm qtUnicorn, and I play supports in pretty much every multiplayer and moba game.
I have near 200 games on Li Li and recently tried playing her in ranked and managed to climb to rank 1 picking her whenever she was available.
I don't claim to be a high level player but I do think Li Li is extremely underrated as a support. If you stat your talents in accordance to the situation you will find that she can contribute a lot to your team in every game.
Blue - Strong |
Red - Weak |
Yellow - Situational
Conjurer's Pursuit - What I typically take every game, even on maps like
Battlefield Of Eternity where regeneration globes are scarce. This talent really enables me to pump out heals non-stop without running dry on mana. All of the situational talents at this level can be replaced with this on maps where regeneration globes are plenty.
Alternate Talents
Pro Toss - I consider this to be a very weak talent. You control who you heal partially through positioning, and this talent may accidentally cause you to heal a less optimal target. The range increase itself isn't all that helpful either as
Healing Brew has a travel time.
Timeless Creature - A
Cloud Serpent build talent, a route
Li Li can take when she is playing as a secondary support. This build does a good amount of damage and excels well with warriors and heavy divers. However, if you are your team's only support I do not recommend going down this route.
Gale Force - A viable grab if you are going
Mass Vortex and
Surging Winds. It's an alternative on maps where regeneration globes are scarce or if your team composition is lacking in damage. This route is a hybrid between damage and support, as it increases both your healing and your damage output.
All the level 4 talents are very useful depending on the situation. I will be going in depth on all of them.
Healing Ward
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I find this talent extremely helpful on maps with static objectives and prolonged fights like
Infernal Shrines and
Battlefield Of Eternity. Best used when your team is low but there is an objective on the map. It can easily be destroyed by splash AoE damage so I prefer to use outside of a fight. On
Battlefield Of Eternity, place it right after the immortal is done using his ranged AoE to prevent it from getting destroyed. If you're desperate for heals in a teamfight, place this
before your heroic, you cannot use this while your heroic is channeling.
Mending Serpent
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I take this talent when the enemy team doesn't have many high priority blind targets. You get the most value from this talent by casting this on melee allies right before they engage. Casting this on a squishy ranged hero that is being focused is also good. With this talent you can easily win trades against auto-attack heroes in lane by yourself.
Mass Vortex
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I take this talent when the enemy team has ranged auto-attackers like
Raynor or
Sgt. Hammer, or if they have more than 2 priority blind targets.
Mass Vortex is preferred over
Lingering Blind when dealing with ranged auto-attackers. Since
Blinding Wind is auto target, 2 blinding winds will usually hit the enemy team's melee heroes during teamfights unless you go severely out of position. Having 4 blinding winds greatly alleviates this problem. This talent also compliments well with
Surging Winds.
Lingering Blind
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The bane of melee auto-attackers like
The Butcher,
Illidan and
Zeratul. Cast this whenever they engage and laugh. If they are smart they will try to bait this cooldown before going in, so don't cast this ability willy nilly. Try not to stack this with
Shrink Ray to prolong the fun.
Shake It Off - A great talent for when the enemy has a lot of pick offs and stuns, like a
Muradin with a
Tyrande or a
Kerrigan and so on. A good pick-up on maps with heavy gank rotations like
Tomb of the Spider Queen. Since this only
reduces the duration of stuns, your heroic can still be interrupted.
The Good Stuff - Increases your healing output without any drawbacks. If the enemy doesn't have a lot of stuns and pick-offs this is the best alternative.
Jug of 1,000 Cups - A must pick if you are your team's only healer. Though it is interruptible, this heroic beats
Malfurion's
Tranquility in terms of its range and its ability to also function as a high single target heal. Try to wait for your enemy to blow channel interrupting heroics (
Sylvanas's
Wailing Arrow,
Tyrael's
Judgment, etc) before casting your heroic.
Against teams that have a heavy array of interrupts, you'll just have to stay a little bit behind your teammates. Since your heroic has a pretty high range, you really don't have to walk up your teammates to be effective. Try to kite around in a way where your heroic range indicator is at max range. Exploit the range by channeling behind a wall or inside the fog of war where the enemy cannot easily get to you. Channeling
Jug of 1,000 Cups will not reveal you to the enemy team.
A great example of good heroic positioning.
Alternate Talent
Water Dragon - Channeling auto-target ability, hits the closest hero at the end of channel. You're mostly using this for the slow, as the damage is on the underwhelming side. This ability can 'miss' if there are no enemy heroes in range at the end of the channel, and the cooldown will
not be refunded. You can pick this up if you're playing as a secondary support. With
Kung Fu Hustle you can almost always cast this twice in one fight due to its low cooldown (45 seconds).
Shrink Ray - A very flexible talent with many uses. Can be used to set-up kills or peel off obnoxious divers like
Sonya. It's okay to use this purely to reduce damage, like on a
Valla using
Strafe or
The Lost Vikings using
Longboat Raid!. The damage reduction is said to still apply on 'Unstoppable' heroes.
Surging Winds - My second favorite talent. I pick this up in hero league when my teammates already have a
Shrink Ray or if the enemy team doesn't have any good
Shrink Ray targets. Combined with
Mass Vortex it's very easy to get full stacks, increasing both your damage and your healing.
Alternate Talents
Elusive Feet - You shouldn't have trouble against auto-attack heroes with your
Blinding Wind. There are better talents for helping out your team.
Hindering Winds - This is a decent talent when combined with
Mass Vortex, but is an inferior pick to
Shrink Ray. The 25% slow doesn't set-up kills as well as
Shrink Ray, and the 50% damage reduction is just too good to pass.
Herbal Cleanse - I pick this talent because it's just more consistent than
Two For One. Even though the cleanse is unreliable, the 20% constant speed boost makes this talent very consistent on its own. Don't bother timing the cleanse because
Healing Brew is auto-target and has a travel time, you'll just end up decreasing your healing output for nothing most of the time. The cleanse is more for running away from sticky situations, a cleanse and 20% speed boost every 3 seconds makes you or an ally very hard to catch while running away. This talent has helped me and an ally escape from a bad situation many many times.
Late game when my team is low while roaming as 5, I don't bother mounting and just spam this skill on CD. The 20% speed boost allows you to not fall too far behind while healing.
Alternate Talents
Safety Sprint - Why take this when you can have a 20% speed boost all the time? o_o
Two For One - Unlike
Herbal Cleanse that's good all of the time because of the speed buff, it's very easy to get anti-value from
Two For One. Competent teams focus down one enemy at a time, and this talent makes it more difficult to save the key hero being focused due to the increased cooldown, while the second heal is usually going to someone of lower priority. It also makes you more vulnerable when caught out of position, as you're healing only yourself with an increased cooldown with no cleanse and speed boost. Only take this talent when the enemy has a high amount of AoE damage and you're sure the game is going to level 20, where
Kung Fu Hustle can alleviate the cooldown problem.
Serpent Sidekick - Take this if you're going
Cloud Serpent build.
All the level 20 talents are very useful depending on the situation.
Kung Fu Hustle - Lili's signature talent. Enables you to pump out even more heals and blind enemies non-stop. With this talent you can cast
Jug of 1,000 Cups twice in one drawn-out fight. I pretty much always pick this talent unless there are special circumstances.
Jug of 1,000,000 Cups - I've taken this to counter
Kael'thas's obnoxious
Chain Bomb damage. This talent is actually a strong pick against burst, but only if you have been able to consistently get the full channel off in the game you're currently in.
Storm Shield - A more consistent alternative to
Jug of 1,000,000 Cups when dealing with high AoE damage. Saved my team a few times against
Kael'thas's obnoxious AoE damage.
Bolt of the Storm - I take this talent when the enemy
Stitches is consistently landing his hooks. One good hook combined with a
Gorge on
Li Li at level 20 could very easily mean game over. Surviving that combo gives your team an edge while
Stitches's heroic is on cooldown.
Fast Feet and
Cleanse.
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