Table of Contents Introduction 1. Role and Ability Analysis 2. Strengths & Weaknesses 3. Stages of the Game 4. Talent Progression and Variations BASIC STATISTICS HEALTH: 750 (+125) REGEN: 1.813 (+0.262) MANA: 500 (+10) REGEN: 3.00 (+0.1) ATK SPEED: 1.00 (+0.00) DAMAGE: 54 (+7)

I'm Solid, and I began playing the Alpha in early April. The community was great then and still is, so thank you all up front for taking a look at my guide. Tassadar is a hero I loved to play right away, even before the dull and clearly unworthy force field ability was replaced by the High Templar staple that Tassadar deserved in the first place - Psionic Storm.

Psionic storm is Tassadar's core ability (and this guide's namesake) and every build in this guide takes talents for it, nevertheless, Tassadar can be built in a flexible manner to adapt to almost any situation and enemy composition.

Role and Ability Analysis

Tassadar is an Off-Support Damage Dealer. The support role side of his kit stems from the damage absorption provided by Plasma Shield, the zoning and trapping allowed by the optional Heroic Ability Force Wall and the utility of his trait, Oracle. The damage in his kit is derived from Psionic Storm and his most often chosen Heroic Ability, Archon.

(D) Trait - Oracle Oracle is one of the best vision granting abilities, revealing a large radius of area around Tassadar and even revealing cloaked units. It has a long cooldown, however, and though it should be used often it should also be used smartly. Use it in lane to help protect yourself from ganks, use it before an engage to attain a better understanding of enemy positioning and approach, use it to check map objectives and mercenary camps, and use it to root out cloaked enemies, hiding abathurs, and murky eggs. The only reason not to use it many times is the long cooldown. Related Talents Level 4--mental acuity Level 13-- Scryer

(Q) Plasma Shield Plasma Shield is one of the best damage soaking non-heroic shield abilities in the game. It has good range and an average cooldown. It can be cast on the run without a pause in movement, though casting will still dismount a mounted Tassadar. Related Talents: Level 1-- Minion Bulwark Level 4-- Leeching Plasma Level 4-- Reinforce Structure Level 7--khala's embrace Level 16-- Evasive Shielding

(W) Psionic Storm Tassadar's "bread and butter" ability. Significant AOE damage applied over 3 seconds. Storm is most effectively used in situations where the enemy is either rooted, stunned, or otherwise cc'd and unable to avoid the damage. Secondarily, it is effective when it forces the enemy to either attempt to tank the damage or give up on an action they are in the middle of performing (aa'ing you or a teammate, securing map objectives, attacking your structures, etc.). Related Talents Level 1-- Overload Level 1-- Psi-Infusion Level 7-- Static Charge Level 16-- Second Strike Level 16--resonation

(E) Dimensional Shift Arguably the best escape mechanism in the game. Dimensional shift not only makes Tassadar completely invisible (no squiggly outline, unrevealed by vision abilities), untargetable, and invincible for its duration, but also cancels any ability that has targeted him but has not yet landed ( Triple Tap, The Hunt, etc). Related Talents Level 7--Deep Shift Level 13-- Prescience Level 16-- Dimensional Warp

(R) Archon Archon is the most common Heroic Ability taken by Tassadar, and for good reason. Not only does it give Tassadar a shield and very strong basic attacks, but also grants splash damage to those attacks and lasts a respectable 15 seconds. The only downside to going into Archon form is that Tassadar cannot mount while it is active. Don't be afraid to use this to save yourself from losing a duel, or even to give yourself just that bit of extra shield to make your escape. Yes, it has a long cooldown, but it is better to remain alive and an active part of the game for your teammates than to be unavailable for all those precious seconds just to save the cd. Related Talent Level 20-- Twilight Archon

(R) Force Wall While generally outclassed by Archon, force wall certainly has its uses. It is great at blocking enemy escapes, zoning enemies in battle, and creating a barrier for your own escape. However, its range is short and the wall cannot be manually realigned or manipulated before placing it. The wall will always orient itself to horizontally face Tassadar, meaning that if you hover it directly in front of Tassadar it will be perpendicular to the direction he is facing, and if you then move it around it's casting radius, it will continously turn to always face Tassadar until placed. It can be a clunky ability to use, and often requires very precise positioning to use to best effect. Related Talent Level 20-- Force Barrier

Stages of the Game

Early Game

Tassadar is one of the best lane bullies in the game with his ability to zone with Psionic Storm while pressuring the enemy with self-cast Plasma Shield combined with his dimensional shift escape. For this reason, Tassadar is often the hero of choice for a composition to send to the middle lane if the map has one. In this early stage of the game Tassadar players should focus on dominating their lane while taking as little damage as possible. Tassadar players should also try to use Oracle constantly to help pinpoint enemy positions, facilitate ganks, and scout the area in aid of passing teammates who otherwise would be riding into the unknown.

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Mid Game

During the mid-game, usually beginning shortly after the first major map objective is concluded, Tassadar should, by and large, stop navigating the map alone. Whether helping a teammate secure a mercenary camp, push back a wave of enemy minions/mercs or fight over a map objective, the sum of Tassadar and his teammate's effectiveness together will be greater than they would be individually apart. This is because of Tassadar's ability to choose the target of his Plasma Shield based on enemy focus while being able to force a refocus from himself at any time via his dimensional shift. Archon at 10th level, assuming it is chosen, is a huge turning point for Tassadar. He achieves his highest damage potential while in archon form, and it gives him a favorable solo match-up vs any squishy in the game. Archon grants 15 seconds of high damage burst and while highly effective in team fights, it draws a lot of attention in the form of cc and focus, so good positioning is essential as well as battle awareness to know when to use dimensional shift and when to self-cast Plasma Shield.

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Late Game

For Tassadar, the real fun of any game begins in the late game. It will be important to make the most out of Tassadar's Oracle trait as, naturally, there will be a lot of team fights and team roaming in the late game and using it at the right time can mean the difference between your team acquiring the needed data to position correctly for a fight and your team getting jumped or surprised by the development of the battle only to end up getting wiped. If you find your team on the defensive in the late-game, be sure to make copious use of Plasma Shield on friendly structures, especially while defending a golem as the damage they do can be significantly decreased with repeated shields on a gate or turret. There are two late-game talent milestones that are game-changers for Tassadar: Level 16 - Second Strike and level 20 - Twilight Archon. These talents and their impact are described in-depth in the talent section but both offer greatly increased damage potential.

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Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths
Strong AOE Damage
Strong Shielding
Amazing Escape
Strong Laning
Strong Burst with Archon and Amazing with Twilight Archon
Amazing Vision Utility

Weaknesses
Low Health/Level
Low Health Regen/Level
Slow Attack Speed
Average Attack Damage
Average Mobility
Minimal CC Potential

While Tassadar excels as a hero of hybrid roles, he should rarely if ever be relied on as either the sole support or the sole damage dealer in a composition even if he is being built entirely for one role or the other.

Talent Progression & Variations

BLUE -- All Builds Choice
ORANGE -- Full DPS Build Choice
CYAN -- Vision Specialization Choice
GREEN -- Full Support Build Choice
YELLOW -- Situational Choice
RED -- Never/Rarely a Choice

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Overload (All Builds)

- The 20% extra damage on Tassadar's core ability, psionic storm, is too much to pass up relative to the other Tier 1 talents. Overload should be the level 1 talent of choice regardless of any specialized direction you wish to build Tassadar.

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X Conjurer's Pursuit - A poor replacement for the old "Path of the Wizard," even if it was PotW you would probably still want to choose Overload except in the role of a full support. While Tassadar has some mana issues early, even with no mana-enhancing talents there is no real issue with it late game.
X Minion Bulwark - Very underwhelming. Only affects minions and is outclassed by all the other talents in this tier.
X Psi-Infusion-Will keep you from going back to the well for mana, but has diminishing returns in terms of percentage of total mana gained as Tassadar's mana pool grows.

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Leeching Plasma (Situational)

- Leeching Plasma's 20% lifesteal should not be disregarded. The health returned to Tassadar while making basic attacks throughout the duration of the shield is more significant than one might think, and is even more beneficial to teammates who may be able to combine it with their own lifesteal effects to make a big impact.

Reinforce Structure(Situational)

- When the enemy composition has a lot of siege potential this can be a good pickup.

Mental Acuity (Vision Specialized)

- Having 10 seconds less cooldown is going allow for a lot more use of Oracle throughout the game, and is a great choice to help counter cloaked heroes.

Healing Ward (Full DPS) (Full Support)

- *patch update* The extra 1% healing that has been added in the recent patch has given this talent enough of a boost to be standard choice. Use it just as a team fight is about to begin or while your team is sieging structures/capturing mercs to top them off.

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X Promote-It wont make enough of a noticeable impact in your minion waves. Outclassed by all other talents in this tier.

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khala's embrace (Full Support)

- This talent makes it so that Tassadar can literally pre-shield every member of their team before a fight. The tooltip states that the effect does not stack, but this can be misleading. A new, 100% shield will stack on top of a permanent 50% one, but when the main ability effect expires, the hero will still be left with only a 50% shield instead of a combined 100% from the two 50% remainders (ie. only the talent effect does not stack).

Static Charge (Full DPS)

- This provides a much appreciated boost to Tassadar's basic attacks. Each tick of Psionic Storm that damages an enemy will mark them with static charge, and each time Tassadar attacks an enemy with the mark, it removes it.

Calldown: MULE (Situational)

- This is another good talent against a hard siege composition and will help keep your structures standing.

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Xdeep shift-Tassadar doesn't need the extra Shift time to still be able to make clean escapes.

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Archon (Full DPS)

- Archon is the clear and obvious choice if you are focusing on damage as Tassadar. Even if not, it can still be said to outshine Force Wall even though it is not a bad ability in and of itself.

Force Wall (Full Support)

- Great at blocking enemy escapes, zoning enemies in battle, and creating a barrier for your own escape. However, its range is short and the wall cannot be manually realigned or manipulated before placing it. The wall will always orient itself to horizontally face Tassadar, meaning that if you hover it directly in front of Tassadar it will be perpendicular to the direction he is facing, and if you then move it around it's casting radius, it will continously turn to always face Tassadar until placed. It can be a clunky ability to use, and often requires very precise positioning to use to best effect.

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Prescience (Situational)

- Having a second instance of Dimensional Shift allows Tassadar to do some neat things. For one, it makes engaging the enemy with Shift much more viable since you will have another if your health gets low enough. You can also effectively double the length of your Shift by chaining the manually-activated one after the talent-activated one has gone off (you can start it before or right as the first wears off, so you never go visible until the end).

Scryer (Vision Specialized)

- The extra duration and increased movement speed are nice additions to Oracle and this can be a natural choice if you chose mental acuity earlier.

Shrink Ray (Full DPS) (Full Support)

- A great neutralizer of enemy damage dealers. This is great to use on heroes with abilities that give them a large burst to their damage over a period of time such as Kerrigan, Zeratul, or even an opposing Tassadar. When in doubt, use it on the largest damage threat in the fight. Can also be used purely to slow escaping enemies.

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X Spell Shield-Tassadar is a back-line hero who should not be taking the brunt of the damage anyways. While this is good on some heroes, it doesn't synergize with Tassadar's kit well at all.
X Distortion Beam- The visual effect is pretty cool, but the slow isn't anything to write home about; you will rarely notice its impact in the course of a game as much as other viable talents.

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Second Strike (All Builds)

- This is what you've been waiting all game for. The ability to cast a second Psionic Storm with each ability cast is huge and greatly enhances Tassadar's damage potential. They can be cast on two entirely different spots, or chained one after the other (their damage does not stack). It takes some time to get the feel of when to cast the second storm on top of the first before the 3 second window expires while maximizing damage by waiting as long as possible. If you watch closely, there is actually a visual cue to let the player know when it is the last second to cast. When storm is first cast, you can see a series of lightning bolts feeding into it from just outside and above; the second these lightning bolts begin to fade is nearly the last instant to cast the second storm.

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X Evasive Shielding-Interesting talent, but overwhelmed by Second Strike even in a full support build
Xresonation-The 25% slow is just not nearly as attractive as double the psionic storm damage output.
X Dimensional Warp-Purely luxury, and unnecessary. However, this combined with lvl 7-deep shift and lvl 13- Prescience can make for a fun gimmick build. The combination of the 3 allows a Tassadar to appear to be escaping with almost no life only to reappear 4.5 seconds later with full health while morphing into Archon.

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Resurgence of the Storm (Situational)

- One of the best overall talents in the game, it should never be overlooked or dismissed. If your team is in serious trouble and you're losing team fights too often, this may be the talent of choice even if you're building Tassadar for full support.

Twilight Archon (Full Damage)

- A massive boost to Archon--if your team needs your damage, you will likely take this over Resurgence even if things are looking bad for your team because Twilight Archon is so powerful it can swing a lot of fights in your favor. Even if the 50% extra damage and shield over the standard Archon isn't enough, the 3 extra range is ridiculous and probably a little overpowered.

Force Barrier (Full Support)

- While I include this talent in my Full Support build, and it indeed makes Force Wall much less unruly to use, around 50% of the time I am building for full support I will end up taking Resurgence of the Storm instead.

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X Fury of the Storm-It is almost a wonder this is even a level 20 talent for Tassadar, because if damage is your thing, Twilight Archon is far superior. If you took Force Wall and don't want the Force Barrier upgrade, resurgence is still better, though I suppose if you were far ahead as a team this could be a choice.

Conclusion

Thanks to everyone for reading or at least taking a look. I'll be updating regularly as the game changes and the meta evolves. I would also like to add more in terms of hero matchups (threats, etc) and map specific strategies and tricks. Thanks again!