Fight time! - A guide to Brightwing, the Faeire Dragon by Poultron

Fight time! - A guide to Brightwing, the Faeire Dragon

By: Poultron
Last Updated: Sep 5, 2014
26 Votes
Build 1 of 2

Brightwing

Build: Aggressive Monarch

Level 1
Level 4
Level 7
Level 10
Level 13
Level 16
Level 20

Brightwing

Build: Supportive Faeire

Level 1
Level 4
Level 7
Level 10
Level 13
Level 16
Level 20

Introduction Top

Brightwing, the Faerie Dragon, is a mobile and aggressive support, characterized by her high amount of control exerted on the enemy team. Her Arcane Flare can devastate her foes from afar, and can even slow them with the appropriate alterations. Her Polymorph ability turns her enemies into a harmless critter, rendering their spells and attacks useless. Her magical faerie dust hastens and protects her allies, getting them into the fight faster. She's loves to zip across the battlefield instantly to one of her friends, and push away her foes with devastating Emerald Winds.

Strengths and Weaknesses Top

Strengths

  • Polymorph counters many strong Heroic Abilities
  • Strong, consistent AoE healing output
  • Versatile talent selection
  • Global map presence
  • Extremely cute

Weaknesses

  • Squishy and vulnerable to spells, particularly AoE
  • Relatively weak early game
  • No mount; moving cross-map without Phase Shift is difficult
  • Arcane Flare is relatively useless against strong players

Abilities Top

(Trait) Soothing Mist
Soothing Mist is where a lot of Brightwing's potency resides. Combined with the talent Regenerative Rains, this will heal for a very significant amount of Health every time you cast a spell, and early game will provide your lane with a ton of sustain. Remember to be relatively close to the people you need to heal, as the range can be deceptively short.
(Q) Arcane Flare
Arcane Flare is an obviously telegraphed spell with an easy to avoid visual and a long travel time. That being said, if you're able to get good with aiming it, it's possible to "juke" people into it, just like any ground target spell. Most of the time you shouldn't bother aiming to get inner damage on a Hero, as chances are good they will move out of it. Instead, you can often rely on the outer damage, and thus it is most important to learn how much the outer damage does for the purpose of picking off fleeing Heroes.
(W) Polymorph
Polymorph is one of Brightwing's most devastating abilities and one of the primary reasons to choose the Faerie Dragon. This ability is best used as a Silence, to stop a big Hero Ability or mage from doing their thing. Notable Hero Abilities to cancel are Mosh Pit, Strafe, Jug of 1,000 Cups, among others. You can also stop Heroes like Uther from wreaking havoc on your team, at least for a couple seconds.
(E) Pixie Dust
Pixie Dust is a movement speed increase with a bonus defensive component, not the other way around. 9 times out of 10, you're going to want to use this to speed somebody into a better position, whether that be your Diablo to get in range of a dunk, or Valla to get out of harm's way. While the extra Block is a nice bonus, it will rarely make a significant difference in someone's chances of survival, particularly compared to the movement speed boost.
(R1) Emerald Wind
Emerald Wind is a multi-use tool with at least three great strengths. Its most obvious use is as a very strong disengage tool, pushing the enemy team away from yours and allowing time for escape. The second use is as an initiation tool, separating the enemy team and allowing yours to single someone out. The third is as a simple generic CC, utilizing the time spent being pushed to damage or otherwise re-position your target.
(R2) Blink Heal
Blink Heal allows Brightwing to be practically anywhere in a fight, and prevents her from being yanked out of position by things like Hook. Though the heal is rather weak, it can be used to snipe a heal on one of your team mates just before they kick the bucket. You can also position yourself much more aggressively with this spell, as you can simply jump back to your team mates at any time.
(Z) Phase Shift
Phase Shift gives Brightwing a terrifying global map presence, allowing her to do things like split push a lane and then join up a team fight later, or go back to base in the middle of a push to regenerate her Mana and return just in time for the enemy team to show up. It's important to note that this ability requires an allied Hero to jump to, and that if the Hero dies in mid-teleport, the channel will be cancelled. Get used to using this ability to its utmost.

Talents Top


Bribe - Brightwing is fantastic at sneaking enemy mercenary camps with this skill. The fact that she can quickly take Siege Giants and then simply teleport out means that she'll be virtually uncontested in doing so. It's even possible for her to take a Siege Giant camp on her own early by just Bribing one and killing the other. Combine this with the fact that another Bribe on the team means a free Knight camp and you're in business. Bribewing!

ALTERNATIVES


Envenom - Envenom is a very strong skill in general right now. Early in the game, not many heroes can deal with this short of tapping the well, and it might be too late for that. Later on, it can be used to add to your team's burst. There's also an instant component to the ability that can finish off fleeing heroes. Overall this is a very solid pickup which personally fits with my very aggressive playstyle on Li Li... I mean, Brightwing.

ALTERNATIVES


Regenerative Rains - This skill is just far too good to pass up. The passive healing from Soothing Mist is already quite good, and the cooldown on Brightwing's abilities are short enough that you will be casting them almost all the time. You will get an absolutely absurd amount of value out of this pickup, and it's really the only no-brainer selection in Brightwing's kit. This is what makes her and her team so annoying to deal with.

ALTERNATIVES


Emerald Wind - This ability takes a lot more skill than Blink Heal to utilize effectively, but the added utility is just too good to pass up most of the time. It's hard to get a skill that has both initiation, disengage, AND hard CC in such a neat package, with insane range and decent damage to boot.

ALTERNATIVES


Rewind - This ability has great synergy with Regenerative Rains, besides its obvious benefit. You can use this for a quick burst of healing on your team, as well as a double duration Polymorph on a particularly annoying enemy Hero. Just a solid choice all around!

ALTERNATIVES


Critterize - This is a tough tier - everything here has its merits. However, I believe that with Rewind, this talent offers you the most additional utility for your team, allowing you to completely obliterate a single target as quickly as possible. That being said, be sure to check out the Alternatives below, since this is probably the tier with the most personal choice.

ALTERNATIVES


Continuous Winds - A tough choice between this and Bolt of the Storm. Continuous Winds gives you a much longer duration CC on your Emerald Wind, while also slightly buffing the amount of damage it deals. This can be very very annoying to deal with, and slightly edges out the ability of Blink to get you into a better position.

ALTERNATIVES

Playstyle Top

Early Game


Brightwing is incredibly strong in the early game. Her abilities are just as strong here as later, and are more difficult to play around. Soothing Mist will negate most of the enemy laner's harass, and Envenom at level 4 will allow you to pick up a lot of early kills, or bully someone entirely out of lane. On a map like Haunted Mines, Protective Shield will allow your allies to be incredibly aggressive.

Be sure to stay in lane as much as you can early game, as you want to be building up your [{Bribe]] stacks. Once you have at least 1 stack, it's possible to steal the enemy team's Siege Giants, particularly if you have an ally with Bribe. You can then teleport out to an ally for a clean steal!

Pixie Dust is actually relatively useful during this phase for its Block component, as Heroes are taking pot shots at your allies rather than focusing on them entirely. That being said, remember that it's still more useful to use this as an escape or initiate or general move speed buff than for the Block.

Mid Game


During the mid game, it's still best for you to hang around in lanes and split push. Not only can you teleport out whenever you want with Phase Shift, you're also boosting up your Bribe stacks. Note that you should be sticking with your allies if they are roaming, getting kills, and in need of healing, as it's much more useful to be getting Regenerative Rains off with your team and pushing lanes with them than pushing one on your own.

You should get a feel of when it's okay to return to base for Mana, as you will often find yourself running on empty after fights or just in general practice. Since Brightwing is able to use Phase Shift to return to the battlefield instantly, you'll want to return to the fountain often, drink up, then return to the most relevant allied Hero when you're full.

Late Game


By now you might very well have your level 20 talents. Bolt of the Storm gives you some fantastic initiation with Emerald Wind, and makes you even more slippery in general. At this point you should be focusing on using Critterize to burst down enemy Heroes, if you've taken this talent and it's not necessary for some other purpose. Other than that, your late game is functionally identical to your mid game.

Teamfights


Your most obvious task as Brightwing is to keep your team alive by any means necessary. Remember to constantly use all of your abilities on cooldown during a fight, in order to maximize the healing provided by Regenerative Rains. However, you should also be looking for key times to use Polymorph, ideally to cancel a scary Hero Ability, but even just to stop someone from finishing off someone on your team.

Also keep an eye on your melee allies, and be prepared to use Pixie Dust to either reduce the damage they take, or to speed them up to get the finishing blow. If you have to disengage, use Emerald Wind or Blink Heal. Your strength lies in AoE healing, so you should be focusing on keeping the lowest health target from going down as much as you can, as they are the most likely to kick the bucket without focused healing.

Conclusion Top

Brightwing is a fantastic support that fits well into just about any lineup, and is really fun to boot. She has a lot of depth and is hard to master. Plus, she's pretty cute and has a pink skin, so I approve.

If you have any questions about the guide, feel free to post a comment below, and I'll try and answer them as best I can! You can also find me at the following places:

YouTube: Poultron
BattleTag: Poultron#1383
Twitch: Poultron
Twitter: poultronic

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