Hello guys,
I'm Ontiro aka S0L4RBurst. I am not a native english speaker and this is my first guide on heroesfire. I think, Valla is the most OP char on this current build of HotS because of her lifesteal and attack speed. However, I saw a lot of bad builds and plays with and against me.
With this guide I want to help begginers to start playing this char really effective.
I would appreciate some feedback both positive or negative and im looking to update this guide on a regular basis.
There'll be great, if you support me to develop my HotS streams.

http://www.twitch.tv/ontiro

Pros

-Extremely powerful ***sasin, can deal a lot of damage at any game stage
-Easy escape with Vault
-Lifesteal. LIFESTEAL! Vampiric Assault and Tempered by Discipline.
-If Valla's not focused, she can easily make penta
-Great attack speed due to Rancor
-Fast cooldown reduction with Battle Momentum
-You can do 1v1 aganst towers

Cons

-Very low hp, so try not to get focused
-If you don't have enough mana, it'll be hard to escape
-Without any teamplay Valla is bad

Tier 1

1). Cost-Effective Materials is absolutely useless either in early game or in late. Hungering Arrow is not the main source of damage, and I don't think we need to upgrade it.
2). Siphoning Arrow. I have enough lifesteal with this build. You don't need this one, because, as I told, this skill isn't a main one.
3). Composite Arrows isn't so bad, if you play skill-based Valla, not auto-attacks. It can help you to last-hit running off foe. But again, this is not my choice.
4). Rancor is the best talent of the first tier. Firstly, we gain our main force-attack speed. Secondly, in early game I can easily win 1v1 against almost every assassin or fighter. Finally, you need that attack speed to make our lifesteal better.
5). Punishment is also good enough to gain some stacks of "Hatred", but you lose attack speed, so this talent is not our choice in this build.

Tier 2

1). Vampiric Assault. This is exactly what you need. It gives Valla 15 percent lifesteal and helps her to live a little bit more.
2). Manticore is also a good talent of this tier, but sometimes there can be the situations when you shold attack different heroes, so it's not useful as the first one.
3). Puncturing Arrow. As I told, we don't need to upgrade our skills.
4). Arsenal. Nope. You don't need it.

Tier 3

1). Battle Momentum. This tier is highly controversial, but this is my choice because of cooldown reduction of our Vault. If you push, it also helps to reset all the cooldowns of your skills.
2). Caltrops. It's also a good talent for escape, but if you play in good team, your foes will be slowed or stunned, so you will not need it.
3). Repeating Arrow. You don't use our Hungering Arrow as a damage dealer, that's why you won't pick it.
4). Searing Attacks. This is the second talent, which I sometimes take if I don't need a lot of escape possibility. It deals good damage with our attack speed, but it will drain a lot of mana.

Tier 4. Ultie

1). Strafe. I don't find this talent useful for teamfights. You can get focused and this talent will be useful. It gains no contol of the situation, it can't save you. That sucks. We don't need it.
2). Rain of Vengeance is much better. It gives you stun, which can be combined with different CC of other heroes, like Gazlowe or Uther. It also gives you an ability to escape while bad solo-farm.

Tier 5

1). Giant Killer. I find it most useless talent of every hero. It gives just 1.5 percent of hero's max health additional damage and it does nothing against "fat" heroes, like Muradin. There's much more powerful talent in this tier.
2). Frost Shot. One of the best talents of this tier even if you play auto-attack Valla, but not in this build. In some games, I have to take this one, because my team needs more CC.
3). Hot Pursuit. The name of this talent tells us all we need. If you're not the only one assassin in the team, you can take this talent just for fun to pusuit your victims. Not in this build.
4). Tempered by Discipline. This is our second source of lifesteal. At 10 stacks it gives us 30 percent lifesteal. 30+15=45. PERMANENTLY! It's OP! The idea of this build is max lifesteal and we got it!
5). Spell Shield. Srsly? No, please. Don't take it or it'll be just waste of tier talent.

Tier 6

1). Executioner. I can agree, that +40 percent dmg is awesome. But how often are the foes under the effects of CC? Not so often, there'll be only 1-2 attacks with +40 percent. Moreover, I need the second talent of this tier, because mobility is much better than damage.
2). Trumble. This talent is awesome. If you have 2 stacks of Vault you can do some fake jumps, close gaps and you'll still have one stack for good escape. Or 2 stacks for better escape :)
3). Blood for Blood. This is situational talent: it deals good damage and slows an enemy, but just for 3 secs. Red team's Valla with Trumble will ignore it and say you good bye, for example.
4). Stoneskin. The same as the Spell Shield. Nope.

Tier 7

1). Vengeance. This talent will be disabled for us.
2). Storm of Vengeance This is my choice. It let our Rain of Vengeance to proc 4 times. 4 stuns are much more useful than 2.
3). Fury of the Storm. If your team has no problems with CC, you can take this talent to deal more AoE damage and defeat enemy's team faster than the light!
4). Bolt of the Storm If you think you're lack of mobility/escape, you must take this one. It saves my life a lot in bad situations.

As a Lifesteal Valla, I play very agressive in 1v1 fights, because I know, that I have a good mobility and a lot of lifesteal, what helps me to get on distance heal myself with auto-attacks.
There're very few heroes wich can kill Lifesteal Valla 1v1, such as lifesteal Tychus, Raynor and others. Try not to waste a lot of mana, because there can be gank and if you're out of mana, you won't escape, trust me.

Talking about a teamfight, you shouldn't play agressive and go first. It's not our playstyle. You need to cap all you stacks as fast as possible before teamfight. Wait for the beginning of the fight and try to stay far from the battle, because some of AoE abilities can easily oneshot Valla.
If you see, that there's enough enemies in your range and the team is ready, you can initiate with your Rain of Vengeance, what will help your team to push with their CCs and damage.

Lifesteal Valla is also a good pusher. You can push without creeps (Thanks to our great livesteal). On the 10th level you'll get about 100 hp/attack. YOU'RE INVINCIBLE!

That is it, thanks for reading my Valla guide. If you have questions feel free to leave them here. As i said in the beginning i would really appreciate some feedback from you guys or when you upvote the guide if you think it was helpful. I'm going to keep this guide up to date and add some new information, especially about playstyle!


I hope you learned some new stuff, have fun playing Valla!