Hi all. This is the beginning of a guide, it will be improved and updated in short order. The current opinion is that Yrel is underpowered, so we are also likely to see changes to her in short order. As those roll in so will the changes to the guide.

This guide focuses not on talent picking itself but actual playstile for maximum benefit to your team.

Content

Changelog.
Intro.
Ability usage.
How to optimally use ability charging.
Ability Combinations.
Playstyle in depth. Tips and tricks.
The example builds.
Talents in depth.
How to play the maps.

Created 14.06.2018.

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Vindication

There are 3 reasons to use Vindication.

1 - To heal yourself out of combat. The healing part of Vindication activates regardless of you hitting an enemy. You can safely withdraw and refill your health pool when needed.
2 - To clear minion waves. All of Yrel's abilities do about the same amount of damage and cost the same amount of mana. However Vindication provides self healing so it is the optimal choice if you need to waveclear for some reason. Especially since the other abilities you have provide you with safety and escape.
3 - To apply Aldor Peacekeeper's debuff effect. Note this is the only talent that needs your basic ability to be fully charged, so it's best if you use Divine Purpose to cast [Vindication]] for this particilour use case.

Righteous Hammer

Keep in mind that this ability has the highest benefit from being fully charged.
Righteous Hammer should be used 4 cases.

1 - To peel away the enemy. The most obvious use.
2 - To knock enemies into your team to be killed. Yrel is great at ganking lone targets. If you manage to get behind the enemy, which Yrel can do in multiple ways, you can push an enemy hero away into your team to certain death.
3 - To break a channeled ability.
4 - To activate the effect of Templar's Verdict. Perhaps the one case where you don't care to have Righteous Hammer fully charged. In fact if you are trying to burst down a running away enemy it is best to use it wiht no charge at all to apply the armor reduction while not displacing them to safety.

Avenging Wrath

Perhaps teh most importaint ability for Yrel. It has 4 purposes.

1 - To engage. Simply charge it and jump behind an enemy target, slowing it down.
2 - To escape. Yrel can take a punch, but when it is necessari she can also jump away to safety.
3 - As follow up crowd control to slow down a target. This is effective AOE slow, regardless if it is to prevent an enemy diver from sticking to your squish backline or to hold in place an enemy that is being focused, after you or someone else put them in a bad position, or simply to delay the frontal attack of multiple enemy heroes.
4 - To chase and secure kills. Nothing better when trying to finish off a target than jumping in front of them and holding them in place.

Divine Purpose

Divine Purpose should be used very carefully and with a forethought about why you need to cast a certain ability at full power instantly. The answer to this question is difficult as each of Yrel's abilities have very different benefits when fully charged.

1 - To make Righteous Hammer effective Let's be hones Righteous Hammer is nearly useless unless fully charged. This is the ability you will be powering up every time, unless you start the fight with it already charged up before the engage happens.
2 - To ensure escape with Avenging Wrath. Crowd Control is the bane of Yrel. Having to charge Avenging Wrath, when you need to get out fast, is nearly certain death. If you expect to have to get out fast, keep your Divine Purpose for your escape so it is not interrupted.
3 - For repeated casts of Avenging Wrath, thanks to Holy Avenger. Avenging Wrath is very strong and useful ability, and being able to cast it multiple times opens up some very interesting plays. If you charge Avenging Wrath before the engage, you can chain up to 3 casts of this ability. 4 if also took Divine Favor.
4 - For big emergency healing with Vindication. For when you need to stay in the fight jsut a bit longer.
5 - To apply the effect of Aldor Peacekeeper

First you must understand when to use Yrel's abilities, to pick the proper talents.

The thing about Yrel is that Blizzard seams to have aimed at making a tank-support hybrid similar to the idea behind Tyreal.

Full-Charge vs Fast-Cast

As far as I have tested, to maximize Yrel's potential you have to pick and choose when to Full-Charge her abilities and when to just Fast-Cast them at low power. There are 2 reasons you will want to Fast-Cast abilities.

1 - Charging up an ability increases it's CD by 25%. All her abilities are on 6s cool down, that starts ticking after using them. In other words Fast-Casting an ability will recharge in 6s since you don't charge it. But a charged ability will be on a 7.5s CD instead because you have to channel for 1.5s before activating it. Using Divine Purpose obviously gives you full benefit without increasing the cooldown. A lot of her talents are very powerful, but dependent on casting abilities. A bunch of talents don't require fully charged abilities to give some significant bonuses. Don't forget this longer CD means you are not getting talent benefits, and loosing 1 of her auto attacks.

2 - The ability to activate strong talent bonuses faster due to lower cool down as well as use them on demand is far more beneficial than what you get from fully charging her basic abilities most of the time. For example Templar's Verdict gives her big armor reduction on Righteous Hammer which can be far more beneficial than a long push and mini stun in case Yrel needs to deal with a high mobility diver hero who will just negate the displacement. Or if she is chasing a kill with her team. Fast-Casting Righteous Hammer will apply armor reduction, but will not push the target too far for your team to actually deal damage.

Pre-Chargeing abilities

The most optimal way to play Yrel is to Pre-Charge 1 ability before the engage even begins. - W or E depending on if you are defending or engaging, and then fast charge another ability with D. Then ether charge or fast cast the third, spacing them in time.

Due to the way many of her talents work you want to space out her abilities and keep using AAs. Most of the time the charge bonus of your abilities is not worth the time needed to charge them, but her talents give you bonuses when using abilities in a lot of cases so don't waste time just hitting an ability and waiting for it to charge.

Picking what ability to Pre-Charde before engaging is crucial. It will depend a lot on the situation you are in. In general fights between teams go the same way. One team picks a position to defend, the other engages. An engagement can be ether a straight forward initiation from the front or flank, or it can be a dive for the backline, usually done from a flanking position.

- In case you are the team that initiates it's best to Pre-Charge Avenging Wrath so you have the ability to drop on the enemy from range.
- In case you are defending against an initiation it's best to Pre-Charge Righteous Hammer to clear space at the start of enemy engage. This way it will be up for casting again during the same fight due to the low cooldown of 6s, as opposed to keeping it for use in the middle of the fight.
-In case you are defending against a dive for the backline it highly depends on what hero is the diver and if there are multiple divers. If you are against a hero with strong dive but weak mobility after initially diving like The Butcher or Kerrigan, or if you have 2 or more divers Pre-Charging Righteous Hammer can allow you to use it as a momentum stopper and peel the divers off your backline. In case you are facing a highly mobile diver like Illidan or Tracer, Pre-Charging Avenging Wrath will allow you to get on top of them fast and use your abilities and talents to debuff them, whille budding and protecting your teammates. Since displacement might not be effective, you might want to opt for Templar's Verdict or Aldor Peacekeeper talents as well as Aegis of Light or Gift of the Naaru.

Quick-Chargeing Divine Purpose

Between Pre-Charging and Quick-Charging with Divine Purpose Yrel can cast 2 of her abilities at full charge when a fight begins and still not spend any time charging. Most cases those 2 abilities will be Righteous Hammer and Avenging Wrath, the former being the Pre-Charged ability most of the time. This is because they provide her with displacement slow and mobility. Yrel is pretty tanky so it's best to use her resources to benefit her team instead of her own health pool. Fast-Casting Vindication is your best bet most of the time to grab a quick activation of some talent benefits like Maraad's Insight, Dauntless or Divine Favor. In fact if you take Dauntless, the armor bonus from the talent might completely negate the missed healing from Vindication. Quick-Charging Vindication is usually only done in emergency situations to heal yourself if you are focused by the whole enemy team and going critically low, or to activate the effect of Aldor Peacekeeper.

There are multiple ways to combine your abilities especially since certain talents open even greater opportunities. In a fight one team is always the initiator, the other the defender. Therefor you have offensive and defensive combinations of abilities respectively. The initiating team can be ether a hard engage comp (this is both sustain or burst), or a dive composition. The difference is that the dive composition will try to push past the tank and go directly for the backline, trying to blow up a pre-determined target regardless of the conditions. Dive comps use dedicated dive heroes.

Anti Dive debuff

Avenging Wrath(Pre-Charged)-> Divine Purpose-> Vindication->Fast-Cast Righteous Hammer
(Requires Aegis of Light, Righteous Momentum and Aldor Peacekeeper)
This combo is your main defensive play. It is most effective if your team is the defender and the enemy IS a dive based composition. However it is viable in all cases as well and present the most efficient protection to your team as main tank. The point is to buff your teammate being dived with armor, while at the same time nerfing the damage and removing armor from the enemy dive hero(s). After getting Aegis of Light you can buff your team for 25% armor lasting 5 seconds, and it is on 6 seconds cooldown. Essentially stick close to your damage dealer and keep them with permanent armor in a fight. After you get Righteous Momentum at 7 Pre-Charge your Righteous Hammer before every fight. This is an un-interuptable extra speed (outside of hard CC abilities), and lets you deal effectively with any dive hero. Your Righteous Hammer will be ready to use again shortly and it keeps your Divine Purpose unused. After level 13 with Aldor Peacekeeper use your Divine Purpose to Quick-Charge Vindication for damage debuff of the diving hero(es). This essemtially means that you double your damage dealer carry health pool since they get 25% armor adn the enemy looses 30% damage. The next ability in the chain is obviously Righteous Hammer again. If you get the Templar's Verdict talent at 16 you can Fast-Cast the ability not only to push enemies back but also remove their armor.

Defensive combinations.

Short Counter Engage Combo

Righteous Hammer(Pre-Charged)-> Avenging Wrath-> Vindication(optional)-> Divine Purpose-> Righteous Hammer

This combo is an alternative defensive play. Or rather this is the base concept of Yrel defense play if you did not spec into the specific level 4, 7 and 13 talents needed for "Anti Dive Debuff" playstile. It can work if your team is the defender, but the enemy is NOT a dive based composition. This is very simple alteration. Pre-Charge your Righteous Hammer and smash away the enemy team when they try to invade your position. As the ability cool down is fairly low - just 6s it will be up and usable again in the middle of the fight. Your trait however will not be ready if you use it to charge an ability, so keep it for the second Righteous Hammer. Fast-Cast Avenging Wrath to further slow down the enemy. And then use Vindication to restore some of the health lost when the enemy targets you. When your Righteous Hammer gets off cool down once again split the enemy team with your knock back.

Long Counter Engage Combo

Righteous Hammer(Pre-Charged)-> Avenging Wrath-> Avenging Wrath-> Vindication(optional)-> Divine Purpose-> Righteous Hammer
(Requires Holy Avenger)

Same as the short combo. If you have the Holy Avenger talent, wait for the Avenging Wrath to finish charging, and then use Avenging Wrath again for extra effects. You can keep spamming Avenging Wrath indefinitely. This is very common playstile, but not as effective as the "Anti Dive Debuff", that I recommend.


Offensive combinations.

The Gank Smash

Avenging Wrath(Pre-Charged)-> Divine Purpose-> Righteous Hammer

This is a dedicated gank combo to jump behind the enemy and push them towards your team and out of position. Not much to it. Just keep in mind that this burns up most of your resources, and that Righteous Hammer is not the most precise tool for picking 1 target, so you should be very careful if you use it outside of ganks during 5v5 teamfights as it can get you killed instead or push multiple heroes on top of your own backline.

The Dive engage

Avenging Wrath(Pre-Charged)-> Divine Purpose-> Righteous Hammer-> Avenging Wrath
(Requires Holy Avenger)

This combo is your main offensive play if your team is the initiator and you are a dive based composition. Essentially the same thing as the Gank Smash but once you have Holy Avenger you can use the combo safely, since your Avenging Wrath will basically be reset and you will now have the option to use it again to get out. The purpose here is not so much to hammer one target into your team, but rather to split the enemy team creating an opportunity to dive them and kill them fast. The second cast of Avenging Wrath is used for the AOE slow more than anything else. You can expect to be focused after this sort of move, so be careful after the combo. Don't start charging your Vindication immediately after it or you will likely be stunned out of it. Wait for the enemy to dump their crowd control on you first.

The Hard engage

Avenging Wrath(Pre-Charged)-> Avenging Wrath-> Vindication(optional)-> Divine Purpose-> Righteous Hammer
(Requires Holy Avenger)

This combo is your main offensive play if your team is the initiator and you are NOT a dive based composition. Just like "The Dive engage" you jump into the enemy team. However in this case you are not trying to blow up a target, but to force a fight and control it. Your goal is to disrupt them and force the fight to start. The difference here is that your initial engage is followed up by another cast of Avenging Wrath usually to quickly jump to another enemy hero(es) This way you are creating a strong disruption and slowing multiple heroes for a good amount of time. You don't have to fully charge Avenging Wrath the second time as only the range increases. At this point your job is to get as much agro as possible and force the enemy to dump as much damage as possible on you, so they have as little tools to deal wiht your team as possible. The enemy will try to counter engage and focus your teammates. You must reactively pick the best time to use the Divine Purpose-> Righteous Hammer abilities in order to control the enemy and prevent the counter engage from killing your teammates. Don't just blow up your Divine Purpose and Righteous Hammer for no purpose.


As with all else in this guide, find what works best for you. And use your head to figure out the best ability to use in a situation. Don't blindly follow my combinations every time.

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In defensive scenario:
- Use her trait to fast charge another ability. If defending you hold on to your trait until you know whether some diver like Genji/Illidan will try to dive past you or the enemy will focus you. If they dive past you fast charge the E and jump on top of them to slow and bodyblock. If they focus you fast charge the Q when your health goes past the 65% to heal. At this point you can fast cast the E if needed to use it's slow at point blank. Or keep it jump out if you go low, or potentially to use as a chase ability if the enemy goes low and try to retreat. If you don't need an ability fully charged and can do your job with just a close range slow and small heal don't use the D and keep it instead for when your W gets off CD. All her abilities are on 6s CD, but her trait is on 10s. So you will be able to use full force W once again if you don't use the D on another ability when you don't need to.

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If your team will be the one defending during engages it's better to pick the Sacred Ground heroic. It is superior and makes Yrel nearly impossible to kill.

If your team will be the one diving during engages it's better to pick the Ardent Defender heroic. The reason is that you simply need to be more mobile and can't stay in the zone of Sacred Ground.