Heya, I'm GoldEnigma, long time player of team-based that I can enjoy with my friends.

I haven't been playing HotS for very long (since the Thrall patch) but I have put a good amount of time into it. I quickly fell in-love with the assassins in the game, playing lots of Nova, Raynor and Tychus. However due to my friends not wanting to play supports, I decided to switch things up and play more tanks and supports like Tyrande. And after buying Tyrael, I can say he is one of my favourite heroes in game easily. And this guide will show how I build him.
NB: This is in no way a professional build, its mostly my personal fun build as I think Tyrael nowadays in played more for damage. I still play him as a frontline tank though who has good base stats. But if I do make any mistakes, feel free to tell me in the comments :D

So here we are going to look at Tyrael's abilities and see what they do and how they can be utilized

Lets start with Ty's trait. Archangel's Wrath causes Tyrael to turn into a bomb when he dies, bit like Kog'Maw from League of Legends. While the damage on the explosion is really nice at all stages of the game, dying isn't really a top priority in this game. Bear that in mind, you do have the passive, but don't go into a fight just to die.

El' Druins Might is one of Tyrael's key abilities. Its your chase, escape, harass, wall and warning. While I don't often put talents into this ability, its very powerful as its so versatile. When Tyrael throws out the sword, it deals damage in an area, applying a slow and allowing Tyrael to jump to the sword, reapplying the slow on nearby foes. While the damage itself doesn't scale particularly well, the utility this ability brings is brilliant

Righteousness. For me, this is the best ability Tyrael has. When activated it instantly gives Tyrael a shield as well as shielding nearby allies. This is my core on Tyrael and a lot of my a talents are therefore centred around buffing this shield.

Smite is Tyrael's main source of damage. It has the highest damage and best scaling of all his abilities, including Judgement! Unlike El'Druin's Might and Judgement, this ability will always be useful for damage throughout the game, long past the time when the others have fallen off and become utility. The ability in question deals damage to an area and increases the movement speed of allies moving through that area. This improves Tyrael's chase even more and allows him to help allies escape danger

Judgement can potentially be one of the best or worst ultimates in the game, depending on its use. While it doesn't have the best damage, the ability charges Tyrael forwards towards the target, stunning them when he reaches the target and knocking aside all foes who stand in his way. Knocked aside foes take half the damage by the way. How can this ult be bad? Because if you dive in with no follow up, you're dead. If you have perfect follow up though, the enemy is in a lot of trouble.

This ult is underrated. Horribly underrated. But I can understand why it is. While channeling for 3 seconds, Tyrael makes all nearby allies invincible and invulnerable to cc. This means that your Valla and Tyrande can sit safe in the backline dishing out the Ds. The problem is that, damage or tank, Tyrael is a frontline fighter and for this ult to have use, you need to build for backline defence.

Level 1

At the start of the game, for me the only viable choices (for this build) are Purge Evil and Regen Master. Protection in Death is not bad, but its better in a different build choice. Horadric Reforging just isn't good. With the 30% bonus damage, it deals about 348 damage at level 30 (60 x 1.3 +(9 x 30) which may sound good, but with Purge Evil and its 25% damage bonus, it deals 454 damage. Since Smite is your main damage ability, I'd focus on this over other talents. Regen Master is good, but for me it takes too long to start paying off and requires spending a lot of time in lanes when I'd rather be ganking.

Level 4

The Level 4 talent is dependent on your team. Normally, I pick one of the two healing abilities as sustain as a frontliner is never a bad thing. If the team has a powerful healer like Brightwing or LiLi, I'll take amplified healing. If we don't have a healer, I'll go vampiric assault. Retribution is powerful because it works on ANY enemies you hit, not just heroes, giving it the potential to cut its cooldown in half easily. Despite this, I rarely pick it because the healing talents are both really good, especially AH. Even in Death, like Protection in Death, has to be built around for it to be useful.

Level 7

Level 7 arrives and are choices are actually quite limited for the amount of talents we get here. Let me start by saying I get Reciprocate every time at this level, and now I will say why. Angel's Grace looks good on paper, but in-game, Tyrael has enough chase already so he really doesn't need more. Zealotry is pointless because Tyrael's shield will never last the full 4 seconds in a teamfight, so there is no point in doubling its duration. Searing Attacks and Battle Momentum look good (especially Battle Momentum allowing you to chase a lot more, hit that shield more and smite your foes more) but Tyrael has mana issues throughout the game and these two abilities can cost a large total of mana if you add it all up. Reciprocate provides an actually quite good amount of damage that hits in an AoE around Tyrael without the need for extra mana. Remember that the talent works when the shield runs out of time OR is destroyed, and that really makes this talent worth it, otherwise Battle Momentum would be better.

Level 10

For this build, Judgement is the way to go. Its a great engage tool if followed up correctly and its key for interrupting ults like Strafe, Triple Tap, Tranquility and Jug of 1000 Cups, which all have the potential to turn teamfights. When looking at the enemy team, make sure to see if they have any ults like these and make it a point to save your ult to interrupt them as they get started. Don't throw Sanctification out the window though, because in a particular build and team composition, this ult can be unbelievably amazing.

Level 13

Level 13 for me is the most situational of talents for Tyrael. All are good (except angelic might), all are useful (except angelic might, again) and all are powerful at this point in the game (come on guess...thats right except angelic might). Ok while Angelic Might isn't bad, it comes at a terrible time. IF this talent was available earlier, then it would be worth picking up for early game trades. However, it comes with 3 fantastic talent that all specialise in a certain aspect of defence, making Angelic Might pointless. Burning Rage is great vs Zeratul and Nova, allowing you to spot them before a fight so your team can keep an eye on them. Angelic Absorption is my go-to talent most games as the regen is great in the middle of a fight, especially when combined with Amplified Healing. And Imposing Will shuts down Illidan so damn hard its funny, as well as being a good counter to Valla and Tychus, ruining their kiting capabilities.

Level 16

Almost at the end and we come to another tough choice, this time between Salvation and Blood for blood. Blade of justice is powerful and considering the slow El'Druins gives, you'll probably always get those 3 attacks off. But again, that's more damage focus and considering the other talents at this level, its not what we want for a tanky build. I've had some success with Holy Ground, using it to either cut off enemies escapes or block them off from things like tributes or shrines. Salvation is just too good however, 25% extra shield for each ally shielded? Thats ridiculous, almost makes me want zealotry now. Your shield will still break, but it will absorb a hell of a lot more now thanks to this. But Blood for blood is such a strong universal talent that is brilliant against people with good escapes and makes Tyrael so strong at dueling people, even with a tank build. All in all, this level for me comes down to what I feel like at the time.

Level 20

And huzzah! We've reached the fianl talents. To start this off let me say that if you go Sanctification as your ult of choice, pick up Holy Arena for it here because it is SO strong and wins teamfights pretty easily with the right follow up and trust. Nexus Blades is a no go for tank Tyrael. While it gives you strong chase, Tyrael can already do that just fine, and if you went BfB at level 16 you definitely won't need it. Angel of Justice and Hardened Shield. Tough choice but once again I think it comes down to your team comp. If you have a great healer on your team, Angel of Justice is normally worth it because the damage reduction from Hardened Shield isn't needed as much, which will allow you to start more fights or help out caught teammates from further away. Hardened Shield can be a great option for its damage reduction if you don't have a healer. I will say this though, the combination of the 75% damage reduction from Hardened Shield, Amplified Healing and Angelic Absorption allows Tyrael to actually recover HP mid-fight due to how it works, so even with a healer, sometimes Hardened Shield can be the superior option.

Early Game

I normally play Tyrael in a solo lane, preferably right in the middle of the map. This is because with Purge Evil, you have a quite surprising amount of damage that allows Tyrael to duel well with a Q->Q->E->W combo to dive in, get some damage and shield out. Unfortunately, this combo does have some high mana costs so doing it too often can leave you drained. Tyrael also does well at ganking or following up ganks because of El'Druins Might allowing him to get behind enemies and body-block them while a teammate follows up.

Mid-Game

By now you'll have your ult and now you really should be looking for some ganks, preferably in lanes where your teammates either have great follow up potential and/or some cc of their own. You don't want to gank a full HP Tychus when your only follow up is LiLi for example. If you aren't looking for ganks, try pushing in lanes and saving your ult to counter gank someone like Illidan or Zeratul. One other important thing to point out is that you can use your ult to prevent enemies from taking objectives like Merc camps, shrines, and tributes, and with a good follow up from your team, you can force them away and take it for yourself.

And the End-Game

Ok so your 20+, got all the talents, know what your opponents final builds are, what do you do? Kill someone of course, this is Heroes of the Storm what else do you do? Seriously though, in the lategame its important to try to find every advantage you can give your team and give it to them, whether that's soloing a merc camp, picking off a lone enemy with your ult or diving in to save an ally. By now you are pretty tanky and can handle being knocked around thanks to Hardened Shield and Angelic Absorption. If you went Angel of Justice, finding fights is even more important, because that's why you got the talent in the first place. In these fights, make sure to try and either kill of a main enemy, like a Nova, with your ult or save it to interrupt game changing ults like Jug of 1'000 Cups or Strafe.

And we are done :D thanks for sticking through the guide till this point. I am by no means the best Tyrael player out there but I wanted to share my build thats brought me a lot of success. Any comments, complaints, tings you want to ask about or points about things I've got wrong, because I'm sure there is something somewhere, leave it in the comments and thanks for reading!

6/4/2015 - Published