Hi my name is Benjamin aka BeingHot. I've been playing Heroes of the Storm since early Alpha and have had a great time so far! I run a stream and youtube channel dedicated to Heroes of the Storm and I figured I would start making guides here on heroesfire aswell.
Raynor is what I would consider an honest hero. What I mean by that is he has a very small kit of abilities, he doesn't do anything fancy, but what he does is damn good! He is capable of dishing out some of the most consistent dps in the game of ALL heroes currently. He excels at fighting 1v1 with only very few hard matchups. His only real weaknesses is his lack of mobility which you will see in the guide is a weakness that can be overcome and his worse early game compared to other assassins.
Raynor has been and probably always will be my main! Welcome.
Raynor is one of the few heroes who only have 2 active abilities and the two that he has are very easy to understand (but hard to perfect). This combined with his low gold cost makes
Raynor a very suitable beginner hero, and is a hero I would recommend anybody start out with.
Trait:
Lead from the Front (Deprecated) is possibly the main reason as to why Raynor dish out some incredible burst along with his sustained dps in teamfights. It's a reset on
Penetrating Round and [Inspire]] every time you kill an enemy hero, and helps you lower your heroic ability's 100 second cooldown significantly even if you're just grinding minions.
(Q):
Penetrating Round is a long-line skill shot with a knock-back effect and a fairly high damage.
Penetrating Round is the bread and butter nuke ability in this version of
Raynor. You could also choose to make
Penetrating Round into a massive siege damage nuke, but I'd like to convince you guys that it is not the most optimal way of building Raynor right now!
(W):
Inspire An excellent buff that you can use in many different scenarios. Do not hesitate to use it to help push a wave right before you leave to gank. Is just a great tool in pushing lanes without you being there. In teamfights you want to position yourself out of harms way, but if you can you want to buff people with Inspire as often as possible.
(E):
Adrenaline Rush The real MVP of Raynor is this ability. The amount of times I've been saved by
Adrenaline Rush is unfathomable. It works as a free bait tool if you're low, you don't even have to do anything. Without
Adrenaline Rush
Raynor would be toast!
(R):
Hyperion and Raynor's Raiders are your options here. This build focuses mainly on Raynor's Raiders which is the most reliable damage source of the two heroic abilities. The fact that Raynor's Raiders attacks what you attack makes a big difference. As we've established
Raynor excels as doing consistent damage, and duelling people. While
Hyperion deals better theoretical dps, it is not what we're after in this
Raynor build.
Tier 1:
Give Me More: Generally what you want to pick. Makes
Adrenaline Rush even more powerful than it already is. Makes you survive seemingly impossible damage, and makes your bait potential even stronger.
Seasoned Marksman: Very powerful lategame. Requires you to actively try to get as many minion "kills" as possible. Generally I only pick Seasoned Marksman if I'm up against no hard assassins, or if they have a lot of tanks.
Demolitionist: Very powerful if you're aiming for a siege Raynor. This build does not focus on this particular route as I do not feel it fits the meta very well. In theory a strong choice though.
Bribe: I've played around with
Bribe and I do not feel convinced by it. If you wanted faster split pushing or neutral camp clearing I would rather go with Seasoned Marksman since it helps you on that front and it boosts your hero fighting ability.
Scouting Drone: Not suitable for solo queue.
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Tier 2:
Advanced Optics: A very solid pick for this build. It makes you capable of DPS'ing from further away. Makes your poke in lane stronger, and your potential kiting ability is also stronger. I always pick
Advanced Optics if I'm facing little to no gap-closing heroes. Although the meta right now is full of gap-closers.
Focused Attack: Another very strong pick. I tend to pick this more often than Advanced Optics: simply because of the amount of gap-closers right now. It's also worth mentioning that it increases your overall dps against neutral monsters, whereas
Advanced Optics only increases your poke and thus dps that way.
Vampiric Assault: You do not need anymore healing, and this will not make you survive more in teamfights. Generally if
Raynor gets caught out, you're dead.
Quick Fingers: Does not seem very appealing due to the low cooldowns to begin with. Since you reset your Q and W on hero kills anyways, this seems like an overkill.
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Tier 3:
Heavy Ammo: Is only really justifiable if you're doing a siege damage
Raynor which we're not focusing on in this guide. The extra knockback distance does increase your survivability a tiny amount though.
Revolution Overdrive: An interesting choice that is potentially very strong. Increases your chances of chasing down foes. I feel there are more solid picks in this category.
Fight or Flight: A situational call. Only pick this if you have a good understanding of the enemy team's heroes and abilities. It will work wonders against heavy CC teams.
Searing Attacks: My personal favorite and what I pick most of the time. Increases your DPS by a huge amount and it is very versatile on a short cooldown. The mana cost is rarely an issue.
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Tier 4:
Hyperion: Only pick this if you're up against a very stationary team, or some sort of all in melee composition where you can bait them into
Hyperion. The thing about
Hyperion is that it is only really good when enemies don't know it's coming. Once it's out it's easily avoided, and since you have no control over it after it's been cast, it often feels wasted.
Raynor's Raiders: I pick this more than 9 out of 10 times. It is incredibly strong in teamfights, duels, for clearing neutral camps, sieging you name it. You'd also be amazed at how often it will end up sniping a low enemy hero after you've died yourself.
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Tier 5:
Giant Killer: What I pick 99% of the time. It boosts your damage so much against beefy enemies like
Arthas or
Diablo. Very solid.
The Art of War: I can't possibly see myself picking this on
Raynor. It feels very weak right now.
Activated Rush: Situationally good, especially when paired with
Fight or Flight. Have only ever picked it once in over 100
Raynor games. I only see it useful against high CC compositions.
Spell Shield: Feels weak but does have situational use. If you're up against a very high burst and assassin composition that focuses you a lot, you might want to pick this just to increase your survivability. After all, you do 0 dps if you're dead.
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Tier 6:
Executioner: Only viable if you're playing in a very very CC heavy composition. Might see play in premades where coordination is much higher.
Cluster Round: Very powerful for sieging, and pushing lanes. Does increase your hero dps, but compared to
Bullseye it pales in that regard.
Bullseye: This is my pick 9 out of 10 times. It increases your burst significantly and it gives you a very crucial 1 second stun that can really aid you against hard assassins like
Illidan or
Kerrigan
Berserk: I pick this if I am up against a composition where I do not need the stun from
Bullseye. It increases your sustained dps by a huge amount and it very viable against the right compositions.
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Tier 7:
Fury of the Storm: At this point in the game the last pick comes down to your ability to assess the games state. If you're feeling comfortable and not focused enough to justify getting
Bolt of the Storm then pick this, since it will increase your dps significantly. It makes you into a lane pushing, merc camp killing God.
Bolt of the Storm: A safe and strong pick. It will be the most common pick for you. It will save your skin, aswell as increase your chance of hunting down a wounded enemy. It's also a skill that just feels great to pull off.
Battle Hyperion (Deprecated): Presuming you picked
Hyperion you've chosen to build a more siege oriented
Raynor and in that case this would be a strong pick making you destroy bases like it's nothing.
Hels Angels: Generally undervalued. I pick this from time to time when I have a really rough game where I get focused and can't get things to work. In general you want to pick
Bolt of the Storm over this though. Picking this feeds a wrong philosophy where you almost expect to die, much like Revive from League of Legends.
First and foremost, you have to respect the limitations that
Raynor has.
1. He has no way of escaping or gap-closing, even with
Bolt of the Storm he is very limited in his mobility.
2. He does not have a very high burst compared to other assassins.
If you can set your mind up to constantly think of having those two criteria fulfilled you have already come a long way with
Raynor.
Staying behind tankier comrades is self-explanatory, but what is maybe less obvious is the need to constantly be searching for the next auto-attack.
Raynor deals an incredible sustained damage, and for as long as he is not kept at bay from auto-attacking, then you're winning. Always keep that in mind, and use this to your advantage.
When I play
Raynor I find myself very occupied in seeking a hole where I can clear a Neutral camp, especially giant camps. They are very easy for you to clear and if you use them well with your split pushing capabilities you can cause havoc on the enemy team without even teamfighting.
I will let the rest be up to you, since playstyle is afterall a quite individual trait.
However if you're interested in seeing high level
Raynor you're more than welcome to visit my daily stream or Youtube channel.
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