Who am I?

A player with not enough experience but just enough ego to think others might like to read about builds he found and enjoys. These aren't guaranteed to fit in the meta, or be super competitive, or anything really, but they're builds I enjoy, and that's what matters to me.

Who is Rehgar?

In Heroes of the Storm, Rehgar is a melee support, classified as Medium. Despite the support classification, he packs surprisingly respectable damage, both burst and sustained. He also has good healing potential, though a large part of it is incidental. Though he begins vulnerable to damage and mana starved, he comes into his own later on if played with sufficient care, and has access to some of the most powerful heals and buffs via his heroics.

What's this build?

This isn't a pure healer build. This isn't a pure damage build, either. What this is is a hybrid of sorts that I enjoy, that keeps his allies topped off, walks away from fights others would die in, and when the time is right, dives in, rends enemies apart, bursts down wounded assassins that thought themselves safe, then chases down and murders the enemy team, one by one. Delightful.

Z/D: Ghost Wolf - Rehgar's most unique quality is his mount mechanic. Instead of spending 2 seconds channeling to activate a 40% speed boost, Rehgar instantly turns into a wolf, gaining 30% move speed. Sure, you're slower, but you can't be dismounted, and it's really hard to chase you, or escape you. Plus, you can't be dismounted, which is huge for mobility. And on top of that, if you attack in Ghost Wolf, you deal double damage. And it costs nothing but its short cooldown. If you don't think you'll need to flee, then absolutely spam it for that extra smack of damage. It's a neat power, this. Be careful about casting spells when engaging in combat - a common misplay of mine is to cast the shield before engaging, thus losing the first strike, or to try to mount up and then self-heal when trying to escape, thus dying.

Q: Chain Heal - Rehgar's Q drops a modest heal on the target, then the same split evenly between two more. This isn't the huge directed burst heal that Holy Light is, but it heals for a third more in total, and is cheaper to boot. Don't discount it. If possible, try not to waste mana by healing without allies around.

W: Lightning Shield - Rehgar's W surrounds himself or one of his allies (heroes, minions, mercenaries, totem...) with a pair of swirling electrical orbs, dealing constant low damage to enemies touching them over the next 5s, and a tiny bit more on cast. The damage is low (less than a lane minion's life in total), but it helps.

E: Earthbind Totem - Rehgar's E drops a totem on the ground near him that slows nearby enemies until destroyed or expired. The totem takes a few basics to destroy and is handy for setting up your allies' Executioner, but its small radius and casting range make it limited in use. You have to drop it ahead of your enemies, so, it's best used if you manage to flank your foes, or when escaping. Its positional nature makes it great for blocking off a narrow path when fleeing. There is one other use that's hinted at by a talent - you can cast Lightning Shield on the totem, turning it into a ghetto, destructible light damage field. Good for leaving to soften a minion wave as you move on.

R: Ancestral Healing - Rehgar's first heroic will, after a 1s delay, heal a targeted ally for a tremendous amount of HP, easily fully healing most non-warriors. This is a powerful ability that basically gives your team another body in a teamfight, and can save an endangered ally - or yourself! - like nobody's business. The cooldown is considerable, but remember, so's your death timer. Better burn it on yourself than die with it ready to go. Also, don't forget the delay. There's a 10s timer if your ally dies before it goes off. Lastly, don't cast it on Nova clones, or your allies will laugh at you.

R: Bloodlust - Rehgar's second heroic, rather than heal his allies, makes them murderous murder machines of murder, with a massive movement and attack speed boost. Killing men and horses alike, to quote Manowar. Few powers can turn the tides of a teamfight so much... and few powers come with such a crippling cooldown. Picking the perfect moment for it is beyond tricky, especially as it only affects a limited area. But when it works, it works...

Lvl 1: Healing Totem - Healing Ward is a great tool, giving your team an up to 30% heal with no mana cost, which can make or break a teamfight. It stands to reason that a version of it three levels earlier and with a 15s shorter cooldown would be brilliant and, guess what, it is. Don't be afraid to use it often - it really costs nothing more than the cooldown. It's better than any other hero can pack, and better than the alternatives. [edit] Sadly, this took a tri-fold nerf of cooldown-duration-reliability, and isn't as recommended as much. Still useful but look into the alternatives. Spiritwalker's Grace is... nice, but not really needed. The extra 25 mana won't save you, and we're taking mana sustain later. However, if you go with Battle Momentum, this becomes a valid choice in light of Healing Totem's nerfs. Colossal Totem is nice against enemies who know how to attack your totem, and has a nice synergy far later on. Finally. Empowering Charge is a poor choice. An extra 3 * 25% basic attack? Not terribly great, not even in a pure damage build (I'd pack Colossal). Maybe you could justify it if Matchmaking gave you something crazy like 3 healers, Thrall and Sgt. Hammer. And even then I'd look at the super-ward first.

Lvl 4: Feral Heart - I have a weakness, and her name is sustain. Feral Heart offers that. Whenever you're in Spirit Wolf - and you do that often - you're regenerating health and mana at an accelerated rate. This is great - not vital, but great, and I don't leave home without it. If you're not that much into sustain, the best alternative here is Farsight, an improved (earlier, shorter cooldown) Clairvoyance, great for avoiding ambushes or launching those of your own, but not everybody appreciates vision for vision's sake. Consider it on smaller maps that don't require as much sustain, and especially ones that have bosses behind bush/smoke (Blackheart's, Tomb). If you don't want either of those two, you could consider Focused Attack, which'd help in a damage build, especially since it'd add another little bit of damage onto your already impressive burst. The other two options, however, are kinda poor. Reactive Spark might be nice for pre-buffing or searching for hidden Novas or Zeratuls (but if you're doing that, why not pick Farsight?) or pushing lanes (cast it on a warrior minion) but the shield's cooldown is too high to regularly buff your team pre-emptively. Chain Reaction, meanwhile, is rather very situational. And let's face it, if the heal alone won't save 'em, it's doubtful the extra 25% will, especially if you factor in the time to cast the shield first. There is however some possible synergy with...

Lvl 7: Earth Shield - This is a hard choice but I get too much use out of Earth Shield. What it does is give roughly half of Tassadar's shield (health and duration) to whoever you drop your lightning shield on. It might not sound like much, but that's slightly more than Chain Heal's amount on your target, and extra bit of survivability right-the-hell-now saves lives. Plus, now you have two separate lifesaving tools, and that has its own value. And you still get the bit of damage out of it. Drop it on your frontliners, on yourself, on your minions. But, as I said, it's a hard choice, and that's because of Battle Momentum - more fighting means more healing (but also more mana use and your sustain is decent at best), and more importantly, more heroic ability use. And Rehgar has powerful heroics, which I'll cover soon. Frankly, if Battle Momentum also reduced the cooldown of your trait, it would be too awesome not to take for damage reasons. The two alternatives just don't compare -- Searing Attacks burns too much mana too infrequently for not enough damage (at least on Rehgar), and Shadow Wolf is nice to have for escaping from combat for stealthily ambushing form the bush, but it also makes you reset merc camps if you try to use your trait for extra damage while solo, which is not a good thing. And again, it means giving up extra ally survivability or heroic recharge, and speaking of heroics...

Lvl 10: Ancestral Healing - I'll be the first to say I like more damage, but this is just too good to pass up. A full or very near to heal on an ally of your choice, every minute? Bam, sold. It took me a long while to finally accept its superiority. Use it to save your allies. Use it to save yourself. Use it to punish that fool that thought he could DPS race you solo in a corner of the map. Just don't use it too late. However. Bloodlust remains a very strong choice... under very specific conditions. You need to know what you're doing. Ideally, you'd take it with a dedicated healer on your team (Li Li, Uther, Malfurion) who picked their healing heroic, and your team includes one or more strong auto-attackers (Sgt. Hammer, Illidan, Thrall, also some builds of Valla, Raynor or Zeratul...). Under those conditons, Bloodlust is a monster that has to be seen to be believed, but it is always, always the riskier choice. Also, if you are going with Bloodlust, you should absolutely pick Battle Momentum at lvl 7, to help offset the monstrous 120s cooldown.

Lvl 13: Feral Lunge - There are two very good choices at this level. One is Healing Surge, a flat increase of 25% to Chain Heal's, plus incidentally hitting another target. It's an obvious choice if you're building you Rehgar as a healer. I am not, and I refuse to pass up Feral Lunge. It's brilliant, it's powerful, it's murderous, and it's so much fun. It makes your Spirit Wolf lunge to attack, from a range of roughly 3-4 - shorter than ranged attack, much longer than melee. The leap is insanely quick, can path around obstacles without slowing down, and to top it off, it deals triple instead of double damage. This is wonderful, just wonderful. You can chase down fleeing enemies with impunity. You can engage in combat rapidly. You can dump some amazing burst for a support on an unsuspecting, wounded assassin who thought they were out of range (the Lunge takes off literally 20% off Sylvanas' HP). You can even activate your trait on cooldown for a big sustained damage increase against mercs, bosses, bases... it's great. It's so great. It's... it's frankly the reason I play Rehgar. So fun. So is it any surprise that I don't take the alternatives? Lightning Totem is a small bit of extra damage, but doesn't compare. Stormcaller makes the shield much more efficient and synergizes nicely with Earth Shield, but it doesn't compare either. Spell Shield is a bit of extra survivability, but doesn't. Compare. I play Rehgar to lunge and bite off faces. So I do. So I do.

Lvl 17: Earthbind Totem - I used to not really like anything at this tier more than the others. Lightning Bond is nice, since it's a free shield whenever you're not solo, and that means free damage and free shield. Blood for Blood is what it's always been, a way to sap health from tanks and always useful when it's up. Berserk is like a super weak version of Bloodlust, good if you need that extra bit of burst and for some reason don't want Blood for Blood. But eventually I realized the power of Earthbind Totem. And it's not even the near-root that it imposes upon the enemy, though it's awesome. No, it's the fact you're no longer limited to melee range when casting it. In fact, the doubled range lets you drop the totem, oh, in front of the fleeing enemy you just Lunged at. All but freezing them in place for your team to murder, while you run after their friends. This turns routs into massacres, and is just what you might need if you're doing well. The choice is yours, but this is mine.

Lvl 20: Storm Shield - If I could, I would have gotten Bolt of the Storm. Or Nexus Blades. Or even Fury of the Storm. But alas, this is another tier with talents which aren't at all bad, I just don't enjoy them terribly much. Storm Shield is my pick because it's a second, separate button from Farseer's Blessing - I can protect my team from damage, briefly, without having to burn my giant heal in a possibly sub-optimal fashion, and vice versa. The other option, Rewind, I don't think is a terribly good pick for Rehgar - his basic abilities just lack the necessary burst for a second helping of them to matter as much. However, if you went with Bloodlust, then you should absolutely upgrade it with Gladiator's War Shout, so it can be used from halfway across the map, and also affect your mercenaries. But otherwise, the shield is my choice.

Blackheart's Bay - Rehgar does very well on this map, thanks to Lightning Shield. Its rapid ticking lets him break open a treasure chest in record time, matched only perhaps by Tychus. He can also quickly take a coin camp - lunge at one skeleton then shield up and attack the other. Both will be dead by the time the shield expires and you'll have lost no health to speak of. This is also the map where I'd most suggest taking Farsight over Feral Heart, possibly even if not dealing with cloakers - the large amounts of smoke, especially near the coin turn-in point lends itself well to ambushes, and if you can ambush them instead without having to facecheck the smoke, all the better. Plus, it's a small map, and coin camps are an added source of regen orbs, so sustain isn't as vital.

Range - I noticed a curious migration throughout the match when I'm on Rehgar. I start in the middle, too squishy and mana hungry to commit, then migrate more and more towards the frontline - first as I get some sustain, then a shield, then suddenly I have powerful burst damage and chase - I can't quite engage a proper teamfight but I can leap on an assassin out of position like nobody's business. And then, somehow, I end up migrating to the back of a fight, running back and forth in wolf form, regenerating mana, looking for a good spot to throw a heal or shield. If it's a base push, I also have another job - I help my team sustain by one-shotting caster minions with my lunge and picking up the orb in the same motion. Bluntly, my team needs me to stay alive and unfocused more than they need my DPS.