[HotS] Building An Iresian Bounty Hunter Text by TL.net ESPORTS





Building an Iresian

Bounty Hunter



Written by: Koznarov





Qhira is the second original Heroes of the Storm character to arrive to the Nexus after Orphea. This melee assassin is a bounty hunter from Iresia, a realm now destroyed. After a few weeks, the new hero has made her first appearance in competitive play with some build diversity and regional differences. In Europe and North America Qhira’s picks are anecdotal, but in China, the Iresian is fairly ubiquitous with almost 20% popularity.











Something most Qhira players have in common is their heroic ability preference, with a vast majority choosing Final Strike over Unrelenting Strikes. The latter only comes into play situationally against heavy melee comps to zone our chase down the enemy frontline without being outranged.



Unfortunately, the sample of competitive games featuring level 20 Qhiras is too small to draw any real conclusions about her Storm talents. From what we do have, the talent choice seems to oscillate between Unleashed Potential, a power-up for Final Strike, and No Sanctuary, which reveals nearby heroes below 50% health and increases damage against them.





Raging Blood



Blood Rage (W) is one of Qhira’s core abilities, as it both makes enemies bleed (passive) and heals the bounty hunter (active). With a sustain element like this in her kit, many players choose empowering this ability, starting with the Level 1 quest talent Fatal Wounds. This talent makes Blood Rage deal more damage and, after quest completion, last longer.



At Level 4, Upstage makes Qhira evade basic attacks when Blood Rage damages two or more heroes. And it just keeps getting better with Healmonger at Level 7, which increases W healing. By this point, she’s already fairly tanky while also causing chaos in the enemy team.



At level 13, it’s time to improve Qhira’s poke Chainsaw. By reducing the cooldown of Carnage (Q), the Iresian can apply even more bleed stacks and take advantage of her W improvements. At Level 16, the most common choice is Booming Kick, which increases the stun duration after a second Revolving Sweep (E) activation. However, we’ve witnessed a few situational Lingering Aliment and Swing Life Away picks.











This build relies on keeping up the stacks of Blood Rage while dealing a great amount of damage over time which in turn boost the bounty hunter’s evasion and self-sustain. A popular variant of this strategy is picking The Thirst at level 7 tier, which makes Qhira’s basic attacks after Carnage deal extra damage and heal the bounty hunter a 50% of the damage dealt. Even if choosing this talent means not having an extra healing on W, it synergizes well with the Carnage improvement at level 13, so the result is quite similar.





Your Pain, My Carnage



Blood Rage build is the most popular build so far, but some players have also tried a different approach to this new hero. The characteristic element for this second build is the Level 4 talent choice, Your Pain, My Gain, which grants Qhira stackable armor on basic attacks so she depends less on keeping W stacks up.











Landing basic attacks is easier if enemies are slowed, so Maximum Effort becomes a good Level 1 talent choice. With these new Q perks, The Thirst (Level 7) and Chainsaw (Level 13) become almost mandatory. At this point, Qhira will be hunting heroes wielding her slowing chainsword with a lowered cooldown which empowers her basic attacks (and these attacks when hit after Carnage will now grant armor, healing and deal extra damage), so the last tool she needs to hunt down her enemies is Swing Life Away at Level 16. In case armor wasn’t enough, now you have spell armor as well as some cooldown reduction on Revolving Sweep.











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Qhira is the second original Heroes of the Storm character to arrive to the Nexus after Orphea. This melee assassin is a bounty hunter from Iresia, a realm now destroyed. After a few weeks, the new hero has made her first appearance in competitive play with some build diversity and regional differences. In Europe and North America Qhira’s picks are anecdotal, but in China, the Iresian is fairly ubiquitous with almost 20% popularity.Something most Qhira players have in common is their heroic ability preference, with a vast majority choosingover. The latter only comes into play situationally against heavy melee comps to zone our chase down the enemy frontline without being outranged.Unfortunately, the sample of competitive games featuring level 20 Qhiras is too small to draw any real conclusions about her Storm talents. From what we do have, the talent choice seems to oscillate between, a power-up for, and, which reveals nearby heroes below 50% health and increases damage against them.(W) is one of Qhira’s core abilities, as it both makes enemies bleed (passive) and heals the bounty hunter (active). With a sustain element like this in her kit, many players choose empowering this ability, starting with the Level 1 quest talent. This talent makesdeal more damage and, after quest completion, last longer.At Level 4,makes Qhira evade basic attacks when Blood Rage damages two or more heroes. And it just keeps getting better withat Level 7, which increases W healing. By this point, she’s already fairly tanky while also causing chaos in the enemy team.At level 13, it’s time to improve Qhira’s poke. By reducing the cooldown of(Q), the Iresian can apply even more bleed stacks and take advantage of her W improvements. At Level 16, the most common choice is, which increases the stun duration after a second(E) activation. However, we’ve witnessed a few situationalandpicks.This build relies on keeping up the stacks of Blood Rage while dealing a great amount of damage over time which in turn boost the bounty hunter’s evasion and self-sustain. A popular variant of this strategy is pickingat level 7 tier, which makes Qhira’s basic attacks after Carnage deal extra damage and heal the bounty hunter a 50% of the damage dealt. Even if choosing this talent means not having an extra healing on W, it synergizes well with the Carnage improvement at level 13, so the result is quite similar.Blood Rage build is the most popular build so far, but some players have also tried a different approach to this new hero. The characteristic element for this second build is the Level 4 talent choice,, which grants Qhira stackable armor on basic attacks so she depends less on keeping W stacks up.Landing basic attacks is easier if enemies are slowed, sobecomes a good Level 1 talent choice. With these new Q perks,(Level 7) and(Level 13) become almost mandatory. At this point, Qhira will be hunting heroes wielding her slowing chainsword with a lowered cooldown which empowers her basic attacks (and these attacks when hit after Carnage will now grant armor, healing and deal extra damage), so the last tool she needs to hunt down her enemies isat Level 16. In case armor wasn’t enough, now you have spell armor as well as some cooldown reduction on Revolving Sweep.

