Hey, hey Dignitas readers! It’s been a while, but I’m back. This time I’ve written another hero guide for you on one of my personal favorites, Lunara. First daughter of Cenarius, the forest lord, she hops through the Nexus looking for the foes of nature. Lunara has seen a lot of play in the last Storm League season with a high winrate. Without further ado, let’s get to the root of this.



Talents:

Level 1:

Sentinel Wisp: Wisp's bonus radius is increased by 200%.

The radius increase is quite big. So on maps where your solo laner can get ganked easily or you need good vision for rotations, this is a good talent. One example of a map this talent is good on is Tom of the Spider Queen.

Natural Perspective: Reveals enemies for its duration.

A very good talent into stealth heroes, especially Samuro to see which is the real Samuro. It’s also a good talent into Valeera, as it counters her engage. Valeera needs to be in stealth to engage onto her target since that grants her a special opening ability.

Hippity Hop: Increase Dryad's Swiftness bonus by 10%

You need to be completely out of combat to get the movement speed. This is a good talent on big maps where you need to rotate quickly to objectives, like on Towers of Doom. This is your default talent if the others do not make sense.

Level 4:

Blossom Swell: Increase Noxious Blossom's range and radius and increase movement speed after hitting an enemy hero.

A good talent if you want to outrange the enemy or add extra range to your abilities to interrupt turn-ins or captures of objectives. Movement speed makes it easier for Lunara to either run away or keep up with her enemies. A good pick into heavy dive compositions.

Siphoning Toxin: Nature’s Toxin heals Lunara.

A talent that gives some sustain in the solo matchup. It gives a nice heal if you are fighting in the lane, but the heal isn't big enough to fully sustain you in a teamfight. It remains an option if you tend to play aggressive with an unreliable healer, such as Deckard, who has to throw potions at you in order to heal.

Nature's Culling: Increase Nature’s Toxin damage to non-Heroes.

Increase Nature's Toxin by 125% to non-heroes. Take this in order to make Lunara a PvE monster. This is probably the strongest of the tier, because of the big increase in wave clear granted so early on in the game.

Level 7:

Splintered Spear: Using Noxious Blossom causes Lunara’s next basic attack to hit up to 4 enemies. This can apply Nature's Toxin.

The default pick at this tier. It’s easy to play with and annoying to play into. It’s a good talent to pressure a weaker healer that has a hard time dealing with DOT and AOE damage. Good examples of those healers are Uther, Kharazim, and Deckard.

Choking Pollen: Noxious Blossom damage deals 100% more damage to targets afflicted by Nature's Toxin, increased to 150% to enemies who have 3 stacks of Nature's Toxin.

This talent adds a bit more burst to Lunara’s damage. It's a rewarding talent to take into immobile enemies or for 1v1s.

Wild Vigor: Using Crippling Spores increases the damage of Lunara 4 next basic attacks by 50%.

I like to take this talent into a lot of frontliners. I have the idea it melts especially Anub’arak. It’s also good for immortal race on Battlefield of Eternity.





Level 10:

Thornwood Vine: Send forth a vine that damages all enemies in a line for 176. Stores up to 3 charges.

If you're playing more on the passive side and want to damage as many enemies at the same time as you can and keep poison applied to everyone, this is the talent that fits your playstyle the most. This Heroic also contributes to your waveclear potential.

Leaping Strike: Leap over an enemy, slowing them by 80% for 0.35 seconds and dealing 271 damage. Stores up to 2 charges.

If you play an aggressive Lunara (like me), this talent fits your playstyle very well. This talent can be used to catch enemies that are out of position, dive with your team, or jump to safety if you feel threatened yourself.

Level 13:

Greater Spell Shield: Periodically gain temporary 75 Spell Armor.

A good pick into heroes with point and click spell damage, like Kael'thas' Living Bomb and Pyroblast.

Abolish Magic: Remove crowd control and over time damage from the target and Lunara.

An undervalued cleanse. Yes, Lunara has a cleanse. It's a bit hard to get used to, but absolutely valuable to have if your team lacks a cleanse.

Let Them Wither: Increases the duration of Crippling Spores by 1 second and causes it to no longer decay.

This talent is good into slippery enemies to get a better hold of them, or against a lot of engaging frontliners so that you can control them a bit more. Keep in mind that it doesn't increase the slow amount, only the duration and prevents the decay.

Endless Spores: Nature’s Toxin can reduce Crippling Spores' cooldown.

For an autoattack build, this is a great pick as it decreases the cooldown of your W by a fair amount, making it only a 6 second cooldown. This is makes Lunara a bit more mana hungry, as you tend to spam your W more often.

Level 16:

Unfair Advantadge: Increase Nature’s Toxin's damage to disabled Heroes.

This talent is good to pick if you have reliable CC on your team with a longer duration, such as Arthas' E or Thrall's Earthquake.

Invigorating Spores: Crippling Spores empowers basic attacks and increases attack speed by 30% for 6 seconds.

This talent increases Lunara’s attack speed by a fair amount, making her melt a target down with her auto-attacks. I would recommend this talent into heroes that have a hard time getting to you, such as Garrosh. You can do a lot of damage to him before he reaches you.

Accelerated Contamination: Noxious Blossom recharges faster and reduces its mana cost to 40.

A good talent if you’re playing with Choking Pollen at level 7. This talent makes you use your Q quite often, so reducing its cooldown and mana cost only works out better for you.

Starwood Spear: Crippling spores increases basic attack range.

Great talent for chasing people down and doing damage to them from a great distance.





Level 20:

Forest’s Wrath: Thornwood Vine applies Nature’s Toxin.

Great upgrade for your Heroic and really suits a poke-focused build. allowing Lunara to easily keep her poison applied to all 5 enemies.

Boundless Stride: Leaping Strike can target allies.

An extra source of mobility for Lunara, allowing her to engage or disengage from a fight. I’d take this talent if you have a hard time engaging safely or if you’re playing into heavy dive.

Intensifying Toxin: Increase Nature’s Toxin damage at 3 stacks by 40%.

This is a decent increase in damage, but the question to ask yourself at this stage of the game is, "Do I really need more damage instead of the other choices?"

Galloping Gait: Activate to increase movement speed to 80% for 6 seconds.

This talent allows for fast rotations in the late game and adds up to Lunara’s playstyle of evading spells and being much faster than normal heroes, allowing her to keep up with and maneuver around them.

Gameplay:

Lunara is a hero that is very good at kiting other heroes due to her baseline faster movement speed over non-mounted heroes. She will make sure that heroes that can’t get directly to her with a point and click engage suffer greatly before they reach her. This makes her a good pick against heroes like Arthas and Garrosh that have to run up to a hero to engage on them. Lunara offers a good amount of wave and camp clear for her team with a variety of talents to build her into either a stronger teamfighting presence or a wave clear machine.

Above, you can see a standard build through the icons I put together. The passive movement speed at level 1 makes rotating and engaging easier for Lunara with the waveclear talent at level 4. These 2 talents are overall the best choices at their respective tiers. At level 7, Splintered Spear is great for not only waveclear but also for maximising your damage in teamfights. With Lunara you want to make sure you do as much damage over time as possible. This means you want to have your poison stacked on as many enemies as you can and keep those stacks up. With the increased slow at level 13 from Let Them Wither, you can gain a little more control against enemies and help your team finish them off. Pairing the level 16 and 20 talents with continued and reliable CC will give Lunara a great boost in her damage for the late game.





Counters:



Raynor is a good pick against Lunara. He has a passive health regen ability that can give him armor as well. He has a large attack range so he can keep up with her and keep fighting her without getting kited.

Malfurion has both burst and sustained healing, which is great at negating Lunara's damage. He heals more than one person at a time, so no matter what build Lunara takes, Malfurion has the answer for her damage.

Greymane is also a hero that can keep up very well with Lunara. His point and click engage makes it easy for him to get on her and kill her before she kills him. This way he turns her into easy prey.





Synergies:

Jaina provides burst for her team and by teaming her up with Lunara, you will have a balanced damage profile that gives your team a big advantage. They can both keep slowing targets and, while Lunara provides sustained damage, Jaina takes care of the rest.

Thrall: Thrall has a root in his basic kit, which provides lockdown that Lunara doesn't have. For Lunara to get real value from her level 16 talent Unfair Advantage, she needs to be provided with an enduring slow. Thrall’s Heroic Earthquake can be great to combo this with.

Arthas: Arthas offers solid CC and continuous slows for Lunara’s level 16 talent Unfair Advantage. It makes it easy for Lunara to keep up with her enemies and finish them off regardless of talent choices.