Role
Even though he’s categorized as a Ranged Specialist, Medivh really plays out as a support character. Four of his active abilities essentially help out your team directly, and even your passive (Raven Form) will largely be used for scouting.
Medivh Abilities
Raven Form - Instead of using a mount, Medivh turns into a raven. This allows him to fly over terrain and units, and he’s also invulnerable to any effects.
Arcane Rift - Medivh launches a rift along the ground that passes through and damages enemies in its path. If it hits an enemy Hero, the cooldown is reduced and some mana is refunded.
Force of Will - Medivh creates a barrier of protection around an ally Hero (or himself.) The shield protects them from any effects for 1.5 seconds.
Portal - Creates two portals that you and your allied Heroes can pass through.
Poly Bomb (Ultimate #1) - Turns an enemy Hero into a sheep, preventing them from attacking or using abilities. After two seconds, it explodes and polymorphs nearby enemy Heroes.
Ley Line Seal (Ultimate #2) - After a 0.5 second delay, releases a wave of energy that imprisons enemy Heroes in a stasis field for three seconds.
Medivh Talents
Just like with any Hero, the best talents to use will depend on your situation. Your teammates, enemies, and the map you’re playing on will play a role in which talents you should pick.
But in general, here are my favorites.
Level 1 - Mana Adept
This gives you a full mana refund each time you hit an enemy Hero with Arcane Rift. Given that this is your only damage-dealing ability, you’ll be spamming it as much as possible.
Stable Portal isn’t a bad option once you master placement of the portals. Portal Mastery seems like a bit of a waste most of the time, as building one portal right next to you is perfectly fine most of the time. Raven’s Intellect just doesn’t seem worth it, because I found myself struggling with health more than my mana most of the time.
Level 4 - Mage Armor
Sometimes your portal will often be used to enter the fray – and at other times, to dive and finish off the enemy. You and your allies can use all the protection you can get when you jump in like that, hence the need for Mage Armor.
Bird’s Eye View and Dust of Appearance have their uses too, though. For example, they can help you watch your surroundings while capturing an objective, like a Temple.
Level 7 - The Master’s Touch
This is a tough one, because hitting 35 enemy Heroes without dying takes a lot of spamming Arcane Rift. But if you can get it, that extra 100 damage and 1 second cooldown is very nice – especially against taking out waves of minions.
Arcane Explosion is probably the second best option, especially if you combine it with one of the later Talents. Since it’s an AOE, the damage potential is higher than Raven Familiar.
Personally I like the idea of Raven Familiar, just because I like summoning stuff. It can add a nice chunk of damage if multiple allies use the portal, but it’s not worth much if just one of you gets to use it.
Arcane Charge seems okay, but it makes more sense to go big or go home with The Master’s Touch.
Level 10 - Poly Bomb
This may change over time, but I think right now Poly Bomb is the way to go. When you cast it in the thick of a team fight, it will take the enemy a full second to figure out they just polymorphed ’em. By the time they try to escape from the cluster, it may be too late, causing them to now polymorph their teammates.
The fact that this skill can essentially keep morphing enemy Heroes is ridiculous to see in action.
That said, Ley Line Seal will probably be the better option when going against good Heroes of the Storm teams. They’ll be smart enough not to cluster up too much for Poly Bomb to be effective, so putting a few enemies in stasis would likely work better.
Level 13 - Quickening
The standard cooldown timer on your Portal basically lets you use it once per fight. With Quickening, you’ll probably get the chance to use it twice – once to help teammates enter the fight, and another to teleport them forward to mop up the enemy (or to escape if your team lost.)
Astral projection can be nice to really boost the range of the portal, but in general I think the range is far enough as it is.
If you’re doing a ton of scouting for your team, Winds of Celerity may be the best Talent for you. Doubling your speed boost in Raven form is no joke.
Level 16 - Circle of Protection
This is a no-brainer to me. Medivh can basically protect his entire team at once for 1.5 seconds and stack it with other Talents, like Arcane Explosion. Blocking those enemy ults with this will definitely piss off a lot of people.
Enduring Will’s duration increase doesn’t add enough time to make it worth it – just half a second. And Reabsorption may not make sense if you used Force of Will on a diving Hero that wasn’t really hurt yet.
Level 20 - Glyph of Poly Bomb
Assuming you took Poly Bomb – and your enemies haven’t countered it well – this is the obvious choice.
But if you took Ley Line Seal or are having trouble getting the Poly Bomb to stick, you may want to go with something else.
Guardian of Tirisfal is an interesting concept, but Medivh isn’t really a lane pusher. This ability almost seems like an “Oops – he’s a Ranged Specialist, so we should give him something to push a lane” move.
Arcane Brilliance can be great if you have a mage simply dominating. Likewise, Invisibility on the right melee hero will cause some serious havoc- they can move far behind enemy lines with 20 seconds of invisibility.
Medivh Tips, Tricks and Strategies
Now to the fun part- let’s talk about how to play this bad boy. As I said earlier, I think Medivh is an awesome addition to Heroes of the Storm with all of the versatility he brings to the fight.
Scouting is one of Medivh’s strong points. Think about it – you can fly anywhere you want and the enemy can’t do a thing about it. Then when you find them, you can pop over a wall and drop a portal to take your allies to the other side. Donezo.
Defensive scouting is nice as well – when your team is attacking a Temple or boss, go into Raven Form and hang back so you see the enemy coming. While most Heroes are putting themselves in danger by sitting by themselves like this, Medivh doesn’t have to worry about it
Use Portal wisely. Without the Quickening talent, the cooldown timer takes too long for you to waste this precious ability. You priorities should be to use this to either 1) Save an ally, 2) Mop up enemies, or 3) Get a jump on the bad guys.
Saving your Portal is a good choice. While it’s tempting to use it to jump into a fight faster, it’s generally better to use it on priorities 1 or 2, as listed above.
Don’t use Force of Will on yourself. Obviously you will have to sometimes, but you should focus on protecting your carries or healer. If you’re getting pummeled more than they are, you need to work on your positioning!
Save Poly Bomb until Hell breaks loose. If there was ever one ultimate ability in Heroes of the Storm that depended largely on people getting caught up in the craziness of a team fight, it’s this one. Use it when your enemies are too spread out, and it will be an epic fail. But use it when they’re clustered together around your melee characters, and there’s a good chance you’ll win the team fight.
Conclusion
That’s all I have for ya right now. Good luck, have fun, and don’t forget these Medivh tips and tricks in your next match!
