Three years ago, Tyrande was a new hero that blurred the line between support and ranged assassin. She wasn’t quite capable of fully healing for a team, nor was she strong enough as a primary damage dealer. Instead, her value lied in her stuns, utility, and jack-of-all-trades talent diversity.

Over the years, her talents have changed drastically but her position on a team generally stayed the same: a secondary support that enables a stun lock composition. However, Tyrande’s latest rework is her most drastic yet and it calls for a new understanding of when to draft her and how to best utilize her new kit.

New Strengths

One of Tyrande’s most powerful new strengths is her ability to scale into the late game. Each of her level 1 quest talents is repeatable, meaning they get stronger as the game progresses. Ranger is the weakest option, so it is recommended to either choose Lunar Blaze or Ranger’s Mark.

Lunar Blaze
Repeatable Quest: Hitting Heroes with Lunar Flare increases its damage by 3%.
Reward: After hitting 10 Heroes, Lunar Flare no longer has a Mana cost.
Reward: After hitting 20 Heroes, increase the range of Lunar Flare by 40%

Lunar Blaze is the most consistent option and gives Tyrande a surprisingly high amount of burst damage if Lunar Flare consistently hits its mark. This quest becomes easier to complete if Tyrande is paired with a hero like Diablo or Anub’arak, as their more reliable stuns ensure a successful Lunar Flare.

Ranger’s Mark
Basic Attacks reduce the cooldown of Hunter's Mark by 1 second.
Repeatable Quest: Every 60 Basic Attacks against enemy Heroes increase the duration of Hunter's Mark by 1 second

Ranger’s Mark is an equally useful talent, especially on Battlefield of Eternity where the extra seconds of vulnerability help win Immortal races. Not only does Ranger’s Mark speed up a team's boss killing potential, but their kill potential against tanky double warrior compositions as well.

These repeatable talents are an incentive to draft Tyrande on small battlegrounds like Tomb of the Spider Queen, Dragon Shire, and Battlefield of Eternity. The close proximity allows for easy quest completion and their infinite stacking nature can give your team the edge in the late stages of the game.


Here are the most important rework specific strengths you should be aware of:

- Tyrande can serve as a counter to stun heavy compositions using the level 4 talent, Celestial Attunement.

- She can also gain an early advantage on Battlefield of Eternity thanks to Trueshot Aura talent being moved to level 7.

- Tyrande is capable of lethal flank potential against squishy targets at level 10 using the new Shadowstalk. Heroes like Chromie don't stand a chance when caught out of position.

- Shadowstalk is also a reliable escape tool, something Tyrande has traditionally lacked.

- Harsh Moonlight at level 13 gives Tyrande access to less powerful Shrink Ray but on a much shorter cooldown. This is very useful against carry-style heroes like Genji, Illidan, Tracer and Sonya.

These new aspects of Tyrande’s kit move her away from her auxiliary support role and towards one that focuses on dealing damage and killing individual heroes. In a way, the new Tyrande feels more like Nova in her ability to amplify a team's kill potential and less like Tassadar due to her situational healing. Instead of relying solely on her support abilities, Tyrande is best used when enabling ganks, ensuring kills against tanky targets, and crippling key threats from the enemy team.


When to Draft Tyrande

Tyrande pairs the strongest with the following heroes. If any of these Heroes are on your team (and you already have a support hero), consider Tyrande a viable choice:

Varian - Lunar Flare and Hunter’s Mark are easy follow-ups against a Taunted enemy hero.

The Butcher - Tyrande helps negate his weakness to stuns (Celestial Attunement) while easily following up after Ruthless Onslaught.

Valeera - Cheapshot into 3-point Eviscerate is even more lethal when combined with Hunter’s Mark and Lunar Flare.

Arthas / Anub’Arak / E.T.C / Diablo / Rexxar - All of these warriors provide reliable stuns that Tyrande can follow up on.

Uther - Tyrande helps fill the gaps in Uther’s healing while, you guessed it, following up after Hammer of Justice with Lunar Flare.

Stitches - Stitches benefits from additional healing more than most warriors and needs allies that ensure DPS on a Gorged or Hooked enemy hero. Tyrande does both!

In addition to consciously choosing Tyrande's allies, they are a few battlegrounds that specifically play to her strengths. The old Tyrande had niche uses on the largest battlegrounds due to Sentinel talents increasing its damage and scouting capability, but that strategy is no longer viable due to talent changes. Instead, Tyrande should be picked on small battlegrounds that allow a team to capitalize the most from Hero kills and small skirmishes.

Battlefield of Eternity is Tyrande's best battleground hands down. Her unique ability to increase her team's damage with both Hunter's Mark and Trueshot Aura places pressure on the enemy team and forces them to defend their immortal, as winning the DPS race against Tyrande is very unlikely. 

Tomb of the Spider Queen's small size allows Tyrande to quickly rack up Lunar Blaze stacks while rotating lanes and threatening ganks. One Sentinel can scout both turn in locations as well, giving Tyrande's team the edge when planning rotations and gem turn-in interrupts. Although Tyrande suffers from a lack of wave clear, Starfall more than makes up for it on this battleground, as it is one of the strongest Heroics when used alongside a Webweaver push.

Rotations and winning individual lanes is key on Dragonshire, and Tyrande excels at both of these things. A single kill on Dragonshire can win the objective and Tyrande rotating to either top or bottom lane usually makes that happen, either by providing heals to a solo-laner or combo-ing Lunar Flare with two other heroes. Hunter's Mark also helps burn down enemy Dragon Knights before they do crucial structural damage.

Tyrande isn't versatile enough to be picked every game, and her lack of wave clear can make her a liability against certain push strategies. First picking Tyrande usually isn't a good idea, as she relies heavily on the synergy of her allies. However, like most niche picks, Tyrande is most effective when the stars align in her favor, and the battleground and team composition is just right.


Disclaimer: The following article was written freely based on the author's opinion, and it may not necessarily represent Inven Global's editorial stance.