Auriel is a hero from the Diablo universe, and she battles with her weapon of choice, Al’maiesh, the Cord of Hope. In the Nexus, Auriel is a healer that doesn’t use mana and strengthens her healing through her damage and the damage of her chosen ally by gathering energy from the damage dealt. This makes Auriel a brawl-oriented healer that can excel in long, sustained fights. First up, let’s jump right into her talents.

Talents

Level 1

Swift Sweep: Increase the cast speed of Sacred Sweep by 50%

This is your default talent to pick at level 1. Auriel is not a very mobile healer and most of her abilities leave her stationary and vulnerable while she is casting them. The talent simply makes the center sweet-spot more reliable and reduces the cast time for her Q ability, making it easier for her to dodge abilities coming her way.

Increasing Clarity: Quest: Increase the damage of Sacred Sweep. After hitting 25 heroes in the center, the center bonus damage is increased to 180.

A fun quest with an okay damage bonus, but compared to the other talents, you don’t really get a lot of value from this talent later on in the game.

Righteous Assault: Reduce the cooldown of Sacred Sweep by 3 seconds for each enemy hero hit in its center.

This talent is good into a heavy frontline composition. The cooldown reduction is very noticeable and you can get multiple Qs off in a teamfight with this talent. This means you generate a lot of energy, letting you heal for more.

Searing Light: Ray of Heaven also deals damage in its area up to 30% of the energy consumed.

This talent is good if you’re playing alongside a heavy frontline composition. It means that while you are healing your frontline, you can still damage enemies as well. It also gives Auriel the possibility to finish enemies off from a distance that the melee heroes on your team might not be able to chase for the kill. Also, the talent works both ways: as you deal damage, you also get the benefit from her usual passive.

Level 4

Majestic Span: Increase the radius of Sacred Sweep by 15%.

This synergizes with any of the talents you’ve picked for Sacred Sweep at level 1 and hitting more enemies with the sweep grants you more energy. You will also have an easier time gathering energy in minion waves, since you can now hit the entire wave.

Heavy Burden: When an enemy is stunned by Detainment Strike, their movement speed is slowed by 40% after the stun for 3 seconds.

I can see this talent get value if you are reliant on killing the target Auriel stuns. This requires the Auriel player to be able to follow up in the correct angle with a stun to get value out of. It does give your team a bit more potential to chase a slippery target. On maps such as Tomb of the Spider Queen, it’s easy to get value from this talent since you won’t need the extra distance to hit a wall at the turn in point for example.

Heavy Burden is one of the least picked talents for Auriel because it only gets value if she hits the stun, compared to the knockback increase of Repeated Offense, which you will always get value from.

Repeated Offense: Quest: After stunning 6 heroes with Detainment Strike its damage bonus is increased to 250. Passive: Enemies are knocked back 25% farther.

If you’re getting enough energy as-is, it might be useful to have a bit more peeling for yourself with the increased knockback on this talent. This talent also makes it easier for your target to hit a structure so you can get a stun. This makes your CC more reliable.

Level 7

Glimmer of Hope: Collecting a regen globe will reduce the cost of Auriel's next Ray of Heaven by 75%.

I love this talent on maps with heavy lane rotations such as Tomb of the Spider Queen or Infernal Shrines. You have enough access to globes since most of your teamfighting will happen in the lane, so you can get a lot of value out of this talent. This talent is also an option if you aren't getting energy very fast to save some and heal more efficiently if globes are around you.

Empathic Link: Auriel stores 25% of the damage taken by her ally with Bestow Hope as energy.

This talent synergizes greatly with a melee ally. It also works if your ally gets hard dove by the enemy team and takes a lot of damage. You will get a big spike in energy, which you turn into a big burst heal. Overall, this is the strongest talent at this tier, because it allows you to play a little safer while still gaining energy. It also divides the sources of your energy in two. So when your initial ally of hope, let’s say Valla - who is quite squishy - needs to step back from the fray, you can Bestow Hope on a melee target (Thrall for example) and still gain energy.

Energized Cord: Increases the energy stored of Auriel's basic attacks against enemy heroes by 100% and against non-heroic units by 45%. This does not affect the Ally of Hope.

I take this talent if I don’t have an Ally of Hope that generates energy very quickly and I have the space and opportunity to get a lot of auto attacks in freely in a teamfight. Otherwise this talent might put you at risk of being out of position to try and get energy to heal from auto attacks, which might lead to you dying instead of saving anyone. The amount of energy gained from this talent is very rewarding, which makes it easier for auriel to gain some energy in the ‘downtime’ where there is no fighting. Keep in mind that positioning is key with this talent.

Level 10

Resurrect: Channel on the spirit of a dead ally for 0.5 seconds. After a 5 second delay, they are brought back to life with 50% of their maximum health at the location they where they died.

I think Resurrect is not a viable heroic ability as the 5 seconds respawn is hard to get value from. Enemy players can see the resurrected player respawn, gather around and just kill it again and that’s your 80 second cooldown down the drain. I can see it work in a double support composition and on long brawling maps where respawning a player can make all the difference for an objective. If your Ally of Hope is Cho’Gall, you can resurrect two players at the same time.

Crystal Aegis: Place an allied hero into stasis for 2 seconds. Upon expiration, Crystal Aegis deals 255 damage to all nearby enemies.

Crystal Aegis is a great Heroic ability to counter other Heroics with. It’s a direct counter to Malthael’s Last Rites for example, and can save a player that finds themself in a tricky situation until help arrives.

The usage of both of Auriel’s Heroic abilities is very time-dependent. Though not often picked, Resurrect can bring a hero back in a short period of time to keep the fight going and turn it back into your favor. Resurrect should be used as soon as possible and the resurrected ally should be protected while he/she respawns, forcing a certain type of play from your own team.

On the other hand, there is Crystal Aegis, the default pick. As mentioned, Crystal Aegis’ usage is very time dependant. Auriel can stasis an ally and that way protect them from harm. Analyse what the most dangerous abilities are on the enemy team, or what enables their engage and use Crystal Aegis to prevent these abilities. If Crystal Aegis is used on a too low health target without an immediate Ray of Heaven to follow up on it, Aegis can quickly turn into a death sentence. Crystal Aegis is great at counterplaying Ana’s strategy to make sure low health targets get finished off. As soon as a target on your team gets low health, the enemy Ana will grenade that person making sure their healing is reduced by 100%. If you use Aegis on that target straight away, that closes the possibility for the enemy to kill that target. The reduced healing debuff will wear off, and Auriel will be able to burst heal that target back up. The explosion of Crystal Aegis will automatically give Auriel energy, if this hits two enemies it will give her a full ray of energy.

Level 13

Blinding Flash: Enemies hit by the center area of Sacred Sweep are blinded for 2 seconds.

A very good talent to pick against auto-attackers, and it synergizes greatly with Cassia as your Ally of Hope.

Converging Force: Enemies hit by the outer area of Sacred Sweep are slightly pushed towards the center.

This is the best talent to take if you took Righteous Assault at level 1, so you get more cooldown reduction while you push enemy heroes to the center area of Sacred Sweep. This is also a good talent to interrupt channelled spells on the enemy team, since it’s a displacement.

Piercing Lash: Detainment Strike now hits all enemies in a line, reducing the cooldown for each hero hit by 2 seconds.

A good talent to pick if you’re playing against a team with heavy dive heroes such as Genji or Greymane. The cooldown reduction will make sure you can peel for yourself and your allies more often.

Level 16

Reservoir of Hope: Quest: Each maximum energy Ray of Heaven Auriel casts increases the maximum amount of energy that can be stored by 75.

In my opinion the strongest talent of the tier. If you manage to stack this quest, Auriel will be able to provide her team with even bigger burst healing. Ideally you want to try and stack this quest in between objectives, since you don’t want to hold your Ray of Heaven in a teamfight until your energy bar is full.

This talent synergizes with all of the tier 7 talents, which in their own way make you generate more energy. I find it synergizes best with Glimmer of Hope. After you pick up a regen globe, you get a full Ray of Heaven, spend it, and then will almost have another full Ray. This makes stacking the quest very easy given that you have access to regen globes.

Will of Heaven: Allies with Bestow Hope gain 25% attack speed.

A good talent if you have an auto attacker as your Ally of Hope. Also works if you want to have more targets to put your trait on, such as your off-laner in case your initial Ally dies.

Wrath of Heaven: Allies with Bestow Hope gain 10% spell power.

A talent you take with a mage as your Ally of Hope. This won’t often be the case and that makes this talent a bit weak. When you do have a mage, Reservoir of Hope is still stronger because as the game goes on you will become a better burst healer. With a sustained damage mage such as Gul’Dan, often paired with Auriel, this talent could be worth taking since it increases his overall damage which is spell power based. This also synergizes with Cho’Gall since both players will benefit from it.

Level 20

Light Speed: Resurrected allies gain 200% movement speed, decaying over 4 seconds. While a resurrected ally remains alive, Resurrect cooldown recharges 100% faster.

In my opinion, this is the weakest talent on the tier by far. The movement speed doesn’t really give you anything (except for meme value), only to get out as fast as possible or find a re-engage while your team is at it. The cooldown recharge is the only good thing you get from this talent, but still weaker compared to Shield of Hope for example.

Diamond Resolve: When Crystal Aegis expires, it gives the target 75 armor for 5 seconds, reducing the damage taken by 75%.

This talent makes up for the downside of using Crystal Aegis on a very low health target. The moment Aegis expires the target will still get jumped and die most of the time. The 75 armor increases the survivability of the target, so they're more likely to survive. Still, I think it’s a weaker talent compared to the other choices.

Angelic Flight: After 2 seconds, fly to a target location.

It’s a bold statement, but I actually think this is the second best talent on the tier. Definitely on big maps like Dragon Shire it can come in handy that you can fly towards an ally to help them out and heal them up. You can also fly to safety if you wait out possible interrupts. Also, with this talent, Auriel becomes the fastest global healer in the game in terms of global ability cooldowns. Imagine taking this talent on Dragon Shire, where your healer can fly to the top lane to help out in the brawl over the game-deciding Dragon Knight! Or if the Auriel player dies, she can fly back to her team in a matter of 2 seconds. Making quick use of your 20 advantage? Healer flying in!

Shield of Hope: Activate to grant all nearby allied heroes a shield for 3 seconds equal to 50% of the amount of health they are missing.

This is the strongest talent on the tier. It fills the gap between your heal cooldown perfectly in the late game fights and grants a big shield to low health targets. Since this talent gives a shield for health the target is missing, you don’t want to use Shield of Hope at the start of a fight. Using it correctly would be to close the gap in your 4 second cooldown for Ray of Heaven after a great amount of damage has been done. This talent can then make sure your team can keep fighting while Auriel gathers energy for her next heal.

Gameplay Tips

When you’re playing Auriel, there are a few things you need to take into account: "How do I build Auriel (either for enabling allies or disrupting enemies)?", "What do I need to watch out for?", and being mindful of your healing cooldown.

Look at your team composition and estimate the amount of energy you’re going to get as this game plays out. Also look at the enemy team’s composition and look at some talents that can counter their strengths. Auriel has the abilities to do that, if these talents are picked.

Abilities to watch out for are things like Azmodan's Globe - big abilities that can hit Auriel while she cannot hit the enemy back in order to get energy. This ultimately means that she’s taking damage and losing health, while not gaining energy to heal herself. This is immediately Auriel's biggest flaw and something to take into account before drafting her.

Auriel relies so much on her being able to gather energy to heal that it can often leave her vulnerable, I would suggest drafting her with a sturdy frontline that can dive in so she can follow with her auto attacks and still get energy while diving the enemy. Considering Auriel has the ability to peel for her allies and take care of a disengage, I think you can afford to draft dive heroes with her.

Now on a more serious note... Everyday beautiful combos are destroyed by an uncarefully cast Detainment Strikes... This is a very serious matter. Thinking before using your E will do you right. Seriously though, using your Detainment Strike can be very tricky and it takes some practise to find angles to hit a stun. I, for myself, have put the rule that I only use Detainment Strike if I’m sure I have the angle right for the stun or to peel for my allies who will fall to the target that’s chasing them. Else you might end up accidentally saving your enemy or messing up the other damaging/CC abilities on your team.

You can also use your Detainment Strike to interrupt casts on the enemy team such as a recall or channeling the objective. Detainment Strike is Auriel's quickest ability to do so, given you’re in range to hit the target. If you don’t find yourself in range of the target to hit them with your Detainment Strike, another thing you can do is try to hit them with the outer corner of your Sacred Sweep, since it has a wider range than Detainment Strike. Bakery made a quick video about this showing you just how that is done.

Synergies, Counters, and Drafting

Auriel synergizes with heroes that have great sustained damage, so she constantly gets energy. Heroes like Valla, Cassia, Lunara, and Gul’Dan are great to pair her with. You also often see her paired with Cho’Gall, Cho’Gall tends to get jumped and does a lot of damage so if you pick up Empathic Link at Tier 7, you will almost all the time have a full Ray of energy. The same applies to Zarya.

As discussed above I think Auriel is very good to counterplay Ana, who is currently the most oppressive healer in the meta. Auriel is often drafted alongside another support to make up for her long healing cooldown. Uther is a great choice to be the second healer as he offers burst protection and a sturdy frontline which is what Auriel needs. Zarya also applies here because of her ability to shield and further damage the enemy.

Heroes that can hit Auriel while she cannot hit them are great against her, since they can take portions of her health without her being able to heal back up. Heroes that have CC abilities that are easy to land are also very good into Auriel since she lacks mobility skills. Her Q ability takes a long time to cast if you don’t take the Swift Sweep talent, leaving her vulnerable to crowd control.

With Auriel you want to take long sustained fights, which makes her excel on brawling maps such as Volskaya Foundry, or Braxis Holdout. Auriel also has the ability to disrupt rotations with her Detainment Strike and has good stunning potential on maps like Tomb of the Spider Queen and Infernal Shrines. Here she also offers wave clear for her team to make sure the rotations can be made quickly.

Summary

Auriel is a burst healer that pairs well with a high-octane damage dealer. She requires a unique passive/aggressive playstyle which means you can play her as a semi-damage dealer, if you are mindful of your own positioning. She has great potential to counter certain picks on the enemy team with peel and blinds, and can also further enable her own team with her kit and talent tree.

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