How to master Malfurion with the best talent build this month.
Our complete Malfurion guide has everything you need to know about playing this Hero, with the latest builds, tips, map advice and counters.
Malfurion’s not just one of the tastiest healers in Heroes of the Storm, he’s also relatively newcomer-friendly, and you could do a lot worse than choose this character as your healer of choice. He’s not only great at keeping your team alive, he also has the ability to boost a teammate’s Mana reserves and lock down an enemy with a powerful area-of-effect crowd-control spell.
Editor’s note – February update: We’ve had a good look over all of our recommendations for Malfurion in terms of talent builds and tips for this month. We’ve also added a few battleground-specific tips for this Hero, which we’ll expand upon in due course.
Malfurion strategy overview – February 2016
Malfurion’s a monster for healing, and also provides valuable support via the Entangling Roots Ability. As a result, you should try to work with a teammate at all times as he’s not got much in the way of personal damage output, and he won’t get much work done running a lane on his own.
When fighting, stay as far back as possible and try to focus on your allies’ health and Mana bars while still keeping one eye on the battlefield. If you find yourself in hot water at any point – and you can’t simply run out of range – pop Entangling Roots so that you can make a clean getaway, if only for a moment’s respite before getting stuck back into the fight again.
Try to plug any skill gaps in your team as best you can. If you notice that one lane is getting continually rolled over, head there and add your much needed support. You have many means to turn the tide of a battle, and push the pressure back onto the opposing team.
The best Malfurion talent build – February 2016
Malfurion healing build
Malfurion’s at his best when he’s focused on keeping his team alive. For this reason, most competitive players of the Hero prefer this build when it comes to picking Talents.
Level 1 – Moonburn – Increases Moonfire’s damage to Minions and Mercenaries by 100%.
Level 4 – Elune’s Grace – Increases the range of Regrowth, Moonfire, and Entangling Roots by 30%.
Level 7 – Enduring Growth – Increases the duration of Regrowth by 6 seconds.
Level 10 – Tranquility – Heals 92 Health per second to nearby allies over 10 seconds.
Level 13 – Life Seed – Nearby damaged allied Heroes will automatically gain the heal over time portion of Regrowth. This effect has a 20 second cooldown.
Level 16 – Tenacious Roots – Entangling Roots grows 25% larger, lasts 25% longer, and roots targets for 0.5 seconds longer.
Level 20 – Storm Shield – Activate to give all nearby allied Heroes a Shield for 20% of their max Health for 3 seconds.
Malfurion Abilities, Heroic Abilities and Traits – February 2016
Malfurion’s a pure healer at heart, but he also has an extremely useful crowd-control ability, as well as a powerful buff that will do much to boost up a buddy’s Mana reserves (note that he cannot cast this Ability on himself, sadly). Here’s an overview of his core Abilities:
Abilities
Regrowth (Q)– Heal target ally for 294 (140 + 4% per level) Health instantly and an additional 735 (349 + 4% per level) Health over 10 seconds. Mana: 60, Cooldown: 7 seconds.
Moonfire (W)– Deal 231 (110 + 4% per level) damage to enemies within target area and reveals them for 2 seconds. Mana: 20, Cooldown: 3 seconds.
Entangling Roots (E)– Root enemies within the target area for 1.5 seconds, and deals 257 (122 + 4% per level) damage over the duration. Affected area grows over 3 seconds. Mana: 65, Cooldown: 10 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
Tranquility (R)– Heals 202 (96 + 4% per level) Health per second to nearby allies over 10 seconds. Mana: 100, Cooldown: 100 seconds.
Twilight Dream (R)– After a short delay, deal 820 (389 + 4% per level) damage in a large area around you, silencing enemies making them unable to use Abilities for 3 seconds. Mana: 100, Cooldown: 90 seconds.
Trait
Innervate– Grant allied Hero 15% of their maximum Mana over 5 seconds. Cooldown: 30 seconds.
Malfurion counters and match-ups – February 2016
There are plenty of lists which weigh up the relative strengths and weaknesses of each Hero against the others. We like to turn to a community-sourced appraisal of this sort of thing, and recommend checking out a site like HeroesCounters. Here’s the latest snapshot of counters and synergies:
- Strong against- Sgt. Hammer, Sonya, Zeratul, Gazlowe, The Butcher
- Weak against- Jaina, Tyrael, Anub’arak, Illidan, Zeratul
- Teams well with- Jaina, Nazeebo, Kael’thas, Johanna, Artanis
Malfurion tips and battleground guides – February 2016
Malfurion’s great fun to play, and if you stay on top of your heal , your roots and your Innervates then you’ll have some very happy teammates. Here are a few helpful tips to help you take your game to the next level.
- You want to keep your teammates alive as long as possible, of course, but try not to waste the delicious healing power of Tranquility on a small skirmish. Save it for when the chips are down in a full engagement with the enemy team.
- Moonfire’s a relatively cheap spell that’s great for revealing stealthed enemies. Use it often – particularly when approaching bushes in the early stages of a match.
- The cooldown is short on Innervate, and so it’s very easy to forget to apply it to a teammate. Get in the habit of focusing on the Mana bars of your buddies as well as their health bars, and throw that amazing spell around whenever you can.
- Stay close to your team. You can self-heal to mitigate quite a lot of damage, but you really don’t want to be caught out on your own. Be where you’re needed at all times – supporting your team and enabling them to do what they do best.
- It can be surprisingly easy to miss with your Entangling Roots. Try to anticipate where your target will be just a second or so after you start casting, and position the aiming reticule accordingly.
Battlefield of Eternity
- The general advice for Malfurion applies here – stick to a teammate, keep them alive and let your Moonburn help out with minion waves.
- You can likewise use Moonburn to expose any enemies who might be creeping around in the shrouded areas of the map.
Blackheart’s Bay
- Moonburn will help tap any enemies attempting to hand in their Doubloons, and you can use Entangling Roots to frustrate their attempts to hoover up the coins they need as well.
Fightin’ Cowboy’s videos helped us out a huge amount while we were learning the game. The builds have changed with balance patches and shifting metagames, but the broad principles remain the same.
