Greymane, the newest assassin in Heroes of the Storm, offers a lot of flexibility. His ability to shift between a ranged harasser and a melee finisher give players a great amount of freedom in how they want to build and play him. So how good is he?
Overview
- Powerful self AA steroid
- Strong ultimates
- Flexible playstyle
- Fairly agile in fights
- Low survivability and sustain
Gameplay basics
Greymane is a powerful ranged harasser who likes to get his prey low before closing the distance as a Worgen and finishing them off. With this in mind, try to hang on the edges of a fight whittling your opponents down. You want to play almost like a Raynor or a Valla during this stage. Maintain your self buff and hurl cocktails when the enemy is clumped.
Once the healthbars have fallen, it's time to make the plays. When an enemy is around 1/3 health you should try to Darkflight onto them and smack them with a few auto attacks. Whack 'em with a Q to end and usually they'll be dead. If there are multiple low health heroes, this is a perfect opportunity to use Go For the Throat to quickly eliminate your prey.
Go For the Throat's usefulness is two fold. It allows you to finish off low health heroes and secure kills very easily. Possible more important though, is it gives you another option to reposition yourself in a fight. Greymane is very squishy for an Assassin and relies on dashes, leaps, and pounces to avoid damage in fights. An important tip to note is if the enemy has a Gilnean symbol above their head, it means they are in range of an instant take down, allowing for a second cast.
As a Worgen, you have two options for escape if caught in a bad position, as a Human you have one. In Worgen form, your Q will push you slightly forward, just enough to possible dodge a skillshot or get out of range of a chasing opponent. You can also use Disengage to roll away while transforming into a human.
If you're caught out as a Human, you have to run away. If you'll survive long enough for this to work, you can also immediately engage them as a Worgen, granting you the Q and Disengage. Be careful though, as you do have to wait for the cooldowns to comeback up and this leaves you very vulnerable.
In the early stages, Greymane can be a decent lane bully. With the near permanent uptime on his attack speed buff, he can clear up waves with relative ease. His Human Q, Gilnean Cocktail, is also strong against waves of minions, but due to it's high mana cost it can be expensive to spam.
Greymane can make an excellent lane to gank as well, since if you get the target low enough he can simply jump in and finish them off. When laning against Greymane, keep that in mind and always play safe and keep your healthbar high.
Which ult do I take?
I touched on Go For the Throat briefly before, it's great for mopping up a teamfight and adding some extra mobility to your kit with repositioning. Since Greymane is so squishy, it's moving around and making yourself a harder target to hit is key to surviving when it's time to go in for the kill. Due to it's ability to secure kills on low health targets, and the random nature of pub games. I believe that GFTT is the stronger ult when solo queuing.
Marked For the Kill sends out a silver bullet skillshot that, on connecting marks the target for five seconds making them more vulnerable to all damage and allowing you to jump on them from a great distance. This ult is very powerful, especially in early teamfights where most heroes have few defensive cooldowns. But due to the almost surgical precision required for it, I don't think it's a very good ult for solo queue play. This ult will definitely shine in competitive.
What compliments Greymane?
Greymane is just so, so good at finishing people off, so you want to pair him with people that can make healthbars go down. Kael'thas is a great example of someone I believe pairs will with Greymane. Chain bombs will random damage people, and once they've been damaged enough Greymane can leap in for the kill. Kharazim might potentially be a good healer or him, as his ability to dash in right along side Greymane can be the difference between life or death.
What counters Greymane?
Greymane's hardest counter is a good whack to the face. By that I mean, just attack him. Putting pressure on Greymane forces him to choose his (already limited) engagements even more carefully. Heroes such as Uther, Sonya, Diablo, E.T.C. and more can all punish Greymane incredibly well. Hold onto your stuns until he decides to engage then let loose with everything you have. This will make him a sitting duck and he will fall very fast due to his low self sustain.
Other tips
- Mounting as a Worgen will change you back to a human.
- Go For the Throat will highlight heroes that are below the kill threshold.
- Play safe. Stick mostly to Human form even if you're building Worgen.
- Always be moving, standing still will make you a very easy target.
So what's the verdict?
Greymane is a fairly strong hybrid assassin who's main strength lies in his flexibility. He's great for mopping up a teamfight, and can poke down enemies fairly well. His human auto attack damage is not quite as strong as Valla or Raynor, but he can make up for it in other ways. Greymane the kind of pick you would put in a team that is already well rounded. He isn't astounding by himself, but he can definitely turn the tide of a fight.
Both of his ults and his E allow for some very interesting play making abilities that I can't wait to see players like iDream utilize. Everything in his kit just oozes flair and style. Greymane is a very fun to play, interesting, and deadly assassin.
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