Welcome to our Talents page for Uther. Here, we give you an overview of how strong each of Uther's talents is. Then, we present several viable builds, before analyzing each talent row separately, so that you can make informed decisions.
The Holy Radiance build seeks to provide Uther with as much uptime as possible on Devotion's Armor increasing effect. Key Talents include Wave of Light, which improves the duration of the effect on top of greatly reducing the Cooldown of Holy Radiance, and Benediction, which allows Uther to quickly recast the Ability. By nature, this build thrives against burst damage.
Reward: After reducing damage 40 times, Holy Light's Mana cost is reduced from 80 to 60.
Reward: After reducing damage 80 times, Holy Light's Mana cost is reduced to 40, and its range is increased by 50%.
Quest: Damage or heal Heroes 60 times with Holy Radiance.
Reward: Increase the duration of Devotion by 0.5 seconds.
Reward: Basic Attacks reduce the cooldown of Hammer of Justice by 1.5 seconds.
Silver Touch provides less overall Mana than the two alterative Talents. Additionally, the range bonus is seldom useful, given Uther's propoensity to staying close to whatever needs be healed.
Wave of Light significantly improves what is arguably Uther's most important Ability by significantly reducing its Cooldown and Mana cost. The duration increase to Devotion's Armor-increasing effect furthermore contributes to Uther's ability to help with survivability.
Hammer of the Lightbringer is a niche Talent that serves to punish melee-heavy team compositions. Under ideal circumstances, Hammer of the Lightbringer will provide more Mana regeneration than its two alternative Talents, on top of a hefty Cooldown reduction to Hammer of Justice. This second point is particularly valuable when combined with some of the other Talents that improve Hammer of Justice.
Holy Shock opens up the possibility for Uther to deal a passable amount of burst damage at the cost of putting Holy Light on a short Cooldown. This can be useful when your team's strategy involves bursting down one specific target. An added benefit of this Talent is that it can trigger Devotion's effect on Uther himself at a relatively low Mana cost. The downside of the Talent, however, is that it is less than useful when you must use Holy Light to keep yourself or allies alive. In short, Holy Shock is a good choice when your team is the aggressor.
Pursuit of Justice provides Uther with a reliable but modest movement speed increase which, ultimately, does little to increase his general utility.
Holy Fire improves Uther's abysmal waveclear on top of providing him with with a decent incentive to use Basic Attacks against Heroes. One interesting aspect of the Talent is its ability to reveal Stealthed Heroes.
Armor of Faith punishes opponents for stunning Uther himself. Unlike the alternative options available on this Talent tier, Armor of Faith cannot be used to help allies out against crowd control, which is generally the precursor to kills, reducing Uther's general utility.
Guardian of Ancient Kings fulfills a function that is similar to Hand of Protection by granting your target a very significant amount of Armor should they find themselves under the effect of crowd control as opposed to simply freeing them. In addition, Guardian of Ancient Kings does not mitigate some crowd control that Hand of Protection does mitigate. It does, however, benefit from having a much lower Cooldown, making it more readily available.
Hand of Protection is one of the most powerful cleansing effects available in the game. This is due to its built-in Cooldown reduction effect. Although it does require Uther to attack to take any real effect, having such an effect available often is invaluable. Still, the 50 Armor bonus provided by Guardian of Ancient Kings is considered more useful in terms of survivability. Hand of Protection can still be used to setup for Heroic Abilities that must be channeled-ability.
As Divine Shield and Divine Storm are both situationally very powerful, the choice of one or the other is based on personal preference and team compositions. These Abilities are discussed in further details in the Abilities section of this guide.
Divine Shield is your defensive option. It offers a unique effect that can single-handedly influence the outcome of any given fight. In theory, Divine Shield's invulnerability effect can prevent an infinite amount of damage from affecting your target for its duration. For this reason, it is often used to avoid burst damage against team compositions that rely on hard-engaging. The movement speed increase provided by Divine Shield also allows your target to effectively escape if their Health is left low from an engagement, or re-engage after being healed. Alternatively, Divine Shield can be used on a high-damage Hero, generally melee, to allow them to deliver their damage unscathed.
Since many kills rely on the application of crowd control effects to hold a target in place while it is being damaged, the debuff removal and immunity effect provided by Divine Shield is just as valuable as the invulnerability itself.
Divine Storm is your offensive option. Although such a reliable area of effect stun has useful defensive applications, notably for peeling, Divine Storm is typically used as part of a combo, either as the initiating component or as a follow-up. Alternatively, it can also be used to lock down Support Heroes (especially when used along Hammer of Justice for lengthy stuns) while your team kills off other Heroes before they can be healed or otherwise protected.
Divine Storm combos particularly well with area of effect Abilities, and should be strongly considered if your team composition features two or more.
For the next 5 seconds after using Holy Light, Uther's Basic Attacks heal him and nearby allied Heroes for 15% of the total amount healed by Holy Light.
Blessed Champion has the potential of providing some incredible area of effect healing. This potential, however, hinges upon being able to reliably deliver Basic Attacks, something that is seldom possible. Blessed Champion is a good counterpick to double healer team compositions, as you will have more freedom to play aggressively with your Basic Attacks.
Well Met provides a modest but reliable debuff that stacks with the Armor provided by Devotion in terms of damage reduction. The movement speed reduction is also useful as well when used with Hammer of the Lightbringer and Pursuit of Justice as they allow you to consistently maintain the debuff on your chosen target.
Should you find yourself struggling to survive against caster-heavy team compositions, Spell Shield is your Talent of choice.
Beacon of Light has a rather strange requirement — that of being below 50% Health — and an ultimately limited payoff. Still, this Talent could become popular if Armor of Faith does become popular itself for some extremely high healing output, though this remains to be seen.
Tyr's Deliverance increases Uther's burst healing, granted you cast Holy Radiance before Holy Light. An interesting added benefit of this Talent is that it increases ALL healing received by the target, including that of Healing Wells, Healing Globes, and other Heroes. This Talent is thus very powerful when playing with other Healers.
Benediction acts as a minor version of Rewind, allowing you to cast the same Ability twice in a row, on top of reducing this ability's Mana cost by 50. Benediction is notable for allowing you to cast Hammer of Justice twice to accomplish one of the game's longest targeted stun (for a total of 1.5 seconds, up to 3.25 seconds when combined with Divine Storm). When used with Holy Light, Benediction allows you to bypass a large portion of the Ability's Cooldown for a significant amount of single-target healing. Benediction is particularly powerful when used with Holy Radiance and when the Divine Protection Talent has been learned to grant a massive amount of Armor to several Heroes, including yourself.
After Eternal Vanguard ends, Uther revives at the spirit's location with 50% of his maximum Health.
This effect has a 180 second cooldown.
Applying Devotion to a Hero that is already affected by Devotion increases their Armor to 50.
Bulwark of Light is a niche Talent that is used to power up a single high-damage Hero. Such a strategy is generally used at the highest levels of play as it requires a very coordinated team to pull off. Lower level or otherwise unorganized players may see better results with other Talent options, though the ability to make a target completely invulnerable for 5 seconds can always be useful.
Divine Hurricane simply increases the reliability of Divine Storm by allowing it to hit more targets. This increases Uther's effective threat range, and can be particularly surprising to unexpecting opponents. This Talent works well with combo-heavy teams that rely on quickly wrestling kills to gain an advantage.
Redemption is one of the best Talents in the game. The utility of being able to die, expending your opponent's time and resources, to then be able to use Devotion's outstanding healing potential, to then revive near your team with a full Mana bar and a reasonable amount of Health simply cannot be overstated. The only thing that you need to ensure is that you move your spirit to a safe location to revive, as clever opponents will quickly switch their attention to you in your weakened state.
Divine Protection is a subtle yet extremely impactful Talent that helps Uther with that which he is best at: mitigating burst damage. Being able to grant any ally 30 points of Amor on demand simply cannot be overstated. Pick this Talent over Redemption if you seldom find yourself dying.
14 Jan. 2018: Updated Radiance build.
28 Jun. 2017: Reviewed assessments of Level 4 and Level 13 talents.
29 Apr. 2017: Well Met is now situational (was not recommended before).
27 Apr. 2017: Updated page to include talent discussions.