Malfurion Stormrage, one of the strongest druids alive in the Warcraft universe, apprentice of the demigod Cenarius and one of the most loved supports in the Nexus right now. With great waveclear, good crowd control, both Heroics viable and steady healing, this character is fun, unique, and has a lot of challenge to offer at any skill level.

Q - Regrowth: This is Malfurion's healing ability, a simple point-and-click ability that will heal up the target over time.

W - Moonfire: This is Malfurion's damage ability. It deals damage in a small targeted area and, with the talent we pick up at level 1, it will become a very good waveclear tool.

Tip for waveclear: Malfurion's (W) can't hit a full wave of minions, but if the wave is not moving you can hit the mage and all the ranged minions with the ability. Focus on these as they have less health than the melee minions.

E - Entangling Roots: This is one of the most powerful crowd control abilities in the entire game, due to the size and short execution time of the animation. Malfurion places a big circle in a targeted area and all enemies in the circle will be rooted for 1.5 seconds. In this time your team can collapse on the enemy and erase them, or it can be used as setup for further crowd control effects.

Trait (D) - Innervate: This ability gives mana over time to the allies you use it on, much like the (Q) just with mana. The big deal about this ability that not very many players know about, is the fact that it makes the target's cooldowns recharge 50% faster. Because of the cooldown recharge with this ability, Malfurion has good synergy with mages and ability-based melee assassins like Kerrigan.

R - Tranquility: When we talk Heroic abilities for Malfurion, then we have the choice between a defensive ability and an offensive ability. Tranquility is the defensive choice that heals people around you while you can still cast abilities.

R - Twilight Dream: This is the offensive choice for Malfurion's Heroic ability. When you activate Twilight Dream, it will deal damage and silence enemies around you. To use this ability correctly, you have to look for the right moment where your positioning will not kill you but you'll still get value by being close enough to the enemy heroes. This will get easier when you pick up Bolt of the Storm at level 20.

Level 1: Nine out of ten times we pick up Moonburn for the waveclear, but if our team already has heroes who are well suited for that like Jaina, Xul and Sylvanas, then we can pick up Shan'do's Clarity to help them maintain their mana and shorten their cooldowns.

Level 4: Elune's Grace is by far one of the most valuable talents for Malfurion. The extra range on your abilities makes you able to stay out of danger, and still keep an eye on teammates who dive into the enemy backline.

Level 7: We want Cleanse in almost any situation, but we do have the option to pick up MULE on maps like Sky Temple if the enemy team does not really have any crowd control abilities. This is a very unlikely situation though.

Level 10: We have the ability to decide if we want to play offensive or defensive with our Malfurion. We can pick up Tranquility and play the classic healer roll with a great AoE heal when it's needed to turn a teamfight. If we want to be offensive, then we can pick up Twilight Dream to initiate the teamfights. With this ability, we have to go right into the enemy team and drop the big AoE silence and then get back behind our team as fast as possible.

Twilight Dream should only be picked up if we have a hero who can completely dominate a teamfight like Li-Ming or Illidan, or if we have the safety of another support like a Tassadar behind us.

Level 13: This tier depends on the enemy team composition. If they have heroes that can dive you in the backline like Illidan, Chen, and Tyrael, then we pick up Ice Block, but if we feel safe we pick up Life Seed for the extra passive healing.

If we do pick Twilight Dream as our Heroic ability, then we have to take Life Seed to make sure we still got enough healing to sustain our team. In cases where we have fallen behind in levels early in the game, then a reckless Twilight Dream followed by an immediate Ice Block might be enough to turn the tides of battle.

Level 16: This is really a choice of what the specific player prefers, whether they want faster cooldowns (Hardened Focus) or longer duration on roots (Tenacious Roots). Personally, I prefer Hardened Focus.

Level 20: This tier depends on the Heroic ability we have chosen. We will not upgrade the ability, but it will determine our playstyle. If we picked up Tranquility, we will pick either Storm Shield or Rewind (In my opinion Storm Shield is more powerful than a double Regrowth).

If we picked up Twilight Dream, we will pick Bolt of the Storm to blink in and drop the perfect silence in the middle of the enemy team. This can be very powerful, as teamfights after level 20 can turn into a core push very quickly.

Playing Malfurion is pretty simple, you just use your (Q) to heal up your damaged teammates, waveclear with your (W), trap enemy heroes with your (E) and whether you chose Tranquility or Twilight Dream you keep to the tips in the ability descriptions above.

Other than that, then make sure to be aware of your positioning, especially if you picked up Life Seed over Ice Block. Make sure to stay safe and use the extra range on your abilities from Elune's Grace.

Malfurion is arguably the best Support in the game right now, and could be first pick material for any composition. He goes well with all other Heroes, but he gives extra value to ability-based damage dealers with his (D).

Malfurion can easily be a solo Support in a team composition, but he can work really well with a Tassadar as well if your team wants to enable and babysit a strong Melee Assassin like Illidan.

To be honest, Malfurion is a squishy support who does not do well against burst, as his healing is done over time. The tricky thing is to get to him though, but if you build your team around that with heroes like Illidan, Chen, Tyrael, Kerrigan or Falstad, then he will go down in a flash. He does not really have any escape mechanics, you just need to not get caught in the roots when you chase him down.

Malfurion is by far my most played support after the tweaking of his abilities. The shortened time for roots to activate really gives him a strong crowd control and his waveclear is nice. When I play Malfurion, I always go with the red tinted Betrayer Skin and pair it with the red carpet mount.

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