A friendly not-so-sirius guide

Some tips for battlerite picks and ability usage on Sirius

Hello!

Seeing as I'm no pro it goes without saying that this isnt some high grade in-depth complete guide to Sirius. However Sirius is my favorite char in Battlerite and I'm fairly good with him so it occured to me that I might as well post this guide to share some of my thoughts and ideas on playing him, hopefully someone will find it helpful. So let's get into it!

Abilities

Crescent Strike
The autoattack, as it is it's your basic swing for 8 dmg. What makes it strong however is that it charges over time (8 seconds) or after certain skills, when charged the damage is increased to 22 and it inflicts weaken which reduces damage and healing output of the target by half over 2.5 seconds.
This allows you to trade hits with people that would normally out-damage you or stop them from healing their friends as effectively. The status of the charge is represented right of your hp bar in the form of the small circle. (Green if good to go or filling up when charging.)


Sunlight
Your healing ability, after 0.5 seconds it heals a single ally in the area for 14 health, it works on a charge system holding 3 charges each with a cooldown of 5 seconds. This cooldown is shorter when you're close to your ally. It has a fairly long range and goes over walls.
Even though it has a delay before the actual heal I've found if you just track your cursor on your ally it will land most of the time, of course sometimes you have to lead it a tad if you're with anyone with a movement speed boost. The amount of charges you have left is represented left of your hp bar with the number in the brackets.


Celestial Split
This is your movement ability, it gives you air-time (invulnerability) and has you damage enemies and heal allies for 10 in the area where you land.
This movement ability differs from those of other characters regarding impassable areas. With other characters if your landing spot is inside a wall or out of the bounds of the arena you will land in the closest passable spot to your original destination, this isn't the case with Celestial Split though. Celestial Split will will repeat it's animation in reverse and have you land in your starting position, this is always useful to have in mind since it doubles your air-time and it lets you surprise your opponents.
Note: They moved the pull effect over to Celestial Rift (EX version)


Sunrise
Your counter, I also consider it another movement ability. You enter the counter stance for 1.2 seconds, if triggered it sends you up in the air for 0.9 seconds and lets you choose where you land in a wide area around you, healing you and allies around you for 12. Personally I find the range comparable to a max-range Celestial Split.
Now remember when I said that some abilites recharge your weapon, this is one of them, namely after landing your weapon is recharged. (So if you wiff it, no charged weapon) Sometimes I feel cheeky and start running at an opponent to have them attack me then using this as an impromptu gap closer to leave Celestial Split available for a sure-fire escape but as you can imagine this isn't advisable.


Lunar Strike
This ability petrifies enemies for 3.4 seconds in a large area after a one second delay. The keyword here is petrify, namely it freezes enemies in place and gives them an 18 point shield, if the duration of 3.4 seconds passes, or the shield is broken by damage, the targets are free to go.
Seeing as allies can't damage each other the only ones who can break it with damage are on your team, you included. (It's worth mentioning that Lucie can break the petrify on allies or herself prematurely with her Clarity Potion.) So if you see an enemy petrified, attacking it won't give you much advantage since the shield will soak it up for them and let them go early. This ability isn't a stun, what this ability is however is a time-out, you petrify one enemy and then go and dogpile on the other one, or heal up/reposition/take orbs/whatever.


EX abilities
Quick note, all EXs cost 25% energy i.e. one bar
Prismatic Strike
This makes you do a short dash at the end of which you do a swipe dealing 18 damage and inflicting a fading snare (Movement is reduced to zero and is returned over 1 second).
What's important to note is that this ability hits more than one target unlike your autoattack which can only hit one. This is also the only other ability which can recharge your weapon, but it only does so if you choose the corresponding battlerite, however it only does that on successful hit. (i.e. if you miss or hit barriers no recharge for you, health shields however are fair game) I often use it in combination with a charged auto to inflict a quick burst of damage. The area of the swipe is comparable to your Crescent Strike, and you don't go through enemies with the dash when casting it.
It's also useful to keep in mind that you can use it to quickly dodge certain abilities if your usual tools are on cooldown.
EDIT: The afformentioned battlerite now only refunds half of the recharge timer and not all of it (Thanks Teh_Bucket!)


Crescent Gale (EX Crescent Strike) or EX autoattack
A pretty straight-forward ability, you toss a projectile dealing 24 damage and inflicting a snare of 30% over 2.2 seconds.
There isn't much to say here, it's the only ranged damage Sirius has at his disposal and as such is useful when you need to secure a kill on a fleeing enemy or help out an ally who is trying to break off.

Celestial Rift (EX Celestial Split) or EX jump
Also pretty straight-forward, it's the same as Celestial Split only it increases the damage/healing on arrival to 14 and pulls enemies in the area towards you, oh and it also looks slightly fancier.
Personally I never use this ability because I just don't find it worthwhile to spend the bar of energy on it, I guess it has its uses when stealing the middle orb, or giving an ally some breathing room but like I said I just don't use it. Of course I could be wrong and if you think that you probably already figured out a bunch of uses for it, if so please comment so you illuminate me. (heh, illuminate, sun...light...okay I'll stop)
EDIT: Celestial Rift also recharges your weapon. (thanks Anna May!)
Note: This ability didn't pull before, more useful now


Astral Beam
The big red button, the ultimate. You channel a huge ass beam of pure awesomeness that over its duration (2.5 seconds) deals 100 damage and also heals your allies for the same amount, it also heals you for half that amount over its duration. It doesn't go through walls and it ignores counters and barriers (not hp shields).
You can move and re-aim it but keep in mind that trying to adjust your aim over a large distance will take some time and as such will use up a lot of its duration, so it is imperative that you aim it correctly from the get-go.
As you're chanelling it you will notice your energy will gradually drain, as with all channeled ultimates if you are interrupted in any way during the channel you get to keep the energy that's left and if you cancel it yourself (be it through the cancel command or using a skill) you lose it all regardless of how much was left.
Now this ability when aimed well is always useful, let's say you target an enemy but they duck out behind a wall or just break away too far for you to re-adjust. You can use the remaining charge to heal an ally up or, if possible, take the middle orb. Naturally it can happen that sometimes just everything goes to ♥♥♥♥ and you completely waste it but with even a little foresight that can be avoided.
It's also worth keeping in mind that you are being healed while casting it which can enable you to survive some fights which would otherwise kill you.

Battlerites

Both for the old system, and my guide for it.

Anyways

Seeing as the whole battlerite system has been overhauled in lieu of a pre-game build I'm just going to share my favorite build along with some of my reasoning behind it.


Debilitating Slash
As in the last iteration I favor this because weaken is so versatile, it helps you in your trades and it also helps your teammate/s in theirs. Never underestimate cutting your opponent's damage down to 40% over 3.5 seconds, it saves lives to say the least.

Illumination and Sunscreen
Much like debilitating slash these are useful in any situation be it following up with a punish after landing or simply repositioning to help your ally. There is not much I can say here that isn't intuitive to undestand, the shield you get is good in any situation and if you tag a friend you can also heal them for more while hitting harder. Good stuff.

Radiance
Radiance is here for the sheer heal output, it lets you devote more focus to keeping your team alive without all of the pesky death creeping up on you because you neglected to heal yourself. (Still watch out for that, this is here to negate smaller amounts of damage if you are being focused act accordingly.)

Gravity
Now this is the only battlerite im not so sure on, while the snare is nice, it doesn't stop enemies from casting escapes, which in turn are pretty much the main things people use to escape it. However if there is a Taya on the enemy team I highly reccommend this.

As for other noteworthy picks I'd like to point out

For when you see yourself needing to peel a lot for your allies (Basically when you see your teammate/s will be forced into heavy kiting and you need some help staying close to them to help)


Take this for the sheer lockdown
If you take Lunatic, and have absolute faith in your Lunar Strike skills (I don't), you could also replace Illumination with Moonstone

And effectively stop someone from playing Battlerite for the duration of that match.


For when you see yourself needing to steal orb multiple times although, as people who have read the old version know, I don't really like this battlerite, it's way better now that it doesn't replace Debilitating Slash but even so I think there are better options.
...I miss Crippling Slash.....

Closing thoughts

And that's pretty much it. Of course I would like to stress that Sirius isn't classified a support simply for show and that you should always divert atleast some of your attention to your allies to make sure they don't die a horrible, horrible death, but also to not be afraid if that does occur, because Sirius, like all other characters in this game, is more than well enough equipped to handle a 1v2, the only deciding factor is skill and not necessarily numbers.
If this little guide of mine helped you please let me know because having that knowledge would really make me happy and satisfied with this whole thing.
Have a panda bear.
EDIT: Seeing as some people already saw this guide I would like to ask that you consider rating it (whatever you want to rate it ofcourse) as I'd like to see how this guide measures up, that is all, you may return to your panda bear.

[xMaracx]

Yeah I started extensively using Lunatic instead of Gravity and yeahh its better, im gonna update this guide this week, maybe, im lazy okay?

[Texyalen]

put card on ulit for sirus is a mistake, this guys can't rely on ulit.

[Pillow]

just got in to gold 2 with this guide\

[Pillow]

it good

[SheerluckHomeless]

*thumbs up*

[Catch]

I take both lethal and debilitating. As long as you aren't M1ing like a madman and whiffing it, it makes for some very strong damages/weakens. A nice combo I like is space, q, charged M1 (with that added damage and weaken).

My battlerites are very different to yours. I currently use Lethal Slash, Debilitating Slash, Celestial Cycle, Sunwell, and Lunatic.

[xMaracx]

The battlerite portion of the guide has been updated and I also update some of the values on the abilities, if i missed something or just want to share your throughts leave a comment

[SheerluckHomeless]

sure, you can, guess the battlerites hasnt changed much, you can just combine them better now. Share anyways!

[xMaracx]

So I have kind of been thinking of ways to update the battlerite part but cant seem to land on any satisfying idea, I mostly use one build which suits my playstyle so I dont know if just putting that one build in here would be satisfactory for anyone.

[xMaracx]

Hey guys ill be updating this guide probably this week seeing as the game is fully launched and more people might need help, sorry i did not do so previously!