Rad's Support Muriel

On Muriel

Muriel is a very capable and straightforward support that takes a lot to master. Her ability set is based entirely around providing shields and altering movement speed, which make her capable of making teammates survive fights they shouldn't survive as well as chase down enemies that should've made it out alive. Her ultimate ability, Reversal of Fortune, lives up to its name - by allowing you to shield an ally after it is cast, teleport in, shield them and other nearby allies further, and knock away nearby enemies this ability can be one of the most ridiculous game-changers in Paragon, if used correctly. A lot of people understand what her abilities do but they do not understand the level of awareness needed to use them effectively. As such, I highly suggest new players avoid Muriel until they have a firm grasp on map awareness and the general flow of the game to really understand where they need to be and when. Ignore the fact that she is rated an "Easy" Hero.

When to pick Muriel

(I'll write this soon, for now I seriously need to save this build as is before my computer crashes and I lose progress)

Abilities

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 Alacrity

We level Alacrity first as it is the ability most useful and versatile in the earlier phases of the game. This ability has amazing synergy with two very common lane scenarios:

Firstly, you will often find your lane being ganked. It happens. Sometimes your ward pings but you and your carry are both out of travel mode and simply can't react quickly enough to the travel-mode'ing ganking party. If you've been maintaining a good distance and only getting as close as necessary to harass and secure last hits your carry would've missed, you should be fine. However, your carry will not be. Alacrity lets you give your ally a shield to help them survive and bonus movement speed to outrun your opponent.

Secondly, you are going to find yourself in a position to secure a kill many times while you lane with your carry. Often, the enemy will recognize this and begin retreating. By giving your ally a speed boost, you help them get in range more quickly and start doing damage before the target flees to their tower. You can even help your carry survive a hit from the tower if they choose to tower-dive by using this ability. It continues to stay useful throughout the match as well.

 Serenity

Serenity is your best pushing tool and a great way to create further differential between the speed of your teammates and enemies. It is a very useful ability but we max it last because: 1.) Using it to push is going to drain you of mana quickly earlier in the game and 2.) Your team is going to be getting in teamfights before you have the chance to max your 3 basic abilities, and Consecrated Ground is more useful than Serenity for such scenarios.

 Consecrated Ground

Consecrated Ground is one of those abilities than can really ruin your day when an enemy Muriel casts it over a teamfight. What should've been a successful push turns out to be a massacre, and now your Murdock is fleeing and getting ready for a futile attempt to defend the base alone. You can be that Muriel. With Consecrated Ground, you can give your allies shields with which they will become much more resilient in fights, while also dealing some damage to the enemy. By alternating this ability with Alacrity, you can keep a teammate alive while he/she gets focused by enemies who just can't seem to kill him/her.

 Reversal of Fortune

I've briefly went over this ability in the first paragraph, but I will do it again. Reversal of Fortune allows you to teleport to an ally after a short delay. Shortly after casting, that ally is given a shield. Upon your arrival, all allies (including the target ally) are given a shield and nearby enemies are knocked away. You are saving an ally from potentially lethal damage, almost instantly summoning yourself to a fight, shielding nearby friendlies from taking damage, displacing their carries, interrupting channels... this ability is just ridiculous. However, its power is offset by how much skill it takes to use correctly. Relative to other ultimate abilities, it is only matched by Kallari's Death Sentence in terms of difficulty due to how situational its usage is. Never use it without a purpose or just to get to a lane more quickly - you might be able to show up to help finish pushing a lane, sure, but you are throwing away most of this ability's impact by doing so. Instead, wait until your teammate runs into trouble with pushing and use it to save them.

Card Order

The Centurion

Starting Cards:
+Health Potion +Mana Potion +Scout's Ward at 3 CP
We start with a very basic setup that allows us to survive, sustain a mana pool, and place a basic ward to prevent early ganks and half-deathballs. While some Muriel players choose to start with two Mana Potions instead, I think asking a teammate to leash Blue Buff for you is a better way of keeping up our mana pool.

-Scout's Ward +Harvester's Key+Lord's Ward at 6 CP
We trade in the Scout's Ward for a Lord's Ward, which we will be holding on to for the rest of the game. We won't be upgrading it yet as it doesn't have a fully upgraded bonus, which means upgrading it would put us at a slight disadvantage, and we will be upgrading it with Cooldown Reduction upgrades which aren't as useful in the early game when our mana is limited. Then we spend the last point of Power on a Harvester's Key as the harvesters are being unlocked around this time. Capture the jungle one next to your lane on your way back to the frontier or, if your jungler has taken care of it, capture the side lane harvester instead. We will be holding on to this key until 24 CP so you will most likely get another chance to use it before turning it in.

+Pendulum of Lords +Lesser Health +Lesser Health​ +Lesser Health​ at 9 CP, full upgrade at 12 CP
Pendulum of Lords is the most relevant Health item to the way we are building Muriel. While we could, technically, build this item for Cooldown Reduction, the bonus health will allow us to survive fights. Remember, we are a support, which means we are a prime target in ganks since the enemy assumes we are weak and our strength comes only in the form of buffs we give our allies. We will build Cooldown Reduction later.

-Health Potion -Mana Potion +Shaman's Drink +Shaman's Drink​ at Level 6
At Level 6, Shaman's Drink becomes more useful than Mana Potion. We replace both our Health Potion and our Mana Potion at this time. I prefer to take two Shaman's Drinks instead of a Shaman's Drink and a Hunter's Drink since I feel that Muriel's passive and shields give plenty survivability, but this is up to you and your playstyle. We will be holding on to one Shaman's Drink for the rest of the game as at Level 15, this item holds 203.4 Mana. It would take us 2.7 Power to match that through increasing our mana pool, but if you would be more comfortable building for max mana instead then you are welcome to modify this deck.

+Tempered Plate +Minor Guard +Minor Guard +Minor Guard or
+Tuned Barrier +Minor Barrier +Minor Barrier +Minor Barrier at 15 CP, full upgrade at 21 CP
Now we need to determine if physical damage or energy damage is the bigger threat in this game. Choose the appropriate armor type for the situation. Don't worry, we will be refreshing this one later. Leave all your barriers and guards unassigned; they won't appear on any other items in this set, and it will allow you to easily refresh each armor set. Bring three of each minor and greater guard and barrier unless you are modifying this deck.

-Harvester's Key +Tuned Barrier +Minor Barrier +Greater Barrier +Greater Barrier or
-Harvester's Key +Tempered Plate +Minor Guard +Greater Guard +Greater Guard​ at 24 CP, full upgrade by 30 CP
Now, we build up the other resistance type. Selling the Harvester's Key will give us 1 Power to put towards a minor upgrade. This will be an awkward point during the match when your armor to the less dangerous damage type is stronger, but I do this to avoid excessive refreshing. I honestly don't even feel a difference, but I understand some people will prefer to first build a 6-point secondary armor, then refresh the primary, and then refresh the secondary. It is your call.

-Tempered Plate +Tempered Plate +Greater Guard +Greater Guard +Greater Guard or
-Tuned Barrier +Tuned Barrier +Greater Barrier +Greater Barrier +Greater Barrier at 33 CP, full upgrade at 36 CP
Now we refresh the primary armor type. You can do this with the next 3 Power you earn immediately after you complete the last armor item, as we will be reclaiming 6 points by selling the weaker version of this armor. Repurchasing this armor and upgrading it with 2 major upgrades will give us more armor than the weaker version, so you can refresh it before being able to complete it (even though it only takes 3 Power more, but sometimes we don't have much of a choice about when we need to take our next trip to the base :P ).

Lord's Ward +Advanced Chrono +Advanced Chrono +Advanced Chrono​ full upgrade by 45 CP
Now we get ready for some serious casting. This will allow us to spam more support spells and become a much bigger influence in teamfights.

-Shaman's Drink +Chieftain's Crown +Health +Alpha Health +Celestial Health at 51 CP, full upgrade by 60 CP
Now we sell one Shaman's Drink (or Hunter's Drink, if you went that route) to make space for Chieftain's Crown. You might be asking, "Rad, what are you doing!?" Listen, there is a reason for this: firstly, we need some more health, so this item helps us find a place to put health upgrades. Next, this unique passive is actually awesome. What a lot of people forget is that kills don't win matches; taking down inhibitors wins matches. Even a single inhibitor advantage can be enough to split up a winning team and let you come back from a 1:2 kill ratio disadvantage. Two inhibitor advantage guarantees a win in most matches. This item allows us to beef up the minions in our push, heal them in between engagements, and keep them alive while the next wave catches up to them as they fight the opponent's minions. Instead of arriving at the inhibitor with one and a half minions still intact, we can arrive with more than one wave stacked on top of one another. As a Muriel, we are great for split-pushing because we can use our abilities to speed up our retreat and our ult as an escape... which normally I'd advise against, but when our push is this strong and we built this much cooldown reduction then sacrificing it as an escape mechanic is worth it.
We grab a Health upgrade first because when we're about to buy this item, we will have 6 Power + 1 more from selling our Shaman's Drink. That leaves us with 7 Power, which means we can spend 5 on Chieftain's Crown grab a Health for 2. Our next 6 power will be spent on an Alpha Health, unfortunately leaving us with 1 unspent Power, and then when we hit 60 we will spend the last 4 on a Celestial Health.

Aaand you're done! If you did everything correctly, there should only be one point in the match (at 57 CP) when you are left with any unspent Power.

Ability Combos

Ok... there is really only one "combo", and that is to successfully alternate our shield-giving spells. In a fight that we enter by ult'ing, it would look like this:

->  ->  ->  ->  -> . . .

All the while, we are technically also playing a combo with Restoration, which is healing all the teammates shielded near us.

The only other thing that can be called a combo is to hit an enemy with Serenity, Alacrity our Khaimera in the face, and then watch our enemy flail like a toddler stuck in a cage with a rabid mongoose. ;)

Synergies

(UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

Early Game

Early game we have several priorities. Firstly, we make sure to yell at our carry for not buying wards or a harvester key. The greedy noob needs to learn to be part of the team. Next, we need to absolutely make sure the jungle entrance at the middle of your lane is warded. We will get ganked at some point, that's not even a question, and we need to see it coming. Because of the way our build works out, we are also not going to be too hindered by spending an extra point on a Harvester's Key. We can do our team a favor and grab a harvester. In lane, our priority is to throw off the enemy's kill attempts by reversing them through clever use of shields and helping our lane partner score kills with the aid of our speed-manipulating abilities. Of course, we are also going to be shooting the enemy and possibly scoring some kills ourselves, but we aren't building damage so don't expect that to happen too often.

Mid Game

Our top priority is to always be aware of our teammates and what they are doing. There will come a time when we need to reverse some fortunes. If you had once chance, one shot, to reverse every fortune you ever wanted would you capture it or just let it slip? Well we're going to let it slip if we don't pay attention so watch everyone and everything. We should also make an effort to anticipate enemy movements and do our best to be present for all teamfights as our Consecrated Ground can change their outcomes. The good news is we have an ult that lets us fly into teamfights so, as long as it is ready, we don't need to stick nearby in the event that something goes down. We just make sure we don't get ganked while we're out doing our own thing, because we can't cast Consecrated Ground when we're dead.

Late Game

Now we are entirely focused on being your team's good luck charm in teamfights. After major victories, when a few enemy heroes are dead and we have created the space to push, we are pushing right along with our team or split pushing with a semi-carry. The enemy simply won't have the resources to deal with both at once so we can use this to secure an inhibitor advantage. At this point, we just keep doing what we were doing and, hopefully, win.

FAQ

Frequent questions that may appear while playing this build and your answers

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2. Q:
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