Best team and best build for team - redux

I've wanted to start over again and to build an ace team of heroes for a long time but I've always been put off due to the impossible task of waiting for all the training times. Now that training times have been substantially cut and concurrent training is possible, I'm really tempted to restart the game and build my A-team in this manner.

In my opinion, there is no double the best team would include Z'dar. Temblor becomes Earthquake when maxed and can singlehandedly turn the tide with a 6 second stun whilst dealing massive damage all round. Z'dar's standard attack is the highest and he has a good chance of criticals though I noticed he misses more often than my other heroes. To round it off, Z'dar has a solid defense for a caster, often around the range of heroes like Alia and Brenna.

For healers, my playstyle require that I use both Thea and Tlanac. Thea and Tlanac heals at a similar rate early game but as you progress further into the game and have access to tier 6 equipment, Thea begins to quickly outpace Tlanac due to the fact that she has two items for upgrades. While level 1 upgraded palka is about similar in strength and speed to a level 1 rod and orb combo, level 10 jeweled palkas are weaker than a pair of level 10 baton and sphere.

As previously mentioned, Thea also has better skills through the use of Astra Stun which is a mini Temblor and gets the team out of hairy situations more times than I can count. Stun is much better than the pitiful damage Mortal Tornado can do.

The pitiful damage Astra Force does bugs me to no end as it barely does 1/10th of the damage of Earthquake, stuns for half the time and hits just about 1/4 of the board rather than the whole field.

Finally, my last member is always Alia. Late game, ranged heroes are the only way to win as creeps tend to kill you with two-three hits, dodging becomes a huge part of the game. Ranged heroes make it easier to animation cancel. Alia's ice shot is also an amazing way to disable a tough creep by decreasing its move and attack rate by 70%.

Now for the builds. As far as possible, the first skill I max out is usually the passive skill swiftness which helps dodging attacks. I favor passive skills more than active skills due to two reasons -

One, many active skills are good early on but they don't really scale up as well as your equipment improves. Passive skills are always on; if Z'daar casts 100 shots per minute, his damage output twice as good if you give him a staff with twice the power. However, his Fire Blast and Incinerate doesn't seem to upgrade as much in power with a much better staff.

Two, late game, I'm so concerned with dodging and moving that most of the time, I don't want to be distracted with having to use active skills. That's why I usually use at max 1-2 active skills per hero.

For Z'dar, I use Earthquake exclusively and pump up Quicken and Focus instead of Fire Blast and Incinerate. Early game when Quicken and Focus aren't available, I boost Perception or Wisdom rather than to waste skill points on active skills.

For Alia, I definitely have to max out Swiftness (movement speed) and Avoidance (dodge chance). I mistakenly spent some points on Rapid Shot and Arrow Shower which I gradually began to use less and less. Ice Shot is my favourite disabler, esp. against big creeps and bosses which are usually immune to stun. I often wonder how powerful Ice Shot would have become if I've invested solely in it rather than in Rapid Shot and Arrow Shower.

For Thea, I maxed out all three passives except for Focus. Focus isn't necessary as I rarely use her actives except for Astra Stun and even Astra Force isn't impressive enough for me to waste precious skill points on it.

For Tlanac, I rarely use his actives at all though I did max out on Spirit Shield to get Power Spirit. The points I saved from Healing Aura and Tornado are spent mainly in maxing out Swiftness (see a trend here yet?) and Quicken. I have a few spare points after maxing Spirit Shield which I threw at Wisdom rather than on Healing Aura and Tornado.

My playstyle focuses on double ranged and double healers. Z'dar, as he is a top notch badass, attracts the creeps' attention by bashing them. Hits that I could not dodge or couldn't be bothered to dodged are rapidly healed by having double healers.

Alia is my ranged DPS even though she is a worse DPS compared to Z'dar, her output is more due to Z'dar dodging more often. I use her ice arrow immediately when things get hairy (like 5 or more creeps on board). Z'dar's Earthquake is saved for my more desperate situations.

Occasionally, I'd trigger Astra Force instead of Earthquake due to the slower casting delay. (The delay for Earthquake is my only complaint for Z'dar, it's way too slow...) Even so, I usually follow up Astra Force with an Earthquake as the 3 second stun from Astra Force is often too short.