Idea for the weekend: Get a 3 day stimpack and get every hero in the game up to level 5 in a couple of games each. Big gold influx.
You’ll already have a stim pack.
You mean the bonus xp weekend? I’m wondering if that stacks multiplicatively with a stimpack.
I think I saw on Reddit that it’s additive rather than multiplicative.
I’m definitely planning on fiving a few heroes, though I already have most of them done just from the regular free rotation. I’m going to make sure to pick up at least Abathur, though, and probably try for Dehaka too if I can manage it. Unfortunately I have a few things going on this weekend, so I won’t be able to completely splurge it.
On the topic of Nazeebo’s heroics, Gargantuan is probably also better for less-skilled players, just because it’s more autonomous. I expect that if you’re playing against equal-skill opponents, there’s a fairly narrow band where the spirit is better. Though if you’re playing against inferior opponents, that band might be wider.
Oh, and with the free rotation, I see what everyone means about Xul being overpowered. A game the other day, on Battlefield of Eternity, the majority of my team and the big angel were on the bottom lane, while I was on top… and I was still pushing through forts at the same speed that they were. Even with easy AI opponents, that shouldn’t be possible. And what were they thinking, giving him four basic abilities? Nobody else gets that. And Sweeping Strike: He’s got an ability that can clear an entire minion-wave with a single cast, and it debuffs enemy heroes? Where did that even come from, anyway? The D2 character didn’t have anything remotely like that. Overall, he feels like one of the better specialists, while simultaneously being a decent warrior and a half-decent assassin.
So I played three games tonight by myself in my old account. Holy shit dude, you do not belong at that level. You are miles, miles above the people I had to my team. They were doing stupid shit like, “hey, the enemy team just wiped out a bunch of my team and I’m the first one up. I’m going to go to exactly where that all happened…yup, they’re still there.”
We were on BHB, completely tied, no forts, enemy is in the middle of getting the boss, Li Ming heads towards the enemy core (which was the right play) but a few guys decide to contest boss despite the fact that our entire team isn’t there and their core is empty.
So besides basic map awareness issues (I swear these people have the minimap turned off or something) the biggest issues I’ve seen is people don’t know when the end the fucking game. If 3-4 of the enemy team is down past 25 minutes or so and your team is up and grouped? Attack the core. Don’t get all the mercs or wait until the objective is up. End the game. These people don’t get that.
But yeah, you’re way better than them.
Thanks. I wasn’t saying I was great, I was just saying I didn’t belong at the level where everyone was completely clueless. The game seemed to be deliberately trying to keep me down around a 41% winrate by continuously pairing me up with awful players.
You didn’t even see the worst of it - your bad account has an mmr or 1600 or so, and at my worst I got down to 950. I’ve since climbed back up to 1200 or so. The difference between 1600 and 950 is huge - not only do people make huge fundamental mistakes that level, but they make inexplicably stupid mistakes like running into towers and dying when they’re soloing a lane or constantly turning around and going back into a fight with 3% hp.
Blackheart’s Bay is one of the few situations where I might not go after an empty core: If there are enough pirates and mercenaries available to buy the cannons, and if the minion-waves aren’t pushed too far back already, then go for the cannons (a single round of which will kill an unprotected core, anyway).
But I didn’t even realize that map had a boss, because I can’t imagine a situation when it would ever be worth going after.
Iunno, going back to fight with 3% HP is definitely something you can pull off, but you have to A be the right character (like Artanis) and B know how to position and what you’re doing. Something 950 people haven’t mastered. Sometimes when you’re winning, esp as an assassin, it’s absolutely the right call to stay around and help mop up.
Even at MMR 2000 though, people WILL NOT END THE FUCKING GAME.
No dude, you need to end the game as soon as you can. It’s a horrible habit to get into waiting for the objective to pop. I’ve lost way too many games because people do that, the enemy gets a pick or two, then they push to win. Comebacks happen.
Well, if anyone wants to create another account to see if they’re better this weekend is the time to do it.
The objective is always up in Blackheart’s (which is the reason that’s the only map where it might be worthwhile). Note that I did not say to wait for the chests, but only to do it that way if you could get it from things that were already available. As in, if you’re three coins away, and there are two pirate camps spawned on the map already, or something like that.
I see overaggressiveness way more often than underaggressiveness. Teams that are way ahead - they’re 3 forts ahead, 2 or 3 levels ahead, and they think they can just push really hard and end the game, so they get reckless. They keep pushing the enemy base even though momentum is against them, they’re all low on health, and the enemy team is all about to respawn together on them. And then they all die, and that’s when the enemy turns it around, when if they would’ve just kept playing the way they had been playing to get that point it would’ve been a definite win. People smell blood and get reckless.
Overzealous is definitely a thing that needs to be watched. But I see a lot of times when 3+ of the enemy of dead past about twenty minutes then the team screws around until respawn despite having numbers. There’s been plenty of times when we’ve played together when I’ve said that the other team should push because there’s no way we could defend. Those are the situations I’m taking about.
Oh, yeah. Same with people getting the boss during the curse on cursed hollow - the best strategy is almost always to push, not to go off and get something that will help you 20 seconds after the curse is over. That sort of thing happens all the time.
Wait, during the curse? People actually do that? Ugh. Even if you could time it so you finished the boss just as the curse was starting, that wouldn’t really do much for you.
I dunno, it depends, sometimes it’s worth it just to deny the enemy team the boss on their side of the map. But yeah, 90% of the time it’s best to just push.
I think the temptation is that timings for the boss on Hollow are really tight, since most team fights happen over tributes, and tributes are (IMO too) rapid fire. That and the idea that your lanes can take care of themselves during the curse (which is sort of true, but you won’t get much done that way).
Really, the best thing to do on most maps is to get the boss IMMEDIATELY BEFORE an objective happens, but timing that properly is very hard. I know when I try I usually end up mistiming and then either missing the fight or sucking it up and leaving a half-dead mercenary camp having accomplished nothing.
I’d say the exception is if you have a high level Rexxar. He can easily solo the boss while the rest of the team pushes, and missing one warrior won’t be a huge burden on your pushing ability.
Really, you think so? I feel like tributes are too far between. The tributes don’t come much more quickly than, say, Sky Temple activations, but you need three tributes to actually do anything compared to a single temple.
For me, the time to get the Hollow boss is when you’ve taken out all of the enemy keeps (presumably with help from the curse), but they’re doing a good job of defending the core. At that point, the curse will accomplish very little, but the boss can give you the little bit of extra oomph you need for that last push.
Once you’re losing on Raven Lord, in the late game the curses become really rapid compared to the respawn timer. An enemy with any degree of map control and momentum has to really screw up to not have a death knell prepared for the other team going for the tribute.
And I guess that’s a use for the boss, but bosses and mercs tend to be best used to give the enemy a choice. Either defend the lane from the boss/mercs or go for objectives/push. The value in mercs isn’t in the pushing potential so much as the ultimatum.
Of course, you can use that ultimatum whichever way you want. If you call that they’re going for the tribute, but it doesn’t matter, you can have your team punish them by pushing with the mercs instead. If you need the tribute, you can delay them in the teamfight (or hope they send one person to take care of the mercs and fight you 4v5) and either take a few structures via the mercs, hopefully also getting the objective.
Mercs aren’t really that great at pushing simply because heroes can take them out so quickly. Their real value is in forcing the enemy team to make decisions or split their numbers. The only real exception is if the enemy team is dead, in which case they can help a bit, but usually your team is going to push much farther by pushing themselves rather than getting mercs and then pushing (boss excepted because it takes so damn long to kill). The only real reason to get mercs after you have control is to deny the enemy team the mercs on their side of the map, and also a little bit of psychological warfare.
OK, so I’m playing Abathur on the free weekend, to get him up to 5, and I keep getting inactivity warnings. At the start of every game, as soon as the gates open, I place a few mines, ooze out to a position where I think my locusts will be synchronized with the waves, and find a hero to symbiote. And every time so far, I get red text on my screen that if I don’t participate within 45 seconds, I’ll be kicked out of the game. What’s going on? Of course I haven’t done anything meaningful yet at that point, because nobody has: We haven’t yet met the enemy. If anything, I’ve participated more than anyone else, because I’ve actually used an ability (albeit one that won’t trigger for a while).
There’s zero reason to be hatted unless you’re actively using your abilities. Keep placing mines until it’s time to jump into the hat to start shooting stuff.