Heroes of the Storm - Blizzard's MOBA

The Game Room
141

New maps are a big change, and I like pretty much all of them, though the second Diablo one they added (the 3 lane one) is a tad snowbally.

There was a big patch when Kharazim came out, but since this game doesn’t have items, you’ll mostly notice a few heroes are picked more, a few picked less, and some talents have been removed or are better or worse. AFAIK, it didn’t utterly make or break any hero or talent. Nobody’s kit got overhauled or anything. I think the most notable (to me), is they removed Sprint from almost everyone that had it (especially the assassins).

Matchmaking is still pretty rocky where sometimes you just get “… whelp!” team comps.

The only other “big thing” is that if you preorder the SC2 expansion, you get Artanis a week early (tomorrow instead of the 27th).

(I really, really hope once they have enough maps they add a map veto system so I never have to do the fucking mines again).

142

I hate hollows more. I think that map is way too big. I used to hate mines, but now… meh. It’ll be over soon, win or lose.

143

I would veto both if I could. On Hollow, there are two big problems:

  1. The first few tributes have this weird “if you win you lose” paradox, because if you wipe the enemy team, they can get back before you cap the tribute and wipe your now-low-health party. This should be fixed when they rework low level stat differences and death timers in the future.

  2. The map is too big AND the tribute timers are too short. Once any team has any semblance of map control it’s practically over. I’m not saying you can’t come back, I’ve seen and even been on both ends of some heroic comebacks, but an early fort or two can really set you up for life on that map.

144

I’ve been playing consistently since my last post.

The biggest recent change was to Hero League matchmaking. You can only queue into Hero League in a group of 1, 2, or 5. If you’re in a group of 3 or 4, you have to queue Quick Match.

The stated reason for this change was to prevent situations with wildly disparate rankings, such as when three seasoned friends queue with a less-experienced one, throwing things off for the fifth player to join the match.

The result is that I pretty much only play quick match now, because I often play with two friends. The splash screen now shows character portraits (which include levels or rankings if the player is displaying them) and I’m seeing a lot of disparity in team comps.

It’s a shitty change IMO, but Hotslogs says I’m up into platinum rankings on quick match so that’s pretty gratifying. Never got above silver in Hero League, though.

I bought the Medic almost as soon as she was released and I really like her. She is crazy fun when you’re in voice communication with your whole team and your teammates can rely on timely heals. The medivac ult is also stupidly useful but, again, only when you’ve got good communication. She’s also the most “pure” support character in the game, with anemic damage, extreme squishiness, and amazing healing. The problem is that certain assassins just completely wreck her if you don’t have a warrior willing to peel when needed. I played a game where Butcher just wrecked me all game long.

On the other hand, I played a Battlefield of Eternity map last night where one of my buddies was Siege Tank, and if you haven’t yet seen a stimmed up siege tank, let me just say that it’s glorious to behold.

I predict that the Medic’s first big patch will be a slight decrease to early game healing and a slight increase in early game HP.

Looking forward to Artanis - he seems like my kind of warrior. I currently have 11k gold, so I’ll be able to buy him at the price drop if I can handle being patient enough. I thought about doing the Starcraft pre-order, but the game is forty bucks! For a glorified expansion! Screw that.

145

I was planning on getting Legacy of the Void anyway, so picking up Artanis free is just a nice bonus. I’m not terribly fond of warriors in general, but he’s the last hero needed for a Quest Dozen, where you can work on any role quest simultaneously with any universe quest.

Johnny Bravo, just what exactly does the Medivac do? It waits around for ten seconds for heroes to load up, and then what? Does it fly everyone to some other spot on the map? Is it just a place to hide out for that time? Does it heal the heroes while they’re inside?

Silvanas is now my favorite character, and is likely to remain so unless one of the ones I haven’t had a chance to play yet really overwhelms me (why has Murky still never gone on rotation!?). I’m getting pretty good with her, too. My basic strategy with her is to stay the Hell away from other heroes, and to start fires faster than any single enemy hero can put them out: Push a lane for a while, take out an undefended fort, solo every merc camp on the map, maybe pick up a map gimmick here and there, etc. As soon as an enemy hero shows up, book it out of there, and go start another fire. The idea is that either more than one enemy hero works to put out my fires (in which case the rest of my team enjoys 4v3 fights), or they leave them unanswered (in which case forts fall).

Any guesses on what other heroes they’ll eventually add, and whether they’ll stop after the blank circles are all filled? Off the top of my head, we still have

Starcraft:
Tosh (ranged specialist?)
General Warfield (probably a warrior, with how hard he was to kill)
Dehaka (melee warrior)
Stukov (ranged specialist?)
Fenix (probably the ranged version, now that we have a zealot Artanis)
Narud (who knows? Maybe Legacy of the Void will flesh him out more)

Diablo:
D3 wizard (ranged assassin)
D2 amazon and assassin (both assassins)
Maybe the D2 barbarian, druid, necromancer, paladin, and sorcerer, though they might be too similar to other heroes
Belial (probably have to be a specialist, though he’d be tough to make work)
Magda (ranged assassin)
Zoltan Kulle (ranged assassin)
Izual (melee warrior)
Malthael (either warrior or assassin)
Urzael (ranged assassin)
Imperius (melee warrior)
Andariel (melee assassin)
Duriel (melee warrior)
Mephisto (ranged assassin)
Baal (specialist?)
Blood Raven (ranged assassin)
Eirena (ranged specialist)
Kormac (melee support)
Lyndon (ranged assassin)

Warcraft:
Cairne Bloodhoof (melee warrior)
Grom Hellscream (melee assassin)
Kel’Thuzad (assassin or specialist)
Any of the demons
The Prophet

Overwatch:
Unknown, but it looks like there are about 14 different heroes in the portrait.

146

The level 20 upgrade heals everyone inside and nearby for a ton, but it’s still not better than the Caduceus Reactor, which gives the medic insane mana regen AND a couple thousand shields. Hotslogs says it has a 74% pick rate across all levels of Hero League play, which means it’s either going to get nerfed or the medivac will get buffed.

Anyway, the Medivac does have health, though I’ve yet to have anyone attack it. When you activate it, you pick a spot on the map (not unlimited range, but pretty dang huge). The Medivac drops down and you get a ridiculously awesome overlay. Bonus points if you start making “weee-oooo weee-oooo wee-ooo” noises into the mic.

Everyone loads up, and at any time after a short delay (four seconds, I think), you can jam the button to transport the team to the spot you picked. If you don’t hit it, then it takes off automatically after the full 10. The other team does get a message along the lines of “the enemy team has called in a medivac.”

The crazy thing is that the ability only has a cooldown of 50 seconds, and it starts when you first activate the ability. That means that by the time you unload your team at the location, you’re often below a 40 second cooldown.

As you might imagine, this ability has enormous implications for a well-coordinated team. It can be used to hop objectives, to initiate teamfights from optimal locations, to jump from one minion camp to another, or even just to hop a top lane push down to the bottom lane.

On the other hand, once I mistimed the drop and unloaded the entire team right in the middle of a golem’s stun radius on Cursed Mines. We were wiped within seconds in the resultant teamfight. Great power, great responsibility, etc.

Meanwhile, if your team doesn’t want to get on board with your strategies (pun intended), you’re better off just picking stimpack and giving it to your friendly neighborhood autoattacker.

147

My understanding is that Fenix was actually supposed to be the next Starcraft hero, but they wanted him to have some kind of death ability to reflect his backstory. Since we already have a bunch of characters with death-related powers (Leoric, Diablo, Tyriel, Uther, Murky), they pushed him back for a while.

This is a list of heroes that have been hinted at by Blizzard, along with a “fan proposed” list. The latter is, as far as I can tell, just about every Blizzard character that has a proper noun attached to it.

148

Even though I’m terrible with them, I’m really hoping for more “weird” characters in the vein of Murky, Vikings, Abathur, and Sgt. Hammer. Characters like that are really breaking the mold for what MOBAs can do. I’m sure they’re extraordinarily difficult to balance, but they keep the game interesting.

A buddy and I joke about an SCV character who doesn’t take part in combat, but just runs around the map harvesting resources for experience points, building bunkers, etc.

149

Even though I know I couldn’t possibly play Abathur or the Lost Vikings effectively, I love the fact that they exist. And I could totally see an SCV hero (Calldown MULE is my favorite talent), but Gazlowe pretty much already has that covered.

Yeah, I tried to keep my list a little more realistic (seriously, Kate Lockwell as a playable hero?), but I recognize that others’ lists might look somewhat different. The one I absolutely insist on, though, is Warfield. Anyone who starts bayonetting hydralisks when he runs out of ammo, and then starts punching them out once he loses that, too, all while countermanding orders for retreat, damn well deserves a spot in the Nexus.

150

Since Artanis comes out on the same day that Overwatch goes into its first stages of beta, I’m thinking it makes a lot of sense if they release an Overwatch hero in the next cycle or two to drive interest in the game (they’ve already confirmed that they will be including a character or two from that IP). Judging by the cinematic trailer, those characters are all highly mobile so I expect an assassin of some kind.

I’m hoping that they let us know who the next three released characters will be, similar to the Rexxar/Medic/Artanis announcement back in August.

151

I still play practically every night.

I can’t play the medic. I bought her back in PTR and I just get wiped with her. I’m not saying she’s bad, just that I’m bad with her. I also can’t play Kael or Johanna.

My favorites:

Aba
Murky
Leoric
Kerrigan
Valla

I’ve hit quite a slump in Hero League. Slowly moving up MMR in QM.

I loathe Infernal Shrines. It’s way too snowbally for me.

152

I’m apparently super good at Abby for some reason. I only have him at level 4, but other than Li Li I think he’s the only person I’ve gotten complements on for playing well. I even managed to locust back door a base once. Gazlowe is the one I just plain don’t get.

153

Wow, you really like making your teammates cringe when they see you show up, don’t you?

Well, nobody ever bothers telling anyone that they play Raynor well, know what I’m saying?

And Gazlowe is one that I do get. He’s another loner, like Silvanas. Xplodium and lazor are devastating if they hit, but really easy for an intelligent enemy to avoid… so you use them against unintelligent enemies, like minions, mercenaries, and map-monsters. Drop a turret, a bomb, and another turret on top of a minion camp, then start charging up your lazor, and it’ll go off at just about the same time as the bomb, and now the camp is mostly finished.

The biggest problem I have with Abathur is that how well you do depends so much on your teammates’ skill level. I tried him a bit when he was on rotation, and I’d get things like symbioting a melee hero, and then all of a sudden the hero (at 90% health) turns around and starts running away. Great, what do I do with that?

154

A good Abathur is the white whale of HotS. If you see one, it’s not for long and nobody will believe you afterwards.

I also thought I was really good with him, and then my rank started going up and I was… repeatedly dissuaded of that notion.

155

I mean, I don’t think I’m great at him, I’d get creamed in HL, but I think I’m pretty good for a pub who only plays QM.

156

I would totally play this.

Incidentally, Gaz iss also my favourite hero. >.>

157

No doubt.

Seeing him (or Murky, or Vikings) picked in Hero League is funny because there are only two scenarios.

Scenario 1: Somebody on your team picks him.
Response: OH LORD WHO IS THIS GUY AND WHY DOES HE WANT US TO LOSE?

Scenario 2: Somebody on the other team picks him.
Response: OH LORD WE’RE UP AGAINST SOME SORT OF SAVANT NOBODY PICKS ABATHUR/MURKY/VIKINGS IN HERO LEAGUE UNLESS THEY’RE A PRO.

158

:stuck_out_tongue:

I don’t play them in HL, only QM, and I wreck with them in QM. If I don’t have at least double the xp of my entire team I consider it a loss as Abby, even if we win the match. I remember one match where someone said, early on, “great, we have a bad Abathur.” I ignored him. But after my locus were bombarding the core and won the game I demanded an apology.

I also had a match where a Zeratul chastised me for “feeding.” By the end of the match, where I had the highest siege, highest xp, most takedowns, and least deaths he admitted he was wrong.

But yeah, I’m not confident enough for HL. Plus, I haven’t found the right comp. I usually need to be a tank or healer.

159

Reminds me of one game as Silvanas, where I was literally the only hero on my team to come within sight of the enemy core between 40% and full shields and game over.

160

Looks like I was half-right here. The medic is getting a buff to starting and scaling health.