Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
That said, Sylvanas is not a guaranteed win on Mines
If you have her and a semi-competent team on the mines, then you have a ridiculous advantage. She is absurd in how much she swings the balance on that map.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
I'm facebutcher! What's what? My target is grouped up with three other enemies? I'd better use charge to initiate and then promptly die! Ten times over the course of the game!
Okay, so like I said before, the topic of counter-picking can be broad, but it can also be incredibly narrow. I don't intend to write an in-depth discussion on how to counter-pick each and every hero in the game; I feel like that's such a tremendous amount of work, and that its probably much easier to simply teach players how to properly evaluate their opponents' draft choices for themselves, so that they can make educated counter-picks on their own.
So, who are you supposed to counter-pick? You cannot feasibly counter an entire enemy draft, but you absolutely can counter specific heroes. In my opinion, the best character to counter-pick against is the most impactful assassin on their lineup. You can counter enemy warriors, supports, specialists, etc, but a team can't win without its damage. If you can shut down an enemy's ability to deal real damage, you've won the fight. So look for the scariest assassin on their team, and draft to counter that character. This should be relatively easy, because in my experience, most teams try to snatch up the most popular assassins (Jaina, Kael, Zeratul) as early as possible, so that the other team doesn't get them. This strategy makes sense on paper, but in reality, its the worst thing you can do because you're giving your opponent every opportunity to counter-pick those characters. Seriously, don't get discouraged when your enemy team snatches up Jaina and Kael right away - all they're doing is leaving themselves wide open to dive comps, burst damage from stealth, etc.
If at all possible, you want to try and draft your "core" damage dealer as late in the draft as you can. This leaves your opponent with less of an opportunity to counter-pick it. I don't want to get too far into the weeds with regard to general drafting strategy, but its best to mask your team's draft early on with well-balanced, all-rounder type heroes like Nazeebo and Valla. These heroes can poke, wave clear, teamfight and self-sustain well; they fit into almost every team comp, and they each have a number of viable builds, so its hard to actually counter-pick them effectively. When you pick these types of characters early on, you're not really giving the enemy team anything to work with -- you're not showing your hand, so to speak. So again, they have less of an opportunity to counter-pick your biggest threats.
Now, what actually makes a good counter-pick? That's the toughest question to answer because it depends entirely on the hero we're talking about. The key to counter-picking effectively is to evaluate the hero you want to counter by determining what it is that makes them such a threat, and then drafting specifically to deny them the ability to do whatever that is. Let's take Illidan, for example: he hits hard and he hits fast; he heals himself by attacking enemies and he also lowers his cooldowns in the same way. Basically, as long as he's attacking, he's a huge threat. So the key to countering him is to pick heroes that can stop him from attacking. How do you do that? You do that with Blinds, Attack Speed Reduction, and Stuns.
So, who can do that? With regard to Warriors, Muradin has Reverberation at level 1 (enemies hit by Thunderclap have their attack speed reduced by 50% for 3 seconds) and a ton of stuns (Stormbolt, of course, but also many others, including his AAs in Avatar). He can also Dwarf Toss on top of him when Illidan tries to use his mobility skills to get away. For Supports, Li Li can force him to miss attacks with Blinding Wind for up to 3 seconds (with Lingering Wind at 4). Tychus is likely the best Assassin counter-pick, because he's an amazing threat to enemy melee heroes with Overkill. He also has access to the Drakken Laser Drill, which will utterly annihilate Illidan when he dives for the enemy back line. As a bonus, Tychus has an escape (Run and Gun) and some surprising defensive cooldowns (First Aid and Stoneskin) to help him deal with the kind of burst damage that Illidan's going to bring his way. As for Specialists, I find that its very difficult for Illidan to deal with Murky; because so much of his playstyle is focused on constantly attacking to lower his cooldowns and restore his health, he's very susceptible to long-duration stuns like Octo-Grab. Seriously, if Illidan jumps into your team and you hold him in place for 3 full seconds, your team should be able to just blow him up.
A special note on blinds: remember that blind was changed in the last patch; they used to cause a certain number of enemy attacks to miss, now they cause all enemy attacks to miss for a certain duration. This means that as a character's attack speeds increase, the value of blinds against that character also increase. So if the enemy team drafts Abathur and Illidan together (this is very common), Li Li becomes an extremely attractive counter-pick. Neither of these characters can stop her from using her Jug of One Thousand Cups ultimate (outside of The Hunt), so that makes her even better.
And that's all there really is to it: just figure out what makes a character so strong and scary, and then figure out how best to exploit their weaknesses and prevent them from doing what they plan to do.
Some examples:
Jaina and Kael'thas are powerful backline assassins. They lack mobility and health, so they're most comfortable standing behind a solid front line. You can counter-pick them best by drafting ways of penetrating that front line -- you want characters with stealth (Nova, Zeratul), who can walk around the warriors and attack from greater positioning; characters that can hard initiate (Illidan, Tyrael) by using their abilities to jump through the warriors, directly onto the backline; etc.
The Butcher and Illidan are both powerful right-click assassins. I've already touched base on Illidan, so I won't cover him again here. A lot of the picks that work against him also work to counter the Butcher, but there are a few additional heroes that deserve a mention, here: Zagara and Nazeebo are both pretty great foils to the Butcher, because of their powerful area lockdown abilities. The Butcher is scariest when he lights himself up with Furnace Blast and starts to charge in. These two characters can stop him with Zombie Walls and Devouring Maws. Just place them in his path and he's almost completely nullified. I mean, if you can catch him in the Maw, his Blast won't even hurt anyone. I know that it can be difficult to time these abilities appropriately to catch him mid-charge, but its just such a tremendously frustrating counter for Butcher that I had to mention it.
That's about all I have time to write at the moment. If you have any questions, please shoot them my way and I'll do my best to elaborate.
The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
We've theory crafted about how far you can push attack speed here before, but someone just posted some experimentation with it to reddit and it's pretty interesting:
So far we've got Malf guides, Top-Tier picks for each Role, Map-Specific Heroes / Strategy, Counter-Picks.
I can get to work on that stuff right away. I think I'm most interested in writing about counter-picks at the moment. That's obviously a broad subject in general, but it can be a very narrow subject as well (specific hero counters). I'll do my best to hit everything, but if there's a specific hero you want to know how to counter, let me know and I'll include that information.
For the sake of easy location and formatting can you do up some guides on heroesfire and get them linked in the bottom of the OP? Would that work? Otherwise they may be lost in the thread eventually....
The assassin build is definitely the preferred build--you do ridiculous amounts of damage with it--but it's probably fine to use the tankier build while you're getting used to her. You can also use Leap in the Assassin build if you're having trouble sticking to targets.
Leap is also great for getting into the enemy back line quickly... you can very quickly slam squishies into the ground if they don't expect it.
Just watch that you don't overextended too far from your supports... I'm still working on the overextending part.
The assassin build is definitely the preferred build--you do ridiculous amounts of damage with it--but it's probably fine to use the tankier build while you're getting used to her. You can also use Leap in the Assassin build if you're having trouble sticking to targets.
Leap is also great for getting into the enemy back line quickly... you can very quickly slam squishies into the ground if they don't expect it.
Just watch that you don't overextended too far from your supports... I'm still working on the overextending part.
Overextension, you say?
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
Oh god, i never bothered to look at that most deaths screen.
My top is Sylvanus which is like 50% higher than my next highest... which is Illidan. For the record, my third highest is Zagara which I do not even own (and only really played for one week she was free). Of course that is the benefits of playing so much Abathur. I do not die. Also apparently get absurd kill counts because aba is roughly 50% above my next most kills.
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The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
Oh god, i never bothered to look at that most deaths screen.
My top is Sylvanus which is like 50% higher than my next highest... which is Illidan. For the record, my third highest is Zagara which I do not even own (and only really played for one week she was free). Of course that is the benefits of playing so much Abathur. I do not die. Also apparently get absurd kill counts because aba is roughly 50% above my next most kills.
Global map presence on a 3 second cooldown is pretty good for kill participation, yeah :P
The assassin build is definitely the preferred build--you do ridiculous amounts of damage with it--but it's probably fine to use the tankier build while you're getting used to her. You can also use Leap in the Assassin build if you're having trouble sticking to targets.
Leap is also great for getting into the enemy back line quickly... you can very quickly slam squishies into the ground if they don't expect it.
Just watch that you don't overextended too far from your supports... I'm still working on the overextending part.
Sorry if I deflated like a baloon towards the end there. My mood is directly tied to my sense of self-worth. When we had that huge comeback before, I was understandably elated. And then we were thrashed on mines and I could feel only doubt.
Sadly most my stat screen figures are useless because the game stupidly counts AI matches into the same pile of metrics, and I have played many of them.
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The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
Many thanks to @Kai_San for being a wonderful Abathur to my Sonya! A Nazeebo in one of our games told me I made Sonya look sexy. That made me feel sexy 8-)
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
I played with you a lot before, you are so much better on her now. You really know how to keep on someone with her. Honestly shes a better hat target than I think anyone because of those autos hitting so hard and the fact that my attack speed and a healing shield just makes you never die on levels illidan could only dream of.
Is the healing shield worth taking without the level 4 shield talent? Feels like in typical fights the shield would be knocked off so quickly that the healing might as well not exist.
Alright, who wants hero codes? I've got Zeratul, Zagara, and Lili. PM me on Bnet s314der#1279 (or here if you're one of those who happens to be at work).
All codes claimed! Go forth and slay your enemies in the name of Arcadia!
My Lili is now ready for adventure! You are a hero to a nation (Pandaria).
Is the healing shield worth taking without the level 4 shield talent? Feels like in typical fights the shield would be knocked off so quickly that the healing might as well not exist.
I rarely take one without the other... combined they make minion waves super durable. (Edit, sorry... you need all three talents 1/4/7 for OP minion waves. Heal/sustained/networked).
@MMMig yeah, that does include vs ai, though I've only played 2-3 vs AI matches per hero just to learn the buttons... I wish I'd grabbed Hot Slogs and set my replays up to save sooner so it had my whole match history (or that blizz had sorting)... I'd like to know what the actual match stats are.
The vast majority of those aba kills are from grinding him up to lvl 10 in QM.
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
I take the shield heal because at tier 1 the talents aren't all that impactful. The larger shorter CD aoe is nice, but it's not a dealbreaker.
The shield heal does add up, but its biggest benefit is during laning to help keep someone in the game. Also, I like how it can help out the monstrosity some.
I like to take the aoe shield regardless of getting the other two shield talents. When you aoe shield all minions while running a Monstrosity through a lane its just mean, and you can often give someone a real hard time when they are trying to solo clear a lane and you keep shields up on a full wave.
I mix and match talents all the time though depending on how I feel things are going and what map it is. I often do not go absolute full hat anymore. Though when hivemind gets its buff that might change. I have started having some success taking the mons talent at 20 and tunneling. That sure is nice, never thought about how impactful that could be.
All of Aba's level 1 talents have good synergy with higher tier talents but aren't great on their own... Pressurized glands has very good synergy with envenomed spikes at 16 for a large AOE slow for example.
If the dot from Envenomed nest stacked it'd be worth taking, but sadly it's garbage (it just refreshes)...
I wish they'd add something to Monstro burrow mode, but it's already pretty cool... the Monstro can heal in the nexus, so burrowing back when he's beaten up can really extend his uptime (especially if you see someone coming to mash him).
All of Aba's level 1 talents have good synergy with higher tier talents but aren't great on their own... Pressurized glands has very good synergy with envenomed spikes at 16 for a large AOE slow for example.
If the dot from Envenomed nest stacked it'd be worth taking, but sadly it's garbage (it just refreshes)...
I wish they'd add something to Monstro burrow mode, but it's already pretty cool... the Monstro can heal in the nexus, so burrowing back when he's beaten up can really extend his uptime (especially if you see someone coming to mash him).
This is still the dumbest thing since it kills any sort of Mine build in the womb. Mines work best when you set a big ass trap with them. And the damage buff doesn't support that. So silly.
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The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
The problem is if the DoT stacked, you could actually one-shot assassins with a decently-sized minefield, couldn't you? Global Techies isn't a good thing, man. You do NOT want that in the game.
The problem is if the DoT stacked, you could actually one-shot assassins with a decently-sized minefield, couldn't you? Global Techies isn't a good thing, man. You do NOT want that in the game.
You can already one-shot an assassin with a decently sized minefield. I've done it plenty of times. The limiting factor is that Abathur doesn't actually get that many mines, even with the lvl4 talent. It takes awhile to set the trap up and then you gotta hope they walk into it.
The ability to give you a better shot at that trick isn't a problem. Especially given what you'd have to give up to make it work as a build.
The problem is if the DoT stacked, you could actually one-shot assassins with a decently-sized minefield, couldn't you? Global Techies isn't a good thing, man. You do NOT want that in the game.
You can already one-shot an assassin with a decently sized minefield. I've done it plenty of times. The limiting factor is that Abathur doesn't actually get that many mines, even with the lvl4 talent. It takes awhile to set the trap up and then you gotta hope they walk into it.
The ability to give you a better shot at that trick isn't a problem. Especially given what you'd have to give up to make it work as a build.
I think it would be a bit too dominant on certain maps that have extreme bottleneck areas, like the heaven/hell map. Plant them in the areas where they're going to have to come through to get at you and then all of the sudden you've got one or two people on their team coming into the fight already at half health.
Thanks Klineshrike and Escape Goat for the games last night, apologies for scrubbing it up a bit; I don't really play Raynor ever, was going for the daily/level 5 and may have been pushing it a bit. Hopefully I can make up for it next time
Slowly making my way up the levels to hero league, so that should be fun. This was the highlight for me last night:
Many thanks to @Kai_San for being a wonderful Abathur to my Sonya! A Nazeebo in one of our games told me I made Sonya look sexy. That made me feel sexy 8-)
Damn, wish I had been able to stay up and join you for that.
@milk ducks Thanks for that counterpick guide. Makes good sense. Playing many heroes has helped me better understand what their strengths and weaknesses are. So even if you don't like playing a particular class I highly recommend playing all of them you can when they're free. It'll help you understand just how indestructible Johanna is, and how long your windows of opportunity will be during cooldowns once you see an enemy use their abilities.
Man... I try to stay positive with all the sillygoose stuff in this game, but... fuck Zeratul... I don't know how you guys do so well with him.
I've tried 4 QM's with him and every one has been one of the worst steamrolls since I picked up the game... last one was a <15 minute loss on mines that ended lvl13-16.
I have zero problem annihilating fools with Nova... I guess the difference is just positioning with Zera. Everyone always seems to see my shimmer... it's like I'm not even stealthed.
@The Escape Goat Looking at your stats made me curious so I checked mine... love that Aba...
It's also neat looking at how people are on maps.... Mines isn't my Forte... Blackheart bay though :biggrin:
This includes VS AI games though, right?
I sure hope so, because when I look at my stats screen my numbers are appallingly low. But I've played either 0 or 1 vs AI games, ever, and my highest winrate is 55% on cursed hollow. And lowest is 28% (!!!!) on Dragon Shire. I am not kidding when I say I loathe that map. Next lowest is 43% on Blackheart's Bay (which I enjoy but apparently am bad at).
Actually, looking at this makes me realize I clearly have some sort of profound problem with Dragon Shire. @milk ducks , if you're in a guide-writing mood still, do you have any comments about champion picks for Dragon Shire or in general about the ebb and flow of that map? And what do you even do when you get the suit? I tend to just charge to a tower and take down one set and die--probably not optimal.
Also, is there a place where I can just look at my HL stats undiluted by QM?
Steam, LoL: credeiki
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jergarmarhollow man crewgoes pew pew pewRegistered Userregular
As mentioned, 10k+ gold for first time. Zagara is great and only 7k! Purchased.
The instant I actually pressed the button, a whole chorus of voices erupted in my head. Chen! Abathur! Murky! How will you ever save the gold to get them now?
And then I remember that I CAN always, you know, simply spend actual money to get whatever hero I want.
Free-to-play tends to create these strange false dilemmas in my mind.
When I was a child, I had a fever... My BoardGameGeek profile
Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
Man... I try to stay positive with all the sillygoose stuff in this game, but... fuck Zeratul... I don't know how you guys do so well with him.
I've tried 4 QM's with him and every one has been one of the worst steamrolls since I picked up the game... last one was a <15 minute loss on mines that ended lvl13-16.
I have zero problem annihilating fools with Nova... I guess the difference is just positioning with Zera. Everyone always seems to see my shimmer... it's like I'm not even stealthed.
The learning curve with Zeratul is much higher than Nova. Nova can start satisfactorily blowing people up with just a couple games. Zeratul is much harder. Part of that is simply because his kit/playstyle is much more active. It also has a lot to do with the fact that he's melee.
All of the common melee problems apply to Zeratul. You go into range and you risk getting stunned and blown up.
You need to watch for your opponents to use their cooldowns that will mess you up. That means watch for Muradin to throw his hammer, Uther to stun, Brightwing to polymorph someone, and so forth.
You also just need to wait in general. You never want to be the one to engage. Wait for the fight to ensue, wait for people to get distracted, and that's when you strike. And only strike soft targets and low-health targets of opportunity. Don't attack the tank, and try not to attack other melees unless you are absolutely certain that you will get the kill. Other melees will completely wreck Zeratul.
Actually, looking at this makes me realize I clearly have some sort of profound problem with Dragon Shire. @milk ducks , if you're in a guide-writing mood still, do you have any comments about champion picks for Dragon Shire or in general about the ebb and flow of that map? And what do you even do when you get the suit? I tend to just charge to a tower and take down one set and die--probably not optimal.
Also, is there a place where I can just look at my HL stats undiluted by QM?
Yeah that's why I was asking about the idea of a tankless team for dragon shire. I used to have no luck there but lately things have gone well. I think the trick is to make sure that you can control one shrine and have great map awareness. You need to vye for an advantage by killing a couple of the enemy and take advantage of it. You CAN still get the dragon by capping both shrines while the enemy is in transit or something, and that happens a lot, but it's an exercise in luck and takes a while to succeed at because typically it goes on and on with each team exchanging shrine control.
As I said, I think team comp can have a big impact on shrines and I've found zeratul, for example, to be quite valuable there.
If you upload your replays to hotslogs you can filter your stats by QM and HL there.
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If you have her and a semi-competent team on the mines, then you have a ridiculous advantage. She is absurd in how much she swings the balance on that map.
Tassadar is also good on mines.
Def not Sylv good but ya...
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
Still might be worth it to make sure you get good dps first instead of her.
First pick syl, then the other team gets like jaina and zera is not a great trade.
So, who are you supposed to counter-pick? You cannot feasibly counter an entire enemy draft, but you absolutely can counter specific heroes. In my opinion, the best character to counter-pick against is the most impactful assassin on their lineup. You can counter enemy warriors, supports, specialists, etc, but a team can't win without its damage. If you can shut down an enemy's ability to deal real damage, you've won the fight. So look for the scariest assassin on their team, and draft to counter that character. This should be relatively easy, because in my experience, most teams try to snatch up the most popular assassins (Jaina, Kael, Zeratul) as early as possible, so that the other team doesn't get them. This strategy makes sense on paper, but in reality, its the worst thing you can do because you're giving your opponent every opportunity to counter-pick those characters. Seriously, don't get discouraged when your enemy team snatches up Jaina and Kael right away - all they're doing is leaving themselves wide open to dive comps, burst damage from stealth, etc.
If at all possible, you want to try and draft your "core" damage dealer as late in the draft as you can. This leaves your opponent with less of an opportunity to counter-pick it. I don't want to get too far into the weeds with regard to general drafting strategy, but its best to mask your team's draft early on with well-balanced, all-rounder type heroes like Nazeebo and Valla. These heroes can poke, wave clear, teamfight and self-sustain well; they fit into almost every team comp, and they each have a number of viable builds, so its hard to actually counter-pick them effectively. When you pick these types of characters early on, you're not really giving the enemy team anything to work with -- you're not showing your hand, so to speak. So again, they have less of an opportunity to counter-pick your biggest threats.
Now, what actually makes a good counter-pick? That's the toughest question to answer because it depends entirely on the hero we're talking about. The key to counter-picking effectively is to evaluate the hero you want to counter by determining what it is that makes them such a threat, and then drafting specifically to deny them the ability to do whatever that is. Let's take Illidan, for example: he hits hard and he hits fast; he heals himself by attacking enemies and he also lowers his cooldowns in the same way. Basically, as long as he's attacking, he's a huge threat. So the key to countering him is to pick heroes that can stop him from attacking. How do you do that? You do that with Blinds, Attack Speed Reduction, and Stuns.
So, who can do that? With regard to Warriors, Muradin has Reverberation at level 1 (enemies hit by Thunderclap have their attack speed reduced by 50% for 3 seconds) and a ton of stuns (Stormbolt, of course, but also many others, including his AAs in Avatar). He can also Dwarf Toss on top of him when Illidan tries to use his mobility skills to get away. For Supports, Li Li can force him to miss attacks with Blinding Wind for up to 3 seconds (with Lingering Wind at 4). Tychus is likely the best Assassin counter-pick, because he's an amazing threat to enemy melee heroes with Overkill. He also has access to the Drakken Laser Drill, which will utterly annihilate Illidan when he dives for the enemy back line. As a bonus, Tychus has an escape (Run and Gun) and some surprising defensive cooldowns (First Aid and Stoneskin) to help him deal with the kind of burst damage that Illidan's going to bring his way. As for Specialists, I find that its very difficult for Illidan to deal with Murky; because so much of his playstyle is focused on constantly attacking to lower his cooldowns and restore his health, he's very susceptible to long-duration stuns like Octo-Grab. Seriously, if Illidan jumps into your team and you hold him in place for 3 full seconds, your team should be able to just blow him up.
A special note on blinds: remember that blind was changed in the last patch; they used to cause a certain number of enemy attacks to miss, now they cause all enemy attacks to miss for a certain duration. This means that as a character's attack speeds increase, the value of blinds against that character also increase. So if the enemy team drafts Abathur and Illidan together (this is very common), Li Li becomes an extremely attractive counter-pick. Neither of these characters can stop her from using her Jug of One Thousand Cups ultimate (outside of The Hunt), so that makes her even better.
And that's all there really is to it: just figure out what makes a character so strong and scary, and then figure out how best to exploit their weaknesses and prevent them from doing what they plan to do.
Some examples:
That's about all I have time to write at the moment. If you have any questions, please shoot them my way and I'll do my best to elaborate.
For the sake of easy location and formatting can you do up some guides on heroesfire and get them linked in the bottom of the OP? Would that work? Otherwise they may be lost in the thread eventually....
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
Leap is also great for getting into the enemy back line quickly... you can very quickly slam squishies into the ground if they don't expect it.
Just watch that you don't overextended too far from your supports... I'm still working on the overextending part.
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
Overextension, you say?
My top is Sylvanus which is like 50% higher than my next highest... which is Illidan. For the record, my third highest is Zagara which I do not even own (and only really played for one week she was free). Of course that is the benefits of playing so much Abathur. I do not die. Also apparently get absurd kill counts because aba is roughly 50% above my next most kills.
Global map presence on a 3 second cooldown is pretty good for kill participation, yeah :P
Ah, right. Haven't played Aba in a while. Still pretty short.
SO MUCH DEATH!
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
It's also neat looking at how people are on maps.... Mines isn't my Forte... Blackheart bay though :biggrin:
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
Battle.net: Fireflash#1425
Steam Friend code: 45386507
This includes VS AI games though, right?
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
I rarely take one without the other... combined they make minion waves super durable. (Edit, sorry... you need all three talents 1/4/7 for OP minion waves. Heal/sustained/networked).
@MMMig yeah, that does include vs ai, though I've only played 2-3 vs AI matches per hero just to learn the buttons... I wish I'd grabbed Hot Slogs and set my replays up to save sooner so it had my whole match history (or that blizz had sorting)... I'd like to know what the actual match stats are.
The vast majority of those aba kills are from grinding him up to lvl 10 in QM.
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
The shield heal does add up, but its biggest benefit is during laning to help keep someone in the game. Also, I like how it can help out the monstrosity some.
I like to take the aoe shield regardless of getting the other two shield talents. When you aoe shield all minions while running a Monstrosity through a lane its just mean, and you can often give someone a real hard time when they are trying to solo clear a lane and you keep shields up on a full wave.
I mix and match talents all the time though depending on how I feel things are going and what map it is. I often do not go absolute full hat anymore. Though when hivemind gets its buff that might change. I have started having some success taking the mons talent at 20 and tunneling. That sure is nice, never thought about how impactful that could be.
If the dot from Envenomed nest stacked it'd be worth taking, but sadly it's garbage (it just refreshes)...
I wish they'd add something to Monstro burrow mode, but it's already pretty cool... the Monstro can heal in the nexus, so burrowing back when he's beaten up can really extend his uptime (especially if you see someone coming to mash him).
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
This is still the dumbest thing since it kills any sort of Mine build in the womb. Mines work best when you set a big ass trap with them. And the damage buff doesn't support that. So silly.
You can already one-shot an assassin with a decently sized minefield. I've done it plenty of times. The limiting factor is that Abathur doesn't actually get that many mines, even with the lvl4 talent. It takes awhile to set the trap up and then you gotta hope they walk into it.
The ability to give you a better shot at that trick isn't a problem. Especially given what you'd have to give up to make it work as a build.
I think it would be a bit too dominant on certain maps that have extreme bottleneck areas, like the heaven/hell map. Plant them in the areas where they're going to have to come through to get at you and then all of the sudden you've got one or two people on their team coming into the fight already at half health.
Slowly making my way up the levels to hero league, so that should be fun. This was the highlight for me last night:
That poor Nova. 5 levels is a huge power gap.
Damn, wish I had been able to stay up and join you for that.
@milk ducks Thanks for that counterpick guide. Makes good sense. Playing many heroes has helped me better understand what their strengths and weaknesses are. So even if you don't like playing a particular class I highly recommend playing all of them you can when they're free. It'll help you understand just how indestructible Johanna is, and how long your windows of opportunity will be during cooldowns once you see an enemy use their abilities.
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I've tried 4 QM's with him and every one has been one of the worst steamrolls since I picked up the game... last one was a <15 minute loss on mines that ended lvl13-16.
I have zero problem annihilating fools with Nova... I guess the difference is just positioning with Zera. Everyone always seems to see my shimmer... it's like I'm not even stealthed.
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
I sure hope so, because when I look at my stats screen my numbers are appallingly low. But I've played either 0 or 1 vs AI games, ever, and my highest winrate is 55% on cursed hollow. And lowest is 28% (!!!!) on Dragon Shire. I am not kidding when I say I loathe that map. Next lowest is 43% on Blackheart's Bay (which I enjoy but apparently am bad at).
Actually, looking at this makes me realize I clearly have some sort of profound problem with Dragon Shire. @milk ducks , if you're in a guide-writing mood still, do you have any comments about champion picks for Dragon Shire or in general about the ebb and flow of that map? And what do you even do when you get the suit? I tend to just charge to a tower and take down one set and die--probably not optimal.
Also, is there a place where I can just look at my HL stats undiluted by QM?
The instant I actually pressed the button, a whole chorus of voices erupted in my head. Chen! Abathur! Murky! How will you ever save the gold to get them now?
And then I remember that I CAN always, you know, simply spend actual money to get whatever hero I want.
Free-to-play tends to create these strange false dilemmas in my mind.
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Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
The learning curve with Zeratul is much higher than Nova. Nova can start satisfactorily blowing people up with just a couple games. Zeratul is much harder. Part of that is simply because his kit/playstyle is much more active. It also has a lot to do with the fact that he's melee.
All of the common melee problems apply to Zeratul. You go into range and you risk getting stunned and blown up.
You need to watch for your opponents to use their cooldowns that will mess you up. That means watch for Muradin to throw his hammer, Uther to stun, Brightwing to polymorph someone, and so forth.
You also just need to wait in general. You never want to be the one to engage. Wait for the fight to ensue, wait for people to get distracted, and that's when you strike. And only strike soft targets and low-health targets of opportunity. Don't attack the tank, and try not to attack other melees unless you are absolutely certain that you will get the kill. Other melees will completely wreck Zeratul.
Yeah that's why I was asking about the idea of a tankless team for dragon shire. I used to have no luck there but lately things have gone well. I think the trick is to make sure that you can control one shrine and have great map awareness. You need to vye for an advantage by killing a couple of the enemy and take advantage of it. You CAN still get the dragon by capping both shrines while the enemy is in transit or something, and that happens a lot, but it's an exercise in luck and takes a while to succeed at because typically it goes on and on with each team exchanging shrine control.
As I said, I think team comp can have a big impact on shrines and I've found zeratul, for example, to be quite valuable there.
If you upload your replays to hotslogs you can filter your stats by QM and HL there.
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