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[Heroes of the Storm] THE NATURE OF MONKEY WAS IRREPRESSIBLE
milk ducks
High Mucky MuckBig Tits TownRegistered User regular
High Mucky MuckBig Tits TownRegistered User regular
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sULZ2SQUbuwOfficial Definition:
Heroes of the Storm™ is a raucous online team brawler starring your favorite Blizzard characters. Build and customize heroes from across every Blizzard universe to suit your play style. Team up with your friends and engage in fast-paced mayhem across varied battlegrounds that impact strategy and change the way you play the game.
Alternate Definition:
Heroes is a MOBA-lite Team Brawler game in which you play as many characters from different Blizzard universes in 5v5 objective based team combat. The emphasis is on "objective based." There are currently 7 maps with more to come. Each features a unique map objective that is typically the key to victory. The team that manages to win the objectives is usuallythe team that wins. Heroes shares many gameplay elements in the MOBA genre with popular games like DotA2 and League of Legends, but it also drops a lot of the common trappings of the genre and has simplified down to a core game of action and fun.
Heroes, in a nutshell, is a game in which two teams are trying to destroy the Core of the opposing team. The Core is similar to the Ancient in DotA or the Nexus in League. Each team has a base with Forts, Towers, Gates, Healing Wells, and Walls to help them defend their core.
At regular intervals waves of NPC Minions spawn in each base and march down pre-defined lanes to attack the enemy. It is the job of the players to help attack down these lanes and destroy the enemy team's base and ultimately their Core. To help with this, each of the maps has a special map objective that gives a big bonus of some sort to the team that completes the objective. Generally each objective will be completed 3-5 times per match before the core is destroyed.
Just like the waves of NPC Minions who spawn and march towards each other in battle, so too do the player characters respawn when they die and continue to fight. The amount of time it takes to respawn is directly related to how long the game has been running. In a new game that is only minutes old, a player will respawn almost immediately. In games over 15 minutes in length the spawn timers will reach a full 60 seconds.
Core: The first team to destroy their opponent's Core wins the map. The Core has a recharging shield which is worth about 15% of the total health of the Core. This shield regenerates very quickly when the Core is out of combat for 8 seconds. The Core also shoots a lightning blast at a target that will also damage enemies near that target. It follows the same targeting rules as Forts and Towers (see below), but is immune to many effect that shut down structures.
Tower: The first line of defense in each base. Towers have limited ammo which regenerates over time. Towers prioritize minions and summoned units and will ignore player characters as long as there is a minion or summoned unit within range. Unlike other MOBAs, the Towers in Heroes will not target a player character if that character attacks an enemy hero while within range.
Forts: Each lane has one Fort, which is located behind a wall and two towers. These Forts have a lot of HP and attack with ammo just like Towers do, but they also slow enemy movement and attack speed which makes them a decent place to defend from. Destroying a Fort yields a considerable XP payout, making them primary targets in the early game.
Keeps: After a Fort, the last line of a lane's defense before the Core are Keeps. These function similarly to Forts, and will also pay out big XP if destroyed. If a keep is destroyed, the opposing lane will start spawning long-range, high-damage catapults alongside the usual minions. Therefore, it's very important protect your keeps while destroying your opponents'.
Healing Wells: If you have played Warcraft 3 then you are probably familiar with the Healing Wells, as they operate similarly to the Moon Wells of the Night Elves. They are on a timer, and restore Health and Mana when you click them. The Health and Mana provided by these Wells is not instant, as the restoration happens over time.
Spawn Point: Each team spawns behind their Core in the safety of their base. There is a magical shield barrier that prevents the enemy team from entering the spawn location, and this shield stops all spells and attacks. Spawn Points also have instant-mounting while you are inside, and you regenerate Health and Mana at a very fast rate while standing in the spawn.
Minions spawn down the lane like merry lemmings just waiting to die to a tower or hero. They are...
1. Soldiers: Dudes with swords, they lead the minion waves. Tend to have higher-than-average HP and a weak melee attack.
2. Archers: Dudes with, get this, bows. They're in the back of the wave, boasting lower HP but a decent ranged attack.
3. Mages: Wizards that coast in the middle of the pack. They deal ranged damage, but the more important thing is that they drop a green orb on death that will give you and nearby teammates a little bit of HP and mana back. There's only one per minion wave, so try to get that orb!
4. Catapults: Beefy siege units that assault bases with a long-range attack. They only spawn when the enemy's final fort in that lane has fallen, giving you incentive to keep that damn fort alive. They can easily outrange towers/forts/cores, meaning they will slowly whittle down a base unless stopped.
Each map also contains a scattering of Mercenary Camps in the "jungle" area between the lanes. These Merc Camps are neutral NPCs that can be defeated by players and hired to fight for the team that captures them. To capture a Mercenary Camp, the players must defeat them in combat (or bribe them) and then stand within a capture circle for a few seconds to gain control of the camp. It is possible for the enemy team to steal the camps if they push you out of the circle or kill you before you can claim it.
1. Siege Camps: These camps contain two giant siege monsters which hurl large rocks at their enemies. They have long range and can out-range towers and forts, which make them very advantageous for lane pushing. These are the easiest camps to defeat and can be solo'd by most heroes by level 10.
2. Bruiser Camps: Formerly known as the "Knight Camps," these are squads of 4 soldiers (3 melee and 1 spellcaster) who possess a lot of HP and decent damage damage. These camps are more difficult to take and typically require 1-2 people to capture.
3. Boss Camps: These camps generally require 3+ heroes to kill, depending on team levels and what heroes are present. These are high HP / high Damage monsters that can do devastating amounts of damage in a lane. They ignore minions and other mercenaries and will only target enemy structures. They cast a Pound skill that can be avoided by moving out of the telegraphed smash circle. They also cast a targeted root spell on occasion against enemy heroes, telegraphed by a smaller circle.
4. Map-Specific Creeps: From pirates on Blackheart Bay to the plant monsters in the Garden of Terror, these mercs will NOT join your side, but instead drop objective-relevant items that help you win the game like skulls, coins, and so on. Difficulty and rewards vary by map.
Map-specific strategies --
Sky Temple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuSPWCON6Po&list=PLDmbQ8drPb-XYA_EcBxCRNpdqXd5A2DIKTowers of Doom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbUZSG1x4oo&index=2&list=PLDmbQ8drPb-XYA_EcBxCRNpdqXd5A2DIKDragon Shire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNQVXeyWNn8&list=PLDmbQ8drPb-XYA_EcBxCRNpdqXd5A2DIK&index=3Infernal shrines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGloUgEodvM&index=4&list=PLDmbQ8drPb-XYA_EcBxCRNpdqXd5A2DIKCursed Hollow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrzld5Ynx9Q&index=5&list=PLDmbQ8drPb-XYA_EcBxCRNpdqXd5A2DIK
So what else? There is no item shop. No in-game gold. No items to be bought. No shoes or rods of whatever. "Blasphemy!" you might say, but Heroes is feeling pretty heretical. Instead of items, you get talents roughly every 3-4 levels. These are anywhere from 2-5 choices that change how your character functions. It might be "killing minions gives you more damage" or "your auto-attacks now slow enemies." At level 10 you unlock your Heroic Ability (aka your ult), and even that has choices! Every character has two heroic abilities, so pick the one most suited for the current game.
If you have played other MOBAs and are accustomed to buying boots, this game doesn't have them. Instead it has Mounts (default Z key). Attacking or taking damage dismounts you, and re-mounting does have a brief cooldown. Not all characters can mount up, but instead have mobility skills that in most cases let them get to an area REALLY FAST but has a much longer cooldown.
As you play games in Heroes, you will level up two different things: your Player Level and a Hero Level. Experience you earn from playing game is applied to both kinds of levels. There are also three kinds of XP boosts one can get: playing with people on your friends list, Holiday bonuses that occur throughout the year, and Stimpacks which are boosts you buy from the shop. Also, there's a cap on experience gained from bot matches: roughly 2.25 Million experience a day.
Player Level is just an account rank. You get various features and goodies unlocked as you play. These are as follows:
- Level2: 1,000 Gold
- Level 4: 1,000 Gold
- Level 5: Unlocks an additional slot in the free hero rotation
- Level 6: Unlocks Daily Quests
- Level 7: Unlocks an additional slot in the free hero rotation
- Levels 8: 2,000 Gold
- Level 10: A Seven-Day Stim Pack (+100% XP and Gold from games); 2,000 Gold
- Level 12: Unlocks an additional slot in the free hero rotation
- Level 15: Unlocks an additional slot in the free hero rotation
- Level 20: 2,000 Gold
- Level 25: 2,000 Gold
- Level 30: 2,000 Gold
- Level 35: 2,000 Gold
- Level 40: 2,000 Gold
Daily Quests are small tasks the game gives you each day, and upon completion you get 200-800 gold (depending on the quest) for your effort (as an aside, you also get 30 gold for each win, and 20 for each loss). There are currently 4 categories of Daily Quests: play 2 games with a specific franchise hero, play 3 games as a specific role, win 3 games, and play 8 games in any mode. Note that the Retro and Overwatch universes are currently not used for the franchise daily quests.
Hero Level is a series of unlocks for specific heroes. Each hero has their own level, and playing games with them will increase their level (alongside your player level). Here are hero unlocks:
- Level 5: 500 Gold
- Level 6: Hero Portrait; Mount Tint #1
- Level 7: Hero Tint #1
- Level 8: Hero Tint #2
- Level 9: Hero Master Portrait; Mount Tint #2; 750 Gold
- Level 10: Allows purchase of Master Skin (10,000 gold)
- Level 15: 1,000 Gold
- Level 20: 2,000 Gold
To unlock Ranked Modes, you must own at least 14 heroes that are level five or higher. Free rotation heroes count towards this total so long as they meet this level requirement.
Recruit-a-Friend
Blizzard introduced the RAF program in their December update. With this program veteran players will earn rewards for recruiting new members. New members also get bonuses. It's a win-win for everyone!
Veteran RAF rewards:
- A Portrait when 1 friend reaches account level 10
- Vulture Mount when 4 friends reach account level 10
Recruit RAF rewards:
- A 5-day stimpack
- Jim Raynor as a free hero at account level 1
- Sylvanas as a free hero upon reaching account level 10
- A Portrait when reaching account level 10
What are some good newbie heroes?
Assassin: Raynor, Warrior: Muradin, Support: Li Li, and Specialist: Nazeebo. Avoid Abathur,
(Cho'gall, Rexxar, Murky, and the Lost Vikings as they have very atypical designs that are best played when you have more experience with the game.)
What's the best way to get experience?
Quick Match. Practice has an experience penalty, and cooperative games are (on average) shorter than Quick Match games. This means you spend more time in queues when doing co-op whereas QM you are in the game earning XP (it's time-based for xp earned per game). There's also the 50,000 xp win bonus you get from QM that you can't from co-op. Hero and Team League are probably worse xp because you have to spend time picking heroes. The only reason to play co-op is because you just can't win in QM for a daily.
What is the fastest way to get gold?
There is none. First, do the tutorials. They don't net you a ton of gold, but it's a decent amount and worth spending ~30-45 minutes to get. From there, the least slow way is to do your daily quest (the game saves up to three quests so you can miss a day or two) and then play with friends on heroes you have not gotten to level five or nine with yet. Start with heroes you don't own yet, and then switch to owned heroes if you manage to get all 10 free rotation heroes to level 5 or 9 within a week. That right there is about 5000 gold a week for the next month or so, not counting gold from account levels and games played. Once you hit 40 and have all heroes to level nine you can then do dailies (about 250 gold a day) and grind heroes to 15 and 20 for more gold, but the latter is a significantly longer process than getting a hero to level five or nine.
Do not buy stimpacks. They are not worth the money unless you can play around 10+ games a day for a month straight. The seven-day stimpacks are even worse.
Also, each week a hero is on sale for 25%-50% off real-world money prices, so that's another option if you're willing to lay down hard cash on the game.
When is the next patch?
Patches have been on a fairly consistent seven-week cycle since launch. Basically a patch will go up on PTR for a week, then it goes live with a new hero. Three weeks later, the second hero in that patch is released but there are no changes barring minor bugfixes or something. Then three weeks after that the next patch goes up on PTR, and the cycle begins anews.
How does the new hero pricing model work?
All new heroes are released at a starting cost of 15k. This price will be in place for 2 weeks. After 2 weeks, the price drops to 10k. Beyond that, there is no set rule or guideline for when a hero will further drop in price. Blizzard has occasionally gone through and updated hero pricing on multiple heroes at once, (i.e. when they made Li Li a 2k hero and Arthas a 7k hero), but there's no hard rule for when older heroes get price drops.
Cross Promotional stuff?
World of Warcraft
WoW Character Level 100: Wolf Mount (HotS)
HotS Account Level 20: Grave Golem Pet (WoW)
Legion Deluxe Edition: Felstalker Mount (HotS)
Diablo 3
Seasonal Character 70: Malthael's Phantom Mount (HotS)
HotS Account Level 12: Pennant and Player Border (D3)
Starcraft 2
Buy Legacy of the Void (any version): Unlock Artanis (HotS)
Buy Legacy of the Void Collector's Edition: Void Seeker Mount (HotS)
Hearthstone
Win 100 Games: Hearthstone Card Mount (HotS)
HotS Account Level 12: HotS Themed Card Back (HS)
Overwatch
Buy Overwatch Origins OR Collector's Edition: Unlock Tracer (HotS)
How do I play with all of you fine people?
Type "/join heroes of the wang" in game to join our PA chat channel. Great for finding games! Also, check out the Battle Tag list
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ecv0bT9DEo Sterica on
0
Posts
I gotta get back into this man ;-;
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
So there's a bunch of Overwatch rewards for the Nexus Challenge. Several folks in the PA Overwatch thread have expressed interest, but also trepidation because they're like "then I gotta play HotS
My thought is, let's have a sort of ambassador program starting on the 15th. Those of us who are veteran HotS players team up with some Overwatch folks who maybe have never bothered or who tried the game early on but quit for whatever reason. We take them through some Co-op vs AI, and maybe later QM, UD, or Brawl if they're interested. They get their 15 games, we keep mentoring OW players who want it, we get eventually to our 30 games, maybe some OW players decide they like HotS and decide to stay, everybody wins.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
I can commit to trying to post in the OW thread when I'm getting on HOTS to see who wants to join maybe
Interesting comps too.
Damn it Sig, catch up!
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wra
Some over-extensions by fnatic
SO PUMPED!
YEAAAAAAA
I haven't been a huge fan of the other brawls, but I do really like this ARAM. It's closer aligned to the regular game with talent picks and similar gameplay, but yeah it's lighthearted and fun just to do without caring too much about the result.
Switch: 6589-6405-3399
Also there is only one hero I truly hate and have no interest in ever playing - murky - and I somehow managed to roll him in both brawls I've played so far. Stunning. Went 1-1 but had no fun in either, haha.
https://blizzcon.com/en-us/watch#esportsB
16 seconds fnatic thakes first blood on MVP Black.
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
Geeeezzzzzz
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
Switch: 6589-6405-3399
Ouch
Wow, look at Khaldor, he's sweaty as fuck. Intense.
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
GRUBBY AND KALARIS!!!!!
Blizzcon has finally started!
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
Crazy draft. Ballistix took Falstad/BW/Dehaka/ETC... wait for it.... HAMMER.
Dig took Chen/Auriel/Muradin/Tychus... GULDAN.
whaaaaaaat
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
nice freudian slip there bud :winky:
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
BANANAS
BANANAS
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
edit- I love Kalaris' Scotch accent "Mighty Goost!"
I did, yeah.
I'll catch the vods later tho! Heard it was nuts.
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
Agreed.
Also, who said Aba should be banned from ARAM? Not only that, but this was AI Abathur!!!
Switch: 6589-6405-3399
Ya since it's single lane 5 heroes don't have too much to spread so a lot of hits are kind of mandatory.
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra