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[Heroes of the Storm] The Kael'thas patch was merely a setback
Lucascraft
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Official 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 5 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 usually the 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's health itself also regenerates, but at a very slow rate. The Core also shoots a lightning blast at targets within its attack range. It follows the same targeting rules as Forts and Towers (see below).
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 opponent's.
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 5 soldiers (4 melee and 1 spellcaster) who have a moderate amount of HP and 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 green smash circle. They also cast a targeted root spell on occasion against enemy heroes. This can also be moved out of, but the window of opportunity is much smaller in dodging the root, and if you aren't on your toes it will catch you.
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.
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.
There are 4 Hero archetypes
Warriors are typically high hitpoint, low(er) damage heroes. Their job is to initiate fights, disrupt the enemy team, and create opportunities for other characters to get kills. Almost every Warrior comes equipped with a Stun or Knockback, or some other type of control spell.
Examples: Muradin, Tyrael, Anub'arak
Assassins are characters whose main purpose is to do damage. This archetype includes both melee and ranged characters. Generally speaking, these characters have high damage/low hitpoints.
Examples: Kerrigan, Valla, Jaina
Supports are characters who specialize in helping their team. Many are healers, although not all support characters are healers. These classes provide many benefits to their teams, such as things like shields, speed buffs, invisibility, map-vision, haste, and attack power. These characters typically also carry a lot of utility and have skills which include things like stuns, roots, and other types of control.
Examples: Rehgar, Li Li, Tassadar
Specialists are a mixed bag. Generally, these characters specialize in siege damage and lane pushing, although that is not a hard and fast rule. Each Specialist is very unique and the learning curve and skill required to play these characters is generally much higher than that of the other archetypes.
Examples: Murky, Zagara, Azmodan
Unlike similar games, Heroes has a variety of maps with different layouts and objectives. Certain things remain the same (each lane has two towns then your core), but don't get complacent.
Two Lanes
Haunted Mines features two layers: the top layer is your typically lanes and bases, and the bottom layer contains the mines. Every so often the mines populate with a boss golem and lesser minions. Killing these award skulls, and once they're all dead both teams summon a golem. The more skulls you get, the bigger your golem will be. The general strategy here puts less emphasis on the golem in the early game, as you instead grab merc camps. Because the golems spawn where they last died, getting skulls becomes more and more of a priority as the game drags on.
Three Lanes
Blackheart Bay is a map that features pirates because it's 2014 and pirates are still a thing. The important thing is the pirate in the center of the map: killing mercs or randomly spawning chests will net you coins that you can pay Mr. Pirate to fire off cannons at the enemy town. The cost rises with each firing, making it a bit easier for the losing team to make a comeback. Carrying coins is risky because a player drops all of their coins when dead, so turn that shit in. Also, the pirates will start firing on your core if there are no other buildings left, so don't ignore the coins. This map is a bit weird since the objective is basically "on", so you have to constantly be watching the enemy. You can keep tabs on how many coins the enemy is carrying by hitting tab. You are typically safe if they need like 5+ coins for a turn-in and there aren't a lot of mercs/chests for them to bum off of.
Three Lanes
Dragonshire has two shrines: a northern and southern one. The game will eventually yell at you to go grab them, at which point they will become active. By standing on one, a bar will fill to your team until you control it. Unsurprisingly, enemy players would rather you not do this, and can cancel you out by standing on the shrine alongside you. The bar, however, will keep filling so long as one side has more team members present, so the best option is to typically bringing two players to each shrine. Once you take over each shrine, a player clicks the dragon statue in the center, and so long as they aren't interrupted they will transform into a Ren-Faire Godzilla that can put the hurt on towns. The dragon has two skills: breath fire that does AoE damage on the ground for a duration, and boot an enemy far away. Use the former to wreck minions and burn down buildings while the latter will get players off your back. Attack towns. Attacks towns. ATTACK TOWNS. Only go for players if your intervention WILL save or kill someone. The dragon dies fairly quickly and at best will automatically die after a minute, so you need to get that damage in.
You also don't have to kill yourself to get the dragon. If your push is strong and you can hold at least one shrine, then let the enemy keep throwing themselves against you. At some point enough enemy heroes will be dead and you can grab Mr. Dragon unopposed. I've seen too many games where people feel like they have to get the dragon RIGHT FUCKING NOW and their impulsiveness puts the group in really bad teamfights.
Three Lanes
Cursed Hollow features perhaps one of the most important objectives on the map. The upside is that it's one of the most lenient objectives in terms of not condemning you all for one botched teamfight. Basically you have a little bird skull placed in a random spot in the jungle. If you channel without being hit for a few seconds, then you get the skull. Get three and the enemy team will be cursed: their lane minions are reduced to 1 HP and their towers will not fire. As you can see, this is really devastating because even lanes without heroes will naturally push and chip away at your towns. It's very important that your team shows up to contest these skulls, and you should basically be frantically pinging the spot where the skull is incoming. HOWEVER, if you have a really strong push going and the enemy team has 0-1 skulls (and you also have 0-1), then don't be afraid to commit to the push. If they send away someone to grab the skull, then they're going to be outnumbered when defending your push which can allow you to wipe them and win off that.
Three Lanes
Garden of Terror is kinda like Haunted Mines and Dragonshire had a baby. Every so often, night will fall on the garden, reducing everyone's vision radius and spawning a bunch of plant monsters. Damaging (not just killing) these will cause seeds to drop, and once your team has 100 seeds a player can go to base and transform into a giant plant monster. You can't dilly dally, because the monster has about a minute before it wilts and can no longer be used by a player. So if nobody is grabbing that thing, then get inside it ASAP. Besides being really good at trashing buildings, they can shut down towers by spawning a destructible flower pot next to them and turn unwitting enemy players into weaker plant zombies.
Three Lanes
Sky Temple has three temples, and every so often two will become active and the first team to go up to their activation point will turn them on for their side. These basically fire mercilessly at enemy towns, dealing tons of damage until they burn out and go dormant for a bit. The twist is that while you hold the temple, you will have to fend off waves of special creeps until the temple runs out of juice. This can lead you to be vulnerable to the enemy team, so watch out. Honestly the strategy is GET TEMPLES because they are overtuned right now and this map easily has the shortest games.
Tomb of the Spider Queen
Three Lanes
Instead of normal lane minions, Tomb has these metallic spiders sprinkled in that drop gems upon death for you to collect. There are two areas where you can deposit these gems, and upon depositing 50 gems for your team (doesn't matter into which area you deposit) you spawn a boss spider in each lane that will cast devastating shadow waves and spawn lesser spiders to eat up tower ammo. This map is fairly cramped with lots of vents blocking vision, so heroes that have good vision like Zagara or Tassadar are useful. Also, the spiders spawned by gems will travel down a lane until they encounter enemies units, so the further you push the closer they'll start to forts or keeps.
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 accounts. Blizzard recently added "Stimpacks" to the game store. These Stimpacks are a limited time boost which grant extra Gold and XP while they are active. During holidays and special events Blizzard sometimes gives a bonus XP boost, which does stack with the Stimpacks. 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 6: Unlocks Daily Quests
- Levels 8: 2,000 Gold
- Level 10: A Seven-Day Stim Pack (+100% XP and Gold from games); 2,000 Gold
- Level 12 and 15: Each unlocks an additional slot in the free hero rotation
- Level 20: 2,000 Gold
- Level 25: Disables Hero Talent-Gating 2,000 Gold
- Level 30: Unlocked Ranked Mode; 2,000 Gold
- Level 35: 2,000 Gold
- Level 40: Unlocks Team League; 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).
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 2: Unlocks your second Heroic Ability
- Level 3: Unlocks Advanced Talents
- Level 4: Unlocks Expert Talents
- 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
- Level 10: Allows purchase of Master Skin (10,000 gold)
- Level 15: 1,250 Gold
- Level 20: 2,500 Gold
HOW DO I GET IN BETA?
As of now the beta is invite only. They did offer a hero bundle as a way to buy into beta, but that's been removed. On the bright side, players in beta already are routinely getting beta codes to hand out. Just patiently stay up-to-date with the thread, and eventually some generous soul will have codes up for grabs. Open beta starts May 19th, so it's not a long wait regardless.
What are some good newbie heroes?
Assassin: Raynor, Warrior: ETC, Support: Li Li, and Specialist: Nazeebo. Avoid Abathur, 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 with yet. Start with heroes you don't own yet, and then switch to owned heroes if you manage to get all seven free rotation heroes to level 5 within a week. That right there is about 4300 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 five 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.
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 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?
No idea. They tend to do monthly patches until they trip up and go two months without anything. You will generally know a patch is coming because they will advertise a livestream heavily hinting at a patch the week prior.
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.
Cinematic Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ecv0bT9DEoNewest Hero: Kael'thas, the Sun King
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b215Y8QgA3YTechnical Alpha Walkthrough (outdated, but might still be a decent primer for new players)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB_6GRNS7dg Sterica on
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Posts
--In Heroes, "laning" just means soaking XP. Laning also includes gathering the green Health Orbs for certain specs that take Regen Master or Conjurer's Pursuit. Laning also means trying to get the enemy towers to drain their ammo as fast as possible. Some heroes actually have a talent called "Demolitionist" which actively drains ammo. Other heroes can spawn extra units, which absorb extra shots, and contribute to draining towers faster.
--The most important thing while "laning" is just to remain close enough to the minion kills to soak XP. You do not need to last hit, and in fact you do not need to do any damage at all. All you need is proximity.
--During the opening minutes of the game (usually leading up till the first objective) is the laning phase. The laning phase in Heroes is quite short, and depending on the map, sometimes players never go back to full laning after the first objective spawn. This point is very map dependent. I'll cover general map laning guidelines lower in my post.
--In the early stages of the game, the XP gained through minion kills outweighs the XP gained from player kills. It is a waste of time and effort to "first blood" an enemey just for an XP payout. That's not to say there isn't benefit to killing them. Making them respawn and run back certainly is helpful since it reduces their own XP gains and puts them at a disadvantage for defending gates and towers. But don't over extend, and don't make level 1 hero murder a priority, because it's better to just chill and soak XP from minions.
--One last comment on laning before I dive into map specific details. Do not blow your entire mana-bar or get super beat up during the early-game laning phase. You will need that health and mana for the first objective on every map. If you show up to an objective with 2/3 health and 1/3 mana, you are hurting your team before the fight even starts. And there will be a fight.
Ok. Map Specifics.
Cursed Hollow
--First Objective spawns in a random range of time between the 2:15 minute mark and 2:45. There's a 30 second spawn window for the first Tribute.
--Laning phase on this map typically resets for the first 3 tributes. Even if one team doesn't earn all 3 tributes, by the time the 3rd tribute occurs, you want to start breaking out of lanes, capturing mercs, and playing more "globally" than lane-centric.
--If you're playing with a coordinated team, the best lane distribution is 1-3-1. The reason for this is because the tribute spawns are randomized, and putting 3 in middle lane gives you the best reaction time to wherever the tribute spawns. If you're in a pug, generally people go the 2-1-2, which is actually quite terrible because it puts 2 dudes way out of position on the first tribute spawn.
--A "good practice" on this map is to try to cap a merc camp right before a tribute spawns. Usually not the first tribute, since players are weak at that point and will get torn up by the mercs. But on the 2nd or 3rd tribute, you can put some pressure on a lane by snagging a camp just before the tribute spawns. That will force a decision by the enemy team. Do they send all 5 to the tribute, or do they hold one back to defend? Either way, it's a win for you. If they send all 5 to the tribute, you get free damage on a wall. If they hold one back, you have an easier team fight.
Dragon Knight
--First objective is set, I believe at the 2 minute mark, but it might be 2:30. I can't remember exactly off the top of my head.
--Lane distribution you want 2-1-2 generally. I've seen some very successful plays where a team will go 3-1-1 when the shrines open, so they can secure one shrine and hopefully get a kill.
--Don't feel rushed to immediately get the DK. The power of the DK scales with the duration of the game. The longer the game runs, the more powerful the DK gets. If you snag a DK at the 4 minute mark, It will be super weak. Sometimes it's better to intentionally stalemate until the 6-7 mark so that the first DK is more powerful.
--I've also seen organized teams go 4-1-0 when the shrines activate, or 0-1-4. This allows them to completely consume a shrine and wipe the entire enemy force defending it. Then the 4 move to the opposite side and do the same thing.
--Generally speaking, you want a ranged character or someone with a ton of staying power in the middle lane. Your goal in middle is simply to soak XP, grab the shrine if your team activates, and prevent an enemy capture if they activate.
--One other strategy that is effective on this map for coordinated teams is a "middle wipe." Send several people to mid, kill their solo middle laner, and force the enemy team to redistribute, which weakens their position overall.
--Lastly, a well timed giant camp can help you secure a DK capture. At around the 5-6 minute mark, if a couple people break off and grab their friendly-side giants on bottom, that extra pressure on the lane will force the enemy to react and weaken their position on the shrines.
Blackheart's Bay
--Lane setup should be 1-3-1, or 1-2-2. You want your team by the chests. On this map, top lane is the least significant lane for the first 10 minutes of the game. All you need is 1 person up there soaking XP. Everyone else should concern themselves with coins.
--Due to the nature of the coin placement, and scattered coin camps around the map, this map is the least lane-centric of them all. You will find yourself barely in lane at all. You should be doing three things on this map at all times. 1) Defending captain against enemy turn ins. A great way to get coins is to steal them from the enemy. 2) Capturing coin camps. 3) Capturing mercenaries (which also give coins). The lanes will handle themselves on this map.
--A common rookie mistake is to focus too much on laning on this map. Despite its relative size, this map is very combat heavy. Lots of action centers around the captain and you need to try to maintain vision on captain. Vision is extremely important on this map. It's always important, in general, but to a greater degree on this map. Heroes such as Tyrande, Tassadar, Zagara, and anyone else with Clairvoyance are of huge benefit on this map. You NEED to know where your enemy is, how many coins they have, and when they are attempting a turn in.
Haunted Mines
--For pickup games, 3-2 or 2-3 is preferred. In a team game, you want 4-1 or 1-4. Generally you want to put your 4 or your 3 on the lane in which the golem will spawn.
--You can look at your base and see which lane your golem will take. He exists as a pile of bones at the base of your core at the start of the match. Top of the core is top lane, bottom of the core is bottom. Simple. Plan accordingly.
--This map is the most "snowballish" map of them all. Even after the most recent patch, where they nerfed the relative strength of the first golem spawns, and closed the gap between golems of various sizes, the golem is still amazingly potent map objective.
--Assuming you win the mines and your golem is stronger than your opponent's, you want 3 pushing with golem and 2 defending. Or 4 pushing, 1 defending, depending on the number of skulls collected.
--Grabbing knights right after a golem spawns is also a good practice. They will put extra pressure on a lane and force your opponent to split defend. I'm fairly certain that the knights will always path to the lane opposite of your golem.
Garden of Terror
--Lane like normal til the first night cycle, which happens pretty fast. It's at like 1:30 that the warning is given and 2:00 that the seedlings spawn.
--Generally 1-3-1 is best player distribution, for the same reason as on Cursed Hollow. This gives you the best mobility. You can move to top seeds or bottom seeds much easier with 3 in the middle. Your outside lanes will just soak XP.
--Merc camps despawn when the plant terror is activated. However, the mercs don't despawn if they are actively engaged in combat. One of the best practices on this map (and other maps too) is to engage a merc camp or two right as your team is spawning a terror. That way you can split push multiple lanes.
--Teams should move to support their plant terror for maximum objective pushing. However, it's also a common practice to leave 1 player in another lane to continue to soak and split push. If if you can get a merc camp plus a strong laning character like Zagara in a lane opposite your plant terror, you can do some really great damage to the enemy.
Sky Temple
--The first temple activations are ALWAYS the top and middle points. Always.
--The second temple activation is always the bottom.
--Additional temple activations after the first two are random
--Starting lane configuration should be 2-2-1 or 1-3-1
--After the first activation has run it's full duration, you should grab some camps and then reconfigure your lane distribution.
--Second phase lane distribution should be 1-1-3 in anticipation of the bottom temple
--If possible, try to secure a top lane bruiser camp right before the bottom temple activation. This bruiser camp will almost certainly go uncontested while the teams fight over bottom temple.
Spider Queen
--Middle lane is most important since it puts your players in range of both turn-in points
--Top lane is least important at the start of the match since there are no mercenary camps up there (except boss, which won't come into play until later)
--A good setup is 1-3-1 or 1-2-2.
--Just like on other maps, grabbing a merc camp right before a turn-in is highly advisable. For the first turn-in, when players are still relatively weak, the bottom giant camp is the best choice. Throw some extra giants in with your webspinners and make a strong push on bottom.
--The spider minions in each wave drop gems. During laning phase, your goal is to collect gems while denying your opponent their gems. Characters with area denial spells, such as Tassadar, Jaina, and Sgt Hammer are good for this. Also, tanks with strong knockback abilities such as ETC and Diablo are great on this map, as they can really help with denying enemy gem collection.
Battletag List
Type "/join heroes of the wang" in game to join our PA chat channel. Great for finding games!
And here's a fun flow-chart showing how to play--
ASK FOR A KEY. SOME OF US HAVE SOME.
(Hint: I have keys)
One day...
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
So on a whim I bought Lost Vikings with gold to complete the failmatch. We actually did not do too bad. Game ended around the 22 minute mark, and the team levels were 22 us to 23 them. Not terrible.
Even more surprising, our opponents had 3 master skins represented - Uther, Sylvanas, and Zagara. Despite the apparent level of time commitment that team had to their characters, they were not very good. If our squad was not playing talent locked heroes and unfamiliar characters we likely could have beaten them.
Would you be willing to spare a key for my friend? he just found out about the game and is super jonesing now.
Also Sylvanas and the like free 10k gold I got.
My last game just made me feel almost Thrall's Balls pre-nerf level bad ass. I am going to be sad when she is nerfed but you can pull some shit off with her now.
That last game I was 200k+ siege and 70k+ hero damage. Exploding dark arrows are crazy good and I am getting better at juking with my banshees.
she's not even the best specialist. a nerf is far from certain.
The nerf will probably be on the stun. Drop it to .5 or .75 instead of a full second.
I play her kind of team focused. I don't feel the damage is as high as when I play Zags but does pretty well.
She fights best with minions around though. Unstable poison plus dagger can lead to crazy amounts of aoe damage and clear. Also lots of arrows.
She isn't an assassin but man she can do a lot of damage in a team fight on the edges and if you plan can get a good escape.
She is like Valla who is a way better pusher in my head.
I just tried him for the first time today.
I wouldn't say he's the worst. Anubarak is definitely less impactful than Gazlowe right now.
With Gaz, you can merc and push a lane pretty damn effectively. Like, super super effectively.
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wra
in the post-match you can't even see his face because his wolf hat is so big.
If you've got FPS issues since the Sylvanas patch, at least on Mac but perhaps on PC too, try nuking the shader/map caches. For Mac, while the game and bnet app are closed, this is /Users/Shared/Blizzard/Heroes of the Storm/ and then I just moved both folders (Maps/Versions) elsewhere. Then just start the game and hit play, it puts things back. Took me from about 6FPS on "medium" to a fairly solid 28-30 (I cap it manually at 30 for heat) on "high". Can get rid of those folders once you're sure it worked.
Like, holy crap, people, it looks like a completely different game.
PS this is not a thing I made up, it's what they suggest you try in the tech support forum.
Welp. Sylvanas is a goddamn monster on Tomb of the Spider Queen. That map was MADE for her. Unstable Poison will insta-clear waves. In terms of raw output and numbers, my best Sylvanas game yet.
Aside from that though... As I play more and more TotSQ, it's becoming apparent to me that it's rather hectic. A lot of the time, teams just don't know what to be doing at any given moment. We went that whole game without ever capping the Boss and rarely got mercs, for instance. Largely because there's a lot going on at any given moment, and it's really not clear what you need to do. If you do go and get mercs, you're missing out on Gems, for example. I do like the map, but in general seems pretty confusing. Too much going on at once, I think. There's no timers or spawns or anything, it's always happening and your team dictates the pace. It's definitely interesting at any rate.
Also a little mini rant, people still have yet to figure out that Wailing Arrow is a queue to go in on the enemy team. So often I'll hit all 5 enemy Heroes, and my team just sits back doing nothing. Dudes, come on, they're silenced for 2.5 seconds, GO IN. In general I try to line up Wailing Arrow with some sort of set up (Thrall's Sundering is fantastic, for example) or fire it off in the heat of a teamfight for disruption, rather than just firing it off for the sake of it. But I can't always do that, especially with the comp I had. Hmm.
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can you link the vid? dont see anything different in D3
I have never rolled that map in a legit game. Only time I've played it is Custom. I swear they hate me. ENOUGH DRAGON SHIRE ALREADY!
Yeah, the big thing I notice with Spiderqueen is that because there's no set "Objectives are up now" thing going on, everyone is super lost all the time. Without more team coordination then is usually, there's no clear indication what to do. Mercs can't be taken on your own much of the tie and pushing a lane is SUPER dangerous on that map.
Malf is fine. Basically there to heal a ton and prevent people from moving in an area. Moonfire spam has its niche use like clearing creep or revealing stealth heroes
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Malf's trait is kinda silly since it can't help him or anyone without a mana pool. So if you are supporting certain people, well, fuck you.
Generally I find Malf powerful but boring. His kit does not feel like it synergizes well with itself.
I hate that I can't use it on myself. I'm constantly OOM and my lane partner is full whenever I play malf.
Their team knows how to use terror. Expertly goes in and knows to bail when resistance shows up and just weaves between lanes dropping pots.
Our guy tries to fight the enemy terror. Or just meanders around doing nothing.
Sometimes when you want something done right, you need to do it yourself.
I hate Halloween so much!
I wasn't aware hating one "holiday" event meant I had to hate all others...what else do I have to hate?
Blizzard does harmless OBVIOUS jokes every year and even that isn't good enough for people.
I think people are overly harsh I regard to anub'arak, or maybe I am biased and I may be literally contributing nothing when I play him.
Although I did have a sort of revelation last night in that I sort of agree with whoever said he is a weird specialist in the last thread. If you think of him like gazlowe with "better" stuns he can push/merc relatively effectively. The stuns can secure takedowns when teammates are around, otherwise they are used to support beetle pushes. Beetles themselves can soak tower shots and help with minion waves. His disadvantage in this scenario is without using a bunch of abilities (so you are borderline manaless after) you take a fair amount of time to take merc camps down.
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Really Blizzard needs to drop the classes and assign potential roles instead