Heroes of the Storm New Player Tips

Heroes of the Storm New Player Tips by necis

A few of my RL friends managed to wrangle some invites last week, and I’ve noticed the one area that they seem to struggle with the most is making the right decision. They’re not MOBA vets, but we’ve all played arena to north of 2100, so they understand the importance of decision making and good positioning.

If nothing else, always have this thought: If I do this thing, am I going to be safe doing this? If I’m not going to be safe, will this help my team win the next team fight or objective? If it’s not going to help your team and you’re not going to be safe, then you probably shouldn’t do it.

I wanted to share some of the scenarios that we’ve been in that might help newer players and how to correct some common mistakes.

Scenario 1

If you’re playing a squishy and extremely important hero for teamfighting (Brightwing, Sgt. Hammer or any non-tank in the late game), please be mindful of hard engages or displacement that can get you killed. These are some of the more threatening heroes from an engagement and displacement perspective.

• Tyrael (Judgement): Eventually, he’s going to click on you and you’re going to die without support from your team, but try to keep him from being able to target you easily. If he Judgements without his team being in range, he can easily waste his ult and get himself killed.
• Sonya (Leap): Leap is relatively short range, but it stuns for a long duration in a fairly large area. Be close enough to teammates to be able to help or be helped, but don’t stand around hugging. Sonya is relatively squishy, and the advice with Tyrael stands double with her.
• Diablo (Dash + Slam): Don’t be near Diablo, avoidance is your best bet.
• Stitches (Hook + Gorge // Sprint/Flash + Gorge): Keep creep or a tanky hero in between you and the Stitches at all times. Over the past week, I’ve seen a lot of fishing hook, which means Stitches can grip you from a mile away. If you’re playing Hammer, make sure that you keep someone/something/a building in between you and Stitches to avoid getting gripped, eaten and death–you make a really easy target, nom nom.

Scenario 2

Positioning is extremely important in Heroes, and you’ll want to be close enough for your team to help without humping one another to make yourself a target to strong AOE heroes such as Kerrigan, Tassadar or Falstad. Ideally, you will want to be able to poke and cast into an objective (or area) without overextending and getting gripped, dashed, stunned or knocked into the enemy team.

I have watched my friends be so concerned with attacking the enemy that they don’t pay attention to the side of the jungle they’re on (the evil side) or that they’re about to dive into a base (I’m guilty of this occasionally, though).

Scenario 3

This is probably due to a lack of MOBA playing, but it always seems like my friends either chase too long or are somewhere they shouldn’t be when everyone’s MIA. My rule of thumb regarding chasing is to continue chasing until I no longer have vision and don’t feel confident about my ability to escape if their entire remaining team jumps on me in that moment.

If you’re alone, don’t know where the enemy team is and there are no objectives that you are 100% certain they’re getting, then they’re coming to kill you. This happens a lot late game when people randomly push lanes alone while the rest of the team is getting mercs or defending. Use your minimap!!

This is already a giant wall of text, but if you have more quick heuristics to share with my buddies, let me know and I’ll pass it along!