Heroes of the Storm Basic Tips

Heroes of the Storm Basic Tips by dasbif

Here are my observations about how I win or lose games. This is not Hero-League level advice. This is the basics for quickmatch as you are trying to earn gold, buy more heroes, and get better:

• Up until level 10 at least, soaking lane EXP is important
• After level 10, “not-wandering-off-alone” is important. It’s actually always important – don’t wander off alone!
• If one of your allies is wandering off alone, try not engage in a fight. I guarantee the missing enemies will appear to turn it into a 4v5. People will blame your teammate who was off by himself. It is not his sole fault. It is your fault for fighting at a potential disadvantage. (Yes, it would have been better if he had been grouped instead of elsewhere. But it would have been a LOT better if you had disengaged instead of fighting – knowing he was absent.)
• Late game, going for a less important objective as 5 is far more important than going for a better objective alone or otherwise not grouping. Ping and make suggestions, but stay with your team.
• Nothing is ever worth dying for except saving your core itself, or sacrificing yourself to save a more useful teammate from dying. Play safe, but also don’t be afraid of taking some risks.
• If you survive after losing a team fight, you generally want to play clean-up until your allies respawn. Clear the active mercs your enemies aren’t supporting, and push the creep waves away from your buildings. Don’t take a merc camp if you are in defense mode.
• In general, players under-prioritize using their heroes to manually push towers and keeps, and over-prioritize map objectives. (I’ve won more games by pushing down a few towers early, which makes small pushes with mercs more dangerous for the enemy later. They are forced to defend, and therefor you can more easily secure the next map objective later. All because of a tower ten minutes earlier.)
• Don’t take a merc camp without a specific reason, or because you happen to be next to it. Especially don’t go deep into enemy territory to steal a merc camp. Mercs are bad at defense, better on offense, but pretty easy for a hero to obliterate. (If a map objective will spawn in a minute, now is an excellent time to clear a merc camp. The mercs will push that lane while you and your team fight over the objective. Otherwise, you should be pushing with the camp after you take it. Pay attention – If you took a camp and the enemy simply clears it up like a creep wave without losing any map control, you took a camp at a bad time. Don’t do that anymore.)
• While pushing, do regular “should we retreat?” checks. While I heavily advise pushing buildings over not-pushing-buildings, don’t go ham. Don’t go too hard or too deep – this isn’t your prom night. I use this analogy because going too deep is like getting caught with your pants down. Think about the comparison. In either scenario, you’re about to get beaten up.
• If you get scolded or yelled at for something, take this as a sign to retreat and group up. Thinking back over my games, this would never have been a terrible mistake to do.

What map you are on, what hero you are playing, team composition, and talent choice are far less important than the above points until you reach high-level play. The primary objective is to destroy the enemy’s core. The way to accomplish this is by destroying buildings somehow. Map control, lane control, jungle and map objective control are secondary – they are only useful in how they allow you to eventually push to the enemies core. Keeps are more important to defend or destroy than other map objectives – usually.

Plan ahead. How will [X] affect the game 3 minutes from now after the next team fight is over. What if you won that fight? What if you lost that fight? Will you be glad you did [X]?

Common Sense Important Tips by Ralathar44

Here is a list So while playing Hero League I realized that even at high rank people are lacking on some of the basics. I figured I’d write down a small list of things I’ve noticed as kind of a common sense guide of sorts.

1. Don’t chase. Seriously don’t. If you can’t catch them within a single screen or so just let them go. Chasing greedy kills causes more deaths than anything else.
2. Don’t engage 4 vs 5 without an overwhelming advantage. 3 levels is not a big enough advantage and you can still easily throw.
3. Don’t engage 3 vs 5 or less for any reason unless the enemy is all very low and you are equipped to finish them off quickly.
4. If you lose someone before the team fight really even begins, disengage. Don’t fight. One person down sucks, go do something productive instead of seeing how many kills you can feed them.
5. If the enemy is level 10 or 20 and you are not, do not engage without an overwhelming advantage. Try not to engage if a talent tier behind either (they are 4, 7, 13, 16 and you are not)
6. If your team is stupid and retarded and doing something like getting all merc camps and rushing the surface while the enemy gets a free 100 skulls in mines….be retarded with them. It’s much better for you to help them maybe pull off an act of stupid genius than it is for you to go down solo and die horribly and stupidly…without the genius.
7. If you are 3 levels behind or more, split up and soak lanes. Play it safe, don’t fight, don’t extend.
8. If the enemy team is roaming as 5 and it’s past level 10, you should group up too. Solo players at this point can throw the game.
9. As an exception to last rule if your team has a Gazlowe, Zagara, or Azmodan that is pushing lane and the enemy team is ignoring them and pushing you…buy time. Don’t try to kill anyone unless it’s super easy, just kill minions, push them away, zone them, etc. Stay alive at all costs and hold the enemy as long as possible. Depending on the player and team it might be a dumb idea to split push but since it’s happening anyways you need to play appropriately and NOT go ham as if it’s 5 vs 5.
10. Team comp can be important but just is important is that you know how to play the hero. Brightwing and Anub’arak are both far strong than normal, but if you can’t play them well practice them in quick match before you join a ranked game with them. Under no circumstance should you play a level 1 hero in hero league.
11. By the same token the HOTSlog win rates are not absolute and vary from competitive play somewhat. That being said, unless you are running with a 5 man those heroes that come out strongest on HOTSlog are your best bet. Learn them and play them, worry about the competitive scene when you get a 5 man, for now play what scores highest in the chaos of Hero League.
12. Don’t solo merc camps at low levels. It takes a long time, you are not soaking, and it’s risky because you take alot of damage. Just ping a friend and duo it. It’ll go tons faster and be way safer.
13. Specifically on Haunted mines: Do not take your defensive ogres for the first golem until that golem is about to walk through it’s own gate. It’ll let them hit it from a nice and safe spot and add alot of DPS to killing it.
14. If the enemy team cannot be seen on the map and you are out in lane alone, assume they are coming for you. GTFO until you know where they are.
15. Show up to objectives even if you are in the middle of mercs. That knight camp or ogre camp isn’t going to do much against a dragon knight, garden terror, cannon barrage, etc. Especially if it results in a lost team fight.Seriously, LEAVE THE FRICKEN MERCS AND COME HELP!
16. For the love of goodness be willing to fill. Everyone should have at least 2 supports and be willing to play it. Tanks are arguably less important but a happy team is a stronger team.
17. The game is NOT over until the core is dead. It’s not over at comp selection, it’s not over at 1st blood, it’s not over at first keep down, it’s not even over when all 3 keeps are down. You can always turn the game around and potentially win and failing that the enemy can always throw.
18. Know how to play different team styles. Some teams are team fight heavy. But if you have Azmodan, Murky, Gazlowe, Kerrigan, and Sonya? You may consider a different strategy. Putting pressure across the map via push and mercs while using map awareness to limit deaths and ganks may be a stronger tactic for this team than a straight up team fight. On the other hand you may be surprised what wombos they can suddenly pull.
19. If you hear a ping for retreat or danger, look at the minimap. There is a good chance you’ll see no enemies and that is a BAD sign. You should prolly regroup with your allies before you go squish.
20. Never do boss unless the enemy has at least 2 team members down. The only exception is that you are absolutely sure they are on the other side of the map and you have 5 members at the boss. That means either you have vision currently or you just had vision. (there are very rare Gazlowe and Sonya related exceptions regarding how many people are needed, main thing is you need to kill it FAST)
21. Don’t fight under a hostile or nuetral boss. Seriously if a fight breaks out around their boss, fight from the sides of it. If a fight breaks out around a nuetral boss, fight with THEM under it. Boss damage hurts, roots/tornadoes make you get killed super fast, and the ground pound means your gonna die horribly.
22. If you gave the option between 2 targets, and 1 of those targets is very low hp, KILL THE VERY LOW HP TARGET!!! The only time you shouldn’t do this is certain tanks like Johanna and maybe Muradin. Nothing is worse than low HP supports being ignored by the DPS, it doesn’t just throw fights, it throws games.