Heroes of the Storm Things You Might Not Know

Heroes of the Storm Things You Might Not Know by Bobby

General

– Abathur’s Ultimate Evolution (R), one Lost Viking, and Murky with a placed Egg takedowns yield 25% of normal takedown experience but count as full hero takedowns for things like Seasoned Marksman and Diablo Souls.

– Abilities can be cast repeatedly by holding down keys.

– Channeled abilities are continuously cast over time and are interruptible by stuns, silences, polymorph, and displacements.

You can recognize channeled abilities by being unable to cast other abilities for their duration. Damage doesn’t interrupt them. Mounting is interruptible by damage. Some channeled abilities, like Azmodan’s All Shall Burn (E), are interruptible by teleporting as the target, even within range. Also, be aware that heroic abilities can be channeled abilities. Furthermore, “wind-ups” of abilities like Falstad’s Hinterland Blast (R) are interruptible like channeled abilities.

– Experience from minion and mercenary deaths is gained just by having a hero within a certain range of the deaths, by dealing the final damage regardless of range, or by a unit a hero has summoned, spawned, etc. dealing the final damage regardless of heroic presence.

Watch for an “xp” text over the dying units’ heads. Summoned, spawned, etc. units of heroes don’t gain death experience just by being within a certain range of the deaths.

– Invulnerability protects from all negative effects

– Ping options are brought up by holding the left mouse button on the spot where you want to ping after pressing G. Release the button on the ping you want.

– Polymorph prevents attacking, ability casting, and interrupts channeled abilities.

It doesn’t affect anything else like movement speed, effects on the target, and active abilities that aren’t channeled.

– Roots allow you to use non-movement abilities.

– Roots disable teleportation.

– Silence prevents ability casting and interrupts channeled abilities.

It doesn’t disable active positive effects on the target whether applied or passive.

-Talents that are assigned to numbers can be dragged and dropped for reassignment to different numbers in-match.

The keys involved can be changed under Hotkeys -> Advanced in Options.

-Terrain features that block normal movement and vision don’t block some abilities.

For example Sonya’s Ancient Spear (Q), Jaina’s Frostbolt (Q), and even Diablo’s Shadow Charge (Q) [which probably needs vision] go through terrain walls of any apparent kind. On the other hand ETC’s Powerslide (Q) and Valla’s Vault (E) don’t go through terrain walls. Unsure as to what the pattern could be.

Hero Specific

– Abathur’s Symbiote (Q) resets the cooldown timers of its abilities upon cancellation
– Abathur’s Toxic Nest (W) is revealed by area of effect damage abilities, including cones, but not by skillshots
– Abathur’s Ultimate Evolution (R) doesn’t include/clone talents
– Abathur’s Ultimate Evolution (R) can turn in objective points that Abathur has collected but cannot collect them itself
– Abathur’s Evolution Complete (R) level 20 talent should not refer to a duration and appears to start the Monstrosity with more stacks based on how many the Monstrosity reached before dying, without resetting the starting stack number already reached

– Brightwing’s Phase Shift (Z) isn’t interrupted by damage

– Diablo’s Lightning Breath (R) can’t be interrupted

Diablo can be killed and Zagara’s Devouring Maw (R) will take away from its duration. Zeratul’s Void Prism (R) will suspend/delay it without taking away from its duration.

– Falstad’s Barrel Roll (E) goes through all objects, heroes and enemy structures included
– Falstad’s Flight (Z) isn’t interrupted by damage

– Illidan’s Dive (Q) can’t be stopped

– Kael’thas’ Pyroblast (R) can be exploded on nothing by well timed teleports or abilities that have a teleport component

Be off on the timing and Pyroblast will follow you. Apparently it goes through structures and one poster has reported it speeding up if you speed up, don’t know about speeding up after teleporting, but it won’t get inside the special area where you spawn and regenerate health and mana. Run, Forrest, run.

– Malfurion’s Tranquility (R) isn’t a channeled ability and is thus less interruptible

Note that other abilities can be cast while Tranquility is in effect. Zagara’s Devouring Maw (R) will eat into its duration and Zeratul’s Void Prison (R) will suspend it but unlike Diablo during Lightning Breath (R) Anub’arak’s Web Blast (R) will work on Malfurion and eat into Tranquility’s duration.

– Nova’s Holo Decoy (E) casts Pinning Shot on its own

The slow effect and the vulnerability effect of Crippling Shot are applied without the decoy being capable of dealing damage. It is reported that Pinning Shot will be cast in around a second of being in range.

– Nova’s Holo Decoy (E) will also cast Snipe but will not deal damage unless talented to do so
– Nova’s Holo Decoy (E) interrupts things interrupted by damage without being capable of dealing damage

Mounting, moving on a mount, and doing certain objectives figure largely.

– Raynor’s Penetrating Round (Q) will damage through structures

Apparently if a directional projectile damage ability isn’t stated to land on what it hits first, or second, (…or 8th in LeBron’s case) it won’t be stopped by structures, not to be confused with terrain “structures”. Those are there to be looked at and occasionally not moved through. Only plebs without spears, charges, and other nonsense register those as obstacles. See the general section.

– Sgt. Hammer’s Spider Mines (Q) and Concussive Blast (W) don’t halt her movement when cast

Spider Mines can even be cast outside of the casting range and Sgt. Hammer will keep on moving after she gets in range and casts them. Not only that, if you cast Spider Mines outside of range in the opposite direction of her movement Sgt. Hammer will turn back, cast the ability, and resume her original movement. Jaina, on the other hand for instance, stops to cast each of her basic abilities and does not resume the movement issued.

– Stitches’ Hook (Q) goes through everything except non-friendly units and enemy structures, and does not pull through friendly structures

If the hooked target hits a structure due to being wider than the hook the pull stops.

– Stitches’ Gorge (R) can’t be used on “massive Heroes” if you correctly guess what a massive hero is

Large heroes like Azmodan and Diablo aren’t massive heroes. Of these four heroic abilities that basically transform heroes into larger things that could be massive – Tychus’ Commandeer Odin, Muradin’s Avatar, Tassadar’s Archon, and Illidan’s Metamorphosis (although I’m not sure whether Illidan actually gets larger…)- only Tychus’ Commandeer Odin apparently makes the hero massive. This according to a test and contested by another poster who claims that in his/her experience the Odin can be Gorged too. Lastly, it is claimed that perhaps for the most part “massive Heroes” is meant to refer to controlled objectives like Garden Terrors and Dragon Knights. Aside from the stupidity involved in using that term this way without any further descriptions or labels, no particular offense to whoever is wrong (whether it be the posters who have suggested this or the people who may have actually come up with this [although maybe it’s a beta thing with every intention to be addressed, remarks the Devil’s Advocate]), there is substantiated reason to believe that these things aren’t heroes. Sylvanas’ Overwhelming Affliction talent doesn’t apply Black Arrows to them. But the talent on Stitches’ Hook that enables pulls of allied heroes also pulls them, apparently treating them as heroes. At this point there appears to be no good answer for much of anything here, but at least “experiments” inform what can and can’t be Gorged.

– Sylvanas’ Withering Fire (Q) doesn’t halt her movement when cast and can be cast on top of basic attacks or doesn’t delay them whenever it’s cast

Withering Fire goes off immediately. Don’t know how close Withering Fire can be cast to a basic attack for the 25% damage increase of Follow Through to apply to that basic attack.

– Sylvanas’ Withering Fire (Q) can be cast simultaneously with other abilities

– Uther’s Eternal Devotion(Trait) can’t attack and doesn’t occupy a space/body-block, but it can cast Holy Light (Q)