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On December 16 2014 00:17 Tenks wrote: Oddly enough my biggest complaint is the current lack of snowball. So many times my team gets curbstomped early in the game but we win a late game objective and its like none of that mattered.
Agreed, I hate how the anti snowball mechanic artificially keeps the level of both teams relatively close, you will never see one team 5 or 6 levels ahead of the other even with massive outplays and massive kill leads etc. purely due to game design. This is Blizzard's way of saying "everybody is a winner, even if you lose", "all your mistakes don't matter". It's beyond stupid and treating the players like infants.
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On December 16 2014 00:17 Tenks wrote: Oddly enough my biggest complaint is the current lack of snowball. So many times my team gets curbstomped early in the game but we win a late game objective and its like none of that mattered. I've noticed this, too. I think certain heroes really kick into gear in the late game (level 16 in particular) and can totally flip a game that their team was previously losing. I've been playing a lot with a Zeratul, and have had a ton of games (probably a majority) that have followed this pattern.
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I hope in ranked they get rid of the anti-snowball mechanics. Or at least try it out for a while. I can understand having it now in unranked mode but if the game wishes to be competitive they need to let people outplay other people.
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I disagree. As players get better, the comeback mechanics will become more necessary, not less necessary. Right now, everything is in its infancy and competitive play is still amateurish. If we get to the point where we have professional leagues and teams with well-paid contracted players under real sponsors I'm sure we'll see much better play than what we see now and less of the mistakes that make the anti-snowball mechanic relevant.
So it'll remain as a constant shadow over the heads of the leading team reminding them not to get careless and a carrot on the stick that keeps the losing team pushing for an opening to turn the tide. As a spectator, it's great always having a sense of suspense, even if it's a little manufactured. Nothing sucks more than to watch your favorite team hopelessly lose for 20 minutes. As a player, the other day I had a ~35 minute dragon shire match where we clawed back and won from 3 forts + 2 keeps down and 3 levels down. It'll be a game I never forget.
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On December 16 2014 00:24 ref4 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 00:17 Tenks wrote: Oddly enough my biggest complaint is the current lack of snowball. So many times my team gets curbstomped early in the game but we win a late game objective and its like none of that mattered. Agreed, I hate how the anti snowball mechanic artificially keeps the level of both teams relatively close, you will never see one team 5 or 6 levels ahead of the other even with massive outplays and massive kill leads etc. purely due to game design. This is Blizzard's way of saying "everybody is a winner, even if you lose", "all your mistakes don't matter". It's beyond stupid and treating the players like infants.
Every single day see 4 level leads in games (more common in pro play, but some solo que). I have seen many 5+ too, but normally is reserved for when the two teams are massively mismatched (ie: pros vs gold or w/e).
Seems like 4 levels ahead is the max blizz wants you to fall behind and I see no issue with that. Even in other MOBA's no matter how hard you won a lane or w/e there was still a max disparity. I know in LoL I never saw 6+ level gap between equivalent (ie: top vs top, jungle vs jungle, adc vs adc, etc) players and it seemed the upper cap for max gap was around 5+ levels due to the kills being worth less and less and more exp per level needed.
I don't want to see games where it's level 9 vs 16 or something, that's not fun really for the people stomping or being stomped. If you throw a 3+ level lead in this game you probably deserve to lose anyways as it means you fucked up. At any point in the game (except 16-19) 3 levels means a talent point gap and those are normally all you need to dominate a team thoroughly.
I like that comebacks are possible, idk why so many people want a world where once you get a lead the game is over. Nothing was more disappointing when watching a highly hyped match (or even entering your own ranked games) and it starts off and BAM, 3-5 kills for one team lvl 1. Might as well walk away at that point. To me that's shitty, I want to see a team have to struggle but yet be able to work their way back in.
Not sure about DotA but I know LoL even has it's own "underdog bonus" with "shutdown bonus" and even one that punishes the ahead team (exactly like Heroes) by giving them less rewards per kill.
I think most of the issues about underdog are just overall problems the average Heroes player has no idea what "correct" play is as the info is not being shared often by pros. Thus many don't even know how to close out a 3+ level lead let alone any lead and end up throwing it away. Once more of this kind of info becomes more widely known I would expect to see the underdog bonus have a smaller effect overall in solo que play.
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The biggest mistake that I see teams with a lead make is allowing one or two of their heroes to get picked off. The experience that the other team gains when that happens is huge towards closing the gap, and can be situationally fatal on some maps (Haunted Mines in particular). I think that teams with a lead should really be rolling hard as 5-man units, which can be impossible to overcome for a team that is 2-3 levels down.
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Mexico2170 Posts
No no, the anti snowball mechanic is fine.
I say this because the anti snowball mechanic is: At 3 lvls of difference, the team with the lowest lvl gets more exp on kills, and the team with the most exp gets less exp per kill.
This makes it so if the lowest team wants to win, they have to kill the enemy, but at a 3 lvl of difference and a lot of stats (and sometimes even talents), but to kill an enemy, that is playing better than you, and has and advantage, you have to play better, or they have to play worse, because if they are playing good and you are still playing bad, you won't do anything.
We all have had gams where we make combacks, but im sure that we all have had games when we lose in less than 10 minutes, because the opponents simply played better, and we made a lot of mistakes.
They aren't giving you anything for free, which was watch happened with the preview anti-snowball mechanic, theye are giving you something, but if you play better and capitalize on the mistakes of your enemies. In a game like HotS, an anti-snowball mechanic must exist because of the shared lvls, and i think this is a good one.
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I remember combacks happening somewhat frequently in 3K MMR and below since players really had no idea what they were doing. But over my last 100-150 games, I honestly can't remember a single game where one team was 2 or more levels behind and ended up winning without a player disconnecting or going afk. The reason is that the team which is behind typically will get overthrown by enemies taking mercs, so even if you win an engagement, you can't really do anything with it besides cleaning up mercs and minions. Moreover, the team that gets ahead is typically also the better team anyway, which makes it more likely that they will maintain the lead.
HotS has ruined DotA and LoL for me, and it's only going to get worse as Blizzard adds new and more interesting heroes to the roster. I can't see myself ever going back to either game.
Going back and fourth between LOL and HOTS, it's honestly really hard to get used to buying items (srs why do I have to go back to base?) and last-hitting. Hence, you really rather just wanna go back to the more fast-paced action of HOTS.
But in HOTS it just drives me crazy how reliant on teammates you are. In some ways, it kinda feels like Hearthstone where - unless your playing vs really bad players - your just looking for that small edge that can take you from a 50% win/rate to 53% win/rate. At least how that's how I felt after I hit 3.3k+ MMR. Up untill that level, players made so obvious errors that you could semi-carry the team. But at master/high diamond, most players are relatively "solid", which makes the coordination-aspect the deciding factor (along with the hero-composition of each team).
What I enjoy about gaming is to see how I get better all the time, and when your stuck at the same MMR for a relatively long time, and you have a difficult time identifying what exactly you can do better in the game (aside from better communication), it's somewhat demotivating to continue with soloq.
Thus, if I am gonna keep playing this game, I have to get on an actual team as the game - mechanically speaking - isn't very interesting in itself. Rather, it seems that it could be a lot of fun if you had a team where you could look to improve your strategies all the time. But on the other hand that also requires some type of dedication and scheduling with the teammates, and I am kinda just looking for a game that I can play whenever I feel like... So I am not decided yet on this game.
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On December 16 2014 05:09 Hider wrote:I remember combacks happening somewhat frequently in 3K MMR and below since players really had no idea what they were doing. But over my last 100-150 games, I honestly can't remember a single game where one team was 2 or more levels behind and ended up winning without a player disconnecting or going afk. The reason is that the team which is behind typically will get overthrown by enemies taking mercs, so even if you win an engagement, you can't really do anything with it besides cleaning up mercs and minions. Moreover, the team that gets ahead is typically also the better team anyway, which makes it more likely that they will maintain the lead. Show nested quote +HotS has ruined DotA and LoL for me, and it's only going to get worse as Blizzard adds new and more interesting heroes to the roster. I can't see myself ever going back to either game. Going back and fourth between LOL and HOTS, it's honestly really hard to get used to buying items (srs why do I have to go back to base?) and last-hitting. Hence, you really rather just wanna go back to the more fast-paced action of HOTS. But in HOTS it just drives me crazy how reliant on teammates you are. In some ways, it kinda feels like Hearthstone where - unless your playing vs really bad players - your just looking for that small edge that can take you from a 50% win/rate to 53% win/rate. At least how that's how I felt after I hit 3.3k+ MMR. Up untill that level, players made so obvious errors that you could semi-carry the team. But at master/high diamond, most players are relatively "solid", which makes the coordination-aspect the deciding factor (along with the hero-composition of each team). What I enjoy about gaming is to see how I get better all the time, and when your stuck at the same MMR for a relatively long time, and you have a difficult time identifying what exactly you can do better in the game (aside from better communication), it's somewhat demotivating to continue with soloq. Thus, if I am gonna keep playing this game, I have to get on an actual team as the game - mechanically speaking - isn't very interesting in itself. Rather, it seems that it could be a lot of fun if you had a team where you could look to improve your strategies all the time. But on the other hand that also requires some type of dedication and scheduling with the teammates, and I am kinda just looking for a game that I can play whenever I feel like... So I am not decided yet on this game.
I'm closing in on 3.4k MMR (I'd be into masters [3570+] now if I could play more), and of my past 10 wins, I'd say 6 of them were come from behind games where my team was down 3+ levels at around level 10 and I remember thinking to myself that the game was hopeless. Then something would happen where our team (usually me) would pick off a hero or two and we'd totally flip the game and win. Maybe the Euro scene is "better" than the NA scene, but comebacks have been a fairly regular occurrence in my experience.
Of course, it could be that I'm just really good at abusing the piss out of Zeratul. He's the one hero with which I know that I can carry a team hard, and I still don't see anyone do what I do with him. I think the results speak for themselves. I know you play a lot of Zeratul, too, but if you're playing other heroes, then I can certainly see why you'd feel more team-dependent.
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Mexico2170 Posts
I think that what you want is what is coming with ranked play, there will be solo ranked so you can play whenever you feel like, and there will be team ranked, so you can organize with your team mates and create strategies and that kind of stuff, but even then, the teams aren't going to be of 5 persons, but of 9 persons, and you will be able to have 2 teams, so that even if the "main" five aren't on, you can still play witht he team, like if it was some sort of "clan".
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I played probably around 350 games of Zeratul. The first 200 games, there were lots of ways to improve my skill. The last 100 games I probably worked the most on my VPs and I have become quite consistent at that as well. I still miss a bit too many Ws though, but besides that, it's not obvious to me how - mechanically speaking - I can do much more with him. In terms of decisionmaking, the area I have - over the last 100 games - become much better at identifying when we should take a fight and when not to take a fight. But right now, I am just kinda lost in seeing areas (aside from teamwork) that I should work on.
The - by far - biggest difference I noticed from around 3.1K MMR to 3.4K MMR is how enemies position them selves in the laning phase. At 3.1K MMR, it was so easy for me to get succesful ganks all the time. I would go up like 10/15-0 50% of the time, and thus my team would be in a very strong position going into the midgame. I loved my life back then. But right now, I find it really difficult to get any succesful ganks in, and I find myself desperately looking for ways I can contribute to my team in the early game.
In the late-game, I also remember how I previously could get kill after kill against isolated targets with double-bombs. It wasn't unusual to win a 1v2 or 1v3 battle after a "lost" engagement. But these situations just do not occur very frequently anymore. Most teams stay pretty grouped up, and when we lose a team-fight, it - for some reason - is much more decisive, which makes "cleaning" up less practical. I think part of this can be attributed to variance and part also to changes to Muradin and Illidan whom have become pretty snowbally with their health regeneration. Moreover, as long as Jaina is on the enemey team, you can't go for a wormhole attack against a 2-3 man team when your on level 16-19 as they (typically) can catch up to you due to slow.
There is also a reason Zeratul isn't used very often in pro-games as he is composition-reliant. If enemies have 3 ADs, yeh sure, Zeratul is great. If on the other hand, a well-coordinated enemy team have 2 supports or another composition with only 1 AD, he is pretty bad.
But anyway, I don't really care how good X hero is in Y situations. Rather, I just like to play a fast-paced game where it's very easy for me to identify progress. HOTS does well on the first part, but unless you are on an actual team, it lacks on the other part.
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On December 16 2014 06:18 Hider wrote: I played probably around 350 games of Zeratul. The first 200 games, there were lots of ways to improve my skill. The last 100 games I probably worked the most on my VPs and I have become quite consistent at that as well. I still miss a bit too many Ws though, but besides that, it's not really obvious how - mechanically speaking - I can do much more with him. In terms of decisionmaking, I feel like I have become pretty skilled at identifying when we can win a fight, and when we should just retreat and fight another day.
I hear ya on this stuff. I was brutally bad with Zeratul until I leveled him to about level 8 or 9. Then things started to click mechanically and tactically. There are still times when I know that I'm playing badly (hence my previous comment about knowing when/why I'm making plays and when/why I'm not), but usually I can correct course mid-game now.
The - by far - biggest difference I noticed from around 3.1K MMR to 3.4K MMR is how enemies position them selves in the laning phase. At 3.1K MMR, it was so easy for me to get succesful ganks all the time. I would go up like 10/15-0 50% of the time, and thus my team would be in a very strong position going into the midgame. Right now, I find it really difficult to get any succesful ganks in. Zeratul too a large extent does rely on opponents mispositioning them selves and when they do not make obvious errors and/or they have 1-2 supports. Typically right now I don't get more than 3-4 kills the first 5-6 minutes.
Yes, this I agree with. At higher level MMR, you're not going to get many kills in the laning phase. I don't think Zeratul really turns into a killing machine until about level 13 or so (definitely by level 16). By that time, the game will open up outside of the rigid laning phase when everyone is on high alert for your ganks, and you'll have a lot more opportunity to get stuff done. And here's the thing that I think that most Zeratul players don't do. They focus too much on hero killing as opposed to seizing merc camps, pushing lanes, and seizing objectives (like Pirate coins). By doing these things, you can create your own opportunities to kill other heroes just by forcing the other team to react. This is why I am such a strong proponent of taking regen master at level 1, even though everyone always laughs at me when I suggest it.
Then in later-game, I also remember how I previously could just get kill after kill against isolated targets with double-bombs. But these situations just do not occur very frequently anymore. Most teams stay pretty grouped up, which makes it much harder for Zeratul for carry. There is also a reason Zeratul isn't used very often in pro-games as he is composition-reliant. If enemies have 3 ADs, yeh sure, Zeratul is great. If on the other hand, enemies have 2 supports he is completley useless.
I kill people all of the time with double bombs/Q combo in teamfights. You just have to pick your spots. You don't have to focus on killing squishies either. There will always be opportunities to take out someone in a teamfight. It just requires patience and timing. Heal-heavy tank comps are harder to deal with it, but it can still be done.
Now, everything that I've said applies to solo-queue play. I have no doubt that different rules apply when it comes to highly organized team play. But let's face it, the segment of players who are involved in that level of play is/will be incredibly small, thus their experience isn't particularly relevant to the rest of us.
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They focus too much on hero killing as opposed to seizing merc camps, pushing lanes, and seizing objectives (like Pirate coins)
Greater Cleave is pretty good for killing minions though.
Anyway, I am not sure Zeratul can realistically actually push lanes in the early/midgame. In this phase of the game, enemies have heroes on each lane, and Zeratul doesn't really contribute much unless he is going for a gank. What you can do - later on in the game - is to clear minion alone. Due to your mobility, your typically the only player on the team that can afford to leave your teammates, and in this way you can contribute.
I don't like taking mercs with Zeratul though. He needs to spend way too much mana to kill anything time-efficiently. If anything,
I kill people all of the time with double bombs/Q combo in teamfights. You just have to pick your spots. You don't have to focus on killing squishies either. There will always be opportunities to take out someone in a teamfight. It just requires patience and timing. Heal-heavy tank comps are harder to deal with it, but it can still be done.
I never really had trouble identifying which targets I should kill, and I believe I roughly averaged 10 KDA from 2800-3200 MMR, so that should be a decent indicator of that. The potential troubling part of Zeratul is imo timing your blinks correctly (medium skillcap), hitting double-Ws consistently (very high skillcap) and hitting VPs well (high skillcap).
But my point is just that if enemy team has enough HP, then there are much fewer opportunities for you to snipe an enemy. That willl occur when they are very tank- and support heavy. If for instance, they have one squishy target that stays relatively close to the rest of the teammates, and in the background, so it doesn't take damage from your teammates. Then how can you snipe it? If you need to get of maybe 3 autoattacks along with a Q and a double-bomb --> That cannot be done in one single round if the target stays close to its teammates.
Therefore, with Zeratul your either reliant on teammates doing critical mass of damage so you can finish them off or a bad coordination from the enemy team which allows you to easily pick them off over time or just snipe them when they are isolated.
So in this scenario, it's not really obvious how can you make an obvious contribution to the team (when your team is bad), and the enemy team is good. So the higher MMR you get, Zeratul's "carrying" is stronger and stronger correlated to whether your allies are skilled or not.
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On December 16 2014 06:57 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +They focus too much on hero killing as opposed to seizing merc camps, pushing lanes, and seizing objectives (like Pirate coins) Greater Cleave is pretty good for killing minions though. Anyway, I am not sure Zeratul can realistically actually push lanes in the early/midgame. In this phase of the game, enemies have heroes on each lane, and Zeratul doesn't really contribute much unless he is going for a gank. What you can do - later on in the game - is to clear minion alone. Due to your mobility, your typically the only player on the team that can afford to leave your teammates, and in this way you can contribute. I don't like taking mercs with Zeratul though. He needs to spend way too much mana to kill anything time-efficiently. If anything, Show nested quote + I kill people all of the time with double bombs/Q combo in teamfights. You just have to pick your spots. You don't have to focus on killing squishies either. There will always be opportunities to take out someone in a teamfight. It just requires patience and timing. Heal-heavy tank comps are harder to deal with it, but it can still be done.
I never really had trouble identifying which targets I should kill, and I believe I roughly averaged 10 KDA from 2800-3200 MMR, so that should be a decent indicator of that. The potential troubling part of Zeratul is imo timing your blinks correctly (medium skillcap), hitting double-Ws consistently (very high skillcap) and hitting VPs well (high skillcap). But my point is just that if enemy team has enough HP, then there are much fewer opportunities for you to snipe an enemy. That willl occur when they are very tank- and support heavy. If for instance, they have one squishy target that stays relatively close to the rest of the teammates, and in the background, so it doesn't take damage from your teammates. Then how can you snipe it? If you need to get of maybe 3 autoattacks along with a Q and a double-bomb --> That cannot be done in one single round if the target stays close to its teammates. Therefore, with Zeratul your either reliant on teammates doing critical mass of damage so you can finish them off or a bad coordination from the enemy team which allows you to easily pick them off over time or just snipe them when they are isolated. So in this scenario, it's not really obvious how can you make an obvious contribution to the team (when your team is bad), and the enemy team is good. So the higher MMR you get, Zeratul's "carrying" is stronger and stronger correlated to whether your allies are skilled or not.
I obviously can't speak to your specific experience, but I tend to think that you're missing something with regards to how you're playing Zeratul. Again, I've been winning 75-80% of my games with Zeratul for the past several weeks on my climb from 3k MMR to 3.4k MMR. Statistically, it is highly unlikely that I simply have been lucky enough to get that many good teams who have been able to carry me during that span.
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On December 07 2014 15:09 deth2munkies wrote: Ok, I need to have a Serejai moment, so if you're not interested in that, skip the rest of this post.
I just got out of a game with the worst Abathur I've ever had the misfortune of playing with. It was on Blackhearts Bay, we lost the treasure chest race because my team was retarded and nobody came, but that's fine. This Abathur is sitting by the middle fort just pushing top lane. Not using Toxic Nests, not helping with fights around the chests, just pushing top lane. Needless to say, they get the early turn in and our middle fort falls. Does he notice? Nope. They walk up and just kill him.
He spends the rest of the game in the fountain, literally afk for a few minutes (which I call him on). Then later I reference him being afk earlier and he says, "You don't know how my hero works, I can't attack, I sit at fountain all game." Then I tell him that he needs to use nests and needs to be out of the base so his locusts can actually GET to their forts. He further accuses me of not knowing how to play Abathur and I must be super new and horrible because he has SIEGE DAMAGE! Under 3k hero damage at 8 mintues into the game, but BY GOD HE HAS 18k SIEGE DAMAGE! EVERYONE WORSHIP THE ABATHUR!
So I mention he needs to go somewhere they're not and splitpush, and he decides to give me an object lesson in Abathur's autoattacking capabilities by BURROWING INTO THEIR ENTIRE TEAM. Needless to say he instantly dies and we lose after some trolling from them (they obtained and lost 69 coins to me at one point). The whole time the Abathur is either afk, whining at team, or calling me a noob.
Literally the most frustrating time I've had at Heroes so far, especially coming off 5 losses in a row due to bad teamcomps/players.
This is a great read, A+
Highly recommend Serejai Moments™
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On December 16 2014 08:02 Serejai wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2014 15:09 deth2munkies wrote: Ok, I need to have a Serejai moment, so if you're not interested in that, skip the rest of this post.
I just got out of a game with the worst Abathur I've ever had the misfortune of playing with. It was on Blackhearts Bay, we lost the treasure chest race because my team was retarded and nobody came, but that's fine. This Abathur is sitting by the middle fort just pushing top lane. Not using Toxic Nests, not helping with fights around the chests, just pushing top lane. Needless to say, they get the early turn in and our middle fort falls. Does he notice? Nope. They walk up and just kill him.
He spends the rest of the game in the fountain, literally afk for a few minutes (which I call him on). Then later I reference him being afk earlier and he says, "You don't know how my hero works, I can't attack, I sit at fountain all game." Then I tell him that he needs to use nests and needs to be out of the base so his locusts can actually GET to their forts. He further accuses me of not knowing how to play Abathur and I must be super new and horrible because he has SIEGE DAMAGE! Under 3k hero damage at 8 mintues into the game, but BY GOD HE HAS 18k SIEGE DAMAGE! EVERYONE WORSHIP THE ABATHUR!
So I mention he needs to go somewhere they're not and splitpush, and he decides to give me an object lesson in Abathur's autoattacking capabilities by BURROWING INTO THEIR ENTIRE TEAM. Needless to say he instantly dies and we lose after some trolling from them (they obtained and lost 69 coins to me at one point). The whole time the Abathur is either afk, whining at team, or calling me a noob.
Literally the most frustrating time I've had at Heroes so far, especially coming off 5 losses in a row due to bad teamcomps/players. This is a great read, A+ Highly recommend Serejai Moments™
I try.
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just hit 10 on a hero and realizes master skin need 10k gold. what.
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On December 16 2014 21:59 OopsOopsBaby wrote: just hit 10 on a hero and realizes master skin need 10k gold. what.
You've just unlocked Masters Skin! (if you buy it for 10k gold) they need to add this last part
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Lol yeah such a scam :D especially when most master skins aren't that good anyway. Remember that blizzard is used to be really greedy thanks to WoW (selling stuff ingame + people need to pay a monthly subscription), hots won't be an exception
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Pretty sure it says 10k gold right there next to the skin icon. The best skins are pay skins anyway.
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