EPT
HERO LEAGUE 101
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF
HIGHER LEVEL HEROES PLAY
Author’s note: This is version two of the guide that was published in May 2015. The guide has been brought current to account for changes to heroes and the evolving meta. A new section, “The Art of the Carry,” has been added at the end. Enjoy.
So you’ve just hit level 30, and you think you’re ready to shoot up to rank 1 of Hero League. Think again! Hero League is a cesspool of toxic behavior, horrific decision-making, and overall gameplay that inspires the classic philosophic question of “WTF?” Hero League is not a nice place. Still, there are things that players can do to maximize their opportunities to climb the ladder, and there are reasons why some people are able to get to, and stay at, Rank 1 while solo-queuing when most can’t.
Fortunately for you, my experience with the horrors of Hero League and playing at Rank 1 has inspired me to write a gigantic guide to explain many of those things. I’m not interested in offering largely useless, clichéd advice such as “Don’t flame your teammates.” I want to provide real, tangible knowledge that explains the nuts and bolts of the game that the vast majority of players simply don’t understand (much to my horror). Obviously, this guide can’t explain every trick of the trade, but reading this guide should provide novice players with the mental framework needed to be good (or at least better) at HotS. Drafting strategy and gameplay tactics will both be discussed in detail. Finally, the issue of “carrying” in HotS will be addressed directly and explanation for how it works and how to do it will be provided.
The information in this guide will enable players to push themselves from the ranks of the casual into the ranks of the competitive. The overall goal is to teach the fundamentals of higher level play, which is applicable beyond Hero League to HotS gameplay in general. The most important thing to understand about climbing the hero league ladder is this: consistently sound decision making is the key to success in HotS. Everything else is secondary. Class is in session.
Class is in session.
Let me just get this out of the way and state the obvious: you need to be able to control your heroes confidently and precisely to have any hope of being any good at HotS. If a given hero does not feel like an extension of yourself when playing that hero, then you should not play that hero in Hero League. Practice in quickmatch first to develop proper muscle memory. If you can’t pull off Uther’s triple stun combo at will, don’t play him in Hero League. If you can’t land Tyrande’s skillshots, don’t play her in Hero League. If you don’t know when you can safely dive someone to secure a kill with Illidan (and are prone to suiciding when trying to secure kills), don’t play him in Hero League. And for the love of all that is holy, quit picking Stitches when you can’t land a hook to save your life.
This guide is going to focus on the strategic and tactical aspects of HotS. However, properly dealing with these issues in game requires a certain level of mechanical competence. Make sure that you have it.
HotS requires that players to have at least 10 heroes on their roster (excluding free-to-play heroes) in order to play Hero League. Beyond that, players are free to have whatever heroes that they want on their roster going into Hero League. Just because you can jump into Hero League with a roster of Valla, Murky, Abathur, Tassadar, Sonya, Azmodan, Nova, Arthas, Zeratul, and Raynor does not mean that it is a good idea.
Though assassins and specialists are all of the rage, do not play Hero League without a balanced roster of heroes, all of whom that you can play competently. At a bare minimum, you need to own three tanks and three supports. Why? Because these are the roles that most often need filling during the Hero League draft. Why three of each? Because the worst thing that can ever happen is for you to be unable to fill a critical role for a team because all of your heroes for that given class were selected. For example, double support compositions have been very popular at various points in the meta. If you have only one or two supports, there is an unacceptably high chance that your supports will be unavailable during the draft. Why put yourself in a position where you are all but guaranteeing a loss at team select? Team compositions matter, which leads us to our next topic.
Pop quiz time. You are the fifth pick on your team. Your teammates have already picked Tyrael, Jaina, Falstad, and Illidan. You clearly should be picking be a support. Who should you pick?
a)Rehgar
b)Tassadar
c)Brightwing
d)Uther
e)Malfurion
f)Lili
g)Tyrande
h)Kharazim
Without regard to who is on the enemy team, there is one, clearly optimal pick here (though there are others that you can make work). Picking this hero (we’ll discuss who it is below) will not guarantee your team a victory, but it certainly will put your team in the best position to win the game. Again, team compositions matter. All things being equal, the better team composition will generally win. Success in Hero League, therefore, requires sufficient understanding of who each hero is, what each hero can do, and when to pick a given hero based upon your team’s and the enemy team’s compositions.
Beyond the three core roles, there are three utility functions that need to be filled: crowd control (otherwise known as “CC”), initiation, and lane presence.
Crowd control, which includes stuns (we’ll include Polymorph here), roots, and slows, allows your team to assert its will in teamfights by neutralizing enemy heroes to one degree or another. Of all crowd control forms, stuns are the most important because 1) they are the most effective at neutralizing enemy heroes by stopping them cold, and 2) they can interrupt otherwise devastating enemy heroic abilities such Ravenous Spirit and Jug of 1,000 Cups.
Initiation is the ability to and manner in which your team begins teamfights. Good initiation is very important to success. Generally, tanks will all be competent at initiating teamfights to one degree or another. However, having additional heroes who can initiate can be valuable as well, especially given that initiation abilities often have other uses that may be more ideal in certain circumstances. For example, Thrall can use Sundering to initiate teamfights. But if the enemy team has a Nazeebo with Ravenous Spirit, and Thrall’s team has no other means of reliably interrupting Nazeebo, then Sundering would be better used as an interrupt in that circumstance, leaving initiation duties to someone else. In short, redundancy is a good thing. Lane presence is what I will generally refer to as a hero’s capacity to control and dominate a lane. Generally speaking, wave clearing and pushing are the two most common and effective ways to establish lane presence. But lane presence can also be established asymmetrically with well-timed ganks and outright out-dueling an opponent.
Lane presence is important in that pushing and destroying towers, forts, and other objectives both gives your team an experience advantage and brings your team closer to ultimate victory. Strong lane presence also forces the other team to react. For example, heroes like Azmodan and Sylvanas cannot be left to their own devices in lane, because they will simply burn down everything in their path, granting their teams an advantage. The pro meta has evolved to the point where heroes with strong lane presence are being prioritized over more traditional options. Leoric and Johanna are two of the premier tanks in no small part due to their ability to efficiently clear creep waves. Zagara and Nazeebo are being chosen over more traditional ranged assassins, because of their strong lane presence. Ultimately, what a team needs is a means of establishing adequate lane presence in all lanes. There are a lot of ways to skin this particular kitty. But what cannot happen is for multiple lanes to always be in danger of failing. This possibility must be accounted for and avoided during team selection. Make sure that your team can field a lane alignment that can hold its own. Better yet, pick heroes that will ensure that your team dominates the laning phase.
Beyond the core utilities, there are other utilities that can be very important depending upon the map or other circumstances. These include vision, bribe, traditional merc seizure, global movement, burst damage, burst healing, MULE, siege capability, cleanse, and a variety of buffs and debuffs. For example, vision is critical on maps like Battlefield of Eternity, Blackheart’s Bay, and Tomb of the Spider Queen, where vision over specific map points needs to be maintained. MULE is tremendously effective on Sky Temple. Haunted Mines is a map where heroes with siege capability can really shine (or just first pick Sylvanas whenever you can....). Debuffs, such as Shrink Ray, are important when your team needs to shut down heroes like Illidan or Thrall. On the other hand, buffs and Cleanse are capabilities that your team probably wants to have to support a friendly Illidan or Thrall.
When one starts thinking about available heroes in the context of which roles they can fill and which utilities that they can provide, one starts to understand why certain heroes are ranked higher on tier lists than others.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Phantom/draft1.png)
At higher levels of play, some consideration also needs to be given to the type of team composition that your team is running. In particular, players should be aware of the four kinds of team compositions: poke comps, dive comps, wombo combo comps, and siege comps. Each is suited to a very particular kind of gameplay that does not suit all heroes.
Poke comps are those that have a lot of heroes with ranged abilities (and attacks) that can be used for safely harassing and dealing damage to enemy heroes at a distance. Poke comps are more or less the standard team composition. Proper tank selection is typically the most important issue here. The best tanks are the ones that can peel enemy heroes away from the squishy back line. Johanna is the best at this, which, unsurprisingly, is why she is generally considered one of the top tanks. Dive comps are those that contain multiple heroes who can initiate teamfights by jumping on and assassinating one enemy hero quickly. Signature dive comp heroes include Tyrael, Illidan, Anub’Arak, Sonya, Kharazim, and ETC. Any hero who has access to Blood for Blood, which is a critically important assassination tool, should be prioritized for dive comps. Likewise, heroes with other heavy-hitting abilities that can help quickly erase dive targets should also be considered for selection. Supports with access to burst healing should be picked to keep alive the diving frontline heroes.
Wombo combo comps are those that are stacked with heroes with big AoE heroic and basic abilities. The general idea is to catch the enemy team in a clump and unload all of you heavy-hitting abilities, thereby killing the enemy team instantly. Notable wombo combo heroes include Zeratul, Zagara, Falstad, Valla, ETC, Leoric, Jaina, Gazlowe, Kael’Thas, Uther, Sylvanas, Nazeebo, and Nova. Wombo combo comps can be brutally effective, but they require a very high degree of team coordination. Honestly, it is very hard to properly pull off a good wombo combo without the team being on voice communications. Nevertheless, if your team has a lot of heroes with wombo combo potential, then you should pick a hero and talent that hero in a way that accommodates it.
Siege comps are designed to push lanes heavily and aggressively. Ideally, siege comps play very asymmetrically, using their laning strength to create crises at enemy forts and keeps all around the map to establish a level lead that can help make up for the inherent teamfighting deficiencies of the team. Classic siege comps include multiple of the following specialists: Azmodan, Murky, Abathur, Zagara, Gazlowe, Sylvanas, Sgt. Hammer, and Lost Vikings. Complimentary tanks and supports are those that have strong lane presence. As with poke comps, effective peeling is also important. High mobility should also be prioritized – both for evading teamfights and for maintaining aggressive lane presence around the map.
So let’s revisit the pop quiz from above. The best hero to pick for that particular team composition (and without regard to the enemy team’s composition) is Uther. First, having Illidan and Tyrael means that the support will be operating in a dive comp. Burst healing becomes necessary. The rest of the team’s picks are very light on CC in general. The stuns that Uther can provide become invaluable in this circumstance and set Uther apart from the other premier burst healer in the game, Rehgar. Illidan also greatly benefits from Cleanse, which Uther can provide. No other support checks all of these important boxes, which is why Uther is generally considered to be the best overall support hero. Finally, Uther’s plethora of CC also makes him a counterpick to Illidan. Picking Uther deprives the enemy team of the opportunity to take one of Illidan’s counters, which brings us to our next subject....
Counterpicking is an art unto itself. It is also is far too complicated of a subject to really do justice in the limited space available here. Still, it is a critical element of hero selection, so let’s take a moment to examine some of the basics.
The critical question to ask when counterpicking is “How can the enemy team hurt us, and how can we stop them?” Answering this question requires at least a passable understanding of every hero in the game. Minimally, you should know every hero’s abilities, talents, and likely build paths. You also should know how each particular hero fits within a team during a teamfight. The most important aspects of a hero to understand are the heroic abilities. These are the abilities that determine the outcomes of teamfights depending upon execution. If one team effectively counters or otherwise avoids being hurt too badly by the heroic abilities of the other team while exacting good value from its own heroic abilities, that team probably will win a teamfight.
Armed with the information listed above, weaknesses and other soft points in enemy team compositions start to become clear. Not only does hero selection become easier, but a natural order of battle tactics emerges in game. You will know which abilities to use on whom and when. Just make sure that the rest of your team gets the memo.
Here are some of the important counterpicks that hero league players should be aware of:
Illidan: The name of the game here is CC, CC, more CC, and direct damage abilities. The quick and dirty answer is to pick one of the support heroes with hard CC – Uther and Brightwing – who can dedicate their existence to shutting Illidan down long enough for the rest of the team blow him up. The biggest mistake that players make is picking a support with limited CC (such as Malfurion, Rehgar, and Lili) when the rest of the team has limited CC and an Illidan pick from the opposite team is still a possibility. This often results in a loss strictly as a function of bad team comp.
Channeling Heroic Abilities: What do Mosh Pit, Ravenous Spirit, and Jug of 1,000 Cups all have in common? They are heroic abilities that can absolutely murder an enemy team (through healing or damage) if allowed to be used uninterrupted. When you see heroes with big channeling heroics being selected by the enemy team, make sure that your team has a means of stopping them. Otherwise, you’re going to have a bad day. Tyrael and Tyrande are both excellent at disrupting enemy heroic abilities due to the reach of their stuns.
Siege Heroes: The big pushers and merc camp mongers such as Zagara, Gazlowe, and Azmodan all are generally weak to gank-heavy counterplay. Remember: pushing requires exposing oneself. Accordingly, powerful roamers such as Kerrigan, Zeratul, Nova, Tyrande, and Muradin have an opportunity to shine in these situations. The same strategy works against a split-pushing Sylvanas, it just is a little harder to pull off due to Haunting Wave.
The Lost Vikings: Let’s take a moment to discuss how to deal with these little bastards. The mistake that too many players make is letting the Lost Vikings’ split lane farm without consequence. This mistake lets the Lost Vikings’ team amass significant early game experience advantages that snowball into victories. The key is to diligently and deliberately deny the Lost Vikings the ability to split lane (pay attention to how relatively infrequently the Lost Vikings’ are able to split lane in pro games) by 1) never attacking enemy minions (thereby not pushing the lane) when a Viking is present, and 2) actively attacking, harassing, and zoning out the Viking. Heroes with good burst damage and roaming potential like Nova and Zeratul are particularly good at sniping Vikings and making split laning exceedingly difficult.
Now that we have covered how to pick heroes, it’s time to discuss playing the game. We will attack this subject from numerous angles.
The single mistake that players make that most often costs their teams victory is dying needlessly. Despite what the least informed among us may say, every death is significant. Even in the early game when respawn timers are low, deaths very quickly result in one team gaining an experience lead over the other. Unless you are sacrificing yourself so that your team can decisively win teamfights, death is always bad. If you have the most deaths on your team, it is likely that you are performing the worst on your team – especially if you account for a high percentage of your team’s deaths.
The proper attitude towards death is the following: “I died, because I did something wrong.” So let’s take a look at some of the most frequent errors that players that result in death:
Engaging enemy heroes shorthanded: This is the big one – the primary cause of needless death. One or more players from one team – but less than the full five – engage multiple players from the opposing team, and end up getting caught in an outnumbered situation, resulting in one or all of them dying. Just don’t do this. Never engage players from the enemy team unless 1) you have your full team with you, or 2) you know where the rest of the enemy team is and do not have to worry about being caught in an outnumbered situation. Two heroes defending a fort against a 4-man push is not going to save the fort. It will only result in the opposing team killing two heroes and a fort instead of just a fort. And for the love of all that is holy, do not challenge the enemy team at an objective before your team has arrived in full. Doing so will just result in bad things happening. Yes, some of your teammates may be stupid for failing to timely arrive at an objective, but you would be the bigger dumbass if you charged in and died anyway.
Overextension in lane: Many players push their lanes hard and continue to push without regard for where the enemy players are. Players who do this are very easy targets for ganks in lane. Pushing a lane hard is fine, but it must be done smartly. Map awareness is the key. If you are unaware of where the rest of the enemy team is, you probably should back off. And just remember the following: it is your fault if you die from a gank when you have pushed your lane, regardless of whether your teammates called “MIA.”
Overextension in teamfights: Otherwise known as “diving” (typically with an expletive preceding it) or “going ham,” this is what happens when players push too hard and go too deep in teamfights. Chasing kills usually is a bad idea. Charging into the rest of the enemy team or fighting under forts and towers to chase kills is just stupid. Be mindful of your positioning. Getting a bad case of tunnel vision chasing a hero is just going to end in bad things happening to you and to your team.
Getting picked off like a newb: Let’s just call this what it is. These are the situations where someone stupidly offers himself up as a fat engagement target, resulting in instant death. Typically these people are playing squishy heroes who wander ahead of their tank or otherwise try to do something cute with their positioning, at which point they stun/snared and blown up. In fact, let me just offer the following: the positioning that most players demonstrate with squishy heroes (especially with glass cannons like Jaina and Kael’Thas’) is absolutely atrocious. Generally speaking, the enemy team should never see your team’s squishy characters until a teamfight has started. Otherwise, the enemy team will engage on your team’s squishy characters and bad things will happen. Lastly, please remember the following: just because you’re hiding in a bush does not mean that you are in a safe spot. The elimination of these types of mistakes from your game will help you improve more than anything else that is discussed in this article.
Simply put, map awareness is knowing exactly what is going on in the game at any given time during the game. This includes knowledge of where every player is, which objectives are open, which merc camps are open, and which lanes are being pushed. Critically, players with good map awareness always know where enemy players are likely to be even if they are not visible on the map. The power of this intuition is self-evident: it’s the next best thing to a map hack. Good map awareness allows players both to avoid trouble and to create opportunities to punish the enemy team and create an advantage.
You might be wondering how one acquires this mystical power. There are three elements to it: mechanics, deduction, and experience.
The most important real estate on your computer screen in game is in the bottom right corner. The mini map is your best source of information at any point during the game. A brief glance at it will show you almost everything that you need to know about the current state of the game, which will then inform your strategic decision-making. The logical conclusion, thus, is that players should be looking at their mini map frequently. How frequently? Every couple of seconds unless you’re engaging in a 5v5 teamfight. You must make this a mechanical habit.
When looking at the minimap, there are several things that must be accounted for:
1. Which enemy players are visible and where they are located (including which ones are dead);
2. Which enemy players are not visible (ie, which enemy players are missing) and where these players were last seen;
3. Where your teammates are;
4. Which merc camps are open, and which have been taken;
5. Which lanes are pushed; and
6. Whether and where any map objectives are active.
The answers to these questions, when combined with game experience, can give you a very accurate idea regarding what enemy players are doing, what they’re likely to do, and, consequently, what opportunities are available for your team. Here are a few of the more general rules to keep in mind when deducing what the enemy team is up to:
Active map objective = High likelihood that multiple enemy heroes are at or will be arriving at the map objective: This is the most axiomatic of the rules and, consequently, fairly self-explanatory. Map objectives are important, and every team will prioritize them. I’m mentioning this one first, because it alters the calculus of the other rules below.
Missing enemy hero(es) + Open merc camps on the enemy team’s side of the map = High likelihood that the missing enemy hero(es) are taking their merc camps: This rule must be adjusted to account for which enemy heroes are missing and the behavioral history of the missing enemy heroes. If the enemy Gazlowe who has been laning all game suddenly goes missing, he’s probably at a merc camp. If the enemy Kerrigan who has gone missing has been repeatedly ganking your team all over the map, she probably is getting ready to gank again instead of taking a merc camp. You also should account for map objective timings. It is very common for good players to time the seizure of merc camps to coincide with pushing a lane when a map objective is active. The most common example of this is seizing bruiser camps right before the second temple phase on Sky Temple (usually at around the 3:50-4:00 mark depending upon when the first temple phase ended).
Missing enemy heroes + Your team just got stomped in a teamfight on your team’s side of the map + Open merc camps on your team’s side of the map = High likelihood that multiple enemy heroes are taking your merc camps: Smart teams aggressively push their advantage after winning a teamfight. Usually, they will do one or more of the following four things: 1) push your forts, keeps, or core, 2) take a map objective, 3) take a boss, or 4) take merc camps. Taking merc camps on your team’s side of the map is more common in the early game, particularly when the other options are not available and when the subject teamfight occurred on your team’s side of the map.
Heavily pushing one of your lanes = High likelihood that at least one enemy hero will come to that lane: The effect of lane pushing is one of the more important advanced concepts in HotS. Pushing a lane heavily has two important effects. First, it extends map control by giving your team vision and control over the lane up to the point where the minion lines are fighting. Second, it forces the enemy team to respond and neutralize the push, lest they wish to lose towers, forts, and keeps, thereby ceding an experience advantage to your team. Combined, these two effects give you additional information regarding where enemy heroes are likely to be and what they’re planning. In other words, this makes the enemy team more predictable, providing you an opportunity to exploit that predictability with an aggressive move of your own, whether it be setting up an ambush, taking a map objective, stealing merc camps/bosses, etc. Of course, you should also be wary of getting ganked and picked off when pushing a lane. Make sure that you’re not over-exposed.
Entire enemy team missing + Open boss + Lanes either neutral or in enemy team’s favor = High likelihood that the enemy team is at or near the boss: Notice how the right side of the equation is worded. It does not say that the enemy team is taking the boss. Why not? Because it is fairly common for enemy teams to bait the boss or other significant map objectives. Accordingly, always approach the boss with caution if you suspect that the enemy team is there. Otherwise you’ll be a candidate to be posterized in a “IT’S A TRAP!” meme.
You being visible to the enemy team + Enemy heroes not visible = You are not safe: Far too many players carelessly clear minion waves without regard to where enemy players are, which often results in them getting ganked and killed. This is particularly true in the late game where proximity to your base is no defense to an enemy attack. The same is true of face checking bushes when the enemy team is not visible. Always exercise caution when moving around the map.
I cannot stress enough how important map awareness is. I got to Rank 1 largely playing a very roam-heavy style of Zeratul, which is entirely predicated upon good map awareness. Rotation-heavy maps like Dragon Shire, Blackheart’s Bay, and Tomb of the Spider Queen will always be dominated by the teams and players with superior map awareness. Likewise, map awareness, more than anything else, will help you avoid costing your team the game by making a game-throwing error. Take time to develop this skill.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/shiroiusagi/herosofthestorm/guide/newbie/damage.jpg)
Every engagement with the enemy team (PvP) entails significant risk. Losing a fight and dying will minimally give the enemy team an advantage, and in the late game, can result in instant defeat. For this reason, deciding when to fight is a critically important decision that must be made with care. Here are some of the most important considerations:
Who has the numerical advantage? For the reasons discussed above, engaging in any fight where you potentially could be shorthanded is just a bad idea. Make sure that you are aware of where your teammates are where the rest of the enemy team is before engaging.
What level is each team? Level advantages matter. The extra stats alone make a significant difference, but talent advantages are the real difference makers. The team with an extra tier of talents is far more likely to win a straight up teamfight. Because of this, players need to be mindful not only of what level everyone is before engaging in a teamfight, but players also need to consider whether they should delay a teamfight to hit a new talent tier before engaging. Likewise, they should consider whether the opposing team will hit a critical talent tier (such as hitting level 10 and getting access to their heroic abilities) in the middle of the teamfight.
How healthy is each team? This is simple enough: avoid teamfights if teammates are low on health and mana. Just go back to base and live to fight another day.
Whose heroic abilities are up? Here’s another simple concept: not having access to your heroic abilities is a big disadvantage in a fight. Earlier, we discussed the importance of the minimap. The talents screen on the score tab is also a nice piece of screen real estate. This screen shows which of your team’s heroic abilities are up and how long is remaining on the cooldown for any heroic ability that has been used. Likewise, players should take mental note of when enemy player use their heroic abilities, and call it out so that everyone on the team is aware.
Is there something more important that we should be doing? Even if your team is likely to win, sometimes it is better to forego teamfights for larger strategic considerations. For example, Sky Temple and Blackheart’s Bay are maps with powerful map mechanics that can level the enemy base for you, negating the need to push keeps and the core. There is no need to risk a big fight when your team can patiently wait for the map to win the game for you. Similarly, your team should be mindful of engaging in a teamfight when your forts and keeps are being heavily pushed. The better move may be to back off and clear the lane first.
Must the battle be fought to save the game? Even if it’s a suicide mission, some battles must be fought as a last ditch effort to save the game. Typically these situations occur when the enemy team has a level advantage and is about to secure a victory by either seizing a boss or a map objective. If this is the case, then you really don’t have much to lose.
This begs the question of what should a given player do in a teamfight. The answer is one of our favorites: “It depends.” Look to detailed hero guides and pro play to see how certain heroes fit within team compositions, what their strengths are in teamfights, and how they can be used to hurt the enemy team. Still, there are a few basic rules that apply generally:
Do not dump damage on enemy tanks unless the enemy tank is completely isolated or there are no other available targets. Tanks generally have a ton of hit points, damage mitigation, and self-healing. They do not die easily. They also tend to do minimal damage and pose relatively minor threats to your team. If you are dumping damage on them in a teamfight when the enemy team is dumping damage on your backline (healers and damage dealers), you probably are going to lose. Good players save their heavy hitting abilities for squishier targets such as high damage dealers and healers. That said, there will be times when you don’t have a choice but to hit the tank, because the tank will be the only target that can be reached. In these cases, it will be okay use basic abilities and auto-attacks on the tank. Save the heroics for the backline, however.
The first enemy heroes to die should always be their biggest damage dealers. These are the heroes that will hurt your team if they aren’t killed first. Have a plan to deal with them.
Avoid excessive clumping when there’s a risk of being hit by a big AoE ability. Nothing will end a teamfight before it really starts faster than multiple players on a team getting caught by a big heroic ability such as Mosh Pit, Rain of Vengeance, or Devouring Maw. Be mindful of this and maintain disciplined spacing to as to minimize the impact of these devastating abilities.
Do not chase wounded enemy heroes when the teamfight is not over. Little is more embarrassing than a player who chases a wounded hero, while the rest of his team gets slaughtered in the still-raging teamfight. Make sure that your team will control the field at the end of a teamfight before chasing wounded heroes.
Be very wary about using escape abilities for offensive purposes. As you have likely gathered by now, dying is very bad and inconsistent with good play. Movement abilities such as Zeratul’s Blink or Bolt of the Storm are incredibly valuable, because they can be used to help a hero escape from a situation that will result in death. In teamfight, there is always a risk that a given hero will be exposed to such a deadly situation. Having a way out helps keep your team on even footing with the enemy team. Therefore, these escape abilities should generally be preserved as the life savers that they are. Be very hesitant to use them for offensive purposes such as securing kills or initiating fights – especially if you are playing a squishy hero.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/shiroiusagi/herosofthestorm/guide/newbie/mercenaries.jpg)
Merc camps are probably the most misunderstood mechanics in HotS. The average player sees that a merc camp is open and typically decides to take it without regard to anything else. This is bad. At best, haphazardly taking merc camps results in the waste of an asset. At worst, haphazardly taking merc camps results in a catastrophe for the team, such as getting picked off or ceding a map objective to the enemy team. As with everything else in HotS, the decision of when and whether to take a merc camp should be made with care.
That decision starts with an understanding of the function of merc camps: a merc camps is a resource that pushes a lane. As was discussed earlier, pushing a lane creates a threat that the enemy team must respond to. What’s important is understanding when to use the finite resource that is the merc camp to force enemy team to respond to a lane push. If merc camps are triggered at a time when the enemy team does not have any other threat (or opportunity) to attend to, then the enemy team will simply kill your mercs before they have had an opportunity to do any work for you. On the other hand, if you take a merc camp right before (or sometimes during) a map objective phase, then you’ll have created a dilemma for the opposing team: defeat your mercs, or potentially give up the map objective. This dilemma becomes far more acute the later the game goes, because at stake won’t just be forts, but keeps.
The general rule for taking merc camps is to only take them when you will be creating such a dilemma for the enemy team. Take merc camps so that their push coincides with a spawning map objective, an attempt at seizing a boss, or a concerted team push in another lane.
There are a couple of exceptions to this rule. If your team has established map control over the enemy team’s merc camps (ie your team just won a teamfight or enemy team’s lanes are heavily pushed into their main base), go ahead and take those merc camps while you can. Even if the timing of the seizure isn’t ideal, you still will be denying your opponents an important map resource. Second, make sure that you use your siege giants on Haunted Mines to kill the enemy golem. This means capping the siege giants just as the enemy golem passes the gate of the enemy team’s outer fort (as a side note, it is amazing to me how many people still screw this up).
And whatever you do, do not take merc camps while a map objective is present. For example, you should always prioritize gathering seeds on Garden of Terror over seizing merc camps. For a map like Dragon Shire, you can take merc camps and use their push to help secure the dragon knight, but only do so if taking the merc camps will not result in the opening of a window during which the enemy team can secure the dragon knight. Again, the key here is to have a planned purpose for seizing the merc camps before you do it.
Lastly, no discussion of merc camps would be complete without offering a few words on taking the boss:
AS A GENERAL RULE, DO NOT TRY TO TAKE THE BOSS UNLESS MULTIPLE ENEMY HEROES ARE DEAD.
So here’s the critical concept to understand when it comes to split pushing: it is never a baddecision to stay with the group and forego chasing another objective by yourself. Staying with the team is always safe and won’t, by itself, put your team in danger.
So when is splitting off from the team to pursue a separate objective appropriate? It depends. If a teamfight is imminent, then you must stay with the team. If your team has just won a teamfight, but not killed off all of the opposing heroes, then you probably should stay with your team if they try to capture map objectives or bosses. Unfortunately, you simply won’t be able to split push in games where you have teammates who are not smart enough to avoid committing to outnumbered teamfights while you are split pushing. Some players need babysitting. As you develop map awareness and game sense, you’ll get a better feel for when taking the risk to split from the team is a good move.
But here’s the bottom line: think long and hard about whether it is a good idea to be separated from the rest of your team before wandering off to do your own thing.
Remember: HotS is a team game. Do your best to encourage your team to make good decisions. But when bad decisions are made, see that your newb teammates’ will be done. You sometimes will be pleasantly surprised at how things turn out.
One of the more common criticisms of HotS as a game is that individual players are too dependent upon the quality of the play of their teammates in order to win. In other words, it is impossible for one player to “carry” his team. The source of this criticism is players experience with other MOBAs (notably DotA and LoL), where one hero can become strong enough to single-handedly defeat five enemy heroes. The differing mechanics in HotS – particularly the lack of items – has thus created the misperception that individual players cannot have sufficient impact upon a game to carry their teams to victory. This misperception then fosters a sense of hopelessness in players who feel like they are stuck in “MMR Hell” or “Rank 20 Hell” or “[FILL IN THE BLANK] Hell.” All of these sentiments, of course, are nonsense.
Understanding what “carrying” is in HotS begins with an understanding of how teams win. The sole objective for victory in HotS is the destruction of the enemy core. Destroying the core merely requires destroying at least one enemy keep, which exposes the core to damage. There are many (basically infinite) ways in which games can play out to the ultimate conclusion of one core being destroyed. So why does one team win over another?
Novice players make the mistake of focusing on one or two key points during the game as being outcome determinative of a given game. Cataclysmic teamfights, shorthanded/uneven engagements, and heroes getting picked off are generally are viewed as being the why one team won over the other. These events are important, but focusing on them ignores the larger context of the game. Though a player on your team may have stupidly gotten picked off, there likely was a long chain of events that occurred over the course of the game that led to that particular stupid decision. Chances are, your actions played role in it to one degree or another, and probably in ways that are not immediately obvious to most of you.
For example, let’s think of a hypothetical game on Dragonshire. Both Red Team and Blue Team are level 20. Each has a keep missing, so the core is exposed. Right as the Dragon phase is beginning, the Illidan on Blue Team stupidly engages the enemy in a shorthanded situation and dies (it’s always Illidan, isn’t it?). With a numerical advantage Red Team is then able to easily grab the Dragon and win. Why did Blue Team lose? The most immediate cause was Illidan’s idiotic demise. Still, pinning all of the blame on him is shortsighted. Consider the following: why were both teams level 20 and on nearly equal footing at that point in the game? Why didn’t Blue Team have a two level advantage? Why not a three or four level advantage? Why did Red Team have any keeps remaining? Why did Blue Team previously lose a keep? More specifically, what opportunities did any and all Blue Team members fail to capitalize on earlier in the game that resulted in the teams being on equal footing at that particular point in the game?
Whereas the “Gameplay” section above focused on mistakes of the game-throwing variety, here, we are going to focus on a different sort of mistake: the lost opportunity. These particular mistakes are incredibly insidious. They are often far from obvious, but their cumulative impact is no less important than the game-throwing error of Blue Team’s Illidan as described above. The simple truth is that it is far harder for a team to lose when it has a large lead. What separates the best players from the good players is the ability to seize on opportunities to give their team an advantage, thereby snowballing their teams to strategic positions where it is far less likely that a teammate will make a game-throwing error.
Therefore, players in HotS “carry” their teams when they create enough advantages for their teams that cumulatively make victory far more likely than it otherwise would be. Note how this definition of carrying is couched in probability. Obviously, one player cannot absolutely control the actions of the four other members of his team (wouldn’t this be nice...). Players will do stupid things despite all of the leadership and cajoling that their teammates can summon. All that can be controlled is the likelihood that those stupid actions will result in a loss.
So what are these “advantages” that players can provide for their teams? They can be a lot of things: a timely kill, destruction of a fort, capture of a merc camp, and so on. But what we’re really after is a concrete and repeatable objective. That objective – the advantage that is most important to consistently provide teams – is the experience advantage (ie level advantage).
Let’s review the key fundamentals of experience. First, experience is the sole resource providing hero improvement and scaling in the game. Experience unlocks both additional stats and additional abilities through talent selection. Second, there are three sources of experience: killing enemy minions, destroying towers, forts, and keeps, and killing enemy heroes. Some other objects also grant experience such as the undead minions in the mines on Haunted Mines and mercenaries, but we’ll ignore them for simplicity’s sake. Therefore, seizing the experience advantage is a function of 1) killing/destroying as many experience-granting objects as possible, and 2) denying the enemy the opportunity to destroy as many experience-granting objects as possible.
Clearly there is a lot to juggle here given the mutually exclusive nature of a lot of these objectives. You can’t solo push a fort and contribute to a teamfight on the other side of the map at the same time. What is needed is an ordering of priorities. This ordering will always depend upon the circumstances at a given time in a given game, but consider the following to be a general guideline of what the thought process should be when you are trying to carry your team:
The common theme to this list priorities is the importance of being heavily involved in any PvP combat that occurs around the map. The more frequently that you are involved in PvP combat, the more frequently that you will be able to both secure kills for your team and save your teammates from their own stupidity. And here’s a critical point that you should note: I have not said that the ability to carry is limited to any particular class in the game. A well-played support hero who is actively engaged in the PvP aspect of the game can carry a team. Dealing damage is important, but keeping your teammates upright and providing other utility in teamfights is critical as well.
Lastly, do not be fooled by the simplicity with which I am presenting this issue. Effectively carrying by consistently being at the right place at the right time is incredibly hard to do. Even the best players mess it up and miss opportunities. Still, you will find that your game will greatly improve if you make a dedicated effort to follow this list of priorities.
Much of succeeding at HotS boils down to making intelligent decisions, whether it’s making the right hero pick or avoiding needless death in-game. These decisions must be informed with experience and an understanding of the game. Though this guide cannot explain everything, hopefully it will provide a good starting place for all of those who wish to clean up their game and climb the ladder to Rank 1.
So you’ve just hit level 30, and you think you’re ready to shoot up to rank 1 of Hero League. Think again! Hero League is a cesspool of toxic behavior, horrific decision-making, and overall gameplay that inspires the classic philosophic question of “WTF?” Hero League is not a nice place. Still, there are things that players can do to maximize their opportunities to climb the ladder, and there are reasons why some people are able to get to, and stay at, Rank 1 while solo-queuing when most can’t.
Fortunately for you, my experience with the horrors of Hero League and playing at Rank 1 has inspired me to write a gigantic guide to explain many of those things. I’m not interested in offering largely useless, clichéd advice such as “Don’t flame your teammates.” I want to provide real, tangible knowledge that explains the nuts and bolts of the game that the vast majority of players simply don’t understand (much to my horror). Obviously, this guide can’t explain every trick of the trade, but reading this guide should provide novice players with the mental framework needed to be good (or at least better) at HotS. Drafting strategy and gameplay tactics will both be discussed in detail. Finally, the issue of “carrying” in HotS will be addressed directly and explanation for how it works and how to do it will be provided.
The information in this guide will enable players to push themselves from the ranks of the casual into the ranks of the competitive. The overall goal is to teach the fundamentals of higher level play, which is applicable beyond Hero League to HotS gameplay in general. The most important thing to understand about climbing the hero league ladder is this: consistently sound decision making is the key to success in HotS. Everything else is secondary. Class is in session.
Class is in session.
ON THE TOPIC OF GOOD PLAYER MECHANICS
Let me just get this out of the way and state the obvious: you need to be able to control your heroes confidently and precisely to have any hope of being any good at HotS. If a given hero does not feel like an extension of yourself when playing that hero, then you should not play that hero in Hero League. Practice in quickmatch first to develop proper muscle memory. If you can’t pull off Uther’s triple stun combo at will, don’t play him in Hero League. If you can’t land Tyrande’s skillshots, don’t play her in Hero League. If you don’t know when you can safely dive someone to secure a kill with Illidan (and are prone to suiciding when trying to secure kills), don’t play him in Hero League. And for the love of all that is holy, quit picking Stitches when you can’t land a hook to save your life.
This guide is going to focus on the strategic and tactical aspects of HotS. However, properly dealing with these issues in game requires a certain level of mechanical competence. Make sure that you have it.
HERO ROSTER
HotS requires that players to have at least 10 heroes on their roster (excluding free-to-play heroes) in order to play Hero League. Beyond that, players are free to have whatever heroes that they want on their roster going into Hero League. Just because you can jump into Hero League with a roster of Valla, Murky, Abathur, Tassadar, Sonya, Azmodan, Nova, Arthas, Zeratul, and Raynor does not mean that it is a good idea.
Though assassins and specialists are all of the rage, do not play Hero League without a balanced roster of heroes, all of whom that you can play competently. At a bare minimum, you need to own three tanks and three supports. Why? Because these are the roles that most often need filling during the Hero League draft. Why three of each? Because the worst thing that can ever happen is for you to be unable to fill a critical role for a team because all of your heroes for that given class were selected. For example, double support compositions have been very popular at various points in the meta. If you have only one or two supports, there is an unacceptably high chance that your supports will be unavailable during the draft. Why put yourself in a position where you are all but guaranteeing a loss at team select? Team compositions matter, which leads us to our next topic.
HERO SELECTION
Pop quiz time. You are the fifth pick on your team. Your teammates have already picked Tyrael, Jaina, Falstad, and Illidan. You clearly should be picking be a support. Who should you pick?
a)Rehgar
b)Tassadar
c)Brightwing
d)Uther
e)Malfurion
f)Lili
g)Tyrande
h)Kharazim
Without regard to who is on the enemy team, there is one, clearly optimal pick here (though there are others that you can make work). Picking this hero (we’ll discuss who it is below) will not guarantee your team a victory, but it certainly will put your team in the best position to win the game. Again, team compositions matter. All things being equal, the better team composition will generally win. Success in Hero League, therefore, requires sufficient understanding of who each hero is, what each hero can do, and when to pick a given hero based upon your team’s and the enemy team’s compositions.
A. What does the team need?
Let’s start with the basics. The three core roles that every team needs to fill are tank, damage dealer, and healer. Tanks soak up damage and protect squishier characters. Damage dealers are responsible for doing damage – predominantly to the enemy heroes. Healers heal friendly heroes. If the team is missing one of these, it probably is fatally flawed. Yes, there are exceptions to this rule, but they all involve highly advanced strategy considerations that are outside of the scope of this guide.Beyond the three core roles, there are three utility functions that need to be filled: crowd control (otherwise known as “CC”), initiation, and lane presence.
Crowd control, which includes stuns (we’ll include Polymorph here), roots, and slows, allows your team to assert its will in teamfights by neutralizing enemy heroes to one degree or another. Of all crowd control forms, stuns are the most important because 1) they are the most effective at neutralizing enemy heroes by stopping them cold, and 2) they can interrupt otherwise devastating enemy heroic abilities such Ravenous Spirit and Jug of 1,000 Cups.
Initiation is the ability to and manner in which your team begins teamfights. Good initiation is very important to success. Generally, tanks will all be competent at initiating teamfights to one degree or another. However, having additional heroes who can initiate can be valuable as well, especially given that initiation abilities often have other uses that may be more ideal in certain circumstances. For example, Thrall can use Sundering to initiate teamfights. But if the enemy team has a Nazeebo with Ravenous Spirit, and Thrall’s team has no other means of reliably interrupting Nazeebo, then Sundering would be better used as an interrupt in that circumstance, leaving initiation duties to someone else. In short, redundancy is a good thing. Lane presence is what I will generally refer to as a hero’s capacity to control and dominate a lane. Generally speaking, wave clearing and pushing are the two most common and effective ways to establish lane presence. But lane presence can also be established asymmetrically with well-timed ganks and outright out-dueling an opponent.
Lane presence is important in that pushing and destroying towers, forts, and other objectives both gives your team an experience advantage and brings your team closer to ultimate victory. Strong lane presence also forces the other team to react. For example, heroes like Azmodan and Sylvanas cannot be left to their own devices in lane, because they will simply burn down everything in their path, granting their teams an advantage. The pro meta has evolved to the point where heroes with strong lane presence are being prioritized over more traditional options. Leoric and Johanna are two of the premier tanks in no small part due to their ability to efficiently clear creep waves. Zagara and Nazeebo are being chosen over more traditional ranged assassins, because of their strong lane presence. Ultimately, what a team needs is a means of establishing adequate lane presence in all lanes. There are a lot of ways to skin this particular kitty. But what cannot happen is for multiple lanes to always be in danger of failing. This possibility must be accounted for and avoided during team selection. Make sure that your team can field a lane alignment that can hold its own. Better yet, pick heroes that will ensure that your team dominates the laning phase.
Beyond the core utilities, there are other utilities that can be very important depending upon the map or other circumstances. These include vision, bribe, traditional merc seizure, global movement, burst damage, burst healing, MULE, siege capability, cleanse, and a variety of buffs and debuffs. For example, vision is critical on maps like Battlefield of Eternity, Blackheart’s Bay, and Tomb of the Spider Queen, where vision over specific map points needs to be maintained. MULE is tremendously effective on Sky Temple. Haunted Mines is a map where heroes with siege capability can really shine (or just first pick Sylvanas whenever you can....). Debuffs, such as Shrink Ray, are important when your team needs to shut down heroes like Illidan or Thrall. On the other hand, buffs and Cleanse are capabilities that your team probably wants to have to support a friendly Illidan or Thrall.
When one starts thinking about available heroes in the context of which roles they can fill and which utilities that they can provide, one starts to understand why certain heroes are ranked higher on tier lists than others.
B. What kind of composition is my team running?
At higher levels of play, some consideration also needs to be given to the type of team composition that your team is running. In particular, players should be aware of the four kinds of team compositions: poke comps, dive comps, wombo combo comps, and siege comps. Each is suited to a very particular kind of gameplay that does not suit all heroes.
Poke comps are those that have a lot of heroes with ranged abilities (and attacks) that can be used for safely harassing and dealing damage to enemy heroes at a distance. Poke comps are more or less the standard team composition. Proper tank selection is typically the most important issue here. The best tanks are the ones that can peel enemy heroes away from the squishy back line. Johanna is the best at this, which, unsurprisingly, is why she is generally considered one of the top tanks. Dive comps are those that contain multiple heroes who can initiate teamfights by jumping on and assassinating one enemy hero quickly. Signature dive comp heroes include Tyrael, Illidan, Anub’Arak, Sonya, Kharazim, and ETC. Any hero who has access to Blood for Blood, which is a critically important assassination tool, should be prioritized for dive comps. Likewise, heroes with other heavy-hitting abilities that can help quickly erase dive targets should also be considered for selection. Supports with access to burst healing should be picked to keep alive the diving frontline heroes.
Wombo combo comps are those that are stacked with heroes with big AoE heroic and basic abilities. The general idea is to catch the enemy team in a clump and unload all of you heavy-hitting abilities, thereby killing the enemy team instantly. Notable wombo combo heroes include Zeratul, Zagara, Falstad, Valla, ETC, Leoric, Jaina, Gazlowe, Kael’Thas, Uther, Sylvanas, Nazeebo, and Nova. Wombo combo comps can be brutally effective, but they require a very high degree of team coordination. Honestly, it is very hard to properly pull off a good wombo combo without the team being on voice communications. Nevertheless, if your team has a lot of heroes with wombo combo potential, then you should pick a hero and talent that hero in a way that accommodates it.
Siege comps are designed to push lanes heavily and aggressively. Ideally, siege comps play very asymmetrically, using their laning strength to create crises at enemy forts and keeps all around the map to establish a level lead that can help make up for the inherent teamfighting deficiencies of the team. Classic siege comps include multiple of the following specialists: Azmodan, Murky, Abathur, Zagara, Gazlowe, Sylvanas, Sgt. Hammer, and Lost Vikings. Complimentary tanks and supports are those that have strong lane presence. As with poke comps, effective peeling is also important. High mobility should also be prioritized – both for evading teamfights and for maintaining aggressive lane presence around the map.
So let’s revisit the pop quiz from above. The best hero to pick for that particular team composition (and without regard to the enemy team’s composition) is Uther. First, having Illidan and Tyrael means that the support will be operating in a dive comp. Burst healing becomes necessary. The rest of the team’s picks are very light on CC in general. The stuns that Uther can provide become invaluable in this circumstance and set Uther apart from the other premier burst healer in the game, Rehgar. Illidan also greatly benefits from Cleanse, which Uther can provide. No other support checks all of these important boxes, which is why Uther is generally considered to be the best overall support hero. Finally, Uther’s plethora of CC also makes him a counterpick to Illidan. Picking Uther deprives the enemy team of the opportunity to take one of Illidan’s counters, which brings us to our next subject....
C. Who did the enemy team pick and how can I punish them for it?
Counterpicking is an art unto itself. It is also is far too complicated of a subject to really do justice in the limited space available here. Still, it is a critical element of hero selection, so let’s take a moment to examine some of the basics.
The critical question to ask when counterpicking is “How can the enemy team hurt us, and how can we stop them?” Answering this question requires at least a passable understanding of every hero in the game. Minimally, you should know every hero’s abilities, talents, and likely build paths. You also should know how each particular hero fits within a team during a teamfight. The most important aspects of a hero to understand are the heroic abilities. These are the abilities that determine the outcomes of teamfights depending upon execution. If one team effectively counters or otherwise avoids being hurt too badly by the heroic abilities of the other team while exacting good value from its own heroic abilities, that team probably will win a teamfight.
Armed with the information listed above, weaknesses and other soft points in enemy team compositions start to become clear. Not only does hero selection become easier, but a natural order of battle tactics emerges in game. You will know which abilities to use on whom and when. Just make sure that the rest of your team gets the memo.
Here are some of the important counterpicks that hero league players should be aware of:
Illidan: The name of the game here is CC, CC, more CC, and direct damage abilities. The quick and dirty answer is to pick one of the support heroes with hard CC – Uther and Brightwing – who can dedicate their existence to shutting Illidan down long enough for the rest of the team blow him up. The biggest mistake that players make is picking a support with limited CC (such as Malfurion, Rehgar, and Lili) when the rest of the team has limited CC and an Illidan pick from the opposite team is still a possibility. This often results in a loss strictly as a function of bad team comp.
Channeling Heroic Abilities: What do Mosh Pit, Ravenous Spirit, and Jug of 1,000 Cups all have in common? They are heroic abilities that can absolutely murder an enemy team (through healing or damage) if allowed to be used uninterrupted. When you see heroes with big channeling heroics being selected by the enemy team, make sure that your team has a means of stopping them. Otherwise, you’re going to have a bad day. Tyrael and Tyrande are both excellent at disrupting enemy heroic abilities due to the reach of their stuns.
Siege Heroes: The big pushers and merc camp mongers such as Zagara, Gazlowe, and Azmodan all are generally weak to gank-heavy counterplay. Remember: pushing requires exposing oneself. Accordingly, powerful roamers such as Kerrigan, Zeratul, Nova, Tyrande, and Muradin have an opportunity to shine in these situations. The same strategy works against a split-pushing Sylvanas, it just is a little harder to pull off due to Haunting Wave.
The Lost Vikings: Let’s take a moment to discuss how to deal with these little bastards. The mistake that too many players make is letting the Lost Vikings’ split lane farm without consequence. This mistake lets the Lost Vikings’ team amass significant early game experience advantages that snowball into victories. The key is to diligently and deliberately deny the Lost Vikings the ability to split lane (pay attention to how relatively infrequently the Lost Vikings’ are able to split lane in pro games) by 1) never attacking enemy minions (thereby not pushing the lane) when a Viking is present, and 2) actively attacking, harassing, and zoning out the Viking. Heroes with good burst damage and roaming potential like Nova and Zeratul are particularly good at sniping Vikings and making split laning exceedingly difficult.
GAMEPLAY
Now that we have covered how to pick heroes, it’s time to discuss playing the game. We will attack this subject from numerous angles.
A. On the subject of death
Drawing inspiration from the 44th American president, the number one rule for proper gameplay is “Don’t do stupid shit.” Players who routinely are substantial causes of their teams losing games simply do not reach Rank 1. No matter how good a player’s mechanics are, game-throwing brainfarts will cost them victories over and over again. Complete elimination of your own mistakes is the first step on the road to success in this game.The single mistake that players make that most often costs their teams victory is dying needlessly. Despite what the least informed among us may say, every death is significant. Even in the early game when respawn timers are low, deaths very quickly result in one team gaining an experience lead over the other. Unless you are sacrificing yourself so that your team can decisively win teamfights, death is always bad. If you have the most deaths on your team, it is likely that you are performing the worst on your team – especially if you account for a high percentage of your team’s deaths.
The proper attitude towards death is the following: “I died, because I did something wrong.” So let’s take a look at some of the most frequent errors that players that result in death:
Engaging enemy heroes shorthanded: This is the big one – the primary cause of needless death. One or more players from one team – but less than the full five – engage multiple players from the opposing team, and end up getting caught in an outnumbered situation, resulting in one or all of them dying. Just don’t do this. Never engage players from the enemy team unless 1) you have your full team with you, or 2) you know where the rest of the enemy team is and do not have to worry about being caught in an outnumbered situation. Two heroes defending a fort against a 4-man push is not going to save the fort. It will only result in the opposing team killing two heroes and a fort instead of just a fort. And for the love of all that is holy, do not challenge the enemy team at an objective before your team has arrived in full. Doing so will just result in bad things happening. Yes, some of your teammates may be stupid for failing to timely arrive at an objective, but you would be the bigger dumbass if you charged in and died anyway.
Overextension in lane: Many players push their lanes hard and continue to push without regard for where the enemy players are. Players who do this are very easy targets for ganks in lane. Pushing a lane hard is fine, but it must be done smartly. Map awareness is the key. If you are unaware of where the rest of the enemy team is, you probably should back off. And just remember the following: it is your fault if you die from a gank when you have pushed your lane, regardless of whether your teammates called “MIA.”
Overextension in teamfights: Otherwise known as “diving” (typically with an expletive preceding it) or “going ham,” this is what happens when players push too hard and go too deep in teamfights. Chasing kills usually is a bad idea. Charging into the rest of the enemy team or fighting under forts and towers to chase kills is just stupid. Be mindful of your positioning. Getting a bad case of tunnel vision chasing a hero is just going to end in bad things happening to you and to your team.
Getting picked off like a newb: Let’s just call this what it is. These are the situations where someone stupidly offers himself up as a fat engagement target, resulting in instant death. Typically these people are playing squishy heroes who wander ahead of their tank or otherwise try to do something cute with their positioning, at which point they stun/snared and blown up. In fact, let me just offer the following: the positioning that most players demonstrate with squishy heroes (especially with glass cannons like Jaina and Kael’Thas’) is absolutely atrocious. Generally speaking, the enemy team should never see your team’s squishy characters until a teamfight has started. Otherwise, the enemy team will engage on your team’s squishy characters and bad things will happen. Lastly, please remember the following: just because you’re hiding in a bush does not mean that you are in a safe spot. The elimination of these types of mistakes from your game will help you improve more than anything else that is discussed in this article.
B. Map Awareness
If you were paying attention to my comments on how players routinely die in stupid fashion, you should have noticed a fairly common theme: lack of map awareness. Map awareness is an important concept of which players must have a good grasp if they want to be any good at HotS. So let’s talk about it.Simply put, map awareness is knowing exactly what is going on in the game at any given time during the game. This includes knowledge of where every player is, which objectives are open, which merc camps are open, and which lanes are being pushed. Critically, players with good map awareness always know where enemy players are likely to be even if they are not visible on the map. The power of this intuition is self-evident: it’s the next best thing to a map hack. Good map awareness allows players both to avoid trouble and to create opportunities to punish the enemy team and create an advantage.
You might be wondering how one acquires this mystical power. There are three elements to it: mechanics, deduction, and experience.
The most important real estate on your computer screen in game is in the bottom right corner. The mini map is your best source of information at any point during the game. A brief glance at it will show you almost everything that you need to know about the current state of the game, which will then inform your strategic decision-making. The logical conclusion, thus, is that players should be looking at their mini map frequently. How frequently? Every couple of seconds unless you’re engaging in a 5v5 teamfight. You must make this a mechanical habit.
When looking at the minimap, there are several things that must be accounted for:
1. Which enemy players are visible and where they are located (including which ones are dead);
2. Which enemy players are not visible (ie, which enemy players are missing) and where these players were last seen;
3. Where your teammates are;
4. Which merc camps are open, and which have been taken;
5. Which lanes are pushed; and
6. Whether and where any map objectives are active.
The answers to these questions, when combined with game experience, can give you a very accurate idea regarding what enemy players are doing, what they’re likely to do, and, consequently, what opportunities are available for your team. Here are a few of the more general rules to keep in mind when deducing what the enemy team is up to:
Active map objective = High likelihood that multiple enemy heroes are at or will be arriving at the map objective: This is the most axiomatic of the rules and, consequently, fairly self-explanatory. Map objectives are important, and every team will prioritize them. I’m mentioning this one first, because it alters the calculus of the other rules below.
Missing enemy hero(es) + Open merc camps on the enemy team’s side of the map = High likelihood that the missing enemy hero(es) are taking their merc camps: This rule must be adjusted to account for which enemy heroes are missing and the behavioral history of the missing enemy heroes. If the enemy Gazlowe who has been laning all game suddenly goes missing, he’s probably at a merc camp. If the enemy Kerrigan who has gone missing has been repeatedly ganking your team all over the map, she probably is getting ready to gank again instead of taking a merc camp. You also should account for map objective timings. It is very common for good players to time the seizure of merc camps to coincide with pushing a lane when a map objective is active. The most common example of this is seizing bruiser camps right before the second temple phase on Sky Temple (usually at around the 3:50-4:00 mark depending upon when the first temple phase ended).
Missing enemy heroes + Your team just got stomped in a teamfight on your team’s side of the map + Open merc camps on your team’s side of the map = High likelihood that multiple enemy heroes are taking your merc camps: Smart teams aggressively push their advantage after winning a teamfight. Usually, they will do one or more of the following four things: 1) push your forts, keeps, or core, 2) take a map objective, 3) take a boss, or 4) take merc camps. Taking merc camps on your team’s side of the map is more common in the early game, particularly when the other options are not available and when the subject teamfight occurred on your team’s side of the map.
Heavily pushing one of your lanes = High likelihood that at least one enemy hero will come to that lane: The effect of lane pushing is one of the more important advanced concepts in HotS. Pushing a lane heavily has two important effects. First, it extends map control by giving your team vision and control over the lane up to the point where the minion lines are fighting. Second, it forces the enemy team to respond and neutralize the push, lest they wish to lose towers, forts, and keeps, thereby ceding an experience advantage to your team. Combined, these two effects give you additional information regarding where enemy heroes are likely to be and what they’re planning. In other words, this makes the enemy team more predictable, providing you an opportunity to exploit that predictability with an aggressive move of your own, whether it be setting up an ambush, taking a map objective, stealing merc camps/bosses, etc. Of course, you should also be wary of getting ganked and picked off when pushing a lane. Make sure that you’re not over-exposed.
Entire enemy team missing + Open boss + Lanes either neutral or in enemy team’s favor = High likelihood that the enemy team is at or near the boss: Notice how the right side of the equation is worded. It does not say that the enemy team is taking the boss. Why not? Because it is fairly common for enemy teams to bait the boss or other significant map objectives. Accordingly, always approach the boss with caution if you suspect that the enemy team is there. Otherwise you’ll be a candidate to be posterized in a “IT’S A TRAP!” meme.
You being visible to the enemy team + Enemy heroes not visible = You are not safe: Far too many players carelessly clear minion waves without regard to where enemy players are, which often results in them getting ganked and killed. This is particularly true in the late game where proximity to your base is no defense to an enemy attack. The same is true of face checking bushes when the enemy team is not visible. Always exercise caution when moving around the map.
I cannot stress enough how important map awareness is. I got to Rank 1 largely playing a very roam-heavy style of Zeratul, which is entirely predicated upon good map awareness. Rotation-heavy maps like Dragon Shire, Blackheart’s Bay, and Tomb of the Spider Queen will always be dominated by the teams and players with superior map awareness. Likewise, map awareness, more than anything else, will help you avoid costing your team the game by making a game-throwing error. Take time to develop this skill.
C. PvP Initiation
Every engagement with the enemy team (PvP) entails significant risk. Losing a fight and dying will minimally give the enemy team an advantage, and in the late game, can result in instant defeat. For this reason, deciding when to fight is a critically important decision that must be made with care. Here are some of the most important considerations:
Who has the numerical advantage? For the reasons discussed above, engaging in any fight where you potentially could be shorthanded is just a bad idea. Make sure that you are aware of where your teammates are where the rest of the enemy team is before engaging.
What level is each team? Level advantages matter. The extra stats alone make a significant difference, but talent advantages are the real difference makers. The team with an extra tier of talents is far more likely to win a straight up teamfight. Because of this, players need to be mindful not only of what level everyone is before engaging in a teamfight, but players also need to consider whether they should delay a teamfight to hit a new talent tier before engaging. Likewise, they should consider whether the opposing team will hit a critical talent tier (such as hitting level 10 and getting access to their heroic abilities) in the middle of the teamfight.
How healthy is each team? This is simple enough: avoid teamfights if teammates are low on health and mana. Just go back to base and live to fight another day.
Whose heroic abilities are up? Here’s another simple concept: not having access to your heroic abilities is a big disadvantage in a fight. Earlier, we discussed the importance of the minimap. The talents screen on the score tab is also a nice piece of screen real estate. This screen shows which of your team’s heroic abilities are up and how long is remaining on the cooldown for any heroic ability that has been used. Likewise, players should take mental note of when enemy player use their heroic abilities, and call it out so that everyone on the team is aware.
Is there something more important that we should be doing? Even if your team is likely to win, sometimes it is better to forego teamfights for larger strategic considerations. For example, Sky Temple and Blackheart’s Bay are maps with powerful map mechanics that can level the enemy base for you, negating the need to push keeps and the core. There is no need to risk a big fight when your team can patiently wait for the map to win the game for you. Similarly, your team should be mindful of engaging in a teamfight when your forts and keeps are being heavily pushed. The better move may be to back off and clear the lane first.
Must the battle be fought to save the game? Even if it’s a suicide mission, some battles must be fought as a last ditch effort to save the game. Typically these situations occur when the enemy team has a level advantage and is about to secure a victory by either seizing a boss or a map objective. If this is the case, then you really don’t have much to lose.
D. PvP Tactics
Actor and Senator Fred Thomson’s character noted in the movie The Hunt for Red October that “the Russians never take a dump without a plan.” When it comes to PvP combat in HotS, good players always have plans. For teamfights specifically, good players know their roles, communicate their intentions to their teammates, and then stick to the plan with laser-like focus.This begs the question of what should a given player do in a teamfight. The answer is one of our favorites: “It depends.” Look to detailed hero guides and pro play to see how certain heroes fit within team compositions, what their strengths are in teamfights, and how they can be used to hurt the enemy team. Still, there are a few basic rules that apply generally:
Do not dump damage on enemy tanks unless the enemy tank is completely isolated or there are no other available targets. Tanks generally have a ton of hit points, damage mitigation, and self-healing. They do not die easily. They also tend to do minimal damage and pose relatively minor threats to your team. If you are dumping damage on them in a teamfight when the enemy team is dumping damage on your backline (healers and damage dealers), you probably are going to lose. Good players save their heavy hitting abilities for squishier targets such as high damage dealers and healers. That said, there will be times when you don’t have a choice but to hit the tank, because the tank will be the only target that can be reached. In these cases, it will be okay use basic abilities and auto-attacks on the tank. Save the heroics for the backline, however.
The first enemy heroes to die should always be their biggest damage dealers. These are the heroes that will hurt your team if they aren’t killed first. Have a plan to deal with them.
Avoid excessive clumping when there’s a risk of being hit by a big AoE ability. Nothing will end a teamfight before it really starts faster than multiple players on a team getting caught by a big heroic ability such as Mosh Pit, Rain of Vengeance, or Devouring Maw. Be mindful of this and maintain disciplined spacing to as to minimize the impact of these devastating abilities.
Do not chase wounded enemy heroes when the teamfight is not over. Little is more embarrassing than a player who chases a wounded hero, while the rest of his team gets slaughtered in the still-raging teamfight. Make sure that your team will control the field at the end of a teamfight before chasing wounded heroes.
Be very wary about using escape abilities for offensive purposes. As you have likely gathered by now, dying is very bad and inconsistent with good play. Movement abilities such as Zeratul’s Blink or Bolt of the Storm are incredibly valuable, because they can be used to help a hero escape from a situation that will result in death. In teamfight, there is always a risk that a given hero will be exposed to such a deadly situation. Having a way out helps keep your team on even footing with the enemy team. Therefore, these escape abilities should generally be preserved as the life savers that they are. Be very hesitant to use them for offensive purposes such as securing kills or initiating fights – especially if you are playing a squishy hero.
E. Merc Camps
Merc camps are probably the most misunderstood mechanics in HotS. The average player sees that a merc camp is open and typically decides to take it without regard to anything else. This is bad. At best, haphazardly taking merc camps results in the waste of an asset. At worst, haphazardly taking merc camps results in a catastrophe for the team, such as getting picked off or ceding a map objective to the enemy team. As with everything else in HotS, the decision of when and whether to take a merc camp should be made with care.
That decision starts with an understanding of the function of merc camps: a merc camps is a resource that pushes a lane. As was discussed earlier, pushing a lane creates a threat that the enemy team must respond to. What’s important is understanding when to use the finite resource that is the merc camp to force enemy team to respond to a lane push. If merc camps are triggered at a time when the enemy team does not have any other threat (or opportunity) to attend to, then the enemy team will simply kill your mercs before they have had an opportunity to do any work for you. On the other hand, if you take a merc camp right before (or sometimes during) a map objective phase, then you’ll have created a dilemma for the opposing team: defeat your mercs, or potentially give up the map objective. This dilemma becomes far more acute the later the game goes, because at stake won’t just be forts, but keeps.
The general rule for taking merc camps is to only take them when you will be creating such a dilemma for the enemy team. Take merc camps so that their push coincides with a spawning map objective, an attempt at seizing a boss, or a concerted team push in another lane.
There are a couple of exceptions to this rule. If your team has established map control over the enemy team’s merc camps (ie your team just won a teamfight or enemy team’s lanes are heavily pushed into their main base), go ahead and take those merc camps while you can. Even if the timing of the seizure isn’t ideal, you still will be denying your opponents an important map resource. Second, make sure that you use your siege giants on Haunted Mines to kill the enemy golem. This means capping the siege giants just as the enemy golem passes the gate of the enemy team’s outer fort (as a side note, it is amazing to me how many people still screw this up).
And whatever you do, do not take merc camps while a map objective is present. For example, you should always prioritize gathering seeds on Garden of Terror over seizing merc camps. For a map like Dragon Shire, you can take merc camps and use their push to help secure the dragon knight, but only do so if taking the merc camps will not result in the opening of a window during which the enemy team can secure the dragon knight. Again, the key here is to have a planned purpose for seizing the merc camps before you do it.
Lastly, no discussion of merc camps would be complete without offering a few words on taking the boss:
AS A GENERAL RULE, DO NOT TRY TO TAKE THE BOSS UNLESS MULTIPLE ENEMY HEROES ARE DEAD.
F. Split Pushing and Doing Your Own Thing
Split pushing (or otherwise leaving the rest of your teammates to pursue a separate objective) can be a powerful tool in that it allows your team to accomplish multiple things at once. It is also a highly-leveraged tool, meaning that it carries a risk whenever it is used. This risk comes from the fact that the team is split up and vulnerable to being caught in an outnumbered situation. Indeed, one of the reasons that players hate having the classic split pushing heroes on their team (Gazlowe, Azmodan, etc.) is that the players playing those heroes often contribute very little to teamfights due to their constant split pushing, which ultimately results in a loss as the opposing team wins the decisive teamfights and controls the critical map objectives.So here’s the critical concept to understand when it comes to split pushing: it is never a baddecision to stay with the group and forego chasing another objective by yourself. Staying with the team is always safe and won’t, by itself, put your team in danger.
So when is splitting off from the team to pursue a separate objective appropriate? It depends. If a teamfight is imminent, then you must stay with the team. If your team has just won a teamfight, but not killed off all of the opposing heroes, then you probably should stay with your team if they try to capture map objectives or bosses. Unfortunately, you simply won’t be able to split push in games where you have teammates who are not smart enough to avoid committing to outnumbered teamfights while you are split pushing. Some players need babysitting. As you develop map awareness and game sense, you’ll get a better feel for when taking the risk to split from the team is a good move.
But here’s the bottom line: think long and hard about whether it is a good idea to be separated from the rest of your team before wandering off to do your own thing.
G. Bad Team Decisions
Unfortunately, most of the players that you will be playing with will not have had the benefit of reading this guide, and that fact will often be reflected in their horrible decision-making throughout a game. So what should the intelligent player do in the face of horrific decision-making by the rest of the team? In most circumstances, the intelligent player has to join in the folly. If your team has decided to try to seize a boss in an obviously dangerous situation, and the team refuses to back off, your only hope of salvaging the situation is to help them kill the boss quickly. Standing on the sidelines and pointing out that the rest of your team is a bunch of newbs isn’t going to help when your teammates are slaughtered like the newbs that they are.Remember: HotS is a team game. Do your best to encourage your team to make good decisions. But when bad decisions are made, see that your newb teammates’ will be done. You sometimes will be pleasantly surprised at how things turn out.
THE ART OF THE CARRY
One of the more common criticisms of HotS as a game is that individual players are too dependent upon the quality of the play of their teammates in order to win. In other words, it is impossible for one player to “carry” his team. The source of this criticism is players experience with other MOBAs (notably DotA and LoL), where one hero can become strong enough to single-handedly defeat five enemy heroes. The differing mechanics in HotS – particularly the lack of items – has thus created the misperception that individual players cannot have sufficient impact upon a game to carry their teams to victory. This misperception then fosters a sense of hopelessness in players who feel like they are stuck in “MMR Hell” or “Rank 20 Hell” or “[FILL IN THE BLANK] Hell.” All of these sentiments, of course, are nonsense.
A. What is “carrying” in HotS?
Understanding what “carrying” is in HotS begins with an understanding of how teams win. The sole objective for victory in HotS is the destruction of the enemy core. Destroying the core merely requires destroying at least one enemy keep, which exposes the core to damage. There are many (basically infinite) ways in which games can play out to the ultimate conclusion of one core being destroyed. So why does one team win over another?
Novice players make the mistake of focusing on one or two key points during the game as being outcome determinative of a given game. Cataclysmic teamfights, shorthanded/uneven engagements, and heroes getting picked off are generally are viewed as being the why one team won over the other. These events are important, but focusing on them ignores the larger context of the game. Though a player on your team may have stupidly gotten picked off, there likely was a long chain of events that occurred over the course of the game that led to that particular stupid decision. Chances are, your actions played role in it to one degree or another, and probably in ways that are not immediately obvious to most of you.
For example, let’s think of a hypothetical game on Dragonshire. Both Red Team and Blue Team are level 20. Each has a keep missing, so the core is exposed. Right as the Dragon phase is beginning, the Illidan on Blue Team stupidly engages the enemy in a shorthanded situation and dies (it’s always Illidan, isn’t it?). With a numerical advantage Red Team is then able to easily grab the Dragon and win. Why did Blue Team lose? The most immediate cause was Illidan’s idiotic demise. Still, pinning all of the blame on him is shortsighted. Consider the following: why were both teams level 20 and on nearly equal footing at that point in the game? Why didn’t Blue Team have a two level advantage? Why not a three or four level advantage? Why did Red Team have any keeps remaining? Why did Blue Team previously lose a keep? More specifically, what opportunities did any and all Blue Team members fail to capitalize on earlier in the game that resulted in the teams being on equal footing at that particular point in the game?
Whereas the “Gameplay” section above focused on mistakes of the game-throwing variety, here, we are going to focus on a different sort of mistake: the lost opportunity. These particular mistakes are incredibly insidious. They are often far from obvious, but their cumulative impact is no less important than the game-throwing error of Blue Team’s Illidan as described above. The simple truth is that it is far harder for a team to lose when it has a large lead. What separates the best players from the good players is the ability to seize on opportunities to give their team an advantage, thereby snowballing their teams to strategic positions where it is far less likely that a teammate will make a game-throwing error.
Therefore, players in HotS “carry” their teams when they create enough advantages for their teams that cumulatively make victory far more likely than it otherwise would be. Note how this definition of carrying is couched in probability. Obviously, one player cannot absolutely control the actions of the four other members of his team (wouldn’t this be nice...). Players will do stupid things despite all of the leadership and cajoling that their teammates can summon. All that can be controlled is the likelihood that those stupid actions will result in a loss.
B. Seizing the Advantage
So what are these “advantages” that players can provide for their teams? They can be a lot of things: a timely kill, destruction of a fort, capture of a merc camp, and so on. But what we’re really after is a concrete and repeatable objective. That objective – the advantage that is most important to consistently provide teams – is the experience advantage (ie level advantage).
Let’s review the key fundamentals of experience. First, experience is the sole resource providing hero improvement and scaling in the game. Experience unlocks both additional stats and additional abilities through talent selection. Second, there are three sources of experience: killing enemy minions, destroying towers, forts, and keeps, and killing enemy heroes. Some other objects also grant experience such as the undead minions in the mines on Haunted Mines and mercenaries, but we’ll ignore them for simplicity’s sake. Therefore, seizing the experience advantage is a function of 1) killing/destroying as many experience-granting objects as possible, and 2) denying the enemy the opportunity to destroy as many experience-granting objects as possible.
Clearly there is a lot to juggle here given the mutually exclusive nature of a lot of these objectives. You can’t solo push a fort and contribute to a teamfight on the other side of the map at the same time. What is needed is an ordering of priorities. This ordering will always depend upon the circumstances at a given time in a given game, but consider the following to be a general guideline of what the thought process should be when you are trying to carry your team:
- Be at every major teamfight: Teamfights are always the most pivotal moments in games given the amount of experience that is conferred upon the winning team from hero kills and the likelihood that the winning team will be able to seize an important map objective afterwards, thereby accruing even more experience. If you’re not there, you are, at best, leaving your fate to chance. At worst, you are handicapping your team by forcing them into a shorthanded situation. Being present for teamfights requires a certain degree of anticipation and map awareness. Show up early. Be there to initiate the fight if circumstances are favorable. The more teamfights that you are present at, the more that you will win those teamfights, and the more likely it will be that you will win your games.
- Execute successful ganks: Hero kills are the most important path to acquiring an experience lead. Not only does the kill grant experience to your team, but it can deny experience to the enemy team if a lane is left vacant as a result. The best players actively look for opportunities to secure kills during the laning phase; they avoid playing passively. As with most everything else, the key to successful ganks is map awareness and, specifically, recognizing the opportunity when it arises. Critically, look for opportunities to create odd-man engagements where your team outnumbers the enemy team in an engagement. These situations are pure gold. However, keep in mind that unsuccessful ganks can set your team back if a lane is left open as a result, thereby sacrificing experience from soaking.
- Counter-ganking: If executing successful ganks is important for your success, it also means that it is important for the enemy team’s success. You’d best not let them be successful. Inevitably, you will have teammates that expose themselves to being ganked in lane. Typically they will be pushing their lane hard while multiple enemy heroes are missing. The best players recognize these situations and come to their teammates’ aid. Done right, you may be able to singlehandedly turn a bad situation into a winning situation by saving your teammates and killing an enemy hero or two. These are opportunities that cannot be missed.
- Pushing forts, soaking experience, and taking merc camps: If there are no teamfights or ganks to be had, then you should be in a lane, minimally soaking experience, and ideally pushing the lane. If you can safely take a tower or a fort, by all means do it. Opportunities for easy kills on keeps should always be taken. If you can quickly and efficiently seize a merc camp at a time that exploits a map objective timing, do it.
The common theme to this list priorities is the importance of being heavily involved in any PvP combat that occurs around the map. The more frequently that you are involved in PvP combat, the more frequently that you will be able to both secure kills for your team and save your teammates from their own stupidity. And here’s a critical point that you should note: I have not said that the ability to carry is limited to any particular class in the game. A well-played support hero who is actively engaged in the PvP aspect of the game can carry a team. Dealing damage is important, but keeping your teammates upright and providing other utility in teamfights is critical as well.
Lastly, do not be fooled by the simplicity with which I am presenting this issue. Effectively carrying by consistently being at the right place at the right time is incredibly hard to do. Even the best players mess it up and miss opportunities. Still, you will find that your game will greatly improve if you make a dedicated effort to follow this list of priorities.
CONCLUSION
Much of succeeding at HotS boils down to making intelligent decisions, whether it’s making the right hero pick or avoiding needless death in-game. These decisions must be informed with experience and an understanding of the game. Though this guide cannot explain everything, hopefully it will provide a good starting place for all of those who wish to clean up their game and climb the ladder to Rank 1.
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