EPTMoba games of the past have all had similar jungle mechanics: you take a camp to propel yourself forward and to remove it from the map. There was little to no strategy behind the taking of camps. It was purely for experience, gold, or denial with few exceptions. With the influx of players coming over to Heroes of the Storm, the one consistent thing I see all new players (including myself) struggle with when they start is how to manage and take mercenary camps correctly and efficiently
The system set up in Heroes that has objectives on unique maps and mercenary camps that fight for you create a tacticians wet dream when applied correctly. As a general rule of thumb, the basic question you should ask yourself whenever taking a camp is “Why am I doing this?” If your answer is simply XP or denial chances are you are doing it incorrectly (I’m looking at you Gazlowe and Illidan!).
So lets start with the mistakes that are commonly made
Taking Camps Just Because You Can
This is a big mistake. Without vision of where everyone is on the map you risk your own death, losing the camp to the enemy, throwing a potential tactical advantage, and even in some cases throwing the game. There is very little upside to randomly taking a mercenary camp especially when it’s on the enemy’s side of the map.
I know a lot of Illidan and Gazlowe might read this and feel they are an exception especially on maps such as Blackheart’s Bay but heed caution and watch your map carefully. Nothing makes a team angrier than watching their Illidan with 12 coins die cause he tried to take a camp without vision.
Taking Camps for XP
The thing to note on this subject is that the XP you are rewarded for capping a mercenary camp is the same for the person taking the camp as it is for the person defending it. This means that overall you gain zero advantage in terms of XP gain and should probably not take a camp for this reason alone.
Taking Camps In Place of Pushing
This has got to be my largest pet peeve in the game. The goal of the game is to destroy the core. The objective of the map or the character you play doesn’t change the goal. If you have the option of either A) Take a tower or B) take a mercenary camp, the answer is A, always!
Let me explain using Blackhearts Bay as an example as it’s the map where this golden law is broken the most. If you win a teamfight (assuming large enough death timers) you need to push before you turn in coins and before you take camps. Why would you add steps to the process? You could either take a tower or you could get a mercenary camp to try to take a tower for you so you can get the coins you needed to turn in to take the very same tower…. There is no need to add steps to the process so just take the damn tower! Why waste coins and time for a tower you could just take anyways?
For a more real life example if you need to poop, then go poop. You don’t need to brew a cup of coffee first. When death timers are low, less than 10 sec, then go to the next steps. Those that need to turn in coins, go turn in, and those that don’t either go back or take a camp on your opponent’s side of the map. If a fight breaks out during this time then you either (1) messed up and left too late or (2) you didn’t have the right resources for taking a camp or turning-in in the first place. If this is done correctly then you will start having a lot more 10 and 15 min games. On some maps like Mines it’s not to hard to get back-to-back 5 min games.
Taking Camps Right After You Get A Major Objective
Now in some cases — such as on Tomb of the Spider Queen — tagging a camp or a boss can be a great way to complement your push before the Web Weavers fall. On other maps, though, such as Curse Hollowed, the last thing you want to do is break off and take all the camps while the enemy team is cursed (again if you can take a tower just take it). I understand that in some cases you don’t have tempo after you collect a curse and it is sometimes wasted but as a rule of thumb assist your objective when you have it. It’s not the time to take a camp.
Taking Camps After A Crushing Teamfight Victory
You might start seeing a trend here about my biggest pet peeve but I really want to outline it. When you win a teamfight, just push. All you players who scatter to the winds for camps are HURTING your team. You are wasting time, you are extending the length of the game and you are giving your opponent the chance to make a comeback. Just Push! I dont care if you’re Gazlowe. Watch a pro game or two and notice that when fights are won they move together and gun down structures. The biggest kicker is you don’t even need minions or mercs with you. Towers in this game are not like League of Legends. They don’t stack damage or shred armor they tickle, just go kill them.
Think of them like a 5 year old: Sure, at one time they might have been tough to handle but when you’re 20 just punch them and they die.
When I was playing Starcraft a lot and trying to break into high Masters, I looked at my average game time and noticed that my average game time was much, much higher in the matchups I was less confident in. As I began to really study those matchups I noticed that there was a direct correlation between my average game time and my knowledge as I only played macro games. As I studied and looked for the windows I missed in games I slowly got my average game time down from 20 min to 15 and with that came a high Masters rating and the privilege to start playing with pros. The point of that was to say that I didn’t understand my offensive windows in the game and always played defense. But as I learned that I could just go kill the enemy my game began to greatly improve. Heroes is no different.
For all you players that take camps after big team fights, go look at your stats and I bet you have a lot of average game times in the 20-24 minute range where when I look at pro players they have an average game time of 16-20 min. This alone shows a gap in skill and understanding and should bring around some time for a little introspection.
For those who aren’t aware, you can use hotslogs.com to get this information accurately as the stats in Heroes also factor in bot games.
So Let’s Dive In What Is the Appropriate Way to Take A Mercenary Camp
If taking a camp when you have the opportunity to push is bad then taking a camp when you don’t have the opportunity to push can sometimes be the best option.
Taking Camps Before An Objective
Possibly the greatest use for mercenary camps is the ability to cap them just before an objective spawns. This can be further complemented if you can cap them on the opposite side of the map that the objective will be on. The reason that this is good is not simply because you took a camp but because you are asserting pressure in a location at a time when the enemy doesn’t have the resources to allocate to deal with it. The result of this comes in two forms: either an enemy team member will go to deal with it in which case taking the objective becomes easier for your team to capture or they will ignore it for the objective in which case you are guaranteed a certain amount of damage done to them regardless of who gets the objective.
These timings take awhile to learn but if you learn them you can really start to carry games for your team. Curse Hollowed is possibly the easiest to track as each curse spawns about 45 seconds to a minute after the previous curse. So try to poise yourself to take a camp in that window.
It’s also worth mentioning that on Blackheart’s Bay taking the top bruiser camp is a great way to attempt to turn in coins especially if you’re trying to solo turn in. Just wait until you have vision of the enemy going to deal with them and then go turn in safely.
Taking Camps to Force Fights Successfully
As a general rule you want to apply pressure in the opposite lane that you have mercenary camps pushing in. This is a bit of a complicated premise but I’ll do my best to explain.
Assuming you are looking to take an aggressive option with a mercenary camp you are really left with two options. You can either push with your camp or opposite that camp.
Pushing with mercenary camps is sometimes the correct thing to do. You might need minions to absorb shots from towers or need a little extra power behind your push but a lot of the times it’s not your most effective option. The bruiser camp is possibly the worst camp to push behind. When a team is defending from the sheer fact that your team is present at their gates they will be throwing down AOE spells constantly and killing off your camps just as extra casualties. They really will not have to target them or do anything they were not going to do anyways to get rid of them. This makes that option a rather bad ROI (return on investment). On the other hand siege camps can be a very effective tool to slow push behind when your enemy team really can’t afford to engage you directly. This is even more the case on maps that stack siege camps in the same lane like Blackheart’s Bay or Dragon Shire.
The second option is taking a mercenary camp and pushing opposite that camp. This in my opinion is your best option. Now bare with me cause I’m going to going to talk about Starcraft again.
When I first achieved Master league in Starcraft, the match-making system was still placing me against Diamond players every now and again and I wanted it to stop. I came across the realization that diamond players could not defend two places at once. I noticed that if I sent 5 zerglings into a Protoss base on 1 side of the map they would move their entire army to respond. Once I noticed this and started making two-pronged attacks standard for myself playing diamond players felt like manipulating a computer in a fighting game. It didn’t really matter how far ahead or behind I was if I just attacked two locations then they would crumble and just like before. Heroes if no different.
If you are looking to force a fight or are trying to push damage in some form during the downtime of objectives then taking a mercenary camp and pushing opposite it can be very effective. The goal here is exactly the same as when you take a camp before an objective: you are trying to get them to allocate resources to defend the camp so your attack is stronger or you simply buy time while your camp does the work for you if they decide not to defend it. This option is always granted to the team that is ahead as a way to create windows to close the game and is a tactic that can be used when you are behind to try spread your opponent too thin and create a comeback situation.
It’s also worth mentioning that on Blackheart’s Bay taking the top bruiser camp is a great way to attempt to turn in coins.
Taking Camps As A Consolation Prize
In so many games the reason that they snowball out of control is that people have placed the objective so high up on a pedestal that they will willingly compete for it 4 levels down and with 2 teammates dead.
When you are behind a talent or if you just had some teammates die just before an objective spawn then you need to forfeit the objective. There is no need to “strategically die”. This isn’t 300. When you are faced with such an issue remember that taking camps, specifically the boss, is a great way to gain some amount of momentum back and in some cases you will be fortunate enough to make the enemy team waste their objective time dealing with the pressure. This isn’t always possible but on maps like Tomb of the Spider Queen taking the bruiser camp right before enemy web weavers fall is a great way to hold off that lanes progression while you deal with the other two first. The same applies when taking the boss when you know you can’t stop coin turn ins on Blackheart’s, or taking the boss opposite curse, etc.
Taking Camps On the Retreat
The concept of denial that people use to justify taking a camp at random is almost always wrong but after an objective has concluded or the enemy is about to respawn it’s a great time to do so.
So let me explain. The best time to take camps for the sake of denial is when you’re done pushing on the enemy. For example let’s say you just had a crushing team fight victory. You want to push for about 40 sec while the enemy is dead and then 5 or 10 sec before they respawn go take their camps. These camps are probably not going to do much damage unless it’s a boss but it gives your team the opportunity to go back to base to heal safely and it denies the use of mercenaries being used tactically by your enemy. In some cases the timings will coincide and the added mercenary pressure will grant you a free objective.
Taking Camps to Close the Game
Often time you will find yourself in a situation where you have killed 2 or 3 of your enemy’s Keeps and you’re just trying to close the game. This might be the only time I am a proponent for spamming all the camps. Asserting a lot of lane pressure when the enemy team already has to sit back to deal with catapults essentially grants the map objective for free and thus the ability to close the game safely.
Heroes of the Storm is a game that has done away with gold and gold farming. Instead, the commodity of this game is the mercenary camps and they should be treated as such. This beautiful game plays so much more like chess than it does a Moba so please really think about what’s going on and move and work with your team. Ping and vocalize your intentions before you rage and remember that you can’t be mad at anyone for making a choice that you didn’t offer an alternative to before hand.
I really hope that this mercenary guide was eye opening for some people and that it is a step in the right direction for better games all around. If I missed something or you disagree please let me know and if anyone would like me to write about something in the future or if you have any feedback I would love to hear it.
For more guides and pieces please check out skilllift.net and let me know what you think!
