Hots Newbie here

On May 26 2020 06:44 EsportsJohn wrote:


Warcraft heroes have an exceptionally large representation, so that's the more ideal universe to main :p

StarCraft heroes are all pretty good, especially DPS heroes like Raynor, Fenix, Tass, and Zeratul, but they lack any full tanks or great healers. If you're playing competitive, you can tell people you only play DPS and stick to your heroes, but try to make sure you have a back pocket tank or healer in case you need to fill that role.

On May 27 2020 14:15 kramvti wrote:


A few notes you may want to consider, or not.
Blaze is still a better off tank, than main, no matter what blizz wants us to play him as.
Artanis is very fun to play, but not effective in the long run. Basically every bruiser is better.
Morales is a strong healer, but is susceptible to really hard dive. Your positioning needs to be good.
Abathur is effective, but I would not bother playing him much unless you really want to main with him.

Also, you mentioned something about not playing meta. If you want to climb, and have potential to keep doing so, then eventually you need to start playing meta heroes. There is a meta for a reason. It doesn't matter at lower levels, virtually at all, but later on, it makes a very big difference.

I think you are doing well by limiting yourself to a few heroes to learn at a time for each role. If you can get a team setup, then narrow it even further, by playing less roles.

Good luck.

On May 28 2020 02:27 Cephiro wrote:
Meta exists for a reason, which is that most players don't have the capability of considering situational options for themselves and stick to generic picks which are strong and versatile and do a sufficient job in most situations, and don't lack much in comparison to the potential "niche perfect pick" for a composition.

You can get to mid master+ playing pretty much anything, but that is assuming you outrank and are capable of gm+ tier playing. Also needs to have the experience of thousands of games to be able to adjust to situations in the ideal way, most high ranked players are not that versatile. (They excel in a specific role / set of heroes, and can perform passably on generic other picks as needed to not be a detriment, at least not a significant one).

Honestly, if you're dedicated and willing to improve, and have any kind of history/experience of a competetive/high level mindset, reaching master in HoTS is not very hard.

With SC2 heroes only, we have.. Abathur (A fine hero but very ill-suited for solo ranked play), Alarak (Strong carry hero with utility, but relatively hard to master and does not offer much value if used by a less experienced Alarak-player), Artanis (Recent adjustments make him a bit more acceptable, but is usually a pick that works vs worse opponents just fine, and is hard to get good value from vs opponents of similar level or better. Issues with base kit and not something I would recommend, but if you must, offlane Battlefield of Eternity or Garden of Terror w/ Amateur Opponent for the PvE potential).

Blaze is a great pick which can be played both as maintank and offlaner just fine, and the playstyle of the two slots isn't too different w/ Blaze. As maintank he's a bit easy to punish if you overextend, especially if you play Combustion instead of Bunker. So make sure to nail your engages and have the team in range to follow up / assist.

Dehaka is a solid offlaner and gets additional value on bigger maps thanks to his global (Z - burrow), which makes him able to sidesoak for longer without being late to the teamfight, or to quickly force advantageous +1 teamfights (5v4/4v3 etc.)

Fenix is a very strong assassin/rDPS when handled well, but you need to be very aware of the enemy crowd control and have good stutter stepping + kiting mechanics.

Kerrigan is similar to Alarak in the sense that she needs to be handled by a mechanically good player to make the pick worthwhile, but has to commit harder (and thus even more risky). Good pick on Infernal Shrines! (Great at fighting on/for objective)

Lt. Morales suffers a lot because most players lack the awareness of their teammates and simply keep fighting with no regards to your resources (running out of energy, or constantly taking poke from enemy team without giving you a break to regen). She can be a great healer but you need to have very good positioning and/or have the team look out for you (if opponents have a very hard dive team). A lot of her potential value comes from mitigation, as in safeguarding BEFORE your teammate gets dunked, or utilizing grenades to prevent enemies from initiating/following up (not easy).

Nova... is garbage. She excels in almost no situation and there is almost always a better pick who gets more done. If you for some reason have to pick her, at least make sure your team has a 2nd dps with good waveclear.

Probius is a very quirky hero. He can be a very strong pick when handled by a player who knows his tricks, but the problem is most players/teams have 0 clue on how to play WITH Probius, which usually becomes more of a hassle than any benefit you could potentially gain. Still, a decent offlane pick but more importantly, can substitute the mage slot for the 4-man rotation very well. Strong on Braxis (4-man)!

Raynor is a very solid although vanilla rDPS who has everything you could ask for. Make sure to utilize stutter stepping and go pew pew. It's very important to be careful with his Q usage, you generally only want to use it for trying to finish off kills / significantly worthwhile burst or trading, but most importantly, it's the one tool that you can save your teammate with. (Prevent enemy tank from engaging on your out-of-position teammate by stunning/knocking them back before/during their engage). Also important for keeping yourself alive. :p

Sgt. Hammer is a hero that shines in a comp built around her, and while you can get reasonable value out of her as a single pick, you'll rarely be able to get the value you'd want versus picking another more generic rDPS.

Stukov is a healer with great potential, and even at lower levels of play it's not too hard to "get the job done", as in filling the basics. Positioning with him is very important (being able to spread your heals without being caught off guard by enemies), and what can really make him shine is your ability to get value out of E (Lurking arm/silence). Both heroics are pretty decent tools for saving your team as needed.

Tassadar recently got a big rework and while I didn't get to play him too much, he's basically a very glass cannon mage with some utility. His damage potential is very high, and the AA slow / force walls can be a pain to deal with for the enemy team. Downsides is that his mobility is bad, he has terrible defensive tools for keeping himself alive, so you really need to be on top of your positioning and be careful with the trades you take.

Tychus is a great hero vs bulky frontline teams (lots of melee / big hp pool heroes). It takes a bit of time to understand and learn how to use your E+D most effectively, but if you can get that down you will be able to wreck havoc. Try to let the enemy tanks engage on someone else in your team, then E in (additional range talent on L1), put your minigun on (D), and watch them melt (they should be unable to disengage quickly if they just used it for going in). No matter what people might say, DO NOT PICK "The Bigger They Are". It can be an amazing talent in coordinated play, but for solo play it basically eliminates almost all of your own kill potential which is completely unacceptable. Your job as Tychus isn't to poke the enemy team down (outside of ODIN, which is the better heroic in almost every situation), but to melt them down and/or finish the kills. Ideally, you want to use ODIN very early at objectives to poke the enemy / make them want to disengage or unwilling to engage into your team, and after that having poked them down a little, it should be easier to finish kills w/ minigun. Also a great tool for sieging buildings (offensive & defensive).

Zagara is a strong offlaner who can hold her on vs almost anyone, her push potential and poke is infuriating to try and deal with, but her teamfight capability is very limited compared to most other heroes. (She has a really hard time taking big fights outside of creep, and with more people around, some enemy is bound to clear it sooner or later even if you prepared a good spread ahead of time). Basically as Zagara you just want to push, push, push and bully your opposing offlaner. Either you force someone of the enemy team to stay behind and defend during objectives which make them 4v4, or you have to hope your team stays alive long enough 4v5 for you to get good value of the push. (Often it is completely fine to trade the 1st objective, team stalling 4v5 while Zagara takes a fort alone before enemies get the objective).

Zeratul is a solid melee assassin, another hero which requires a lot mechanically for best performance, but even if you aren't amazing and don't know all his tips and tricks in and out, you can still bring a lot of value. Much easier to slot in than kerrigan/alarak imo. Void Prison for team oriented plays, nerazim for solokilling people.

So by limiting yourself to SC only heroes, your offlane and rDPS (even melee DPS) roles are good enough. In the healer department you're gonna be putting yourself at a bit of a disadvantage (especially if favouring Morales over Stukov), but it's still manageable. However, on the tank end you're going to be having a very rough time that you won't be able to salvage with maintank blaze alone. I think high gold - low plat is very reachable but is going to take some work, higher plat or diamond+ is most likely going to be out of your reach. (You'd need to outskill your opponents by quite a fair bit with this hero pool to not put yourself or your teammates at a disadvantage). That being said, even those ranks are achievable, but I don't see a new player reaching those heights with these restrictions.

I very much recommend allowing yourself some leniency and expanding your tank pool to include ETC and/or Johanna, both are absolutely amazing tanks. For healer pool, Rehgar and Malfurion are solid staples to add to your roster.

In the end, play to have fun / in a way you enjoy, but don't get surprised or stick to ranked with a too restricted mindset, as there is bound to be some conflicts in that case =p