Heroes of the Storm - Blizzard MOBA

To the enemy team we just defeated:

I am so goddamn sorry. That game should have been a gimme—Li Li, Nova, Tassadar, Abathur, and Sonya against Arthas, Raynor, Nova, Valla, and Rehgar. You should have won that. We had no damage save for holyshitbursthopetheydied Nova, we had the "weakest" warrior. Li Li's like the worst burst healer and Rehgar is the best.

I think we won because it was Blackheart Bay, I don't think we could have pulled that off on any map without that bombardment.

Official release date has been announced - June 2nd.

sio how viable is sonya? artwise she's one of my faves and who I am currently grinding gold with valla to buy.

Sonya is an example of how this game's hero classification system kind of falls flat. As in, she's an assassin in warrior's clothing (or lack thereof). She's meatier than some assassins, but she does not have the sustainability to initiate or tank damage. The issue being that a lot of people judge warriors by the metric of being able to initiate or tank, even when they can do other things much better.

So she's not seen as all that viable, but played correctly, she's not bad, able to dish out damage very nicely while keeping on top of an enemy. She doesn't have the raw damage that other characters can throw out, but she's tough to peel off from. Just don't jump into teamfights unless they're already focused on someone else (advice that applies to most assassins, so...yeah).

right. I play Valla and kerrigan as is, and I played a few assasins in Lo L. I'm well aware tanking with them is a terrible idea

I have 10000G now... and now I wonder if I should grab either Thrall or Lost Vikings...

I have quite a bit of assassins (Jaina, Nova, Zeratul), but only 1 specialist and 1 support and 1 warrior so far. I'm thinking that maybe Thrall can get discounted one day, but... Lost Vikings would be pretty hard, as they have the same difficulty as Tassadar (but surprisingly, I did better as Illidan?)

Damn, which one...?

Maybe the vikings, since they're less likely to show up on the rotation for a while?

So I did the Vikings. They're pretty hard to play as, but with practice, it should be possible.

Now, questions:

• Which would be the best way to split the Vikings to soak lanes (Except Haunted Mines, because there's only 2 lane)? I've seen a lot taking Baleog and Erik in one lane, and Olaf solo in one lane. But I was wondering if taking one Viking to one lane each is a good idea for beginners like me.
• Which do you think is better: AA build with a dash of some abilities, or just full on Ability build? Spin-To-Win seems hard to land for full force when you are not in position...

Well?

I read one strategy where you stick one viking in each lane to pick up three times the experience. Odds are it's probably not something to try till you're more familiar with them and have their controls down pat, though.

edited 25th Apr '15 9:17:01 PM by TheSpaceJawa

Wait, I might be misunderstanding how experience works. Do you mean to say that if a minion dies and two heroes are soaking from it, the team gets experience from both heroes?

I don't believe so, having another hero in the lane lets you push faster and protects you. So it's less of "tripling experience" and more of having 2-3 heroes on each lane.

I didn't see it firsthand, but what I read was a situation where a team had all five of their characters in one lane, except one player was the Vikings and had one of the vikings in each lane, and as a result the team managed to get a lot more experience and basically steamroll the enemy team.

But perhaps I'm interpreting the way that worked wrong.

Probably because they could bully a lane so badly that the enemy had to commit all of their members to the same lane to hold it, meanwhile the other two Vikings soaked completely unopposed.

It's less that you're gaining bonus for having more characters in lane and more like you're starving the enemy's xp gain.

edited 25th Apr '15 11:57:31 PM by Rotpar

I might suffer the worst lag I've ever experienced in this game. Other games become difficult and annoying thanks to lag, but here there are often times that, like, I'll be at full health alone in a lane, then the game will freeze for five seconds and I'm dead when it comes back.

edited 26th Apr '15 11:10:35 PM by Durazno

Reactions to ESPN2 airing the Heroes of the Dorm tournament.

Pretty amusing, all things considered.

I'd like to ask. Is that JB Blanc doing the Lost Vikings' voice? This thread makes a comment that Baleog sounded like Braum when he insists that it's a Hero Brawler. And whenever Olaf attacks, I swear it's like I hear Braum's voice when he pulled off his ult. I dunno about Erik though.

But yeah, is that really JB Blanc?

edited 1st May '15 7:24:43 PM by ChrisX

Couldn't say.

In other news, Blizzard just posted a new teaser clip on their HOTS Facebook page today...welcome to the Nexus, Kael'thas.

Magisters' Terrace was merely a setback. :D

...he just won't stay dead won't he?

Also, small thing that I would love but is unlikely to ever happen:

Cross Game Skins.

Basically, if you play World Of Warcraft you can load one of your World Of Warcraft Characters as skins over a fitting class. (Ie Mage's on Jaina/Kael'thas, Paladins on Uther etc).

I don't know even how that would work, given that the games run on completely different engines. So, not happening.

I imagine they could pull it off if they really wanted to, but I can't imagine the effort required being worth it.

And once again people complained about "What is this, Heroes of Azeroth?" Warcraft just happens to have LOTS of characters. Without any disrespect to others (I haven't played Diablo 3, but I feel interested in the Wizard character), but I'm just sick of people dissing Blizzard for not giving their demands of moar Diablo/Starcraft characters (though hey, that'd be pretty cool too. Fenix, Leoric, Butcher, all solid choices. And to be fair of them, after they did Azmodan (which coincidences with Anub'arak), they released 2 Warcraft characters, Jaina and Thrall, before going for Lost Vikings, and if the trend follows, it's 2 more Warcraft characters after that, we got Sylvanas, now Kael)

It's more like complaining for the sake of complaining that no amount of 'reasons' such as 'We're doing this for variety or for Blizzard's future sake' would save that from me.

I personally welcome Kael into the roster of Heroes. I just wonder if they'll pick his more 'sane' self in Frozen Throne, or his megalomaniacal self in Burning Crusade.

edited 5th May '15 6:21:04 PM by ChrisX

I liked how understated he was in Frozen Throne.

"Tyrande was ripped apart before my very eyes!"

"That... didn't happen?" -exit stage right-

I really hope it's basically Frozen Throne Kael because Burning Crusade Kael was a joke. His henchmen, Pathaleon the Calculator, was a better developed villain than "ROLF CRAZY <3 DEMONS" Kael.

I think TFT Kael'thas too. Mainly because if they implement BC Style Kael'Thas Ham every time you die you wait 60 seconds for him to stop talking.