Heroes of the Storm - Blizzard MOBA

I'm currently waiting for any Wizardly hero from Diablo (Maybe female Wizard in D 3 or Sorceress), but for the moment, what I use most when it comes to Diablo hero is Sonya. Mostly because of the female-doing-Ahnuld-accent thing on her.

edited 10th Jun '15 5:03:26 PM by ChrisX

Chaining someone and then shockwaving them right as they're escaping is pretty nice, though.

Chaining people in general is pretty nice.

Chaining people as a kill shot is especially nice.

DeviantART fan art contest, with some pretty nice prizes.

I finally managed to get my first hero past Level 10 yesterday. Not that it really means much, other than I now have a hero with a nice golden glow rather than the standard blue.

Also, as I've been playing ranked mode, I think I also like Blizzard's ranked system for this game a lot more than what Riot has set up for League of Legends. Most notably, it's a lot simpler - you either win and level up or you loose and level down. There's no intricate divisions or what have you, and even more importantly you don't have to go through some silly best of three to rank up only to have to do it all over again if you don't.

Simpler, less of a hassle, and if you win you always get some kind of advancement however small. No roadblocks because you happened to loose the wrong two games.

At this point, I'm starting to think I should just abandon Lo L all together and actually go ahead and deinstall, especially since I haven't played Lo L in months at this point. If it weren't for the fact that Lo L has Poros, I probably would have done it already.

So, um, apparently they went ahead and announced 2 more heroes: Leoric and Male Monk.

Also this pic.◊ Is that a Nova-Amazon skin or we're going to see D2 Amazon down the line? Inclined to say the former...

Also I've got a feeling that if we're getting a Wizard in the future, it'll be the male Wizard, in spite of the female Wizard actually having a Canon Name already (Li-Ming). My reasons being:

• With the Monk announced being male, this makes the ratio of 2-3 between Male (Monk, Nazeboo) and Female (Sonya, Valla and Johanna) Nephalem in the game. If Blizzard wants 'fairness', the Wizard would be male.
• Look at the usual poster of Diablo 3 if you start Battle.Net. It will feature: Male Barbarian, Male Demon Hunter, Female Wizard. And in HOTS, those guys don't appear, we instead get Female Barbarian (Sonya) and Female Demon Hunter (Valla). If this Gender Flipping trend continues, then what we get in HOTS will be the Male Wizard as he doesn't appear on that. This might make that Blizzard wants to avoid including 'Poster Nephalem' versions.
• Optional: While Blizzard aims for Role Reprisal, they probably have more money to spare. Excepting Laura Bailey case (Valla and Jaina) and possibly JB Blanc (Diablo and one of the Vikings), for the most part, they aim to avert Talking To Himself. Unless this is a myth, then Blizzard would probably aim the case where they don't have an existing VA do double duty. In this case, Female Wizard is voiced by Grey De Lisle, who already did Nova. Male Wizard is voiced by Crispin Freeman. Meaning, for variety, they could use Male Wizard so they don't re-use Nova's VA.

I dunno, I'm probably just wondering out loud here...

edited 17th Jun '15 1:22:40 AM by ChrisX

I've never played any of the Diablos, but isn't Deckard Caine a wizard of some sort?

Also, Leoric seems... interesting, I suppose. Here's hoping that I don't confuse him with Arthas too much.

Technically, Cain is a wizard... he's a member of the Horadrim, an ancient cult allied with the High Heavens that was taught mystical arts by Tyrael. Of course, he's also a devout Non-Action Guy when it comes to the games themselves; his role is as a mentor, not a fighter.

It's definitely a Nova skin, I've seen it before and other people talking about it.

On the other hand - Abathur.

I still kind of think they'll go with Li-Ming because of the overall gender balance in the game, but we'll see.

Yeah, honestly, the game could definitely use some more POC representation, and more ladies is always good.

Well, the new datamining suggests that we'll get Malthael (the Angel of Death, aka the Reaper of Souls) before we get a Diablo wizard.

edited 20th Jun '15 9:04:28 PM by TotemicHero

Giving the MOBA genre another shot, so am trying Heroes again.

Luckily I already own Valla from having a ROS CE. Haven't looked up builds online or anything, but I'm finding that an auto-attack build suits me when I play her.

I hear that the Healing and Mana health globe regent traits are getting a minor boost, too.

Huh, I dunno if we actually have datamining about the order of who appears when. Because, forget about just Malthael and Wizard, I'd be dying to know WHEN the likes of Fenix or Grom Hellscream will come! (I know it'll be after this Diablo event, but when is important, and yes those two are datamined too)

On a lighter note...

Does the name "Ivorgod" (the deity worshipped by the Monk) ever come up in Diablo lore? Because... if not, then that was a seriously unfortunate name, because I keep spelling it like saying "I forgot".

edited 21st Jun '15 10:01:03 PM by ChrisX

It's actually built upon years of people not actually remembering the guy's name until "I forgot" actually morphed into "Ivorgod".

Nope, because the deity's name is Ivgorod.

Well, fix it. In the character page, it says Ivorgod.

Seems to be a place, rather than a god.

Been keeping my eye on this for a bit now. I'm pretty much in the same boat here as I am for Dissidia: I have basically no experience with any of Blizzard's games, but I'm just naturally drawn to crossover shenanigans. There are things here beyond that that I'm interested in: the deliberate attempt at quirky character design, the heavy objective emphasis being more my style, how successful it could be just from its marketing on the likes of ESPN, how they're gonna get away with Leoric when every other MOBA has had shit luck with skulls, yadda yadda.

Three questions though. First, I've heard real bad things about the business model, but how difficult is it to remain F 2 P unlocking heroes in this game? Second, I've found things about jungle strategies in this game, which surprise me because the entire design seems to completely destroy any attempt at a standard meta. Is the meta game like other games/ is jungling really that effective here? Third, with less than 40 characters, is the roster overall balanced right now?

(Finally, found the subreddit, and I can't help but laugh at the occasional tears over Johanna. It's Release Bellona all over again. )

I think people whine about the business model because Blizzard decided not to use arbitrary points and instead give you a dollar figure. I've had no problems making money in this game and I spent about half the alpha wave playing only a single character and not finishing dailies. I also don't feel the compulsion to get every character in the game.

Heroes are a little more expensive than League of Legends champions, because Blizzard can get away with it. However, they're not really that more expensive given that Riot uses a point system—if both games ask ten bucks for the new character:

• Blizzard wants the full ten dollars for it.
• Riot is technically only charging eight dollars worth of points for it, but you still have to buy ten bucks of points. You'll have two dollars of credit afterwards that can be difficult to spend until you give them more money.

As for jungling, I'm not sure. I don't particularly care about people's attempts to enforce a meta onto this game.

edited 22nd Jun '15 11:50:47 AM by Rotpar

While I may not ever play this game, I vastly prefer a business model that tells you up front how much money you're spending on things rather than translating them through layers of currencies.

1) I'm F2P so far, and I've gotten about half the heroes (18 out of 37) acquired. And I could have had another, but I bought a cosmetic master skin with that gold instead. I'm in no rush to get any more, since I obviously have all the ones I like to play.

2) Unless you build Gazlowe or Sylvanas a certain way, you're not going to have a dedicated jungler, and on some maps you won't even want one. The meta centers on knowing when and how to alternate between objectives, hitting merc camps (both of which may or may not fall under "jungling"), or pushing lanes. It varies from map to map, and also depends partly on your team comp. Keep in mind there are very few "carries" as such, so it's not like other MOBAs.

3) It's not going to have less than 40 characters for much longer, heh. But that aside, it's reasonably balanced, although there are a few heroes lacking (because more versatile heroes can do the exact same thing, and contribute in other ways as well).

Neither Bellona nor Johanna are uber godlike characters, in the hands of good players, they do become terrors. But in the hand of not-so-good players... well they're food, just like the rest of the bad players.

Though admittedly, release heroes tends to be rather OP, because they just haven't found the weakness.

edited 22nd Jun '15 4:22:32 PM by ChrisX

Even League of Legends had a small roster itself at one time, if I'm not mistaken. The only reason it has over a hundred champions is because it's had several years to develop its ever growing roster. Heroes just got out of beta officially a few weeks ago. Give them time, and I'm sure their own roster will get up there in size eventually.

And as far as I can tell, the closest the game has to "jungleing" are the merc camps, which I'd say are far superior to what League has. In League, I hated the idea of the jungle and the neutral camps because the game didn't give me a good reason as to why I'm bothering to leave the battle to go pick on some monsters that are minding their own business. Yeah, there's XP involved, but there's a certain level of disconnect between leaving the actual fight to try to push the objectives to go fight monsters that will help you out in a way that doesn't seem really all that tangible.

Then you have heroes, where I actually want to go fight the merc camps because it gives me a very good reason to do so with a reward for doing so that is far more visible and tangible. It comes off not as the chore that League made it, but feels like an actual strategic option.

edited 22nd Jun '15 9:06:26 PM by TheSpaceJawa