Heroes of the Storm

[Jonathan]

Yeah, and I think his Slam is basically the same ability as Leoric's Skeletal Swing except it does much less damage.

Edit: and apparently doesn't slow unless you talent it at lvl 16.

Haha it does less damage, to heroes, after you talent it for damage.

[Dave]

They will buff Stiches heroic to let you projectile vomit the enemy hero across the screen like the DK!

[Jonathan]

Arthas
E.T.C
Li Li
Sonya
Tychus
Unlocked level 12
Nazeebo
Unlocked level 15
The Butcher

Honestly, I don't know which of these I need to level. I think I most likely have one to level to 5 out of Tychus/Sonya/Nazeebo, but it's hard to say exactly which one.

[Peijen]

Most of the nerd dads I know negotiate 1-for-1 nights with their wives. Like, I will leave you alone with kids for a night and you leave me alone with kids for a night.

So new wife, got it.

Actually to expand on this, I think it's been really important for us both to have an evening to ourselves once a week. It does wonders for helping each of us feel more refreshed for the rest of the week. If you're not already doing it I definitely recommend it. It doesn't even have to be anything big, even just having a few hours to go to Starbucks or something like that is really nice.

You play way more than 1 day a week. Base on the posting history, probably every night. I do get my night out, but I don't have gaming pc with me if I am not at home ... Any other time I am trading sleep for gaming.

[Alan]

I do play pretty much every night, 1-2 games per night, usually around 8:30 pm or so, until around 9:15, and whenever Maggie's out doing something else and I have nothing else to do. And if she needs me to not be playing when she gets home, she needs to tell me when she's going to be arriving home so that I can be ready. That is the result of multiple arguments, times when she needed me to do things and I was in the middle of a game, times when I would binge play late at night (trading sleep for gaming), times when I would promise I didn't want to play (and either not playing and then feeling resentful, or playing and then feeling guilty), and eventually negotiations. I'd come from a place where I felt like I wasn't being "allowed" to do what I wanted and Maggie felt irritated when I'd be playing and completely unable to do anything else until a game ended. When we became more clear on the fact that I just do enjoy playing Heroes, and that if I'm going to start playing I really do need to make sure that our house is in order, and that what Maggie dislikes more than me playing Heroes is me being dishonest about wanting to play (or actually playing) Heroes, then we were able to be a lot more honest and open about telling each other what we needed from the other.

So now, there are times I announce I am going to play Heroes, times when I check with her whether there's anything I need to do before I jump into a game (and am completely unavailable for 30 minutes at a time despite being physically present), and when I do play I don't feel guilty about it.

My day out I just get to choose what I'm going to do. If that's Heroes, then it's Heroes, if it's something else then it's something else.

[Dave]

You guys should have played something really hardcore when you met your wives (like WoW) such that what you are playing now is a huge improvement in social interaction!

[Alan]

Arthas
E.T.C
Li Li
Sonya
Tychus
Unlocked level 12
Nazeebo
Unlocked level 15
The Butcher

Honestly, I don't know which of these I need to level. I think I most likely have one to level to 5 out of Tychus/Sonya/Nazeebo, but it's hard to say exactly which one.

Nazeebo is pretty fun. Actually all 3 are fun to play, but zeebo is easily the strongest of the 3. Of the rotation heroes I think ETC is the only one I haven't leveled.

[Dave]

Arthas is growing on me. I like his D. Maybe he'll be 4k someday...

[Alan]

He likes your D too.

[Jonathan]

Turned out it was Nazeebo + Tychus + Arthas. Huh.

Nazeebo continues not to click for me. I like his design on paper and his numbers speak for themselves but somehow I always feel ineffectual. At 5 I finally figured out Ravenous, though. Only took (however many games it takes to get to 5).

[Alan]

With Nazeebo you just focus on not dying, and throwing your Q out there basically on cooldown. E is pretty situational in early game, with increasing use over the course of the game, and primarily for either zoning or close range burst. The key with W is not to necessarily try to trap people inside the wall, but to block them from taking the direct path they'd like to take.

You tend not to really notice doing much (and if you play against Nazeebo, you don't necessarily notice him doing much against you) but as long as he's not dying much, then when you look at damage numbers he tends to be way up there, because he's just hanging out in the back tossing spiders and frogs all over the place and a lot of times not even being within AA range. He rarely gets killing blows or that key CC that leads directly to a kill.

[Alan]

I actually didn't notice that Arthas is on that list. I'll give him a try, seems like he's been growing in popularity in NA, but has been popular for a long time in Korea and EU.

[Vyrosama]

I do play pretty much every night, 1-2 games per night, usually around 8:30 pm or so, until around 9:15, and whenever Maggie's out doing something else and I have nothing else to do. And if she needs me to not be playing when she gets home, she needs to tell me when she's going to be arriving home so that I can be ready. That is the result of multiple arguments, times when she needed me to do things and I was in the middle of a game, times when I would binge play late at night (trading sleep for gaming), times when I would promise I didn't want to play (and either not playing and then feeling resentful, or playing and then feeling guilty), and eventually negotiations. I'd come from a place where I felt like I wasn't being "allowed" to do what I wanted and Maggie felt irritated when I'd be playing and completely unable to do anything else until a game ended. When we became more clear on the fact that I just do enjoy playing Heroes, and that if I'm going to start playing I really do need to make sure that our house is in order, and that what Maggie dislikes more than me playing Heroes is me being dishonest about wanting to play (or actually playing) Heroes, then we were able to be a lot more honest and open about telling each other what we needed from the other.

So now, there are times I announce I am going to play Heroes, times when I check with her whether there's anything I need to do before I jump into a game (and am completely unavailable for 30 minutes at a time despite being physically present), and when I do play I don't feel guilty about it.

My day out I just get to choose what I'm going to do. If that's Heroes, then it's Heroes, if it's something else then it's something else.

So curious what percentage of these "game" sessions are trading sleep for gaming?

[Alan]

None in a while. Even when I was trading sleep for gaming it was like, playing until 11:30. I go to bed pretty early nowadays.

[Jonathan]

Confirming this ^
Alan and I are practically different time zones.

[Jonathan]

Arthas thoughts: get the damage boost on D, then the double D, and you're hitting for 500+ in two successive hits. I could get used to a proper bruiser damage output.

[Alan]

I started playing Hero League this weekend.

First 2 matches: I played Leoric and won both. Basically just filled what my team hadn't pre-picked. Both games were pretty lopsided wins.

3rd match: I played as Uther (again, filled), lost the game (Blackheart's Bay). We were doing well until we lost a teamfight around level 7/8 at the turn-in point. At that point we had been about half a level or a level ahead the entire game, but our Leoric just became incredibly toxic, harassing everyone on our team for every mistake, calling everyone noobs, soloing 1v5 and getting himself killed for no reason, calling us noobs for not following him into pointless engagements.

4th match: I was kind of on tilt still from my last match. Again played Uther. We were actually doing pretty well, winning TFs more often than not. However none of us were paying enough attention to our minimap and didn't notice that while we were fighting their terror had gone straight to our core. Dumb loss.

5th match: Had last pick, needed more damage and I was flipping between Raynor and Zagara, ended up going with Zagara. I had a brainfart in which I forgot I had a W ability (hydras) until about level 7. We were still doing fairly well, we won a pivotal teamfight, got our terror, but again, poor map awareness meant we didn't notice that Leoric and Tassadar had gone to our core with some catapults, so we lost.

6th match: Really bad match. Again filled with Leoric, since everyone on my team prepicked except for me. I was 3rd pick, and was going to go with Zeratul, but since the 5th pick person on my team had prepicked Kerrigan I went with a warrior instead. Bad idea. He couldn't land the combo (and in fact was frequently not doing the combo at all, just popping the stun without the grab). We were completely steamrolled. I think we ended the game 3 or 4 levels down, and they still had all 3 forts up. In retrospect Johanna may have been a better pick than Leoric for our comp.

At this point I'm 2-4, and feel pretty on tilt about ranked play. In QM, I've gotten to a point with matchmaking that I think in general my teammates know where to be, they know to soak lanes in the beginning, they know to group up after 10 and focus on objectives, etc. Starting out in ranked play feels more like it did when I first started playing, where you have to tell teammates to stop chasing pointless kills, instruct people to get back into lanes (and then getting yelled by them for not showing up to a skirmish while 2 levels and a talent tier down).

7th match: I've decided to stop filling. I pre-pick Jaina. Another steamroll loss, on Infernal Shrines. I don't feel quite as bad on this one, since the map itself is steamroll-y, but I do notice that I am playing very passively, not pinging objectives or camps, just kind of showing up where my team is.

8th match: I pre-pick Zeratul. At this point I've noticed that I've gone 7 matches without playing my best hero, play very aggressively, and do more shotcalling and pinging, end up 27-0. And finally end my 5 game losing streak.

Lessons learned thus far:
1. Prepick your best heroes, that lets your team know who you are good with.
2. Take with a grain of salt who your teammates pre-pick. Don't defer as a 2nd or 3rd pick person to someone with 4th or 5th pick if you feel confident about the hero you've prepicked. They may not be all that good with the hero they've picked (eg Kerrigan from game 6), and may be just fine playing a different role. Looking at the Kerrigan player's hotlogs afterward, I noticed that he actually plays a very good Johanna (187 games played, 62% win rate). We would've been a lot better off if I stuck with who I wanted to play.
3. If nobody else seems to be interested or willing to shot-call, you have to do it. Even just something like discussing lane assignments before the match starts can help, I think.

[Jonathan]

The lack of in-game chat during the loading screen is a big problem, I think. The pace of draft and game means there's too little time to establish a game plan.

Even a lobby would be a huge improvement.

[Alan]

I agree - I think the best you can do is between when the game loads and the gates open, which is only enough time if there aren't disagreements about the strategy.

[Jonathan]

Next patch is the warrior patch!

"Our next patch has quite a few different warrior changes going in, so Stitches is getting some buffs."