Heroes of the Storm

[Jonathan]

Yeah, there's no point to grinding in this game. I am surprised you lasted as long as you did.

[Jonathan]

I went to a LAN center yesterday for Heroes of the Storm night (apparently they do it every Thursday night, which is unfortunately also my D&D night). We had 5v5 custom games which was fantastic.

So did you draft or just everyone piled into whatever hero they wanted? The latter but with a little back and forth for discussion?

I ask because there's a LAN pub near my new apartment so after I move at the end of the month I think I'm going to check it out. Most of my games are played under the influence, anyway, so a gaming pub is probably the right setting for custom HOTS?

[Jonathan]

Greymane: I think I strongly prefer him to Valla. I might still pick Raynor, sometimes, but I'm way better with Greymane than Valla.

Lunara: New favorite AA assassin with her QoL and scaling changes. I really like the Nature's Culling, and the Hotslogs winrate backs me up on this. It's weird that her power spike is embedded into her trait scaling rather than in her 16 talents. The AA stuff is a trap, in my opinion. The damage gained isn't enough. I go for increased slow.

Some maps are way better on Falstad than Lunara since she is so slow to rotate.

[Alan]

Haha I did notice that the monkey guy doesn't always show up, and if your teammates aren't paying attention you can't actually catch it. At this point though I have given in to just spending tons of real money on the game and am just saving up gold for master skins, whenever I actually get any of those. I only have Sylv at level 9, Jaina and Tyrande are pretty close to 9, but it'll probably take me months to get any of them from 9 to 10.

Li Ming is tons of fun. She's definitely overpowered though. It feel like all of my QM games have come down to whether the other team's Li Ming Li Mings better than me. The only two games I've played as her where there wasn't an enemy Li Ming have been complete stomps, like 3 level leads at the end.

[Alan]

Greymane: I think I strongly prefer him to Valla. I might still pick Raynor, sometimes, but I'm way better with Greymane than Valla.

Lunara: New favorite AA assassin with her QoL and scaling changes. I really like the Nature's Culling, and the Hotslogs winrate backs me up on this. It's weird that her power spike is embedded into her trait scaling rather than in her 16 talents. The AA stuff is a trap, in my opinion. The damage gained isn't enough. I go for increased slow.

Some maps are way better on Falstad than Lunara since she is so slow to rotate.

I think I'll pick up Greymane at some point, he seems to do a ton of damage and looks like fun. I'll probably get him after they nerf Li Ming . I haven't played the improved Lunara yet (bc I've only played Li Ming since the patch) but I remember having fun with her even when she sucked.

[Alan]

Been playing Jaina a lot lately, she feels pretty good right now, seems on par with the nerfed Li Ming but IMO harder to play well bc you have less leeway with positioning mistakes.

[Jonathan]

My personal tier list:

Tier 1: Diablo, Muradin, Zagara, Murky

All of my tier one heroes have the tools to isolate an enemy and blow him up. I feel fairly dangerous when playing these heroes.

Tier 2: Sgt. Hammer, Anub'Arak, Johanna, Azmodan, Xul, Stitches, Cho'Gall, E.T.C., Raynor

These are all heroes I like, situationally. Honestly, I think Sgt. Hammer fits into so many more comps that she could be tier 1 for me, but it is situational whether my team plays to her strengths.

Tier 3: Falstad, Brightwing, Greymane, Valla, Arthas, Kerrigan, Lunara, Rehgar, Malfurion, Kharazim, Lili

These are great heroes I am incapable of playing well. I am real interested in the AA changes to Greymane, because that's a build I like a lot that I can't make work. All my supports are on this tier because I suck at support. My assassins except Raynor are on this tier, too. I would like to get Falstad and Brightwing into tier 2, because I like their global presence so much. Really fun to be able to control the map.

Tier 4: Gazlowe

I probably should not have bought these heroes.

[Jonathan]

The reason I suck at support is because I tunnel vision in a team fight. I just can't seem to keep situational awareness of the whole enemy team. That is why I like heroes with reach and isolation, so I can have an impact despite my limitations.

[Jonathan]

That is also why I stay away from heroes with lower HP. I need a little slop.

[Jonathan]

Xul: I can play Shade+ skeletons. I can't play scythe build. Sadly skeletons will most likely get nerfed.

[Alan]

I think for me,

Tier 1: Jaina, Li Ming, Sylvanas, Tyrande, Sonya
Tier 2: Zeratul, Uther, Rehgar, Kerrigan, Illidan, Leoric
Tier 3: every other hero

Support is a very different mindset and it is kind of disorienting to switch between support and other roles. I think Tyrande is easiest for me to play because she is more of a hybrid and doesn't require as much of an adjustment.

[Dave]

Lol, they need more skins like the Azmodunk

[Alan]

Massive patch on PTR now, multiple heroes reworked, including my favorite hero, Sylvanas.

I played one PTR game with her yesterday. Not sure what I think of her rework TBH. It seems like her new heroic is pretty good but not sure if it's better than Wailing Arrow. They moved around all her talents and I'm not sure how she should be built now. First guess is maybe a withering arrow build (extra stack, then refresh on Haunting Wave + extra cast of Haunting Wave for a total of 18 withering arrows)? I think if you take Mind Control you probably also need to take her unstoppable talent at 13.

[Alan]

I think her build will be
1: any of the three
4: extra/faster Q
7: barbed shot
10: either ult
13: wind runner
16: remorseless (or maybe the slow, if you took paralysis at 1)
20: mind control upgrade or bolt

This build feels pretty good, she now has pretty good single target damage while retaining good waveclear. The problem with her before was she was very reliant on evenom for single target damage and her teamfight contribution was mostly wailing arrow and cold embrace. Her new incarnation is a highly mobile ranged assassin style specialist - you empty your Q on one target while AA-ing, use your E to chase, empty your refilled quiver, then can escape after you secure a takedown, or if needed chase some more. This build is also much more effective for solo mercing.

Mind control will be pretty effective in QM due to there not always being a support, and/or supports who don't pick or effectively use cleanse, as well as people who blow their stuns prematurely. In competitive the unstoppable talent at 13 will prob be required, since she can be stunned out of it. Not having wind runner makes her feel a lot weaker though.

[Dave]

How come there was no CMU team for Heroes of the Dorm? No one to root for lol

[Alan]

I think one did register but didn't get through the qualifiers.

[Jonathan]

Been playing ARAM on live. It's not as fun as the regular game, but if you hop into lobbies opportunistically when they're almost full there's very little queue delay and it's a good teamfight practice. I'm kind of wondering if any community around Lost Caverns will spring up that doesn't do All Random, because when I draw Li-Ming or some other free hero it's not as valuable to me as when I get one of my mains.

ARAM is great for retreats and engages, but you can pretty much ignore ganks because there's no rotations. I developed a blind side to rotations after playing too much ARAM and dropped like 6 deaths into my first ten minutes of QM on Sunday.

My personal best ARAM was a 40 minute game with a salty pair of assassins who kept bitching at each other while I was Murky. We had full teamwipe with no keep twice, and both times I baited the enemies into finding and destroying my egg rather than our core. The second time they still had time to get our core down to 1% before we wiped them.

[Jonathan]

Changed to quick cast on by default, with exceptions for hard to target abilities to be on release. Feels way more responsive, but my rhythm is off.

I still haven't played new Gaz. New Illidan looks interesting. I'm going to pass on new Tychus.

A lot of people say new Kael is rough. What do you think?

I'll get Dehaka at 10k.

[Alan]

I've been playing with quick cast for a while now, took a few days to adjust but I like it way better.

Illidan is pretty good now, the downside of that is that he's in pretty much every QM nowadays, and a poorly played Illidan means that you're basically always 4 v 5.

I've never liked KT, I think I tried him once on PTR and still disliked him. He's always felt kind of clunky to me, I always activate his D on the wrong talent or lose track of when I have it available or not.

Dehaka seems like he'd be pretty fun to play, but I'm not really a warrior player so I'm just going to wait for Tracer.

[Jonathan]

I assume you want me to Overpower before you stun, which is why I kept overpowering people out of your stuns. Should I sit on it until after the stun? What is your preferred rotation?