Heroes of the Storm

[Alan]

Fun fact! Alan is the only one of us with a support character with a positive win rate, and he has three (Uther, Tyrande, Rehgar). Zef on Uther is the only one who is even close, at 50%.

Tassadar too!

[Jonathan]

I ruled out Tassadar because you have a pretty small number of games on him, but yeah. Nobody can beat my 100% win rate on Lili. I clearly am the best support.

[Alan]

Yeah true. Haha.

Tyrande is pretty much the only support I play anymore. I'll probably give Tassadar a try again at some point but I have generally wanted to play other heroes.

[Jonathan]

Zagara's abilities will scale at 3%/level after the patch. Weird.

https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthesto ... per_level/

[Alan]

I haven't really been following the new scaling details too closely, but it seems like it's really going to change how the early game plays.

Meanwhile I finally got Sylvanas up to a 50% win rate! Took a while, since at one point she was down at like 11% for me. I think I started out 1-8 with her, so I've gone 9-2 since I brought her out of storage.

[Alan]

In retrospect, I think one of the main reasons I did so poorly with Sylvanas was that I had the wrong idea of how to play her. I thought I was supposed to solo push a lane, whereas I think she is at her best when she pushes with teammates and is able to bring down a wall (and maybe a fort) early on in a game, and then make a choice depending on the situation whether to push with the objective or split push. And then when she hits 7, with barbed arrows + unstable poison she can keep all of the lanes pushed out and take merc camps in between teamfights and objectives and give your team great map presence, and then once she hits 16 she should be focusing on putting Cold Embrace on the priority target during teamfights.

Also, you have to use her Banshees before you get into trouble. If you try to escape after you're already in trouble (like with Bolt of the Storm) you'll probably die.

With more Sylvanas experience I have to revise this.

Early game, you want to be where you have the best chance of pushing lanes and bringing down walls/towers. If the other team has strong lanes, you want to form a tri-lane or strong duo-lane that can outpush the other team. You also need to be constantly watching minimap and retreat whenever it looks like there's a gank coming (starting your retreat even before they show up in lane), using banshees pretty much as soon as they do show up. Positioning at the top of the top lane or bottom of the bottom lane gives you the time you need to escape if you do that. During the first objective, I find that the majority of the time it's better if I stay in lane. Sylvanas is not strong in teamfights until lvl 10, and in the majority of situations staying in lane helps your team more than joining the teamfight does. If your opponent leaves the lane, you are soaking and will probably be able to get a tower or two. If they stay, then more likely than not the other team is losing someone who will be better in a teamfight than you would be, and you are more likely than not a better lane pusher than they are, so you come out ahead then as well. Envenom is not that great anymore for securing kills, but it is a great way to get your opponent out of the lane and either back to their well or hearthing to allow you to continue pushing and getting them to miss out on XP.

Once you get Wailing Arrow, the most important factor in teamfights is using it at the right time, which depends a lot on the teamcomps. If the other team has a channeled ult, like Zeebo's spirit or Lili's cups, it's usually best to save it for interrupting that. If you have set up a gank and the other team has escapes, then using it as an initiator (or simultaneously with the initiation) is best. Generally I find that in most teamfights the timing is sometime in the middle of the teamfight, 10-15 seconds in, where cooldowns for the high-impact basic abilities are coming back up, or when people are around medium to low health and something like Divine Shield is likely to be cast soon.

At 13, evasive fire really changes Sylvanas's gameplay. At that point you have such great mobility that you can be a lot more aggressive with your positioning bc more likely than not you can kite if someone targets you, and you can more easily dodge skillshots as you wait for haunting wave to get far enough away.

At 16, she gets a huge power spike with cold embrace. At that point she melts waves, camps, and is a key part of any teamfight.

At 20, if you are snowballing fury of the storm just adds insult to injury. Otherwise getting a second escape in bolt lets you make more aggressive plays while still being able to escape if needed.

[Alan]

One other thing about Sylvanas - her Q mechanic can make orb walking more difficult. One of the most important adjustments I had to make was to be more conscious about continuing to stutter step and get in my auto attacks. When I first started playing Sylvanas I was doing a lot of running around continuously mashing Q, leading to me not autoattacking during teamfights and doing far less damage than I should have.

[Jonathan]

I haven't really been following the new scaling details too closely, but it seems like it's really going to change how the early game plays.

Yep. You can really do some damage in a lane after a takedown.

[Jonathan]

I can get the first tower in just under 1 minute with Azmodan.

[Jonathan]

7-1 on Murky so far. The more I play, the more I want to tank, like this guy suggests.

[Jonathan]

Also the more I play Murky, the more I want to go back to The Butcher, because I never gave Lamb fair shakes. Octograb has enlightened me. Luckily, he's free this week so I can see how he feels with the new scaling. His AAs and HP scale great so I have high hopes.

/join chogall if you can stand to win 2 games with pug

[Dave]

Thought you mean Murky was free.... lies!

So Chogall in a few weeks?

[Jonathan]

Cho'Gall launches tomorrow. Mean time until your account is infected TBD.

[Dave]

Ok, I got Chogall unlocked! Got to win 2 games with someone who has Chogall, then you get a quest to win 4 games with someone who doesn't have Chogall (so 2 people). Of course you can cheese it by having the other guy leave and never win a game so you can get 4 "wins"

[Jonathan]

I also picked up Cho'Gall in MFPT. Haven't done the 2200 gold quest, so don't be impatient like Dave & me --- get the char from your friends in Schlag2b! I'll try to be online tomorrow night.

Man the queues are kinda dicked atm with the Cho'Gall quest.

Tried the adept AI queue, lost patience and canceled queue. Did my 2 wins vs. beginner AI with AI teammates.

After I got my Cho'Gall, I tried the elite AI queue, got 4 players, 1 beginner AI vs. 3 beginner AI, 2 elite AI. Not actually elite. Not actually co-op.

Then I tried the QM queue, got a Cho'Gall, Zagara, Hammer, Kael'Thas vs. me as Zagara, Cho'Gall, Raynor, Gazlowe. Our Raynor was player account level 7 with 0 games on Hotslogs, and our Gall had 15 QM games on Hotslogs.
http://www.hotslogs.com/Player/MatchDet ... D=51119090
The enemy Kael'Thas has 14 games on Hotslogs, but otherwise their team had played the game before.

My team won after getting creamed. It was 12 vs. 32 before we wiped them at the end to push core and win. Whoever was piloting their plants didn't push, whereas I made sure I was in the plant every time and pushed like hell.

Anyway, I died to the Cho'Gall several times. Gall has some fucking long ass range abilities on him. I retreated behind my gate during a gank and still died to a runic bomb at level 2.

I dueled a laning Hammer to the death (I won) prior to 10, so I'm OK with the scaling changes vis-a-vis Zagara, but that Cho'Gall is some scary ass shit.

Various rumblings on the internet indicate to me that Cho and Gall both have lots of talents that interact with the other, so really you should plan a Cho'Gall talent build, not an individual Cho and a individual Gall.

[Jonathan]

Of me, Raynor, and Hammer, I was the only one who picked up Giant Killer. Sigh.

My goal is to break 150 QM games before December so this stuff quits happening.

[Jonathan]

So if you want free wins for the next few days stack as much % hp damage for the next few days to delete chogalls out of fights fast.

Good point. Polymorph apparently shuts down Gall and is the only basic ability to do so, because he is immune to stuns.

[Jonathan]

I own:

Warriors: Anub'arak, Muradin, ETC, Diablo, Stitches, Arthas, Cho
Assassins: Falstad, Valla, Kerrigan, Raynor, Gall
Support: Malfurion, Brightwing, Lili
Specialist: Azmodan, Zagara, Sgt Hammer, Murky

Hated Lt Morales and Chen. Not for me. I really suck at Mage-atul: I have low APM and am bad at mashing a bunch of different buttons rapidly. I enjoyed AA Zeratul, though. Nothing wrong with Tassadar. Rexxar is kind of OK, but I'm basically playing either Rexxar or Misha, not both at once. Kharazim feels pretty damn good. Now that Leoric and Johanna have been nerfed, I don't feel bad for not liking them.

Going to check out The Butcher and Thrall with the scaling changes. Pretty excited for Lunara and Greymane.

I solo QM with Zagara, Diablo, and Murky. I would like to solo queue more Azmodan, but I know Zagara can put out better damage in a teamfight and there's always a significant risk in QM that a map pops that requires a teamfight for the objective. I'd instalock Azmodan on Mines and Tomb if I could. Towers seems like a possibility, too.

I bought Arthas so I'd have another pocket party tank to play. I'm definitely fuzzy on which warrior to comp with which party teammates, though. Murky is bad at sustained damage but great at takedowns; Hammer and Zagara are my sustained damage choices. I really enjoy playing all my healers but if you want to win probably I shouldn't queue as a healer.

[Jonathan]

Did three quick elite AI matches to complete an Assassin quest. I gotta say it confounded my expectations.

AI is much simpler to gank with the scaling changes. Very simple rotations lead to 2-3 dead bots. AI is very vulnerable when laning. I had thought AI would be less forgiving with hard-hitting AAs, but it isn't so. Quite the opposite!

The players quickly amass a lead, but it never turns into a stomp. In the mid-game, the scaling changes mean once AI hits 10 they can hold their own in a teamfight fine, even down 2 levels. All three games followed this pattern, where the AI clawed back a few levels with properly utilized heroics. Part of this is likely due to a holdover mindset where players feel "safe" against a bot which could change over time. You really can't force a keep kill in the same way that you used to with a random smattering of warriors and assassins. I thought after 10 the scaling changes could be ignored, but it isn't so. Definitely feels different. You still don't really need strategy to beat AI, still, but pure mechanics I don't think will suffice. You need some tactics.

Overall, matches were still pretty fast. I think the longest went 13 minutes, maybe?

[Alan]

I also picked up Cho'Gall in MFPT. Haven't done the 2200 gold quest, so don't be impatient like Dave & me --- get the char from your friends in Schlag2b! I'll try to be online tomorrow night.

I'll just pick up Cho'Gall from you or Dave at some point. Prob through an AI game, have no clue how to play either of them

Lately I've only been playing Sylvanas, really enjoying her now that I know how to play her properly. With the scaling changes she seems significantly stronger in the early game, but that impression is based on just one match.