Heroes of the Storm

[Alan]

I think we just need to be on comms for the combo. There were one or two times where you Shadow Charged and the Overpower didn't go off for whatever reason, and several times where I wasn't expecting the Overpower but it did come out.

The later game fights were just really chaotic and I don't really know what was going on in any of them. 30+ minute games are hard to maintain attention through.

[Dave]

Jeez Xul is OP! Just need to level Dehaka!

ps I suck at greymane

[Jonathan]

Haha I died 11 times in my last ARAM match as Greymane and definitely was the reason we lost!

ARAM is weird. I'm very good at certain heroes (Raynor, Li-Ming, Anub'Arak) and clearly the reason my team loses on others. I'm pretty bad at ARAM Diablo, because there's very little ganking. I don't know how to position as Malfurion and get caught out.

I play well on Azmodan and Hammer, of course, but that's because they're OP on ARAM. Really, Li-Ming is close to OP, too.

[Alan]

I haven't really figured out how to play Greymane, seems like you need to be aggressive at the right moments to be impactful. Too aggressive and you die too much, not aggressive enough and you're better off playing Valla or Raynor.

Thrall is pretty fun though.

[Dave]

Haha watching the chinese stream of the Heroes of the Dorm was great.

[Jonathan]

I played Sylvanas during the free weekend and won a couple ARAMs. Way more interested in New Syl than Dehaka right now. Quick Release makes a huge difference on Q of course.

I beat Li-Ming in a mirror match. My Li-Ming is decidedly un-aggressive. I had big assist numbers but very few kills. I had trouble playing Li-Ming outside of ARAM.

So, of the three, I'm leaning towards buying Syl.

I finally won an ARAM on Malfurion. Didn't die (except one when the core was below 10%). It is possible I am getting better at tf.

[Alan]

I've actually been taking Lost Soul at 4 recently (cooldown reduction in W) and it seems like it's probably more impactful than the faster Q. Especially if you take Overwhelming Affliction at 16, you can keep the other team slowed for most of the fight. Rich (formerly known as Oreoman) of MVP Black was streaming a lot of Sylvanas recently on Azubu, and his build is:

1: Paralysis
4: Lost Soul
7: Barbed Shot vs Unstable Poison depending on map
10: Wailing Arrow
13: Windrunner
16: Evasive Fire vs Overwhelming Affliction
20: Bolt

He plays extremely aggressively with Windrunner, seems like he always knows which heroes have their abilities on cooldown and are vulnerable to him unloading Q's on them, and as his build indicates he prioritizes movement over pure damage.

[Alan]

I've really enjoyed playing Thrall lately, don't know him well enough to experiment with builds but he hits like a truck, has pretty good CC, has great self-sustain, and one of the best ults in the game. If you're facing a Thrall who hasn't used Sundering yet in a TF you need to play a lot more conservatively than most people do in QM. When defending a gate against a Thrall you need to position further back than you normally would, or stay perpendicular to him across the same wall. Definitely don't position behind the gate itself. A diagonal Sundering from a Thrall positioned at the low wall on either side of the towers can push you past your gate to get stomped on by the rest of Thrall's team. It seems like a lot of people don't really realize that.

[Jonathan]

Vorpal Zeratul destroys Tracer.

[Alan]

Do you have Tracer or were you playing Zeratul?

[Jonathan]

Watched a stream.

[Dave]

Played one game with Tracer, and she's pretty fun to play against AI. The shooting and reloading is pretty fun, and chasing down kills with Q+E is fun.

Wonder how many heroes they will make before addingf a 2 game Overwatch daily quest!?

[Jonathan]

I bought Sylvanas... and Tyrael. Dehaka, I just don't know, man. Imposing Will is a hella great talent.

I can see quickcast on is going to make Kerrigan's combo way better when I get used to it, but for now I'm flubbing combos all over the place. Also I can't remember the E range... Maybe I should have that on release.

I top deaths in ARAM too often.

[Alan]

Once you get a sense of the range of her E then quickcast makes it much easier to pull off. I played on release for a little while with her but found it much less reliable - if you don't hold down either W or E for long enough they just won't cast. I ended up with too many combo attempts where only one of the two would register as key presses.

[Jonathan]

Hey, I found my ARAM stats on Hotslogs:

Warrior
Games Played: 11
Win Percent: 63.6 %
Assassin
Games Played: 18
Win Percent: 38.9 %
Support
Games Played: 18
Win Percent: 38.9 %
Specialist
Games Played: 22
Win Percent: 54.5 %

Yep. Seems accurate. Overall Hotslogs has me at 45% winrate on ARAM. I don't upload but it feels reasonable.

Warrior is statistically less likely than Support because the all random isn't random by position on the team. Whoever starts the game is much more likely to be a warrior. I never start a game, so I only have a normal shot at warrior when I play opposite whoever starts the lobby.

[Alan]

Holy changes batman.

The two new heroes both look really interesting.

Probably will still be playing Dark Souls 3 for a while though.

[Jonathan]

http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20112698

Dang that's a big patch next week. Lots of generics (Conjurer's Pursuit, Regeneration Master, Seasoned Marksman, Battle Momentum) got their OP-ness nerfed.

I am excited to get new Anub and punish some Kaels.

[Jonathan]

QM MMR will be getting a soft reset for season 1.

[Alan]

Guess I'll be starting form scratch once I eventually get tired of Dark Souls 3

[Jonathan]

Nope, it heals you for every second of hearth cast time in bulk when you appear in the hall of storms. I have checked it frame by frame and you heal faster by hearthing in every single situation, unless you are only 1 frame away from the hall of storms, in which you heal at the same rate.

I knew this but I haven't internalized it. Important!

This doesn't factor into occasions when you don't want to get full hearth cast time healing, but those are fairly few and far between. Basically hearth if you can.