With the launch date being upon us we know a lot of new players will turn their eyes onto Heroes of the Storm. In order to make them feel welcomed instead of lost, we asked our Heroes editorial crew for the best pieces of advice they have to offer.
Hexagrams
Calm Yourself.
Hi, my name is Hexagrams, and I get mad at videogames. It’s important to not let a bad game, or a bad player, ruin a whole gaming session. It's easy to hit tab and blame someone else for your loss. Really easy. I mean, honestly, how are you bottom XP as Valla? Blaming the other players won’t help you get better.
After a particularly bad game, I like to step away from the computer, consider what I could’ve done better, and punch a kitten. After that, my mind is refreshed, my knuckles are swollen, and I’m ready to kill more nerds in the Nexus. You’re going to lose games; no need to lose your cool as well.
Dorazion
Never forget you are part of a team.
You are not a solo player. You may que solo, but you can not win the game on your own. If you want to do something, you MUST make sure your team is aware you are doing it. Following a bad decision by your team is more important than being the one still alive saying “we shouldn’t have gone in there”. You won’t be able to do anything on your own and you almost assured your teams bad decision was guaranteed to fail.
If your team refuses to move as a group, you move with them. Follow them, and bring the team fights to them. The easiest thing to type that will will you more games is “Group as 5.” Don’t just rage when your team isn’t grouped, do something about it.
TDX
Map awareness.
Good map awareness is the simplest and one of the more important mechanics in the game. Keep an eye on if your team is rotating, watch out for blips of opponents. It goes beyond that though; when considering map objectives, also notice when lanes are being pushed in, where you can sap experience and, crucially, mercenary camp respawns. If all the enemy heroes are missing, check the boss or hidden camps.
Coming from Dota, I had a lot of difficulty with Heroes until I fully embraced the concept of immediately reacting when heroes start to congregate. Heroes is a “brawler” and it’s designed for team fights so always be aware of what’s happening on the map and be mobile. Maps are small and you can move around with ease, keep this in mind.
ManMode
Gold management
If you intend to be free to play, then gold management is an extremely important aspect of the game. Gold gain may seem slow, but there are plenty of ways for you to earn a bit extra on the side. One of the most obvious are the daily quests. These can give you anywhere from 200-800 gold a day so you’re always going to want to do them. Every week, the heroes that you have available for free will rotate and each one will give you 500 gold when you level them to five. There are a few other ways to earn a bit of gold, but those two are going to be your primary source of income.
JamesDickens
Don’t surrender.
There is literally no point in this game where it is impossible to win. Unless you see the core losing its last percent, you are still in the game. The surrender mentality from other MOBAs is something we have to fight against every day. Since playrers coming from there are not aware and lack the experience, they don’t know that when you are behind, the game rewards you a lot more than the enemy, so if you win one teamfight, the 4 level deficit becomes a 1 level deficit which in turn diminishes and you are back in the game.
Any map, any time, the game is winnable. Just play it and win it.
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