AI speed farm guide by bumpfel

AI speed farm guide

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Why play AI games Top

The main thing - you get quests done faster. Especially the one where you need to win 3 games. That's an average of about six games in a quick match, but only three in an AI game, since you always win AI games. If you can't or don't want to spend a lot of time on quest farming each and every day, play an AI game instead. Obviously always play on beginner difficulty, it's the fastest and has no reduction in player-XP or gold gain.

Not delving deep in the player-XP gain in this guide, because this guide is focused on speed; but if you play with someone on your friend-list, you'll double whatever you get. In XP matches, you will also want to clear all forts and keeps as quick as possible to maximize your gain. At the end, you should have a high enough level and enough pushing minions to brute force the core, without the need for a boss.

Gold gain in comparison to quick matches

Firstly, I wouldn't recommend farming gold in AI matches, unless you're doing a quest as well, or if you're enjoying it.
Nevertheless... You get 10 gold for an AI game win (25g with stimpack) and with an organized team, they should be done in under 5 minutes. Compared to quick matches that gives you 30g for a win (75g w stimpack) and 20g for a loss (50g with stimpack). So you get three times the gold in a quick match win and double for a loss.
Let's say you have a 50% win rate in quick matches and 100% versus AI. In that case, you get 2,5 times more gold in a quick match. Let's say, for simplicity's sake, the average AI game takes five minutes (though you're unlikely to average this if you continuously queue with randoms), and (according to hotslogs) that the average quick match takes about twenty minutes.
TL;DR: You'll get more gold per time unit in an AI game.
Quests done faster also means less time spent to get the gold from those.
Additionally, queue times are much shorter for AI games.

Going slightly off-topic; you'll be able to get more gold in the long run, if you leave the low gold reward quests be, since you'll make sure you won't get those specific quests the next day and have a higher probability to get higher gold reward-quests instead. Furthermore, you should always get the high reward-quests done the same day they appear, so you have a chance of getting them the next day.
This is assuming you can and want to play every day.

Team composition Top

Siege damage is what matters. Pick heroes with high sustain. You'll need at least some with aoe for efficient wave clear. Heroes with strong basic attacks builds that comes to play early on are good (you won't end with a high level).

Sylvanas - The uncontested #1 hero in AI games, because of her trait Black Arrows. By disabling towers, forts and npc's, she will increase the team's damage uptime a lot.
Corruption from tier one is preferrable. She's got good wave clear, and will help keep your minions alive (though they're less important in a game with a sylvanas, since you don't need them to tank towers for you).
Always auto attack buildings until the ammo is drained, then switch to another building with ammo if there are any nearby. Team should protect her from being zoned out by the enemy.
Sgt. Hammer - Long ranged, powerful basic attacks with splash allows her to almost always attack something. Can park outside the core's damage zone and bring it down on her own, if the team protects her. This is a actually a competitive alternate strategy, especially on slow maps with no bosses, or if the team screwed up the initial strategy.
Raynor - Mostly for his team wide attack speed buff Inspire and powerful basic attacks. Therefore pick talents that boosts basic attacks and Inspire-uptime.
Sonya - Good in pretty much every situation. Versatile and with great sustain.
Azmodan - His trait General of hell boosts your minion waves' HP and damage. Make sure to kill off enemy heroes if they try to aoe down your minions.
Gazlowe - Great wave clear with Xplodium Charge. Turrets deal good siege damage, especially if boosted by talents. Robo-Goblin is very nice too, though you'll not spend a lot of time above level 10, if at all.
The Lost Vikings - Depending on the map, they can be a very good pick because of their ability to soak a lot of team-XP.
E.T.C. - Doesn't do a lot of damage himself, but his trait Rockstar will boost the team's damage output substantially. With the right talents, he should be able to have a good uptime on his trait and good self sustain.
Lt. Morales - With her massive single target healing output, you can, with the right group, forego the boss and end the game quicker.

Other good heroes

Illidan - Much like Sonya, but squishier.
Valla - Versatile. Pretty solid pick.
Tychus - Good wave clear with Overkill, good self sustain with a basic attack build.
The Butcher - Strong basic attacks. Not very sturdy, but decent sustain with Victuals from tier one
Jaina - No self heal, but with good wave clear and siege damage. Picking Arcane Intellect more or less lets you use your abilities on cooldown without going back for mana, if you make sure to maintain your trait on buildings.

There are several other heroes that works well, not going to mention them all. Most of them are specialists and assassins.

What generally not to pick

Nova - She's next to useless, because she's not built for sieging at all. I roll my eyes when I see someone pick Nova for an AI beginner match. If you have an assassin quest, pick someone else than Nova.
A warrior - Well... you mostly want one warrior, to protect the others and tank a boss. Sonya's the best since she deals the most damage and can heal herself. E.T.C. is not bad either. Anyone with good sustain could work though.
A support - At least not more than one. They make the play more forgiving, but with heroes that has strong self heals, you won't need any. Particularly not if you have a Sylvanas.
That being said, if you need to get a support quest done, you have no choice.
Rehgar's Bloodlust or Lt. Morales' massive healing output can potentially let you brute force the core in some circumstances. Kharazim has decent damage output while providing mana-free heals, but lacks area of effect damage.

How to play a speed run Top

The best way I've found is to all group up in the same lane (always the boss lane on maps that has a boss), destroy the fort and the keep in that lane, then go get the boss when it spawns after three minutes; escort it and push the core with it.

Remember that the core beam cleaves, so don't stand to near to whatever/whoever's tanking it.

All maps doesn't have a boss though. On and it doesn't matter that much where you go, as long as you go together. The middle lane will give you slightly less travel distance though. On and it doesn't matter which lane you pick either.

What generally not to do

Don't bother with merc camps, apart from bosses. It's just a waste of time.
Don't go with the same build you would in a pvp game. Siege damage and sustain are good, you're not going to need utility. Note that some talents e.g. Focused Attack only works against enemy heroes, so don't pick those. Siege is what you want.

(If you're XP farming, it's better to have one person soak XP from each lane, and the rest to push together. Why? Because in the end, your team level should be high enough to go ham on the core without the help of a boss. The Lost Vikings are particularly useful here.)

Specific map strategies Top

Push fort and keep in mid lane together, and send ppl to grab the shrines when it's available. Push the core with the dragon knight.
This is the fastest, if you do it right. You don't have to wait for a boss to spawn, and unlike Haunted Mines and Garden of Terror, you hardly have to work for it. On the other hand, if you waste your dragon knight by getting it killed too early, it'll be slow. If, for instance, the rest of the team haven't cleared the way for you, or are off doing something else; you then either have to bring down the core on your own, or wait for the next dragon knight.
My personal record on this is 2:45.

(Currently not in the map rotation)
Make sure you go on the lane where your golem's at (you can see where its bones lie). Push the fort and keep, then go get skulls. Push core with the golem.

This map is quite different, but can be done pretty quick if you do it the right way. Preferrably you don't want or ' on this map, since you'll then only be four players on the battlefield.
Start pushing the same lane. If you start with either bottom or top, you'll have slightly less travel time. When you've destroyed the keep, get someone who can hold their own to stay and defend it, while the others move on to the next lane. Always grab altars, but don't forget to defend your seized keeps. If Sylvanas and Raynor are in the team, use them to push rather than defend.
When you have all of the keeps, your cannons will start firing continuously, bringing the enemy core down in a swift manner.

Push bottom lane, ignore the objective completely and get the boss at three minutes.

Same as Sky Temple, but you can pick either top or bottom lane. One of the lanes will have the boss closer to the enemies core, which makes it slightly faster and reduces the risk of unnecessarily damaging the boss. It'll be the lane where the watch tower is closer to your side (depends on which side you start on).

Same as Sky Temple, but go top lane.

Same as Blackheart's Bay. You can turn in gems after the top lane keep is down if you want (for extra security, should the boss fall), but don't do it until after you've engaged the boss, or the boss will have despawned.

Push a lane to the keep, but beware of the seed count. If the enemy grabs too many, you might not get enough for a garden terror during that phase, resulting in a prolonged match. Split the group and contest if the enemy team is grabbing seeds. There are 180 seeds per night phase and you need 100 to get a terror. Obviously there's no reason to get more than 100 seeds. Clear the way for the terror instead if you're waiting.

The Immortals seem to go to a random lane on this map, unfortunately.
Push either lane together. When the immortals spawn, either grab the immortal immediately, or finish clearing the lane (the latter is safer). End with the immortal having as big a shield as possible. Push with the immortal to the core, even if it goes to the lane that wasn't pushed by you. Make sure the immortal stays alive.

This is the worst map along with Battlefield Of Eternity, because there is no boss and the shrines spawn in random lanes. Strat is same as on Battlefield Of Eternity.

Micro managing Top

Not super important in an AI game. If you're on farm mode, play in a relaxed way and pick talent that minimizes the need for micro management.

The beginner AI will in most cases not prioritize attacking player heroes, but will attack whatever is closest to them, just like a minion or a tower. You can use this to your advantage. If you need to retreat, just retreat to your next minion wave and get behind them and the enemy heroes won't target you. They may however hit you with an aoe targetted at your minions. I've seen an exception to this behaviour on the Towers of Doom map where the AI would prioritize heroes when contesting seized keeps on their side.