Hello everyone! I'm QuibsY, a player who came from League of Legends (Let's set aside the mutual hatred we all have for that game and stay on point here). I was Diamond 2 in LoL, but as soon as I saw gameplay for Heroes of the Storm I immediately quit LoL, even before getting access to the game. I knew I wanted to play a Super Smash Bros type game where they mash up all the different games and pit them against each other. I knew I liked the talent system better than the item system. Farming was such an arbitrary thing in the other MOBAs and I didn't like it. I wanted to just fight people all the time. That's what Heroes is, fighting people all the time.

You can find me on at:
Twitter: @2ARCQuibsY
Twitch: twitch.tv/imquibsy

In LoL the jungle is obvious and has some standard timings for the jungler to follow. This is not so simple in Heroes. In Heroes it's actually a camp that pushes for you. The major thing to focus on here is that you actually capitalize on taking a mercenary camp. This translates to pressuring accordingly; if you take a knight camp and just leave it to push by itself it only takes one turret, if you're lucky. On the other hand, if you were to send Uther to push with the knights and heal them, the enemy team has to send multiple people to clean it up instead of one or none. This makes your push more efficient and does more damage with the same camp.

Another thing is that you really have to think about when you are taking camps. An easy example is the widely accepted 1:30 Seige Giants on Haunted Mines. If you take them at this time they will be in lane when the mines open. Either they don't send all 5 players into the mines or they take free damage from the Seige Giants. Knowing how long it takes to both take the camp and to have the camp enter the lane and become a threat on the enemy base are extremely relevant to when you are taking your mercenaries. Don't be wasteful.

While this game does not have the traditional Lane Phase, you still have to lane in the early levels, it seems until level 10 the game is in lane phase. I'm using it as a generic term as any time prior to your team grouping up together. In lane phase you should focus on three things: Staying alive, getting exp, and capitalizing on mistakes. (Please note: I am not going to go into roam squads or mercenary rotations in this guide - future guides may contain this information. I am going to keep this one simple.)

Staying alive:
Dying is one of the worst things you can do. You have to realize just how much experience you gave your opposition. If you are solo laning and you die, keep in mind they don't only gain the experience for killing you, they deny you the experience in that lane and gain experience in that lane. Let's say that you miss one full wave of experience before you or a teammate covers the lane again, you essentially set your team back two full minion waves: The one you missed and the one they got. So, above all, stay alive. Don't try to force a play that you think will get a kill, only act on plays that you know are the correct plays. This judgment call will come with time and practice.

Getting Experience:
Gathering experience in lanes is the best way to consistently do well in any Heroes game early on. Minions are the only thing that are guaranteed to keep on coming. The single best way to improve your gameplay is by making sure you are soaking all lanes and gaining all experience whenever available. Of course no one is perfect, but the closer you get to never missing experience opportunities the better. While this seems obvious, it's so important that it needs to be state.

Capitalizing on mistakes:
You'll find that with passive play and focusing on gaining experience you'll see plays that are just plain bad. Thank the enemy by putting some damage on him or taking the free kill. This goes hand in hand with you not trying to force plays. If you're letting the plays come to you then you're going to have a better and easier play at your disposal, usually something like "Oh, I guess the lane is shoving, guess I'll throw an auto attack at the enemy." If you repeat that enough they will get low, and when they get low if they make the mistake of staying around you can capitalize upon it. If you know someone is basing and you're about midway through your lane, shove the minions to the enemy turrets to deny them. If their lane is shoving you can deny the experience by letting the minions kill yours.

Recap:

• Don't die.
• Focus on experience.
• Don't force plays.
• Capitalize upon mistakes.

Since the bulk of this game is team fighting and there are extenuating circumstances and different situations that might make some of these statements to follow not always true, but in the vast majority of team fights it is great advice.

Ranged Assassin:
Your job in a team fight is obvious, but it's easier said than done: do as much damage as possible without getting caught/dying. One common problem I see with lower level players is they think "Oh, we're supposed to focus the enemy ranged assassin" so they run in and shoot the other carry which, because both of their ranges are relatively long, puts you in the dead center of the team fight, right where all those bruisers like Sonya and Anub'arak like to jump on you and kill you in 3 seconds. Instead of going for their ranged carry what you should do is put shots onto whoever you can reach safely. The only time that you should change targets is when a better one becomes available. An example of this is that if you're shooting Stitches you're not going to do much damage but at least you wont die. Valla decides to start chasing with Stitches to try to kill you. Since both targets are approximately the same distance away and you won't end up in the middle of the team fight by swapping to him, kill demon hunting woman. After which you can go back to shooting Stitches if no better target is presented. The reason that this is good is because of my next piece of advice: sometimes running is better than shooting. The longer you stay alive the more probable it is that your team is going to win a team fight. If you realize that 3+ people are coming straight for your throat don't be a hero and try to damage your way out of it. It won't work. Run like the little girl you are. This allows the rest of your team to get free damage done while their team chases you around. My last piece of advice is this: If you have trouble positioning yourself in team fights try counting to two when the fight starts, staying back until you reach two. This allows for the enemy team to waste their cooldowns of their spells so that you don't get instantly nuked.

Recap on Ranged Assassin:

• Shoot the best target you can without putting yourself in harm's way.
• Flee if you're in danger.
• Count to Two.
• Play like a little girl, because you're fragile like one.

Burst Carry:
This is characters like Nova, Zeratul, Kerrigan.
Your job is simple: nuke the highest damage threat on their team. This is usually the ranged assassin or the the opposite burst carry. I only have a few pieces of advice for this role in a team fight, the rest seem pretty obvious (PRESS QWER AND KILL THINGS). The biggest piece of advice I can give is to not dump your abilities right away in a team fight. Sure, you might be able to take Anub'arak to half health, but what if instead you just completely killed Valla before she could even get her ultimate off? That's a lot better in most cases. Another common mistake for lower level burst players is the need to stay in the fight poking with your abilities for as long as possible. This is a great habit, don't get me wrong, but if you're 3 bars of HP and you have no escape ability either just leave or wait for your escape to come back. Have a way out. Lastly, don't dive into the middle of the fight at the start. It will just get you killed before you can do your job.

Recap on Burst Characters:

• You don't always have to dump every ability at the start of the fight.
• Poke with low health only if you have an escape.
• Don't dive into the middle of the fight at the start.

Support:
You are your team's personal assistant. Follow them around at all times in a team fight. Your ranged assassin is the best target to heal, the best target to stun for, the most damage to protect. Sure, if you're Uther go ahead and engage, but after you engage don't run around chasing kills, you don't do damage. But Valla sure does. Too bad you let her die to the Sonya that you could have stopped. Moral: Protect her!

Recap on Support:

• You are your team's personal assistant.
• Healing the ranged assassin is more important than healing anyone else.

Bruisers/Tanks:
These are characters like Sonya, Tyrael, and Anub'arak (to state the obvious). Your job is probably the hardest thing to communicate in words. Basically, you are the front line, you are what the enemy sees. You are, generally, the engage for your team. After your engage has happened, you have to make a decision: Do you follow carries to go for kills or do you peel for your team? The reason this is such a big decision is that if you decide to go for their carries that leaves your counterpart to do the same. Whoever got the better engage generally wins this, though certainly not every time. Note that, in general, the person killing you will be the enemy ranged carry. This is because you are what is standing in between them shooting your squishy teammates. If you can stay alive longer than their tank you'll probably win the fight. Try to position yourself in the center of both teams, because that's what you are, the center of things.

Recap on Bruisers/Tanks:
(simple version)

• Get their carry.

Or

• Protect your carry.

(complex version)

• Engage and run interference.
• Commit to killing or peeling.
• Center yourself in the fight
• Be the bigger tank.

Keep in mind that this is a general guide to team fighting, since it is not possible to ever put every situation on paper. Adapt to the enemy teams in order to win team fights.

I'd just like to thank anyone reading this guide, heroesfire for giving me somewhere to post this information, and to those at Blizzard for producing a great game.

I'd also like to shout out to my team, 2ARC Iliad. You can find us at Team2ARCGaming or 2ARCGaming.com

13 October 2014

• Guide's creation