Heroes of the Storm is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) that is great for beginners. Games run about 20 minutes to a half an hour. Blizzard, the masters at cross promotion, have created characters and maps that are fun to play. The community, for the most part, is friendly and helpful.

That said, you can run into negativity and abuse (known in the community as "salt"). This guide is to help you deal with the negativity you find to maximize your enjoyment of the game. You might even be able to turn around a team falling apart into infighting.

This is a popular, though extreme, way to deal with negativity. You can mute team chat in general, or mute a single player. Pinging (the other way to communicate with your team) still functions.

I admit, I do not do this. I do understand why people would.

Even if people are being abusive, I often get useful information. Because of this, I do not mute people. It is not for the faint of heart, so feel free to mute if it will make your game more fun.

Part of the reason the Heroes community is so great is because Blizzard takes online abuse seriously. If someone is being abusive to you or another player, report them. Right click on the character in the stat screen to report.

People report more aggressively in Quick Match as this mode really is for fun. It is a place to get better with your characters when you have gotten the most from AI matches. Getting my butt handed to me a few times in Quick Match is a great way to improve your gameplay. Hero League is more serious and really is not a place to use a character for the first time.

Simply put, Blizzard listens. Report abusive players.

People notice if you stay out of text fights. A simple, "We need to work as a team" can go a long way to get your team to focus on the goals at hand. As much as you can, stay out of text fights and simply rally your team. Praise them when they do well, and focus them when needed.

When using text, be brief. Don't distract your team with a novel. A "gj" (good job) or a "nj" (nice job) goes a long way.

I did this once with a team that was starting to throw. They started to bicker despite the fact my team knew what they were doing. They tried to bring me in it. Instead, I reminded them to work as a team. We did, and ended up winning the match.

This was a very happy ending, but you will end up living with yourself better even if you lose badly.

You are 1 man and a talent tier down, and your team wants to go for boss. Even though this is a very bad idea, go with your team. The goodwill of teamwork outweighs the probably inevitable loss. I may take a ping or brief text on why I may think this is a bad idea to try to dissuade them, but I will go along anyway.

I have been pleasantly surprised from time to time. A Zagara and I, as Muradin, took down a boss without getting caught out by the other team during their curse on Cursed Hollow. It was a good thing too, as my health got dangerously low. It felt great to get away with that.

So go nuts with your team. It is okay to do something crazy.

I often solo queue in Quick Match and Hero League. These are called pick up games (PUGS) as you are matched with strangers (as opposed to having a full team of friends). People are apt to be saltier to a stranger.

To make things worse, my favorite class is Support. More specifically, the healers (Lili, Malfurion, Rehgar, and Uther). Healers are often blamed for losses. We die too much because good teams focus us down first. Because a specific character did not get a heal when they needed it, despite the fact you are across the map healing the teammates, you are a lousy healer.

A Valla in a PUG complained to me that I was playing Rehgar like Rehgar. To explain, Rehgar is a melee support. He is kind of squishy, so Rehgar often stays out of the fight directly. I take the Feral Heart talent so I can regenerate health and mana in my mount (wolf) form. Rehgar chain heals, provides extra damage to self or teammate with a lightning shield, and slows enemies with a totem. He can bring people back from the brink of death with his Ancestral Healing Heroic Ability. She was out of position and got melted. If she was closer to the team, she would have gotten a chain heal at least. I was too late with the Ancestral. It has a delay before it heals. She complained to me that I did not heal and all I was doing was running around as a wolf and why wasn't I attacking?

So she was complaining to me that I was playing my character correctly. Sigh.

I do hold a higher standard to friends. I am quick to unfriend if said friend has a bad attitude.

A middle position is a party made by a friend. I was inspired to write this by a recent incident in a party made by a trusted friend. I was playing again as Rehgar and we lost the match. My team was losing health faster than I could chain heal them. Trust me, I tried. I was saying goodbye to the party when one of them said, "But we had no healer." There was limited time before the patch, so I simply typed "insulted" before leaving. I did see my friend defend me before I clicked "Leave Party."

To their defense, Rehgar and Thrall are easily confused. I will defend myself more in that situation than in a solo queue.

...there may be a good reason why salt is being thrown at you.

To be clear, I don't care how stupid you are playing, no one deserves online abuse.

I do take time, during a game if I am calm enough, or after if I am not, to assess what went wrong. I use it as self assessment first. Is there something I could have done better?

A good example is I was web wrapping our Nova's triple tap target as Anub'anak. I "whatever"ed her (not my best moment) but I got to thinking. I found a better target: Leoric. I web wrapped him just as he would revive, shutting down his advantage to kill my team. My finest wrap was as we were attacking the core for the win. Denied.

See a player playing stupid? Be brief, respectful, and constructive. Questioning a play is not abusive. Saying "WTF did you do that for?" is borderline. I try to take the WTFs to pick out the places I need to improve and shrug off the rest.

Though muting other players is an easy solution, I choose not to do it.

Report abusive players to Blizzard. They want to know.

Do your best to rally and encourage the team. No one likes to lose, but losses happen. Even the pro teams get stomped. Be a good sport so this game can be fun for all.

Take salt with a grain of salt. Figure out if you were at fault and don't let the negativity get to you. Yell at your screen all you want, but avoid affecting your teammates.

MFPallytime does a great job dealing with his team. I have a "Hi, I'm Rehgar." speech similar to his "Hi, I'm Nova. I roam." Still needs more brevity, but will use it. My other favorite line of mine in a similar vein is "can't heal dead." I will probably add "I am not Uther." to this as Uther can heal dead.

No one likes salt. Do your part to decrease it.