[Gaming] Heroes of the Storm hype thread - Now Fully Released

End of game, check her hero level... 14

Yeah, i saw some guy that played awful, never helped and basically did no objectives tell me off because he had a higher level...

Account lvl doesn't mean much when DotA is like 10 years old...
 
Yeah, i saw some guy that played awful, never helped and basically did no objectives tell me off because he had a higher level...

Account lvl doesn't mean much when DotA is like 10 years old...
I would have taken that into account if:

A) We didn't end up winning the game, which we did.

B) She wasn't constantly solo diving into 1v4 fights.

Are Vallas the new Novas?
 
Sylvanas might be their best hero release yet. This isn't to say I think Sylvanas is the best hero, but her kit and talents are very well designed, and overall she feels versatile and well balanced. Compare this to Thrall, who was launched completely OP and then had to be nerfed in the following patch. I'm sure Sylvanas will receive some tweaks as all heroes do over time, but right out of the gate she feels like she's in a good place.
 
I think she'll be right up there with Nazeebo and Hammer for most used specialist. I haven't tried out Possession because it seems like a useless ultimate. There's probably some super great use for it that I'm not grasping, but the arrow just seems so good.
 
I think she'll be right up there with Nazeebo and Hammer for most used specialist. I haven't tried out Possession because it seems like a useless ultimate. There's probably some super great use for it that I'm not grasping, but the arrow just seems so good.

Possession only has a 4 second cooldown, so it's not useless, it's really good for pushing with a minion wave. But yeah, arrow is just so good for team fights.
 
I would have taken that into account if:

A) We didn't end up winning the game, which we did.

B) She wasn't constantly solo diving into 1v4 fights.

Yeah, but that has nothing to do with the account level, some people are just bad at the game...
 
You know, I mentioned on here before how neat I thought it was that Jaina rode side-saddle, you know, since she is a princess and all. But take a look at how Sylvanas rides.



She's got one foot on the horses back, the other is up and controlling it with her knee, and she looks ready to pounce off that thing and fuck someone up! Badass.
 
So I bought Azmodan. This is the kind of hero I was looking for. A strong pusher and good long range support. I love how I can build him as some sort of Minion/Merc master.

I also picked up Tychus with my gold and I'll try him out later.
 
But take a look at how Sylvanas rides.


She's got one foot on the horses back, the other is up and controlling it with her knee, and she looks ready to pounce off that thing and fuck someone up! Badass.
Ranger-General style biatches...
 
Ok, so I'm really clicking with Tychus too. He's goes down pretty fast, but he's an assassin type, so of course he will. I really like his skill set and his laser beam ultimate. He plays a bit more short range than I had expected. I find it difficult to actually mow down anyone who is determined to go away, but in team fight clashes, I rake out the damage like nobody's business. He's also great for taking down structures. It was a good gold purchase.

Speaking of gold purchase, I picked up Illidan too. Maybe @Ravenpoe is a fantastic player because I get mowed down mercilessly as Illidan. I'm still trying to pinpoint his combat flow style. Every time I jump in to make a hit, I lose half my health in less than a second. The times where I feel like I'm pretty guaranteed to make a kill is with the charge ultimate. I actually like like his play style but I clearly need to be more cautious

Also: Thrall wrecks my shit.
 
Ok, so I'm really clicking with Tychus too. He's goes down pretty fast, but he's an assassin type, so of course he will. I really like his skill set and his laser beam ultimate. He plays a bit more short range than I had expected. I find it difficult to actually mow down anyone who is determined to go away, but in team fight clashes, I rake out the damage like nobody's business. He's also great for taking down structures. It was a good gold purchase.

Speaking of gold purchase, I picked up Illidan too. Maybe @Ravenpoe is a fantastic player because I get mowed down mercilessly as Illidan. I'm still trying to pinpoint his combat flow style. Every time I jump in to make a hit, I lose half my health in less than a second. The times where I feel like I'm pretty guaranteed to make a kill is with the charge ultimate. I actually like like his play style but I clearly need to be more cautious

Also: Thrall wrecks my shit.
Illidan takes practice. Your DOTA experience should help to pay off, here. Let's start with a build. Spoiled for length (that's what she said).

Level 1 - take the evasion grants a shield talent. All of the level 1 talents are good for different situations (except for regen master) but as you're learning, you're going to want the extra survivability. Evasion is a key skill for you, and this will not only let you dodge auto attacks (which is evasion's default ability) but will also put a shield on you to help absorb other damage. It doesn't shield for a lot, but as you can pop this several times during a fight, it adds up.

Level 4 - Immolation. This will give you a damaging fire aura for a few seconds every time you use sweeping strike. Sweeping strike is your bread and butter and should be used almost always when off cooldown, so adding extra aoe damage to it is great. This lets you clear waves of minions much faster, gather skulls in the haunted mines, and give passive damage against heroes since you're really good at sticking to them. Easily the best talent of the group at this level.

Level 7 - First aid. There are other options, but you're learning, so you'll want the sustain. You use this -during- a fight. Once you've dropped to about half health, if you plan on staying in the engagement, pop first aid and let it heal you while you're fighting. This combined with your natural health regen on auto attacks can greatly increase your survivability. It's on a relatively low cooldown, too, so you should be able to use it once per teamfight.

Level 10 - Both are good. Metamorphosis is better for team fights. Remember that Meta gives you bonus health for every enemy hero inside the circle when you activate it, this can give you a ton of bonus health. It also increases your attack speed, which also increases your health, because you heal on every auto-attack. The hunt is good for being able to split push and have global map presence. Choose this if you need to be the jungler for your team, as illidan is pretty good at fighting mercs, too. But most times go with metamorphosis.

Level 13 - Giant killer, usually. It's more damage, and more damage is always good. Also helps you melt those pesky diablos or muradins that like to try to peel you off of the enemy squishies. If you feel like you need more survivability, you can also pick up sixth sense, which will make you take 50% reduced damage from enemy ABILITIES while evasion is active. Helpful if an enemy Jaina is ruining your day (though, really, just jump to her and kill her...) but won't help you more against auto-attack damage, so keep that in mind.

level 16 - Stoneskin is a great talent. Gain 30% of your CURRENT MAX HEALTH as shields for 5 seconds. Incredibly powerful synergy with Metamorphosis, which temporarily increases your current max health. Pick this if you've scared the enemy team enough to make them want to focus you down. Blood for Blood is probably a better pick, and definitly what you should take if you feel like you don't need the added survivability. Blood for blood instantly steals 15% of a target enemy's max health and heals you with it, while also slowing their movement speed for 3 seconds. Synergizes well with THE HUNT, as you can dive on top of someone for a stun, and then instantly blood for blood for some pretty good burst. They will not be prepared.

Level 20 - Anything in this tier is good. Bolt of the Storm is OP. It's a blink dagger, you should know how powerful this is. If you feel comfortable without it, nexus blades makes you even more of a killer, and upgrading whatever ultimate you picked up is also a possibility. Upgraded THE HUNT becomes global cast, you can dive on anyone from anywhere. Useful if you're still needing to split away from the team, or diving to objectives, but most times you should probably be with your team anyway. Upgrading Metamorphosis increases the attack speed bonus from 20% to 30%, gives you 50% reduced disable status, and also makes demonic form last forever (you can still recast it on cooldown to try to hit more enemies for better bonus health, or as a short range teleport). By this point, you should have a good feel for which of these you need, and pick accordingly. You really can't pick wrong here.

Playstyle: Illidan is a character who starts off relatively weak, but gets very strong later in the game. Being good with Illidan means learning how to use his Passive. BETRAYER'S THIRST: Auto-attacks heal you (you have built in life steal) -and- lower all of your ability cooldowns per hit. You have no mana, your survivability is purely related to your cooldowns, meaning the more you are auto-attacking, the more often you can sweeping strike, the more often you can cast evasion, and the more often you can use your ultimates. This gives you far more sustain than you might think. It also means you can trade with enemies in lane, and even if they take you down to 50% health, you'll get that back just by attacking their minions.

When laning, you'll want to use your increased mobility to harass the enemy as much as possible. Sweeping Strike (W) is your best attack. Use it whenever possible, as it gives you a nice little dash and, if you hit any enemy hero or minion or merc with that dash, gives you bonus attack for a few seconds on your auto-attacks. Avoid using Dive (Q) unless you need the mobility, it does less damage than sweeping strikes, and you'd do more damage just auto-attacking. Dive is a mobility tool, use it to get behind an enemy to body-block them, or jump over a tower/gate to finish off an enemy, or use it to dive to an enemy minion to get some space away from an enemy hero. When you engage a hero, wait until they actually start to attack you before popping evasion, which will greatly lower the amount of damage you take by dodging all of their auto-attacks. If you can kill them, great, but your goal really is just to push them back so you can dominate the lane.

EVASION WORKS AGAINST TOWER SHOTS. Evasion lasts for 5 seconds, this is enough time to dodge TWO tower shots (or FOUR if both towers in a lane are targeting you). This is great for diving an opponent, you don't have to fear their towers. Just make sure you back up before it wears off.

You basically want to hit and run until mid game, when your damage starts to pick up and you can melt people. Remember that your power comes from two sources. One is constantly attacking, this will give you hp and lower your important cooldowns, which you should be using as often as you can. The other power is body blocking, using your Q to jump over someone and then positioning yourself to block them from moving so that your team can kill them. Between doing this and picking off stragglers, you'll start racking up the kills.
 
The build that Poe posted is really the only viable Illidan build. IMO, that's his only real weakness right now, lack of versatility. I'm never a fan of a hero who I can't have any sort of variation with.

And as Poe stated, Illidan is a body blocking master.
 
Illidan takes practice. Your DOTA experience should help to pay off, here. Let's start with a build. Spoiled for length (that's what she said).

Level 1 - take the evasion grants a shield talent. All of the level 1 talents are good for different situations (except for regen master) but as you're learning, you're going to want the extra survivability. Evasion is a key skill for you, and this will not only let you dodge auto attacks (which is evasion's default ability) but will also put a shield on you to help absorb other damage. It doesn't shield for a lot, but as you can pop this several times during a fight, it adds up.

Level 4 - Immolation. This will give you a damaging fire aura for a few seconds every time you use sweeping strike. Sweeping strike is your bread and butter and should be used almost always when off cooldown, so adding extra aoe damage to it is great. This lets you clear waves of minions much faster, gather skulls in the haunted mines, and give passive damage against heroes since you're really good at sticking to them. Easily the best talent of the group at this level.

Level 7 - First aid. There are other options, but you're learning, so you'll want the sustain. You use this -during- a fight. Once you've dropped to about half health, if you plan on staying in the engagement, pop first aid and let it heal you while you're fighting. This combined with your natural health regen on auto attacks can greatly increase your survivability. It's on a relatively low cooldown, too, so you should be able to use it once per teamfight.

Level 10 - Both are good. Metamorphosis is better for team fights. Remember that Meta gives you bonus health for every enemy hero inside the circle when you activate it, this can give you a ton of bonus health. It also increases your attack speed, which also increases your health, because you heal on every auto-attack. The hunt is good for being able to split push and have global map presence. Choose this if you need to be the jungler for your team, as illidan is pretty good at fighting mercs, too. But most times go with metamorphosis.

Level 13 - Giant killer, usually. It's more damage, and more damage is always good. Also helps you melt those pesky diablos or muradins that like to try to peel you off of the enemy squishies. If you feel like you need more survivability, you can also pick up sixth sense, which will make you take 50% reduced damage from enemy ABILITIES while evasion is active. Helpful if an enemy Jaina is ruining your day (though, really, just jump to her and kill her...) but won't help you more against auto-attack damage, so keep that in mind.

level 16 - Stoneskin is a great talent. Gain 30% of your CURRENT MAX HEALTH as shields for 5 seconds. Incredibly powerful synergy with Metamorphosis, which temporarily increases your current max health. Pick this if you've scared the enemy team enough to make them want to focus you down. Blood for Blood is probably a better pick, and definitly what you should take if you feel like you don't need the added survivability. Blood for blood instantly steals 15% of a target enemy's max health and heals you with it, while also slowing their movement speed for 3 seconds. Synergizes well with THE HUNT, as you can dive on top of someone for a stun, and then instantly blood for blood for some pretty good burst. They will not be prepared.

Level 20 - Anything in this tier is good. Bolt of the Storm is OP. It's a blink dagger, you should know how powerful this is. If you feel comfortable without it, nexus blades makes you even more of a killer, and upgrading whatever ultimate you picked up is also a possibility. Upgraded THE HUNT becomes global cast, you can dive on anyone from anywhere. Useful if you're still needing to split away from the team, or diving to objectives, but most times you should probably be with your team anyway. Upgrading Metamorphosis increases the attack speed bonus from 20% to 30%, gives you 50% reduced disable status, and also makes demonic form last forever (you can still recast it on cooldown to try to hit more enemies for better bonus health, or as a short range teleport). By this point, you should have a good feel for which of these you need, and pick accordingly. You really can't pick wrong here.

Playstyle: Illidan is a character who starts off relatively weak, but gets very strong later in the game. Being good with Illidan means learning how to use his Passive. BETRAYER'S THIRST: Auto-attacks heal you (you have built in life steal) -and- lower all of your ability cooldowns per hit. You have no mana, your survivability is purely related to your cooldowns, meaning the more you are auto-attacking, the more often you can sweeping strike, the more often you can cast evasion, and the more often you can use your ultimates. This gives you far more sustain than you might think. It also means you can trade with enemies in lane, and even if they take you down to 50% health, you'll get that back just by attacking their minions.

When laning, you'll want to use your increased mobility to harass the enemy as much as possible. Sweeping Strike (W) is your best attack. Use it whenever possible, as it gives you a nice little dash and, if you hit any enemy hero or minion or merc with that dash, gives you bonus attack for a few seconds on your auto-attacks. Avoid using Dive (Q) unless you need the mobility, it does less damage than sweeping strikes, and you'd do more damage just auto-attacking. Dive is a mobility tool, use it to get behind an enemy to body-block them, or jump over a tower/gate to finish off an enemy, or use it to dive to an enemy minion to get some space away from an enemy hero. When you engage a hero, wait until they actually start to attack you before popping evasion, which will greatly lower the amount of damage you take by dodging all of their auto-attacks. If you can kill them, great, but your goal really is just to push them back so you can dominate the lane.

EVASION WORKS AGAINST TOWER SHOTS. Evasion lasts for 5 seconds, this is enough time to dodge TWO tower shots (or FOUR if both towers in a lane are targeting you). This is great for diving an opponent, you don't have to fear their towers. Just make sure you back up before it wears off.

You basically want to hit and run until mid game, when your damage starts to pick up and you can melt people. Remember that your power comes from two sources. One is constantly attacking, this will give you hp and lower your important cooldowns, which you should be using as often as you can. The other power is body blocking, using your Q to jump over someone and then positioning yourself to block them from moving so that your team can kill them. Between doing this and picking off stragglers, you'll start racking up the kills.

Wait, evasion lasts for 5 seconds? I could have sworn the tool tip said 2....I think the shadow shield from the talent lasts 5 seconds.
 
Wait, evasion lasts for 5 seconds? I could have sworn the tool tip said 2....I think the shadow shield from the talent lasts 5 seconds.
It might be two, I'm going from memory. It definitely is enough time to block two tower shots if you pop it while the shot is in the air.

And there is room for variation in that build. Many games I'll skip first aid in favor of follow through, or take seasoned marksman or the sweeping strike buff at level one, since I'm comfortable with living dangerous and using positioning, but all of the variations do play pretty much the same. Some of his other options could use buffing or changing to offer more unique variation.
 
It might be two, I'm going from memory. It definitely is enough time to block two tower shots if you pop it while the shot is in the air.

And there is room for variation in that build. Many games I'll skip first aid in favor of follow through, or take seasoned marksman or the sweeping strike buff at level one, since I'm comfortable with living dangerous and using positioning, but all of the variations do play pretty much the same. Some of his other options could use buffing or changing to offer more unique variation.

By the way, your build kicks ass.
 
So I picked up Zagara, and on @Ravenpoe 's advice, I did a full creep build. Holy cow did I feel OP. At the end of the last game, I had more hero damage than the next 3 heroes combined, and died once. This hero just skyrocketed into my most played.
 
So I picked up Zagara, and on @Ravenpoe 's advice, I did a full creep build. Holy cow did I feel OP. At the end of the last game, I had more hero damage than the next 3 heroes combined, and died once. This hero just skyrocketed into my most played.
There are better builds. I first saw the creep build on one of Pallytime's videos, and after trying it thought it was hilarious. It is pretty fun.
 
There are better builds. I first saw the creep build on one of Pallytime's videos, and after trying it thought it was hilarious. It is pretty fun.

I like it because it seriously increases my ability to stay in the fight and get where I need to go.
 
Eh, to be fair I tried Falstad in my literal second hour of playing. Now that I know how the game works, I'd bet id like him better
Fair enough. I didn't like him early in playing either, but his flying mount is just sooo useful. Whenever I play him, I always pick up Epic Mount at 20, which cuts the cast time and the cooldown on flight mode by half.

He just zips everywhere so damn quick.

I like brightwing for the same reason. Instead of a mount, she just teleports to any of her team mates.
 
I think I already mentioned earlier in the thread that Falstad is my favorite assassin. He'll probably be my first or second master skin. The thing is, I think that the paid skin and the master skin should have been swapped. The purchasable armor looks more like other character master skins instead of a stupid mohawk :p
 
I think I already mentioned earlier in the thread that Falstad is my favorite assassin. He'll probably be my first or second master skin. The thing is, I think that the paid skin and the master skin should have been swapped. The purchasable armor looks more like other character master skins instead of a stupid mohawk :p
Hey.. mohawks are a traditional sign of the wildhammer warriors!
 
Seriously, though, which of these looks more like a master skin?

falstad-master.jpg
falstad-storm-lord.jpg
[DOUBLEPOST=1428025265,1428025206][/DOUBLEPOST]The black tint in all his skins, though is super awesome. DARK IRON FALSTAD!!!!
 
Well, my brother has 4 (found out i got the beta when trying to use one), if anyone wants EU ones i could give 2, maybe even more, still need to talk to some people.
 
Anyone else getting teamed up with people that have clearly never played before?

Twice today the Uther clearly had no idea that he could use abilities after being dead... and didn't learn it even after we kept telling him about it (although they might not have spoken english, that's always a problem EU side).
 
(although they might not have spoken english, that's always a problem EU side).
For Mobas it is also a problem on the NA side.


Also Uther is on free week. Any heroes on free week will have a high chance at having someone play them horribly wrong. Uther is probably just more noticeable because his trait is more obvious if he isn't doing something. Reddit was up in arms last week over free Nova week because that is the week where ever match as a Nova on their team, and the team that wins is the team with the less terrible Nova.
 
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