If you’ve had a chance to play Blizzard’s entry into the now densely populated MOBA genre, Heroes of the Storm, you’ve probably found yourself hitting that wall that everyone hits when they start out in a MOBA: What the hell am I even supposed to do?
Well, the good news is that after having played Heroes of the Storm for a couple of weeks, I’ve gathered enough game knowledge to be of at least some help to newer players and anyone who just doesn’t know about certain smaller details.
The mercenary camps in Heroes of the Storm are essential to in-game success because of their lane-pushing power and siege potential. In particular, the knight/Hard camp is the stronger of the two smaller mercenary camps and can be difficult to take alone early in the game. When fighting the knight camp, it’s important to target the smaller caster-knight in the back of the group because he acts as the healer. Similarly, when an enemy knight camp is pushing against you, killing the caster-knight first makes it easier to kill the group as a whole.
Given the objective-oriented nature of Heroes of the Storm, contesting objectives with the enemy team is an important aspect of ensuring victory. When you notice an enemy hero standing at an objective, whether it’s to turn in doubloons, summon the Dragon Knight, or collect tributes, attacking them will interrupt whatever they are doing. If you notice they are mounting, attacking them will cancel that as well. Although this does become intuitive fairly early in your HoTS experience, knowing how the channeling works can make some of your first games less confusing.
For people who are coming from League of Legends and Dota, it can be difficult to shake the idea that you have to be in a lane for most of the beginning of the game. Because Heroes of the Storm doesn’t have gold or items and the progression is based on team experience, only one person has to be in a lane in order to absorb the XP from the creeps dying. This means that you don’t have to last hit these creeps (unless you choose a talent that makes last-hitting beneficial) and you are often free to roam around the map depending on your role and what you’re comfortable with. At the very beginning of the game, when experience is most easily acquired in-lane, it’s best to have at least one player in every lane but as the game goes on, the team needs to group up for objectives and allow mercenaries to push the lanes.
Objectives in Heroes of the Storm vary from map to map. On the Haunted Mines map, there are two lanes and an underground mine that players travel to at certain points in the game to defeat camps that drop skulls. These skulls will empower either team’s golem depending on how many skulls were collected by the respective teams. Since the golems start out at the bases and walk across the lanes toward the opposite base to later respawn wherever they died, the golems become a problem as the game goes on because they get closer and closer to the enemy base. It stands to reason then, that at the beginning of a game on Haunted Mines, it’s often more beneficial to focus on grabbing more mercenary camps than on empowering the golem because the golem will be likely be defeated before it does any significant damage. It’s important not to completely ignore the mines the first time around, because the enemy’s golem shouldn’t be stronger than yours by too wide a margin, but if it does end up being a bit stronger and your team was able to grab more mercenary camps, then you’re in a good spot.
Whenever you fight one of the larger golem boss monsters or one of the night terrors in the Garden of Terror, you’ll notice that the ground will glow green around them at certain points during the fight. This indicates that the golem/terror is about to use an AOE stun in that area and that you should probably step back unless you want to be stunned for a few seconds.
Heroes of the Storm can be a lot of fun to play, especially since you can see anything from Diablo riding a Unicorn to Uther in full Lumberjack attire. Hopefully you’ve learned something from these tips and if not, chances are you’re a lot better at Heroes than I am.
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