Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision

[ChaosOS]

For the record: Halfway through temporal loop you go WQ. Loop lasts 3 seconds, W has a 1.5s delay and then Q has a 1s cast time.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

And if you do manage to hit an Unrevealable character with an AoE, the word "unrevealable" pops up where they are, so you'll know you've found them.

Favorite moment vs. Valeera: when I went Reverse Amp as Lucio, and hit Valeera (who was at low-ish health) with it. Seeing a steady trickle of "Unrevealable" followed by ENEMY HERO SLAIN was very satisfying.

[Gandariel]

Azmodan laser doesn't break channeling if Valeera uses D. You keep hitting an empty spot and getting unrevealable messages :D

[Togath]

So I was on Hanamura, and this happened;

Spoiler: Big-ish

Show

A minion, a single minion, broke off from the group and decided to solo the door.

[Gandariel]

Eh, weird stuff happens.

Probably he was attacking a hero, then that hero left, then it retargeted to the closest enemy, which happens to be the door.

I once read a post about how if you start a game with no other heroes or opponents and do nothing, one team's minions will push and kill the core eventually

[Spore]

For all the newer players: The Welcome Package has been added to the shop and it is a bargain. It is to ease you in to spending money in the game but it's honestly worth the money.

It is however a worse deal than the old package Nexus Bundle or whatever it was called.

[Togath]

Eh, weird stuff happens.

Probably he was attacking a hero, then that hero left, then it retargeted to the closest enemy, which happens to be the door.

I once read a post about how if you start a game with no other heroes or opponents and do nothing, one team's minions will push and kill the core eventually

Iirc, that was true in LoL, so I could imagine it happening here. I know I've seen matches in HotS where 90% of core damage was our little minion guys due to so much team fight focus.

[Keltest]

Iirc, that was true in LoL, so I could imagine it happening here. I know I've seen matches in HotS where 90% of core damage was our little minion guys due to so much team fight focus.

Winions, yo. ive won games almost as often with catapults on the core as I have by heroes killing it.

[Togath]

Hmm... does a higher difficulty AI match give more xp?

[Gandariel]

(In Alarak voice)
How would I know? The mere thought of partaking in such lowly act has never crossed my mind!
There is no glory to be found in battling such inferior foes.

Dang, am I the only one who already has 1600 shards for when his Announcer pack drops?

Also: I might have asked this already, but what is everyone's stance on announcers?
I'm currently using mostly ETC, with Lili and tassadar sometimes.
Worst I've tried is easily the Butcher, as he literally growls in a slightly different tone for everything that happens.
I heard BW and Abathur are good, but I don't think they're worth the 1600

[NeoVid]

I've only gotten three announcers as drops, and I'm saving all my shards to get the Abathur announcer. The ones I happened to get are Sonya, who's decent, Tychus, who's funny in a redneck way, and one legendary: Murky, who can't actually use words, which is hilarious for a while.

[Spore]

Hmm... does a higher difficulty AI match give more xp?

Please don't try to play AI to farm XP. The mode is nice to get to know the game but try to play vs. other players. You shouldn't be getting into a MOBA when you want to play vs. AI.

@ Announcers
Personal favorite so far is Gazlowe:
Playing Gazlowe: "Look at me down there. Hi me. Who's a handsome little guy?"
Player Death: "Remember when you died? Oh yeah, that just happened."
Multikill: "Punch each other. Go nuts, whatever."
Disconnect: "Oh no. Don't. Go." "One of these zeroes is now a robot. So: you know; enjoy that."

But I really want Brightwing and Lili.

[Keltest]

Hmm... does a higher difficulty AI match give more xp?

XP is based on the amount of XP you get in game. A higher level AI doesn't inherently grant more XP, but it does tend to lead to longer games with more forts killed and a higher level, which means more XP.

[GolemsVoice]

(In Alarak voice)
How would I know? The mere thought of partaking in such lowly act has never crossed my mind!
There is no glory to be found in battling such inferior foes.

Dang, am I the only one who already has 1600 shards for when his Announcer pack drops?

Also: I might have asked this already, but what is everyone's stance on announcers?
I'm currently using mostly ETC, with Lili and tassadar sometimes.
Worst I've tried is easily the Butcher, as he literally growls in a slightly different tone for everything that happens.
I heard BW and Abathur are good, but I don't think they're worth the 1600

ETC is cool, he's my usual announcer. Tassadar is nice as well, but the inherent emotionlessness of Protoss voices kind of takes some fun out of it.

[Keltest]

ETC is cool, he's my usual announcer. Tassadar is nice as well, but the inherent emotionlessness of Protoss voices kind of takes some fun out of it.

Its not a protoss thing, Tassadar's VA is just really... really, boring. He sounds like he's phoning it in. Its as bad as Zeratul in the LoV prologue.

[Requizen]

Came to HotS for the Overwatch goodies, stayed because it's actually fun and some of my gaming buddies are really into it now.

Last time I played I remember Diablo being a joke character, now he's just a total beast. Times have really changes in the Heroes world.

[Togath]

XP is based on the amount of XP you get in game. A higher level AI doesn't inherently grant more XP, but it does tend to lead to longer games with more forts killed and a higher level, which means more XP.

Aha~
(and, to be honest, AI is 95% of why I play this game, so it was less "what is the fastest way to xp grind?" and more "do higher difficulties inherently give more?")
I mean, I sometimes hop in to pvp? But it tends to be too competitive for me. Brawls tend to be more fun for me though.

[GolemsVoice]

I still recommend to try it, it really is another game entirely. It really helps to bring a friend along, though, so grab a buddy if you can.

[Gandariel]

Came to HotS for the Overwatch goodies, stayed because it's actually fun and some of my gaming buddies are really into it now.

Last time I played I remember Diablo being a joke character, now he's just a total beast. Times have really changes in the Heroes world.

Yeah, most heroes go through some times of being good/bad/OK, but I'm sure other games do that too.

The thing I'm most happy about is the fact that a surprisingly large part of the cast is playable at pro level (pretty much everyone is viable in casual games)

Reddit often posts recaps of tournament showing which heroes were picked/banned, and it's always a fairly big chunk of the total.
Although the map variety probably factors: Rexxar, for example, is almost never seen, *except* on Braxis, where he's hotly contested

Then again, and this is a point against hots, the map variety means that some heroes will only ever see niche play: in the above example, if they buffed Rexxar, he'd see decent play in most maps and be absurdly broken in Braxis.

[Togath]

Haven't tried other bribe effects... but Murky's at least work on all of the non-boss mercenaries on Hanamura, even the healing pulse and turret ones.
I mean, the turret isn't so hard, but I often struggle to solo the healing pulsers.

[NeoVid]

Please don't try to play AI to farm XP. The mode is nice to get to know the game but try to play vs. other players. You shouldn't be getting into a MOBA when you want to play vs. AI.

AI's good for learning how a character works, but HotS turned out to have the least offensive Quick Matches I've seen yet in a MOBA.

Anyway, there's other MOBAs in the works for players who would like the genre if you weren't forced to PvP.

[ChaosOS]

Haven't tried other bribe effects... but Murky's at least work on all of the non-boss mercenaries on Hanamura, even the healing pulse and turret ones.
I mean, the turret isn't so hard, but I often struggle to solo the healing pulsers.

Yeah, bribe is really strong on Hanamura. My personal favorite is brightwing's because she's generally good with her global.

[Keltest]

Yeah, bribe is really strong on Hanamura. My personal favorite is brightwing's because she's generally good with her global.

Brightwing and Falstad are amazing on Hanamura with their bribes, to the point that if you are the team with first pick in draft and the other team gets either one of them, you have screwed up your draft something big.

[Spore]

AI's good for learning how a character works, but HotS turned out to have the least offensive Quick Matches I've seen yet in a MOBA.

I prefer try mode to get to know a character's skills. But AI mode is just the illusion of a real game. You think certain things or builds work excellently because AI plays inherently different than players. That being said, QM is often chaotic and people will not play smart but chase that 1v5 dream of pentakilling enemies alone.

Basic examples are predicting where to point Malfurions roots to (AI won't avoid things like that) or sieging down a fort. The AI will defend a fort but they struggle with split pushes while a QM team can and will shut down split pushes if you extend too far.

[Keltest]

(AI won't avoid things like that)

Actually, AIs tend to be better at avoiding skillshots with any warning than most players. Its really obnoxious to have your Haymaker interrupted because it has a .5 second windup or whatever it is.

[Togath]

I do also simply prefer AI. I know it's not what everyone plays for. But it's what I play for.

[Gandariel]

Anecdote: I remember playing AI games in Starcraft 1 and being completely unimpressed with stealth units.

I'd send in two Dark templars, attack a unit, and in that exact split second they would get scanned (revealed) by the Terran enemy and killed.

Those units are much better, obviously: not only do they rely on your opponent's reaction time (not trivial,even: Receive attack notification - go look at it - see nothing - have they left? -No, they're invisible - Scan - order army to attack), but they also significantly eat up your opponent's APM, slowing them down in their other tasks.

AIs have an infinite amount of both these resources, so trying to beat them in this way is just a poor strategy. AIs, in general, are beaten by abusing their predictability and "stupidity"

[Spore]

Three candles teasing SOMETHING in the Battlenet Launcher. My three tips:

1) Deckard Cain (3 Candles = Diablo 3, Candles for the scholar monk)
2) Hearthstone's Innkeeper (because the artwork is so damn similar)
3) Warcraft Kobold (u no take candle!)

[Keltest]

Three candles teasing SOMETHING in the Battlenet Launcher. My three tips:

1) Deckard Cain (3 Candles = Diablo 3, Candles for the scholar monk)
2) Hearthstone's Innkeeper (because the artwork is so damn similar)
3) Warcraft Kobold (u no take candle!)

Hmm. That looks like a dungeon of some sort in the background, which makes me think the Kobold and Innkeeper are out.

[Spore]

Hmm. That looks like a dungeon of some sort in the background, which makes me think the Kobold and Innkeeper are out.

I recognize these big iron-cast portals from somewhere. But where...