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[Savitar]

My Murky build:

1: Block. Stay alive longer
4: Living The Dream. The longer you live, the cooler you become.
7: Slime Advantage. Bonus Damage!
10: Octograb. The only choice, really.
13: Continuous Slime. More slime, more damage!
16: Blood for Blood. I used to finish fights with this, now I either start fights with it, or help an assassin take down someone with it.
20: ...And a Shark Too! Essential for destroying the souls of other players.

Once you hit 10, you can use Octograb to hold an enemy down so your assassins can nuke it. You can even pull Valla out of her Strafe with it! When you're 20, your killer combo is gonna be W, Q, then R. If your enemy doesn't try to run away after the W and Q, you can Auto Attack, hit Q again, then R. Squishy heroes will go down quickly, and I've taken out an Anub who had around 80% health on my own with the combo.

I bought Murky last week after the price drop, I believe I'll go with your strat later to give him a good go.

 

[dmosher]

Protonium / Milly79, you need to sign up today before 3pm EST for our team on the play ESL site.

I PM'd Milly the link but I don't have your GAF name Proto.

 

[kirblar]

Ah cool. That makes sense. I was wondering whether the damage bonus kicked in on the immortals or not.

I do love scouting drone on that map and Tomb. So handy for the gank squads...

Ah, I didn't think about that. Must test.

 

[super-famicom]

I bought Murky last week after the price drop, I believe I'll go with your strat later to give him a good go.

His guides on HeroesFire have really good advice. I suggest reading some of them.

 

[Samurai G0SU]

My Girl Sylvanas isn't working out as she used to for me

feeling those patch blues right now ....

so close to my first 10 ...

 

[kirblar]

My Girl Sylvanas isn't working out as she used to for me

feeling those patch blues right now ....

so close to my first 10 ...

It's the Arrow/Envenom changes. It's a big amount of burst to lose in team fights, and its made it so you explicitly need to be picking her for her push power on Mines/Queen or doing a TLV/Syl 4 man BS push on CH.

 

[AbundantChoice]

So I thought I was getting the hang of the game, using the double XP to move a bunch of chars past level 5, getting a real feel for the various classes, etc...

... then I tried Brightwing. Huh. What an odd character; seems like your map awareness and team awareness needs to be *very* *very* high to play her effectively. You have to know when to teleport halfway across the map, when it's worth it to trigger blink healing, whether to cast your pixie dust when initiating or retreating, etc.

With that said, i'd pay money for an announcer pack featuring her and all her cute/creepy comments.

 

[Samurai G0SU]

It's the Arrow/Envenom changes. It's a big amount of burst to lose in team fights, and its made it so you explicitly need to be picking her for her push power on Mines/Queen or doing a TLV/Syl 4 man BS push on CH.

Yeah .. i am so sad now. LOVED her Burst. So close to level 10, can't give up

 

[super-famicom]

Just played my first game as Johanna. Holy shit she is good! We were down 4 levels in the midgame, then I just went on a spree and kept pulling in people with Condemn. We ended up making a huge comeback and won with 2 levels ahead. I went 26-4. <3 Johanna!

 

[kirblar]

So I thought I was getting the hang of the game, using the double XP to move a bunch of chars past level 5, getting a real feel for the various classes, etc...

... then I tried Brightwing. Huh. What an odd character; seems like your map awareness and team awareness needs to be *very* *very* high to play her effectively. You have to know when to teleport halfway across the map, when it's worth it to trigger blink healing, whether to cast your pixie dust when initiating or retreating, etc.

With that said, i'd pay money for an announcer pack featuring her and all her cute/creepy comments.

If you pick BW, you need to not go for full 5 v 5 extended engagements- your healing can't keep up anymore. (This is a good thing, balance-wise.) Make sure you have a comp that can walk in and kill someone immediately.

 

[danielcw]

"Why the Sylvanas Patch EXP changes really hurt the game"

[snip]

Possible things to do to help-

1) De-emphasize kill EXP pre-10, re-emphasize PvE EXP at these levels. Make it so the important part of a kill is the denied soak, not the actual death. This allows teams to try and cover by using good rotations. It also re-emphasizes the importance of getting those towers down on your opponent's side.

2) Put some sort of accellerant in place when the first team hits 10 that tries to pull both teams upward at the same rate to reduce the time when one team has ults and the other doesn't.

That was an interesting read.


I can totally see point 1 being an improvement. But wouldn't it raise the snowball effect on maps like Blackheart's Bay, where you get EXP for destroying buildings via objectives. A won teamfight around the coins or the captain would really put a team ahead.

Ont he other hand: if point 1 actually works as intended, then why is there a need for point 2. Isn't the level 1 to 10 phase intended as a race to the ultimate, and to see how your team can manage to close the EXP gap, while avoiding the overpowered enemy team?

 

[kirblar]

The issue right now is that on a map like Tomb, where they decreased minion EXP, an 8-10 gap will go on for a VERY long time. You're likely going to get a wave of spiders dropped on your head, lose all your forts, and you'll probably bleed a few more kills due to the power disparity. 3-4 level leads by the time the 8 team hits 10 are incredibly common.

 

[RumblingRosco]

Hey all, I have a small request from HOTS-GAF. I'm working on compiling a list of abbreviations, acronyms, slang, etc. used when talking about HOTS (in-game or just online discussion). My plan is to compile it into a short and informative YouTube video. I'm still working on the list/overall idea, but I'm wondering, does any such list exist already? I haven't seen it yet, but don't want to waste my time making it if there is already a comprehensive source.

P.S. Solo queue QM as Malfurion went really well. Haven't tried a support in SQ QM in a while, but man, it's not so bad.

 

[Complistic]

was looking through my profile and noticed I am 24 - 4 on haunted mines. 87% win rate on that map.

No idea why. I'm above 50% on everything else too.

 

[Zafir]

I started playing HL a tiny bit again this week due to QM being iffy, and what is it with Nova being picked every damn game. One person even picked her into Tass which is a bit questionable.

Actually even in QM she's picked every damn game.

 

[Alur]

Hey all, I have a small request from HOTS-GAF. I'm working on compiling a list of abbreviations, acronyms, slang, etc. used when talking about HOTS (in-game or just online discussion).

Here's a few. A bunch are from MMOS or forums though:

SQ = solo queue
QM = quick match
coop = versus AI
HL = hero league
DPS = in this case, damage dealer
tank = warriors
healer = one of the "true" support
sup = support
carry = typically an assassin, but could be anyone who could "carry" a team in solo queue
feed = repeatedly dying
RIP = dead
rekt = typically a team wipe or an extremely sweet gank
gg = good game
INC = incoming
b = backing
LFG = looking for group
LFM = looking for more
TIL = today I learned
CC = crowd control
HoT = heal over time
DoT = damage over time
soak = clear your lane for exp
oom = out of mana

 

[Maledict]

was looking through my profile and noticed I am 24 - 4 on haunted mines. 87% win rate on that map.

No idea why. I'm above 50% on everything else too.

Do you play Sylvanas a lot? She's completely broken on that map...

 

[Haly]

soak - sitting in an empty lane with your thumb up your ass to get some of that juicy exp

 

[Savitar]

Games today have been brutal.

Bad teams, and even worse attitude in players.

And Blizz hasn't got the sales up yet.

Last week it was up early for once.

 

[dmosher]

Regular map rotation is back!

 

[jaundicejuice]

I think the problem with Battlefield is you have two objectives in close proximity: defend your immortal and attack the enemy's. The best way to succeed at both of these objectives is to kill the enemy team and have uncontested control over both making the objectives ultimately secondary. The team that out-waits the other can be rewarded for being passive.

I think in order to improve Battlefield they need to just take the very center of the map, where the immortal powers up after you win, make that a large arena for a melee scrum/close ranged projectile fight between the two immortals. Lose a lot of the vision cut off points and force both teams to be in the same spot at the same time. Make attacking and defending the immortals the same objective rather than two seperate ones.

In lieu of armchair re-designing Battlefield or waiting forever for Blizzard to never fix it--they don't seem to fix maps, just iterate on the core idea and make new ones with different problems--Battlefield as-is probably makes having Vision hugely important to quickly picking off a hero and tiling a fight to your advantage. Abilities like Tassadar's Oracle, Brightwing's Peekaboo (best talent in HotS 2015), Tyrande's Shadowstalk, or Rehgar's Farsight could all be game changing in winning a teamfight and then immortal.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

"Why the Sylvanas Patch EXP changes really hurt the game"

The game has become much more snowbally, and it's to the detriment of the game.. Many games prior to this patch felt like basketball games going down to the last minute. But today, on both the casual and pro level, we're seeing so many more games just be one way stomps that are far less fun. The Sylvanas patch EXP changes are what I think are the main culprit - this is why.

That's not what is going on here though - it's that early kills are a literal 1/4 of an EXP bar starting about level 4. It means getting a kill on someone is huge now in the early game- this did not used to be the case. Previously, the big loss in EXP came from the loss of soak and potential tower push. If you had a bad player on your team feeding - it sucked, but you could handle it if you sent someone to the other lane. Now? They actively start punishing your team for bad players feeding, starting very early on. This is really not healthy for the game because it's exacerbating the "you're only as strong as your weakest link" issue that plagues the game.

What it does is make it so that the best thing you can be doing on many maps is ganking the other team repeatedly, building a ~2 level lead, then riding that 2 level lead, because there isn't enough of a multiplier in place for the losing team, should they pick off members of the winning team. If you die to a team 2-3 levels behind, you should be punished for it. Notice how after a team wipe in the late game, the team behind is often still WAY far behind the other team. That massive relative value to those early ganks builds in these enormous cushions that can sustain a lead even through that sort of thing.

This is being exacerbated by another change made in the Sylvanas patch- they lengthened the time you spend 1=10, and lessened the time you spend 10-20. This means that if you get a 2 level lead from 6-8 ganks early on, you are going to have ults while your opponents do not for a much longer period of time than before. You can see this issue on TSQ, where they have intentionally decreased the amount of experience minion waves give, and a 8-10 difference quickly turns into 9.12.

This leads to the big issue in how this affects the "Team Brawler" game on many maps- the map objectives are now becoming secondary in importance to the gank cushion. Tomb is the obvious offender- but Battlefield of Eternity is the biggest. The map objective takes forever to kill. Splt pushing doesn't work well because the map is gigantic and you'll get murdered for it - only Abathur can get away with it. A few in chat were complaining that they can't figure out how to approach the map. I've won almost all of my recent games featuring competent players, with the exception of one, and the solution is simple- abuse the EXP now given for ganking.

This is what I think the optimal strat is for this map.

This is a very unhealthy for the game. The objective is largely irrelevant. The thing the game is telling players is important, is not actually important. The thing that makes this game special and distinct from other entries in the genre is becoming de-emphasized. In this strategy, the opposing team will win the immortal, think they're doing a good job, but really be far behind despite winning it. A similar issue arises in Haunted Mines- a team can get more skulls, have a huge golem, but if they get wiped as they're finishing the boss, the other team instantly gets a full level in EXP, negating most of the work that went into the objective.

These issues really need to be addressed. I get what they were, in theory, trying to do with extending the 1-10 time, but I feel it really worked against what you really want to be doing in the game in a number of ways. I'm not in a position to test this stuff to see its impact, but I think these things are worth trying-

Possible things to do to help-

1) De-emphasize kill EXP pre-10, re-emphasize PvE EXP at these levels. Make it so the important part of a kill is the denied soak, not the actual death. This allows teams to try and cover by using good rotations. It also re-emphasizes the importance of getting those towers down on your opponent's side.

2) Put some sort of accellerant in place when the first team hits 10 that tries to pull both teams upward at the same rate to reduce the time when one team has ults and the other doesn't.

3) Make the exp bonus bigger for kills from more than a level behind. There's already a modifier, but it doesn't seem big enough to account for the big advantage in stats the team ahead has. If you're out of position and get ganked at level 15 and they're level 12, you should be punished by more than a 30% EXP bonus for the kill.

In conclusion- this isn't out of hate or complaining, I just want to be having way more of the down to the buzzer games I had back in beta. Those are the sort of games that make things special - that feeling that everything's on a razor's edge, and one bad call late can blow up your game and lead to "6.5/10, no comeback mechanics!" spam in the chat. The current snowball setup is bad for players, bad for viewers, and ultimately, bad for the game's future. Here's hoping for a better one.

This explains pretty much everything I've felt has been different since the patch, and pretty much why the game is flat out not enjoyable for me right now. The new map is a gank machine not a team battle and this explains why it snowballs so badly, but this also explains the horrible late game throws I've watched like a train wreck and early game insurmountable snowballs on the maps I'm perfectly comfortable with.

I don't think I've won anything but Sky Temple and Curse since the patch. One bad player or even a decent one in the wrong spot right now can cost you a game, even one you've been dominating, which makes pugs intolerable, and has frankly made me realize how much I've probably been carried by better brawl players all the way since alpha. It is actually harder to win with a decent player out of position pushing a lane for 30 seconds right now than it is to have an AI bot faceplanting into teamfights.

The current state of the game renders the flow and down to the wire nature I've enjoyed all this time muted at best and completely gone at worst. It's so unfun I can barely bring myself to care to play enough to get readjusted to it.

I shudder to think how broken Mines is going to be right now, now that it's back.

 

[super-famicom]

Everyone praised King Murky (me) as I led my forces to victory in Dragonshire, while my enemies wailed and gnashed their teeth.

Also, Stitches hooks me->Thanks for putting me in range for Octograb!

 

[Zafir]

Yeah, on second thought, it is much worse for being behind now I've been in HL a bit. HL is terrible at the moment. I'm assuming all the launch players have now got into HL. Between that and the issue of early kills meaning too much, I've witnessed some really quick matches. Not fun honestly.

 

[zoukka]

Haven't seen any change really in hl. And I like the new map it doesn't seem any more inbalanced or snowbally than any other map. Sky temple and mines are wayyyy more snowbally.

 

[RumblingRosco]

Here's a few. A bunch are from MMOS or forums though:

SQ = solo queue
QM = quick match
coop = versus AI
HL = hero league
DPS = in this case, damage dealer
tank = warriors
healer = one of the "true" support
sup = support
carry = typically an assassin, but could be anyone who could "carry" a team in solo queue
feed = repeatedly dying
RIP = dead
rekt = typically a team wipe or an extremely sweet gank
gg = good game
INC = incoming
b = backing
LFG = looking for group
LFM = looking for more
TIL = today I learned
CC = crowd control
HoT = heal over time
DoT = damage over time
soak = clear your lane for exp
oom = out of mana

Thanks! A good place to start for sure.

 

[Zafir]

Haven't seen any change really in hl. And I like the new map it doesn't seem any more inbalanced or snowbally than any other map. Sky temple and mines are wayyyy more snowbally.

Well, I've only tried it today. Maybe it's just a shit night. Happens sometimes.

 

[zoukka]

Well, I've only tried it today. Maybe it's just a shit night. Happens sometimes.

It's way better than mines for many reasons. If you die you can still get quickly to the immortals because they rotate. And if you lose horribly, one immortal alone doesn't do as much as mines golem for example. They clearly learned from what went wrong with mines. You also have a choice either to attack or defend based on your comp. Overall a very good map and doesn't feel overly long like cursed and garden.

 

[InvaderZimmer]

Queued up for HL for the first time in a long time. A valla and butcher being toxic to each other blaming, etc etc. No one notices the Kael that's been afk the whole time... Dat map awareness.

 

[Indignate]

Yeah .. i am so sad now. LOVED her Burst. So close to level 10, can't give up

She's still great don't give up.

 

[Zafir]

It's way better than mines for many reasons. If you die you can still get quickly to the immortals because they rotate. And if you lose horribly, one immortal alone doesn't do as much as mines golem for example. They clearly learned from what went wrong with mines. You also have a choice either to attack or defend based on your comp. Overall a very good map and doesn't feel overly long like cursed and garden.

I'm not on about the new map. It is better than Haunted Mines I'm not even going to deny that. I was referring to the issue of gaining too much XP on early ganks causing steamroll victories in HL. It isn't specific to the new map.

 

[zoukka]

I'm not on about the new map. It is better than Haunted Mines I'm not even going to deny that. I was referring to the issue of gaining too much XP on early ganks causing steamroll victories in HL. It isn't specific to the new map.

Early kills should matter because otherwise all game starts would look the same. Game is forgiving unless you are three levels behind.

 

[Zafir]

Early kills should matter because otherwise all game starts would look the same. Game is forgiving unless you are three levels behind.

I'm not saying they shouldn't matter. At the moment I kind of agree they matter too much. I think kirblar adequately pointed out why, so I don't really feel I need elaborate any more on why I don't think it's a good thing. I'm not entirely sure what the solution is mind you.

 

[zoukka]

I'm not saying they shouldn't matter. At the moment I kind of agree they matter too much. I think kirblar adequately pointed out why, so I don't really feel I need elaborate any more on why I don't think it's a good thing. I'm not entirely sure what the solution is mind you.

In low level games (we all) games tend to be one-sided and it's a rare thing to find two balanced teams that's just an eternal fact in any competitive game.

 

[kirblar]

Here's a common example of the problem. Mines spawn. Both teams get in there. You get two kills on the opposing team at level 3. They retreat and go back to tap the well. You clear the camps, get to the golem, and take it down. You have a ton of skulls. The opposing team arrives just after you killed it, and proceeds to slaughter you since you're all low on HP/mana. They get a full level+ in experience for this.

This is not good gameplay.

 

[Alur]

In low level games (we all) games tend to be one-sided and it's a rare thing to find two balanced teams that's just an eternal fact in any competitive game.

That's sort of how I feel.

There has definitely been a shift. I agree with kirblar on that as well. It certainly hurts more getting ganked early than it used to.

How exacerbated it is I'm not sure because the real culprit seems to be matchmaking more than anything. Even when matchmaking nails matchups in a similar MMR range, it still doesn't take into account how good or bad any of those people are at any hero they might be playing. To me that's the second biggest cause for the snowballing.

The biggest cause for me? Crowd control. It's fucking everywhere. We've taken to running hard CC comps because it simply dominates. It's kind of insane the disparity between heroes with CC and those with none.

Here's a common example of the problem. Mines spawn. Both teams get in there. You get two kills on the opposing team at level 3. You clear it out, get to the golem, and take it down. The opposing team arrives just after you killed it, and proceeds to slaughter you since you're all low on HP/mana. They get a full level+ in experience for this.

This is not good gameplay.

That scenario has existed in mines since they did the merc camp reworks, though. The map is just too small for the short respawn timers. I don't find that particular example evidence of anything except how terrible that map has been forever because that scenario has played out over and over forever.

 

[RumblingRosco]

I'm really not sure I believe in this whole MMR thing, but I just cracked 3400 in QM on HotSLogs. As I've mentioned before, I just play solo queue QM. Pretty fun though seeing that number rise. I basically started at 2800 (after my first 3-4 games) in November and just have had a slow but steady climb since then.

 

[kirblar]

That scenario has existed in mines since they did the merc camp reworks, though. The map is just too small for the short respawn timers. I don't find that particular example evidence of anything except how terrible that map has been forever because that scenario has played out over and over forever.

Oh, sure. I've thought they've needed to start the baseline respawn timer at a higher # count for a long time now due to issues like that on mines/CH. (BW is the biggest offender.) The difference is that now that scenario awards a massive EXP bonus to the opposing team, when previously they got far less of one.

 

[Alur]

I'm really not sure I believe in this whole MMR thing, but I just cracked 3400 in QM on HotSLogs. As I've mentioned before, I just play solo queue QM. Pretty fun though seeing that number rise. I basically started at 2800 (after my first 3-4 games) in November and just have had a slow but steady climb since then.

Looks pretty accurate to me. The heroes you play the most have 60% plus winrate. The ones you suck with you didn't play much. Then there's a few you only played a handful of times and have ridiculous winrates with.

You started out 7-3 in your first ten and then duplicated that to be 14-6 in your first twenty which is all the huge gains you are likely to get. From there it's just about maintaining and naturally you also improved as you play.

You maintained Diamond level even after getting placed there right off the bat...then once you learned what you were doing up, up and up.

I'd say you are probably far better at moba than most of us. You were almost better coming into the game fresh than our group is now (2900-3100), for example.

Pretty damn awesome you did all that solo.

 

[Zafir]

In low level games (we all) games tend to be one-sided and it's a rare thing to find two balanced teams that's just an eternal fact in any competitive game.

That's true. It just seems worse more recently. It's possibly due to the launch as I said before though. I feel in general it's been worse since launch. Maybe only part of the reason who knows.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

The biggest cause for me? Crowd control. It's fucking everywhere. We've taken to running hard CC comps because it simply dominates. It's kind of insane the disparity between heroes with CC and those with none.

This is really apparent as well. You can hang in there on a lot of maps, but if the other team makeup innately has more CC, you start losing every team fight somewhere between 13 and 20.

This used to not be as much of a problem on maps where you could create pressure through split pushing and still be able to deny at least one or two objectives while keeping up in exp, and pull out a win when outmatched mechanically by the other team. This doesn't seem to be anywhere near as viable right now.

 

[Darb]

I'm really not sure I believe in this whole MMR thing, but I just cracked 3400 in QM on HotSLogs. As I've mentioned before, I just play solo queue QM. Pretty fun though seeing that number rise. I basically started at 2800 (after my first 3-4 games) in November and just have had a slow but steady climb since then.

Great job! You are a pretty prolific and successful Abathur player. I'm fearful to use him in solo queue. Can you share your current build or any tips?

 

[Savitar]

Got Azmodan to level 10 and bought his Master skin. Guy looks like a beast. Guessing being a demon helps with that.

Three characters to 10 now and several five plus.

Might not be Yoshi levels of kick ass but not bad.

 

[RumblingRosco]

Looks pretty accurate to me. The heroes you play the most have 60% plus winrate. The ones you suck with you didn't play much. Then there's a few you only played a handful of times and have ridiculous winrates with.

You started out 7-3 in your first ten and then duplicated that to be 14-6 in your first twenty which is all the huge gains you are likely to get. From there it's just about maintaining and naturally you also improved as you play.

You maintained Diamond level even after getting placed there right off the bat...then once you learned what you were doing up, up and up.

I'd say you are probably far better at moba than most of us. You were almost better coming into the game fresh than our group is now (2900-3100), for example.

Pretty damn awesome you did all that solo.

Thanks. Yeah, I basically gravitated towards a few of the heroes I've found the most enjoyable: Abathur, Azmodan, Stitches, and I think I'll be adding Murky and Malfurion to my rotation soon. As I focused on a few Heroes, I just got better and better at them. And, going as solo queue all the time, I think it has almost made me a better player. I basically play each match with the mindset that I need to take charge in regards to pinging/strategy and also expect that my team mates will suck so I should probably be ready to try and cover their asses... And as Abathur, that's actually really easy.

Great job! You are a pretty prolific and successful Abathur player. I'm fearful to use him in solo queue. Can you share your current build or any tips?

I just made an Abathur video on the new battleground(video) a few days ago that has my build in the description. I am on my phone now but when I get home I'll give a more thorough write-up. I'll say this though, Abathur is underrated and has been underrated for a very long time, at least as far as solo queue QM goes. I can't speak about him in regards to high-level competitive play though.

 

[Haly]

3400 Abathur

 

[bizzle]

I doubt that Abathur is underrated. What I find is that there is no in-between. Abathur can be instrumental in winning a game or heavily responsible for losing the match...and the losing Abathurs are much more frequent.

That's why people groan when he gets picked, in my experience. Not because they think he sucks as a character, but rather because the chances of getting a player with excellent map awareness at the helm are exponentially lower than getting a baddie and that spells disaster.

The other part of the problem seems to be that on roughly half the maps you simply need bodies regardless of what the hero is actually doing. Securing a temple or dragon knight requires physical presence, for example, that Abathur can't or won't provide.

 

[Zafir]

Well another problem I find with Abathur is he's fantastic in some compositions, but awful in others.

 

[kirblar]

Well another problem I find with Abathur is he's fantastic in some compositions, but awful in others.

The trick is knowing which heroes you can buff with him (Johanna, Illidan, Butcher, even Valla/Falstad) and which are useless (Jaina/Kael.) You really want to be abusing that auto-attack buff.

 

[Milly79]

Shocked this hasn't been posted for all the Kerrigan lovers.

Just wanted to pop in here and say we hear you on the feedback and have some stuff for her in the works! Should be seeing something relatively soon with an upcoming patch.

Kerrigan mains definitely felt the nerf on Envenom and Blood for Blood, so expect some new talents to play around with. Can't say much more than that, but wanted to keep the future bright for you fine folks.

 

[tylerf]

Love it when someone complains about hero choices but ends up looking foolish. A Sonya ragging on someone who picked Murky for like the first 10 minutes of the game yet we ended up easily winning. Don't know how you can have such a negative attitude before anything bad even happens in game.