AKA: the blizzard moba

I have played it on and off for the past few months and it is pretty fun. I think they just sent out a pretty big wave of keys and I have a couple extra to give away if anyone wanted one.

They have a character based on the warcraft 3 abomination (which pudge from dota is also based on) and it has a similar kit to pudge so that is kind of a fun jab at dota.

My most played character is azmodan, I'm halfway to level 10 on him. He's pretty cool.

I've not had the opportunity to play it, but it looks like the only moba I'd actually give a shot. I like the concept of team levels, to avoid a bad start being too penalising, and the shift in focus away from getting the right item combos.

I've played it a bit, and I didn't like it .

It's like any other moba, except the snowball trades taking longer to start for being harder to reverse. The whole team levels thing sounds good....... until you get teammates that are VERY bad at the game.

I also don't like the rate of progression vs other mobas. In terms of actual content accessibility, DOTA 2 > LOL > SMITE > Heroes of the Storm

I've recently gotten really into it.

I never could play DOTA or LOL because of how toxic the community is. But with team leveling I've only had a bare handfull of bad games. It really was a genius move on Blizz's part. That seems to be their specialty, taking a known concept and refining it to something better.

My favorite so far is Vanna just because of how versatile and hard to kill she is thanks to her vault and multishot. There seems to be a severe lack on healers though so unless I can put a regular team together I might main Uther just so I can play a healer that can actually function solo.

I've sunk 2000 hours into league and probably less than 100 hours into hots and i have more of the hots content than i do of the league content in terms of percentage. League has a lot more stuff in it though.

I've only played the game so much, and my view on the right way to play the game shifts every now and then, but I think the team leveling is somewhat of a double edged sword. If you farm experience, essentially ignoring objectives as much as possible while staying near every minion wave until you're two levels up on the opponents, it becomes very hard for them to win a teamfight against you and puts you in a position to snowball for a long time. Hitting 10 when the opponents are still 9 also gives a good opportunity to easily win a fight, pushing you to level 11 and starting the snowball earlier.

There isn't a lot the team that is behind 2 levels can do except defend as well as they can until both teams are level 20+ and the level gap becomes a little less relevant. That's still a better outcome then in a lot of mobas though, which offer no realistic chance of comeback or offer inconsistent chances for comeback that aren't reliant on the behind team's ability to play but more on the ahead team making mistakes. Most games of HotS do reach level 20, so teams always even off by the end-game.

Blizzard's putting in a matchmaking change soon that makes it so teams without a healer won't ever queue into teams with a healer. Lili is my favourite healer for pubs because she can pull off a lot of damage if your team doesn't seem to provide enough and a lot of healing if your team has a competent carry.

Lili is pretty awesome. The fact that she can kick someone's tail while being a cute little panda kid is just icing on the cake.

I agree with about everything you said. Granted HOTS is new while LOL is very entrenched means of course it'll have more content. HOTS will likely grow this way as well as long as it can get a dedicated community in the way that LOL did.

The hot button issue for me is the community. I'm okay with losing a fair fight. The last game I ever did in LoL was in the first five minutes of the game. Someone decided they were going to be team captain and started telling everyone what to do. Someone else on the team decided they didn't want to do that and starting yelling at him. Insert long round of racist and sexist commentary followed by self appointed captain running straight into the opposite team to feed them xp for the rest of the match.

Sadly as bad as this was it was simply the last straw. MOBA's are a lot of fun but they tend to draw an utterly toxic community. I give RIOT a lot of credit for trying to clean this up and I really am rooting for them. But I can't help but wonder if the nature of the game itself draws these kinds of people.

yeah the extent of the negativity that moba players seem to carry with them staggers me. I don't know where it all comes form. I mostly play with full or partial groups so I don't have to experience it that much, but on the occasion where i solo-queue a little and run into that sort of thing it really befuddles me.

I've always treated moba chat as part of the entertainment.

I was just given four keys.

Pretty sure everyone did. The last phase of Blizzard's beta testing is always stress testing. They're trying to ramp up the player queue to see how the servers respond.

Quite badly, if my recent games are any indication.

My point was more that I have keys to give away :v

Finally got around to trying this. Wasn't impressed, and I can't say 25 minute long games are really all that interesting to me.

~SE++

25? huh, that's the top end of what I've seen. Vs. AI is pretty chill and often comes in under 15. Quick Matches do approach 20 more often than not.

--

I'm someone who long avoided MOBAs because of the constant, consistent comments of highly toxic community and severe snowball gameplay. I avoided the hell out of HotS during the beta, and only went into it on launch to get the Graves pet reward for World of Warcraft and get out. Then HotS went and exceeded my expectations on both gameplay and experience. I've got six heroes (five bought with gold and one, Valla, a freebie for owning Diablo 3) and a player level of 40.

I've probably logged the most time (and certainly have logged the most XP) on Nova, but I really enjoy the different gameplay styles of the other heroes I've got -- While Nova is all about perpetrating a pinpoint ambush attack at the exact right moment, Jaina clears areas well and actually ramps up after the first hit, and Valla excels at catching fleeing enemies and ramps up as a fight progresses. Outside the Ranged Assassin set, I've got Sylvanas, who cripples everything (including the automated defenses) and can basically go on commando missions if unopposed; Sonya, who works on a different resource system entirely, and Li Li. Li Li may be my favorite overall, since she can hold her own on par with most other characters, but can dramatically turn team fights around, especially once I reach level 10 and pick up Jug of 1,000 Cups.

And yet this is pretty balanced with the rest -- a level 20 Nova can mow down the majority of an enemy team with opportunistic use of her ability (I've done it) or strike with a massive blast at infinite range, Raynor usually drops a slowly moving zone of highly destructive laser fire, and so on. The heroic abilities are all fun and viscerally satisfying to use, letting everybody pretty much get in a moment of big, stupid Timmy fun. And I kind of like how hilariously swingy the mechanics of each map can be if a team just does them perfectly in spite of being behind on levels. I've been on both sides of a sudden victory by an underleveled team (most often in Blackheart's Bay, I will say) and I've never resented my losses nor felt like I didn't earn my wins.

The best part is you don't have to hear chat from anybody.

I've been playing this a lot, mostly versus AI. The pvp games are very intense but don't make me want to throw a chair at someone when I die repeatedly like some more frustrating games do, so that's a plus. I own 5 heroes and have 20k gold saved up - I find that trying whoever is free to play each week gives good variety to the game.

Man, you must play a lot, because I tried to build up some gold and am finding it a very tedious task. I do wanna buy a few characters so when I go back to the game from time to time I don't have to keep unlocking their talents.

~SE++

daily quests are the key, they work out at 100 gold per game and you can complete multiple quests simultaneously. Playing vs AI makes it even faster even though you only get 10 gold for a win because the games are shorter (9-15 min). The other main source of gold is the 2000 gold you get for reaching certain player levels, and getting 500 gold whenever you get any hero to level 5. Playing with a friend and playing during bonus holidays increases your player and hero XP. Also it depends what heroes you want to buy. Some cost 7k or 10k (the new butcher costs 15) but some only cost 2k or 4k.

If you ever get to player level 25 then all talents are unlocked even for heroes you've never played before. Personally I didn't mind having limited options at first.

There's also a treasure goblin now that sometimes gives you 100 gold at the start of the game.

Was that part of the Eternal Conflict update?

~SE++

Yeah, the treasure goblin was added in Eternal Conflict. It just shows up in the beginning of the match, and you kill it. If it's the first goblin you killed that day, you get 100 gold.

Cute idea, but a little silly.

So, what are the top trending characters right now?

~SE++