Dan Ryckert will be giving HOTS a shake soon. Let's prime shit up with some simple tips and shit! Yeah!

Dan here's 6 basics to start this off.

• At the start of the game you'll want to hang out in a lane and soak XP. At least one hero needs to be in each lane to get the XP for the entire team. Later on in the game it's better to group up as 5 players for safety and power most of the time.
• When an objective comes up drop what you're doing and go contest it. Objectives are important and it's almost always the right decision to fight over them with everything you got!
• Don't give up when behind, there's an underdog XP bonus for the trailing team and other catch up mechanisms, you can always pull off a comeback if you're able to take a fight. Don't get sloppy when ahead, you can always throw the game by losing fights.
• Play with a friend. It gives you an XP boost! Not only that the game is most fun that way.
• Probably should do some Vs AI to start off with before you get the hang of things. They're pretty easy to destroy consistently and you can get used to working with other humans doing that. It can still be fun because teamwork is fun. Some may disagree with this.
• Try every hero while they're free. That way you can get a handle on what they're capable of which is really useful when fighting with or against them.

There's my quick six pieces of advice. That should just about cover it. I could also talk about how to farm gold properly for heroes but I dunno if he's really interested in going in that deep yet. What advice would you give Dan?

He should just sneak into the enemy base, like Tanya.

@bisonhero: No one told me this was a sneaking mission?!

I'd like to see drew play some with him since he played before and made notes. They could learn together and maybe rope Brad in.

@beefygrandmole: Yeah, Drew and Dan are great together. They should play this together, it'd be great. Also Austin Walker might like the Mecha Tassadar Skin.

@themasterds: @austin_walker Yeah I love how his mount is him just turning into a damn jet and his Archon mode is like an EVA without its armor.

I have no great love of Jets which are also Mechs nor do I play much Tassadar nor do I use any skins but damn was I tempted when that skin went on sale a week or two ago.

@themasterds said:

It was "25% off", which makes you think "oh sweet, now it must be a pittance", except oh wait, the skin costs like $45.

@themasterds: Its a good idea to give a primer to Dan, but he has literally no idea what MOBAs are. If I was giving him tips, I would start with the basics that you think would be common knowledge. Starting at how Dan should not be attacking the enemy players in his lane too much(I would go as far to say he shouldn't attack them at all to begin with). How its important to stay behind creeps so that you arent taking unncessary damage. How getting hit by towers is almost never a good idea and going off and doing you own thing gets you killed every time.

Speaking of getting killed I think its really important for Dan to realize how important not dying is. Just because you have 'infinite lives' doesn't mean you can just lose your health. Its important to understand that every time you die, you're giving the enemy team a huge advantage and a lot of HOTS is hanging back and not engaging the enemy right away, but rather waiting for the right moment.

I like Dan a lot; he's got a great personality and makes us all laugh a lot. But if you don't believe me that Dan will need a ton of lessons before he begins making any progress on this game whatsoever I'll just leave this here for you to watch. Its going to be a long road...

Heroes is absolutely the wrong game for Dan; he hates having to takes his time or wait around, will not be able to resist wailing on enemy heroes, and will despise having to pull back when he overextends (which he will do almost all of the time).

Not to rain on this parade but a MOBA might as well be the exact opposite of everything he likes.

Okay, good idea! More tips for Dan along those lines then.

• While it's best to win a teamfight if you can't it's better to leave a teamfight than to die at a teamfight. In general assassins need to be more careful than warriors since warrior can take a lot of damage and assassins can't.
• Keep an eye on the levels. If the enemy team is level 10 and you're not they have their Heroics and you don't engage. Avoid fights with them until you have your ultimates too.
• All things being equal in a 4 vs 5 one side wins every time. Avoid fights where you're outnumbered. You can stall, buy time and try to hold out against foes carefully or within your defenses but otherwise it's probably best to look to disengage.

I think it's a pretty good idea to research/practice a hero before playing it in PvP. When I started out in HOTS, even as someone who's played MOBAs for years, it was still incredibly beneficial to pull up a guide on HeroesFire and get a feel for the hero (ability ranges and AoE, attack animation, etc) in a practice game. Especially after watching that League video from Game Informer, where Dan obviously knows next to nothing about Renekton and how he works, that seems like something that would be pretty important.

Here's a list of heroes that I think are good choices for beginners, with a brief explanation of each.

• Warriors:
  • Muradin - With Avatar, he is nearly unkillable, meaning that he can play aggressively and be less likely to be punished then other heroes.
  • Arthas - Again, extremely hard to kill with Death Coil and Army of the Dead, and all of his abilities are straightforward to use.
• Assassins:
  • Raynor/Valla - Both of these heroes are fairly similar, in that they can output heavy DPS just standing behind their tanks and right-clicking the enemy team. They also both have decent capability to escape, with Raynor's Penetrating Round and Adrenaline Rush and Valla's Vault.
• Supports:
  • Li Li/Malfurion - Both heroes have really good healing output while being able to play safe behind their team. I actually think Malf would be the best hero for Dan to learn the game on, as it forces him to play more safe and patient then on most other heroes.
  • Uther - Uther's another fairly easy support (although Divine Shield can be hard to use well), with more capability to walk up front and position more aggressively than other supports.
• Specialists:
  • Nazeebo - Nazeebo is a lot like Raynor and Valla, he can just stand behind his team and pump out damage from a safe position.
  • Murky - For the most part, I think Murky is an awful hero to play when you are just starting out. That being said, Murky has a play-style I imagine Dan would be super into (run around the map distracting the other team, being incredibly annoying to deal with, and having it not really matter if you die) that maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to try him out.

I would love a beginners primer to this game as well as I am like Dan. Zero experience with MOBA's and would like to start with HOTS.

@oscar__explosion: +1 to that. I get the basics of this and other mobas (I've got some time logged in DOTA2) but I'm still pretty terrible. I would love to know when best to contest objectives, such as in Blackhearts Bay (should I be going for Merc Camps/Doubloons all the time?)

@encynerate: This is a ridiculous generalization and it will have exceptions. But in general it's best to stick to your team and do what they do, be ready to fight as 5 and take objectives as 5. And then try to sneak in some lane time for exp when you have a few minutes. You'll start getting a feel for when it's safe to ditch your team for a sec with time and experience. Just remember that it's almost always more important to win the big objectives and the big fights, and that's a lot harder if you are just doing your own thing across the map somewhere.

I've been playing this game since the beta and from my experience Blackhearts Bay is the hardest map to figure out. The way i play it is if my hero can take down side camps quickly i will go for them, if not i normally just wait until later in the game when i'm more powerful. I will ignore all the sidecamps/mercs and focus on soaking XP, team fights and chests. Always check the stat screen every couple minutes since it shows how many coins each hero is holding, and by seeing that you can pretty accurately guess when the enemy team is going to try and turn in.

I feel that getting XP is more important than getting the 2 coins from mercs, since turning those in is not guaranteed. Push the lane and if you can kill the camps and be back in time for the next wave then do it, if not wait until you are more powerful.

Someone should just force Dan to go through the tutorials, they're pretty good at covering the basics and mostly assumes you've never played a MOBA before.

Also, I'd be interested in some of those gold farming tips.

Oh, man. Have you listened to the Bombcast? Dan's in! I'm ecstatic.

@themasterds: :O

Dan needs to play Diablo... he'll love it.

What did you monsters done to Dan. He's broadening horizons and exploring new things. This isn't the same Dan who threw out his sour cream macaroni because it's deliciousness challenged his food world view.

@personandstuff: That anecdote really tells you everything you need to know about Dan.

i love how even getting into an accessible game like this these days feels like studying for a doctorate. it discourages just being able to jump in and play and learn as you go and have fun which is what you should be able to. it's almost required of you to be a goddamn expert before even setting foot in an actual multiplayer match (unless you're lucky and you've got buddies who are tolerant of your lack of experience and willing to play the game with you...).

guess i'm getting old, curmudgeonly, or i lack any inherent gaming ability but i just don't feel like i have the time for this shit anymore. and for a while i was leaning strongly towards getting into this for some insane reason. sigh.

@ripelivejam: You can absolutely just jump in. In fact that was like 90% of the Heroes of the Storm player base in alpha/beta. Stuff like people are trying to give advice here can help. But you can just learn on the fly yourself. Mobas are actually inherently accessible at the very basic entry level, it's why it's easy as shit to pick up and get into for young kids who would find themselves at a loss in an RTS. The big knowledge ramp and time investment myth only holds true for the higher levels of play. The better you want to play the more you need to know yes, but none of that is needed to get going. Ans truth be told Heroes of the Storm is even more easy to pick up and harder to fail at.

@ripelivejam: Well, all you really need as a new player is basic stategy tips to begin with which basically come out to "When the map objective is up you should (almost) always fight over it" and "stick together in the late game" and the rest you can play by ear in Heroes.

It's much more accessible than other games, but that doesn't mean you can't learn a lot from others and improve your game dramatically. It's easy to learn, but still difficult to master.

I feel this might be quite accurate.

@groundbeef: he already played a shit ton of diablo on the ps4

@onarum: I mean in this game. I don't know any wrestling fan who doesn't get a kick out of Diablo's overpower slam move. He is a bit weak compared to newer tanks in current meta though, so not exactly new player friendly, but still viable and fun as hell. Plus if Dan already had D3 on PC he would have just gotten Diablo for free in the game.

@ripelivejam: Like they talked about on the podcast, the hook of these kinds of games is the rush you get from winning, so competitive mp really isn't the best place for casual learning. If you just want to kill stuff and/or learn the basic rhythms of a match with zero hostility, play ai. It's still fun and challenging enough to require teamwork to win.

@groundbeef: Oh shit yeah, Diablo's pretty rad. He really suffers if you're not able to get the picks due to enemies with a lot of escapes but man is he fun when you do get picks. I haven't played him in a few months though sadly.

Just played a game with Dan for the QL he said. So glad we won haha...

Played through the games primer tutorials and one online match tonight and I can totally see the appeal of this game, I got 10 kills without dying using Nazeebo and despite losing the match it was a lot of fun. The thing I am struggling with and I know will take a lot of time to internalize is the overhead game as opposed to just the "kill what is in front of you" bit. I have absolutely no idea about the objectives, or little camps of enemies you have to recruit etc. Can anyone point me to a good beginners guide to what I should be looking out for and doing other than just the killing bit?

I thought the title was about Dan starting the Heroes TV show like he has with Star Trek.

@dixavd: lol this occurred to me briefly when I saw the thread title too.

@crocbox: @dixavd: I'm not one to disappoint! Here's your primer for NBC's Heroes!

Stop watching after Season 1.

Okay, you're good to go!

Can't wait for the Quick Look tomorrow. Gonna be great. This is a bit off topic but I'm tired so I'll just say it here. I just finished giving the Wiki Page another Overhaul. Seems all I've done with the Heroes of the Storm wiki page for the last 2 years is overhaul it. This time it's cleaner and tighter I think. Though then I am tired so what do I know. Got it done just in time for the Quick Look. Yay.

@themasterds: Nissan Versa, yatta!

@ewansuttie: Check some of the older threads there's alot of good beginner tips in them. In general though you always go for the objective when it is up (timer shows up above minimap), prioritize team fighting instead of laning past lvl 10, and grab merc camps whenever you feel you can take them down in a reasonable amount of time (either as a team or when you're high enough lvl to do it solo). Beyond that you don't really need a guide, that's the beauty of this game, you don't have to "study" to know what's going on like regular dota.

Depending on how deep down this rabbit hole you wanna go, I recommend:

Hotslogs.com - Great reference for deciding which skills are good when just learning a hero, or just knowing which heroes are strong in current meta (game balance). No fluffy guides, just quick win rate stats (relatively reliable due to the site's popularity in the community).

Into the Nexus Podcast - I assume you like podcasts since we're here, this is the best one I've come across for this game as a casual player.

@ewansuttie: @groundbeef: If you check out ITN make sure to go back to the time around Launch in June. I'm pretty sure they did a basic tips segment around that time. Also check out some of the after-show games. I'm in a good deal of them lately!

@ewansuttie: I'd recommend checking out Squadron's Heroes Academy series -- Pallytime and Hengest, both pretty good players own their own, put together a playlist of the fundamentals of game mechanics. **Even just watching their general quickmatch videos you can learn the general flow of the game and pick up some tips on the way.

There's also a basics guide I found on the /NexusNewbies subreddit, covers general early/mid/late game strategies and map objectives. That sub as a whole is pretty generous with tips and such for people learning the game. I spent a bunch of time there when I was starting in HotS. :)