My MOBA background: I'd consider myself a pretty seasoned League of Legends player (don't we all?). I've spent the better part of my gaming time since early 2011 playing League of Legends on a pretty much daily/weekly basis and have learnt all roles at a pretty high standard (I don't play a whole lot of ranked though due to normally playing with 2-3 other people, but I play with and against Platinum/Diamond players regularly). I think overall I have somewhere in the region of 2500-3000 games played.
Just thought i'd share my two cents and first impressions on the aspects of Heroes of the Storm that jumped out at me since curiosity got the better of me and I bought into the beta!
1) Immediately I'm super impressed and I'm surprised how well Blizzard have done. Considering they're up against the most played game on the planet, they couldn't have done a better job. Controlling a hero feels familiar to League but is full of voice, sound effects and art from Blizzard games that is so incredibly endearing - I didn't foresee how enjoyable that aspect would be. If you have any reverence for any of Blizzard's franchises then it's instantly lovable on so many levels.
2) One of the big controversial aspects is the removal of last hitting. A design decision that sounded on paper like it completely dampens the fun of a match's laning phase. In practice, the laning phase is hugely enjoyable and offers a choice to players - do you use your abilities and cooldowns to harass/kill the opponents or try and murder creep waves as fast as possible while saving your cooldowns for objectives? Farming is just as important in Heroes without those kicking-yourself-because-you-missed-that-last-hit feelings. It's a surprisingly welcome change and gives matches a very unique rhythm.
3) Support players got a hell of a good deal in this game. I can't speak for DOTA 2 but i'm sure it's similar to League of Legends: a lot of people are turned off by the support role, which means there are very few support players. This is mainly because in League you have to be very good at playing support to make a difference, which a lot of people don't appreciate. In Heroes, support characters are incredibly valuable right off the bat and feel immediately powerful and fun to play.
4) The removal of item shops and the implementation of a talent system for your character scaling is a really cool difference they've made to the genre. Without the need to go back to base (unless you desperately need to heal) - more time is spent running around out in the field having fun. Being able to spec your hero on the fly and respond to the growing threats of the enemy team is a cool feeling. For example, I was playing as Nova (ranged squishy assassin) and the enemy Zeratul (stealth burst assassin) was targeting me in every fight and killing me very quickly. I chose to spec into the Blink ability when I was at the appropriate level which, although meant locking out some other damage talents meant every fight I could blink away from Zeratul and get help from my team to counter gank him. It's a very satisfying system that makes you think about how the choices you make will affect your contribution to the match.
One of my concerns is whether the maps will stand up to the test of time. They are INCREDIBLY fun to play the first few times you jump into them, but how much fun will they be after 100 games? Only time will tell, I guess......also, the game is hilariously unbalanced at the moment in certain spots but y'know - it's a beta so that's expected.
Overall, I've been waiting for a game that takes League of Legends off my personal throne for a while and this game is an incredibly strong contender.
What are your thoughts? Any questions from anyone who's not in the beta?
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