Heroes of the Storm: Introduction

Heroes of the Storm is Blizzard's take on the MOBA genre, or "Hero Brawler" as they call it. It has a very big focus on objectives as opposed to kills and lasthitting. The reward for a kill is minimal besides getting the killed hero off the map and there is no reward for lasthitting. This change means that there practically is no laning phase. Teamfights start as soon as the first objective spawns which can be as soon as 2-3 minutes. This also makes sense since the match time in Heroes of the Storm is aimed at 20 minutes as opposed to the hour long games we see in League of Legends.

People who have played Heroes of the Storm claim that it feels more like League of Legends than DotA 2. Heroes of the Storm also uses the brush system from League of Legends as opposed to the trees from DotA 2.

What stands out in comparison to other Mobas?

There is no gold. That means no items, no potions and no wards. Instead of wards there are Watch Towers scattered around the maps, giving vision of the surrounding area. Instead of items there is a trait system that works kind of like a mini skill tree to customize your hero and abilities. An example of this is Stitches, who is a hook type hero (Think Pudge or Blitzcrank) and can either increase the range on his hook or simply increase his HP by 10%. There are also active traits that sort of function as summoner spells.

Instead of standalone towers there are forts. In each fort there are three towers and a keep, in addition to other structures. Each tower can hold a maximum of 20 rounds and regenerates 1 ammo approximately every 10 seconds. The keep can hold a maximum of 40 rounds and also regenerates 1 ammo approximately every 10 seconds. The towers do NOT focus heroes even when the heroes attack enemy heroes under the tower. It will always focus minions first. There is also a wall that only friendly characters can pass through. The wall also blocks projectiles.

Experience is shared, so everyone on the team is the same level. However, it is still important to have a hero in all lanes to maximize experience gain for the entire team.

All basic abilities are unlocked at level 1 and ultimates (called Heroic abilities) are unlocked at level 10. Every hero has two different ultimates to choose from in each game, that can drastically change the playstyle of the hero. Everyone can mount to gain movement speed. It takes approximately 1 second to mount and it gets cancelled if you take damage, attack or cast an ability. This is pretty much going to function as if everyone has boots of mobility.

 

Hero Roles

There are four different hero roles in Heroes of the Storm.

Warrior (Tank/Bruiser)
Assassin (AD Carries seem to go into this category)
Support (Healers and other utility heroes)
Specialist (They're special, ok?)

Warriors focus on being in the middle of the fight, soaking as much damage as possible, while posing a sizeable threat to the enemy damage dealers. Assassins focus on singling out a target and, well, assassinating that target. Assassins often have a lot of mobility to get in and out of fights as opposed to staying in the fight like warriors. It also seems like the AD Carry role is put in this category. Supports focus on supporting their allies with heals, shields and buffs, as well as disrupting the enemies with crowd control. Specialists are... special. Initially Blizzard intended Specialists to be specialized in sieging/pushing lanes but since then they have added other types of Specialists such as Abathur (I might make a seperate article for Abathur later on) who doesn't fight by himself, instead he sits in his base and "infests" an ally, allowing him to cast abilities from that ally. This allows him to effectively be all over the map at all times.

There are no designated junglers in Heroes of the Storm. Instead, the jungle is filled with mercenary camps. These mercenary camps are a team effort to kill early on but they can be soloed in the later stages of the game. Whenever you kill a mercenary camp, the mercenaries join your next minion wave to fight for you.

 

Maps

There are currently four confirmed maps in Heroes of the Storm. Blackheart's Bay, Cursed Hollow, Haunted Mines and Dragon Shire. All these maps play very differently from Summoner's Rift and the map of DotA 2. I intend to further cover all these maps later on as they are too complicated to cover in this article.

 

Monetization and release date

Heroes of the Storm is going to be free to play with monetization assumed to be close to League of Legends. A lot of skins are currently confirmed as well as custom mounts. Diablo riding a unicorn is a thing. There is no confirmed release date. All we know is that the closed beta will start in the first half of 2014. You can currently sign up for the Tech Alpha (US Only) but chances of getting in are very slim. The only way to get in is through Blizzard's official website. Any other "Alpha keys" are fake.