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Carry from Afar by Solo Laning
Solo laning is an important part of Heroes of the Storm's gameplay. Unlike in other MOBAs, the experience you get from minion waves is shared throughout the entire team and missing some waves can put your whole team in an unfavorable position. This is why during a game, a lot of the time will be dedicated to soaking XP and there is usually at least one lane where a single Hero will stay alone to soak for his team.
What Do You Need to Be a Solo Laner?
A good solo laner has enough waveclear to kill the minion wave pretty fast. This makes AOE damage a good tool for solo laning, however, mages who usually have a lot of AOE damage aren't usually dedicated to solo laning, because they lack survivability. You need a lot of survivability because if you're alone, you're susceptible to getting ganked by the enemy team. Your death would result in some XP for your opponent as well as a loss in XP for your team since you're not soaking the lane anymore.
Heroes who can tank a good amount of damage and/or have some mobility are less susceptible to ganks. This is a reason why some warriors are not main tanks, but off-tanks or bruisers; they can survive a good amount of damage while not being able to tank for their team long enough. Bruisers are optimal for solo laning due to the fact they usually have a gap closer or some mobility to engage in teamfights, which also helps them survive in their lane.
You also need to be able to hold some pressure and scare the enemy off. For example, the enemy team start pushing your lane as 5, you need to hold a little until your team rotates to help you. This is why you need a good damage output, which can also be used to push your lane if the enemy is far enough away so you're not getting ganked.
And last but not least, the best solo laners usually can do camps on their own. However, you can also leave that to your teammates.
Some Good Solo Lane Hero Options:
- Blaze (Good waveclear, survivability, and one mobility tool).
- Leoric (Waveclear, escape, and self heling on enemy).
- Dehaka (Good waveclear, self-healing, control, panic button and global presence).
- Sonya (Good waveclear, strong damage output, easy time with camps and no need for mana).
- Yrel (Good waveclear, almost unkillable)...
- Malthael (Good waveclear, trades the other laners very well, can do camps).
- Junkrat (Safe on soaking, vision tools, escape option, but cannot take a lot of damage).
And many more heroes can solo lane decently.
Team Dignitas' Solo laner, Jonathan 'Wubby' Gunnarsson, recently said "Blaze wins every matchup except against Yrel, and Malthael wins against Yrel."
What Do You Need to Be a GOOD Solo Laner?
Now we have covered the aspects that makes a hero viable for solo laning. But as a player, what do you need to do to hold your lane? The biggest key to this is not a secret, I'll tell you simply: Map Awareness. Yes, that's pretty much it, but that's actually a lot! Being aware of where the enemies are, if you can take a risk or not, if you need to push your lane, switch lanes, go back to your team to help a fight...
I highly recommend watching some streams and pro games to get a better understanding of the game and always try to learn from what you're watching. You'll gain better map awareness, understanding the threat a team represents for the other in various situations, by simply observing games.
The golden rule for map awareness is to watch the map and especially your mini-map. Blizzard made it so you can have global vision of what is going on in the game, so you might as well use it.
We will now examine some situations where you should be able to conclude what you need to do, or not do.
You only see the opposing player on your lane, no enemies on the mini-map.
Stay back, you have no idea where they are. Warn your team that they might go for a gank.
An objective is about to spawn, you just killed a wave.
Go take a camp if you have enough time. (You should practice your timing on camps, whether you're solo laning or not)
You cleared a wave and have nothing to do for 5 seconds.
Rotate to your team if the lane is close enough, you might get a good pick on someone.
There is a lot more scenarios we could imagine, but there is no complete list of all the situations you will have to deal with, so let's keep it short and sum it up.
What Questions Do You Need to Ask Yourself?
1. Where is the enemy?
2. Am I in immediate danger?
3. Can I survive if the enemy I don't see on the map comes for a gank?
4. Do I need to stay in my lane right now?
5. Can I take a camp and is it a good time to take it?
6. Does my team need me somewhere else? (with them?)
7. Do I have something more important than soaking to do?
If you can answer those questions, you have achieved a decent map awareness. Having a better map awareness requires time and learning from your errors.
Some Things to Think About:
You don't need to win your lane! You're here to soak for your team. It's okay if you don't win the lane as long as you get the XP. Taking a camp solo is very good, but if someone can help you speed it up, it's even better!
You can gank people if you quit your lane. It's an option you can go for sometimes, but don't lose too much soak.
If there is an objective, leave your lane unless your team doesn't want to go for the objective. Ignoring an objective is usually not a good idea and your team will not be happy with you, which is not optimal for a team game.
After some time spent solo laning, you'll know a lot of matchups, which is another part of solo laning, but where would be the fun if you had nothing to discover by yourself! Try it out, see what you can do and learn from your mistakes!
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