Early Game Laning - Solo Laning: Who Should 'Solo' and It's Not Just the Specialist

Heroes of the Storm has many different maps to play, and in all of your games you will be playing with a different composition of heroes. This means it's not always obvious which lane you should go to at the start, who should lane where, and if you should switch lanes at any point.

With most maps having 3 lanes and 5 heroes to divide up into these lanes, inevitably one person will have to solo lane. But who should go solo, and which lane should it be?

Currently you may get told in game that the specialist should solo lane. This is not a good generalization to make. A lot of specialist are susceptible to ganks and don't always have the wave clear and self-sustain to make soaking a lane alone for a long time viable or valuable. On most maps, the solo lane should be the lane that's the safest, purely so you are less likely to die and suffer a loss in XP while you're not soaking that lane.

Lanes that are generally accepted as the solo lane on each map are;

'Sky Temple' The bottom lane usually solos to start, because the first two temples spawning are always top and middle. However, it's also a fairly safe lane because to gank that lane you need to run a very long way through where the boss is to get behind the solo laner, which is usually a fairly obvious move. Heroes with a global are great to be bottom lane this map, so you can easily soak that last little bit of XP before coming up to help win a temple fight. It could be the difference between having that level 4 talent for the fight or not.

'Infernal Shrines' The top lane is much better to solo in. It is further away from middle lane than the bottom lane is, making ganking you that little bit harder. There are also less mercenary camps to collect in top lane, so there's less need to have multiple heroes up there so one can sneak off to 'merc'. Dominating a lane that has the potential for early camps is a big bonus if you time a camp at the same time as a shrine spawns.

'Towers of Doom' The top lane is considered better to solo in purely for the fact that the bottom lane is so valuable to have pushed up. Having two mercenary camps in the bottom lane makes it very appealing to put focus into, push it in, and get an advantage. Also you need to cross bottom lane in order to get to an altar spawn point, making it beneficial to have pushed out further to get more vision, where as you will never 'need' to cross over top lane. As top is less important to control, you can happily solo lane up top and just soak the XP.

'Battlefield of Eternity' Both lanes are very equal in this map, as they both have one camp nearby and are a very long way from the other lane. However, soloing may be more advantageous for the bottom lane on the red side, and the top lane for the blue side. With 4 members in the other lane, you can get some early damage on the towers, meaning you can get more value out of a shaman mercenary camp later in the game if you time it when the immortal spawns. The immortals spawn places are random, but if the enemy's immortal spawns close to your 4 man lane, then you can get some earlier damage on it.

'Garden of Terror' It's good to have a solo lane in a lane you do not intend to heavily push with the garden terror. This will greatly depend on your team's strategy and not as much on the formation of the map itself. It is a very large map with a lot of bushes, so my advice is be very careful about ganks. I prefer to solo top as the blue team, and bottom as the red team, as the directions where ganks may come from are slightly more visible and further from bushes.

'Dragon Shire' The top lane is further from middle than bot lane is, so there is a long way to go to get ganked. Also there are fewer mercenary camps so commiting more resources to bottom lane has pushing benefits. In the top lane the opening below is a bush, which means you can't see a gank coming, however it's close to the middle of the lane so rarely can the enemy get between you and your towers.

'Cursed Hollow' Which lane you would want to solo depends greatly on whether your team has the ability to solo merc camps or not. A great strategy for blue side, for example, is to have the solo laner go bottom. You could then have someone solo the giant camp in the top lane at exactly the 2 minute mark when it spawns, like an Illidan, therefore leaving someone to solo in the top lane briefly. By the time the camp is capped, a tribute should have spawned and you can get great pushing power from the giants. Otherwise, this map is so big that you can't get much value from any lane solo soaking, much like Garden of Terror. A different strategy is to commit a lot of members to the lane in which the boss on your side of the map will push so you get more value once you capture that boss.

'Tomb of the Spider Queen' The bottom lane is preferred to solo because the opening from above the lane is in the middle so you cannot have an enemy come from behind you and get between you and the safety of your towers. Also bottom lane is slightly further away from middle lane than top lane. Top lane is vulnerable to ganks because of the lack of walls. Remember, as bottom lane it will likely be your responsibility to stall the enemy turning in at the bottom turn in point.

But who should solo lane? I hear you ask. Well the answer might surprise you.

The requirements for being a good solo laner are not just having the ability to clear a wave of minions quickly. It's also not about being able to do a lot of siege damage to towers.

The main ability you need as a solo laner is to NOT DIE! To be honest this might be your only job. Make sure XP is being soaked in your solo lane and do not die. Do not get ganked and be completely self-sufficient. Getting damage onto the enemy towers in the solo lane is not a huge priorty early game. Being that far forward can leave you open to being ganked, and with only you to soak the XP in that lane, you give up more XP than just the amount you feed for a death. Missing a wave or two of minion XP while you respawn and run back can be a huge difference between which team gets to level 10 earlier.

Heroes that are excellent solo laners currently are;

Zagara: Zagara has it all: wave clear, ability to bully enemy with a Hydralisk, vision with Creep Tumours to avoid ganks, and self-sustain with extra HP regeneration on her level 1 talent. She is the queen of solo laning. Put your Creep Tumours in a bush and your enemy can't use it to surprise you.

Thrall: An Assassin? Thrall has so much self-heal that he can be such a pain to 1v1 in lane early game. He also has kill potential on squishy 1v1 match-ups like Zagara. He will continuously heal himself back up and stay in lane soaking for many, many levels early game. If you get low, just throw your wolf through all 7 of the minions and heal to full.

Sonya: Sonya has decent wave clear and self-heal with her Whirlwind, and she has a life steal talent at level 1. However, depending on your match-up, it may be better to go Block. She's a great solo laner if you are careful but she doesn't always have the ability to kill your enemy, so play it safe and learn your match-ups. Be careful with using your Ancient Spear cooldown, as it's your main threat to enemy heroes.

Chen: Chen is amazing in the solo lane because he does the basics very well; he doesn't die, and he soaks XP. He can also stop the creep wave dead in their tracks and take the damage so that your towers take zero damage. He can bully anyone in a 1v1 early but will rarely get a kill by himself.

Rexxar: If Zagara is the queen, then Rexxar is the king of the solo lane. He can stay at a very safe range while Misha bullies the enemy and you can easily heal her up. Rexxar is so annoying to lane against early game that your opponant might just give up. Careful about ganks though, as he's not very bulky. One strategy might be to body soak with Rexxar and just have Misha scout for ganks coming your way. Remember you don't need to push to solo lane well.

Butcher: Butcher, you say? But I should be ganking! Well, yes, but the greedy playstyle might not be what you want to be doing. Butcher is amazing playing safe in a solo lane. He can heal up in multiple ways and now, in this recent patch, he has great wave clear. When you think about it, shouldn't you spend the early game playing safe and building up your Fresh Meat stacks anyway? Maybe something for all your greedy Butcher players to think about.

Murky: Might be obvious, but Murky is an excellent solo laner. Not just because you can try and get early tower damage though. His out of combat health regen is insane, So, take 10 seconds to soak from a bush and you can be at full health without having to die. To die over and over might not punish you hugely, but to easily clear waves and soak safely makes Murky much more annoying than the suicidal play style I see too often in Hero League.

Illidan: Illidan is surprising good in the solo lane. He brings very little value elsewhere early game and can stay safe and self-heal. Immolation is very good wave clear early game and his mobility makes him safer than most. Just make sure someone takes over your lane soaking when you go for that minute 2 giant camp.

Raynor: OK, he's not the best, but his passive heal means you basically have 2 well taps. He also clears a wave fairly well with an early penetrating round and don't underestimate speeding up the attack speed of your minions in lane.

Xul: Xul is a great solo lane. However, I am of the opinion that he is much more valuable when not solo laning depending on the map and composition. He has amazing wave clear and protection through his bone armor. He can push a lane like nobody else. His skeletons also block skill shots! He's very strong in the solo lane. Only problem is he might be even stronger in a 4-man rotation, which I will write another guide on so stay tuned.

Tassadar: Tassadar is possibly one of the best solo laners, but doesn't do anything special and can usually bring more value somewhere else on the map early game. However, he has great wave clear, great vision from ganks, and one of the best escapes in the game. You can't so wrong with this guy in the solo lane. especially cleaning up Zagara's Creep Tumours. She hates that!

But what about [insert favourite hero you 'ALWAYS' win the solo lane on], he/she's the best!

I hear you. Many heroes can work in many situations. For example, Dehaka and Falstad are amazing in the solo lane. Mostly because they can squeeze out the last remaining minions of XP before going global to a teamfight, getting value in both situations at once. Abathur does something similar but maybe not at minute 1.

Brightwing is excellent in the solo lane for the same reason. In fact, a lot of supports can be amazing solo laners purely because they can stay in lane a long time and don't have to back. However, these heroes can usually be more useful elsewhere in the first couple of minutes in the game.

Having a great solo lane to keep their lane together and get XP in the first few minutes can be very important, especially on maps which can use a 1-4 split, with a 4-man rotation squad, which is a whole other article for another time.

In conclusion, if you draft a good solo laner. volunteer to solo lane in game and don't flame the specialist for not solo laning. It's not 'their job' or 'their lane'. A good solo laner is not in the 'specialist' description. Always remember in Hero League, it's the player, not the draft and if you are the solo laner just make sure you do one thing.

DON'T DIE!

Get your own AKRacing Chair here and support our players, all profit goes towards the teams!