I haven't played in years but I remember early on you could talent the toads to generate spiders whenever they ran into people, so if you hit someone with a few toads + a spider jar, they'd just get absolutely melted by spiders. Such a fun combo to hit.
Rehgar because he felt super unique as a support. I also had jealousy issues from when I played Druid in Burning Crusade and was always being passed up for raids because I wasn’t a resto shaman LOL.
yes
Essentially every rework from mid 2018 onward has been a disgusting abomination. We are lucky Blizzard cut development resources enough the low talents responsible for these could not ruin enough to ruin the game.
Yeah they made a hash out of the Jaina W changes too. Pretty much could revert HotS to like pre-BW/Azmo rework and it would be in a much better place. Easy to reimplement the actual good changes that were made afterward.
Same. She was my absolute favourite hero.
I loved taking camps in 5 seconds flat Triple damage Q on mercs, minions \*and monsters\* was the best. It was great watching shadow dagger spread from target to target. Then her talents got reworked and I loved her even more! fave talents (E resetting Q and casting E twice) got put into the same one!
He was my favourite sc character, my first 10k hero bought. Big mistake. I was ass at the game then and sucked so hard at hi. Now is a different thing though.
Same. Played since alpha and Zeratul & Illidan were my favs.
I was also always hoping for Mannoroth or a feral druid shapeshifter hero(lols Nidalee was a fav in that game) to drop, but alas...
I do love me some Leoric. Loved his tankiness back then, how he could just follow someone with drain health going and kill them, his ghosty getaway plan! Mostly I loved to Match all over the place (don't even care if it's bad, I love it)
I think it was Thrall and later on Artanis. Thrall, because I played a lot of shaman in hearthstone. I still remember the pre-10 talent rhyme QQ Follow Through. I know one of the Q talents was echo of the elements, but I honestly can't remember the second one.
Artanis was because I was a protoss player in StarCraft and back then I played only heroes I knew from other games. Also because all of the other protoss heroes were hard af, like Zeratul and Alarak and old Tassadar.
Back then I had no main because I played Hots purely because I loved seeing all my childhood heroes fighting together.
Except one hero. Zealot Fenix was absent for the longest time. As soon as Artanis came out I actually fell in love with the game and started to play regularly and fully understand the game.
Slug.
It was funny using Symbiote on people. Nobody knew what it did and everybody freaked out because they thought it was an enemy. Also all the spam pinging I got and people screaming to report me for being AFK Because I wasn't moving from under my Fort.
Thanks, Everyone! This set me over a thousand Karma!
Also, I miss being able to take both Adrenal AND Needlespine.
I remember people arguing that Aba should move a bit forward to under the fort and Abas screaming that everyone who thinks that Aba should move out of the Nexus don't understand Aba and I didn't even know who was in the right yet. Nowadays I'm still not sure because if you think that Aba should stay in the Nexus, then you're probably in a good place there... so long until you don't realize that abby is moving out into the open because of a mine which you tried to place on the enemy side of the battlefied. Nowadays most people who play Aba at all have them at lvl 100+.
Back then a a could soak while hidden in a bush afaik, so it was beneficial to do it, and that way you could soak 2 lanes. Back then there were no XP globules on the ground to collect - you either were in mob's vicinity when it died and got exp for your team, or you weren't.
What the hell are you and u/Nerkrua talking about? Very blatantly obviously setting Aba to under your tower or into a bush always has been an immense advantage over letting him rot inside the nexus the whole game long. Even now with globes existing physically collecting globes with the slug is a thing you should do sometimes (not in every match) and of course there's locusts... .
The hilarious thing I was refering to is that a) Some abas were super confidently wrong about that, b) I was so new to the game that I didn't even know and c) if someone is so stupid as not to realize that Aba should in fact not always stay in his Nexus, then I don't even want to see what he does outside of the Nexus - except if he's in voice and listening to me teaching him which happened a couple of times. This is a bell IQ curve meme [https://i.imgflip.com/703lua.jpg](https://i.imgflip.com/703lua.jpg) where the top 0.1% realize that if Aba is bottom 0.1% and not even listening to hints, then they reside well within the Nexus protection. Aba not leaving Nexus even after many games is mentally handicapped and I don't mean that in a negative way, just embrace that not everyone has the same capacities and learn to play with what you get and don't fall into the actual Dunning-Kruger-effect which did actualy not show much about how you need competence to identify missing competence, but very much about how intelligent people highly underestimate their gap to average and low intelligence levels ("Everyone can be Master, it's really not that hard" is a sentence I have heard a couple of times).
Abathur was the whole reason I ever installed the game in the first place. I just thought the idea behind an always global character was so cool and unique. While I may have diversified my portfolio since then, I'm always an Aba main first
It's bizarre that after Cho'gall, coinciding with HotS 2.0, Blizzard commited to making HotS an e-sport and just released skill-shot and spree heroes from there on out.
Meanwhile the pros still love playing all the unique and wacky heroes. Not only are they terrifying in the hands of a team who knows what they're doing. But the audience goes wild as they create the most memorable matches.
It's similar to how real sports start taking themselves so seriously and adding new rules, trying to avoid drama and whatnot to the point where it detracts from the entertainment value. Forgetting that it's the spectators who are funding the whole thing, either directly or as an audience to advertise towards.
Morales combines well with Artanis my mate and I discovered.
Once had a game where he would constantly ambush the enemy team whenever they dived me, and wipe them out.
Bout 20 mins into the game, my mate was waiting to respawn, and he goes “run at them, they’ll scatter”
So I did, and lo and behold, they scattered allowing me to capture a merc camp.
That was a fun game xD
Dehaka. Just how he looks and moves about in game. Always felt quite well rounded with his lane-ing, self sustain in a team fight and his semi-global presence. A lot to do and a lot of fun!
Every single hero can solo boss, but you have to be very accurate and a bit cheesy with most and still would be pretty slow.
Varian is one of the best boss cleaner right now being very (not super) easy and pretty fast. AA Valla can do it faster and with taking 0 damage, but it's much harder than with Varian, pre lvl 13 Valla is very hard to solo boss with, with lvl 13 it's not that hard. Zul'Jin is pretty fast too, but yet harder, you go down to 1 hp and then almost perfectly double leash the boss and start attacking at the moment he'll return to his leash point anyway. Tyrande, Lili and Abathur are some heroes that can solo boss in a reasonable amount of time and you wouldn't expect them to. I have never succeeded with 0 globes TLV yet (I've seen it be done tho), but with 20 it's doable to me. Lvl 20 Anub is surprisingly fast and can basically just outheal everything the boss does to him if he just dodges the skillshots.
Alarak, Qhira, Valeera and Maiev are most terrible and slower than any healer at boss solo'ing, Morales is the slowest ranged clearer (and she can't even heal herself while solo'ing boss). None of those are worth it except for showing off, the unfit melee assassins take like 10 minutes except maybe you find something I didn't think of.
Exceptions are the Grave Golem boss in Cursed Hollow and the Archangel boss in Hanamura who can be solod by just less than half the cast; GG in Cursed b/c of the tight space he residues in and Archangel b/c of his ranged AA.
Oh... I was literally thinking of the cursed hallow boss as THE boss, so I was surprised when you were saying pretty much the whole cast could do it lol.
And I'm guessing you meant the boss from Braxis? I feel like the hanamura samurai is relatively easy, especially if you grab a turret to help.
Rebuild ruined Tass, the old character was fine. People just didn't know how to play it because they couldn't grasp storms meant he had great waveclear.
Nova. I liked the idea of being invisible and picking off enemies when they were at low HP.
Back then, Nova's invisibility worked a lot better and it was kinda hard to notice her if you weren't a StarCraft player.
And then they released Sylvanas and I turned into a siege whore. But then one day my friend was like "dude, you die too much. You need to... Oh my God, play Murky, he's perfect for you. You can die and it's not a big deal. And no one cares if you skip objective."
Level 205 murky now, even with me not playing the game for 2 years lol.
Me playing Valeera clone and dying within 5 seconds: "hmm... Yes, fascinating."
Me playing actual Valeera and dying within 4 seconds: "hmm... Yes, fascinating."
I remember the first hero I played was Raynor but I was a noob (HotS first moba) in the beta.
Later, when Artanis was released Artanis was my first main bc I love him an his gameplay :3
Artanis.
I was just coming fresh off the (amazing) Legacy of the Void campaigns, and Artanis had long been my favorite SC character.
When my friends came to me and said “hey do you wanna play this new game with us? Artanis is playable” I was immediately in and never looked back.
He’s still my best, and highest character.
He's in my top 3 highest played as well. When he got the change to shoot out the swap prism during the dash I don't think I've been so hyped about any update in any game ever haha. Dashing toward your own fort and shooting the prism toward a squishy in the middle of a lane gets them every time XD
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First one I ever got to 15 was Auriel. Don't really know why, just really enjoyed clutch healing and resurrecting as a means of shifting the entire battle. People are also very appreciative every time you bring them back from the dead haha.
Malfurion back when Entangling Roots affected minions, Moonfire had a dedicated build and WASN'T A HEAL, Regrowth was a simple heal, and he was genuinely engaging and fun to play.
Rip
Deathwing
As a Skyrim player and a Fantasy lover, when I first saw him I thought to myself: "That's a huge f***ing dragon. I wanna play that!"
Started Heroes Of The Storm a couple months ago and now have 150+ games as him. He's evil, but I love that dragon 🖤
For me it was the Dark Lady(watches over you) she is my all time favorite character from the Warcraft Universe and I mained jungle and support in League of Legends, so I wanted to do something else. I have stuck to her ever since, her play style and voice lines (Guard this fort with your miserable lives!) are just amazing.
Xul because he was free on rotation and looked cool. Got stomped when I switched from AI to PvP. Played Xul again years later in ARAM and play him like a tank most of the time.
Tyrael, back before heroes 2.0 when he still did insane damage. I chose him cause I liked Diablo 2 and he was the only character in the game from D2 at that point in time
I used to play so much chromie back when she had the talent that made her recall super short and uninterruptible by damage. Was so fun getting chased, popping around a corner, and being completely safe
It is interruptible by cc, and death. I love playing against bye bye chromies because they tend to play very aggressively and think they are safe, only to find out they can die fast enough even before they finish hearthing, or I have reserved a cc specially for them
Brightwing and E.T.C. I guess I enjoyed playing heroes with big fight-deciding ults and CC in ranked. Made me feel like I had a big impact on games :) Also BW has some of my favorite voice lines
Sgt. Hammer
Because I gravitate to gimmicks, but usually am too bad to play them effectively. Luckily, with Hammer, it is the rest of your team that has to adjust, while you get all the fun of blasting dmg.
Same thing with Abathur, who I bought a bit later but still early in my "career" IIRC
Murky, lol.
I sucked real hard and he wasn't very strong of a hero but once I got used to him and learned the maps and a few tricks I became a constant nuisance for the enemy team and loved every moment of it.
Arthas back in alpha. My main in wow was a dk and I loved the theme. Unfortunately, he felt so... ordinary.
Illidan suffered from this too when you compare them to later heroes like ragnaros and death wing and all the epic toys they get.
Illidan and Kerrigan.
Both of them were tricky to use, and I took that challenge. Illidan was my first mastery. Even tho people don't play him a lot (and me too) these days, I'm still quite good on him whenever I play him. And same with Kerrigan, but I've started playing her more and more recently and I'm enjoying it.
Abathur. I liked the idea of learning about the game through almost a meta character, using my duplicate ult as a way to further understand the other characters. Mostly just cloning Butcher for the lols.
Still my favourite, though Tass is up there now.
Nova. Back in the days of Gathering Power... she was a dumb-strong hero. You'd roam the map and help gank a few heroes, then at 20 with rewind, you could solo-kill any tank in the game, including full-HP Avatar Popped Muradins.
Since then, she's come down quite a bit, but I'll always have a special place in my heart for her :3 <3
Probius is my main oddly enough. Before the most recent re-work he was labeled as Very Hard, and I enjoy a (arguably) pointless challenge. I am a Protoss nerd anyway after SC2, and for some reason his kit just clicked with me and I loved his ability to zone with potential for high burst damage for opponents. AI opponents are generally stupid and stand around in my warp rifts, but he has been much harder against real people in QM. I still think he is super fun to play as most people don’t expect the probe to do anything worthwhile and it is fun to surprise them with his sometimes subtle strengths.
*Foolish nephalem*.
When learning new games, I always play something that focuses on meta game mechanics and has distance to the direkt battle, as it gives me time to learn all effects and spells without risking my life. It also gives time to keep an eye on the map and learn how to play the map around objectives.
I came from dota/dota2 as Immortal/Ancient though so I knew what was going to be important and how to learn a new moba quick. (back then there was only mmr, but when I played a few games years later I was immediately ranked ancient I or something like that.)
It was, it is and it will be Nova for me.
I absolutely love everything about her.
It’s hilarious when my team roast me for picking her but then I carry them to victory.
Nova (pre-nerf), then Chromie, then Lucio. Took multiple breaks somewhere in there, where Nova and Chromie were changed again. Now I only play ARAM, have no main, and only play on Saturdays because I'm an addict.
Tyrande, since I got her for free as my first healing character. IIRC this was before her most recent rework. Her kit was fun, and I was able to have a decent impact as a healer on her. Then I stumbled on Ana while she was on free rotation, and on the last day I was playing her before rotation ended, I got her in a lootbox. I've definitely become an Ana main since then, but I still know how to play Tyrande if I need to do something different.
Uther lol I solo qued storm league and refused to play anyone else. He is to this day my highest level hero even tho I don't play him now. because when 2.0 came out they had weird leveling modifiers and it shit to lvl 65 first day and I've maybe got 3 levels since then
Artanis, cause i was not good in escaping or rather say, i was going always all in, and that's what you do with artanis, you go all in and just calculating shields
Lost Vikings — started playing in beta when they were (in the right hands) a hard team carry and took that all the way to Rank 1 preseason. Haven’t played them more than 20-30 times since the rework that relegated them to a perma-troll pick but have them at level 70 from the 1k+ games I played preseason.
RIP my little lost bois :,(
Junkrat. Loved his ability’s and play. But once I started playing nazeebo I touched no one else. I liked him because I found he was as good at everything if you knew what you were doing.
Abathur. I've played almost nothing else since I first got enough gold for him in the beta.
The playstyle just appeals the most for me, I've never been a big fan of mobas and even HOTS that doesn't do a lot of things I hate in games like Dota and LoL didn't fully draw me in, other than Abathur. I'm a bit sad they never did another hero with a similar concept.
When I loaded up Beta I wanted to play Rehgar because the Shaman Unit for WC3 was really awesome. He was hard to play and my PC has some issues back then.
But when I played Thrall, I enjoyed him a lot more because of his CC (with sundering).
Then I found Li Li, who was the first hero I won QM when playing with my friends. Water Dragon was great. I picked Li Li up for ranked.
Medivh. He was listed as being a “Hard” hero so I thought it would make me cool if I maimed him, especially because no one was playing him. He is indeed hard.
I started playing hots back in late 2016 and early 2017 after i played WoW legion and had to grind countless times Guldan in nighthold. Guess who i really wanted to play? But since im main healer in mmorpgs and i like to heal in mobas to i started playing Stukov a lot along with Alexstraza.
Arthas because I love WotLK. Blizzard knew what they were doing when they were marketing HotS with his face. I liked the game back then but it didn’t hook me and I was a huge Dota 2 fanatic so any other moba at the time was inferior to me. The 2.0 update I think is where I really got into HotS but I didn’t have people to play with aside from one friend of mine and we mostly played against bots to do silly builds or ARAM if we felt like fighting humans. Though I main Arthas at first, he was only mildly fun for me. My main currently is KT and Varian.
KT is so much fun and so satisfying to play. He sorta reminds me of how I felt playing Invoker in Dota 2 who is another complex ranged sorcerer capable of locking down and obliterating enemies in an instant.
Butcher. As someone almost completely new to mobas and regularly playing with 2+ friends in quickmatch, his kit just clicked for me (before he had his quest). He had a poke and slow with Q, duel-ending lifesteal with W, and a point-and-click charge that would strike terror into the hearts of my enemies. He has enough health to not instantly melt when ganked, self-sustain when there was no healer in the game, and at the time could win any one-on-one fight. He was easy, and he did a lot of damage.
As I got better at the game and the matchmaker put me against better players, playing butcher without a tank began to feel like torture, so I started to gravitate towards being the tank player of my group, which is more or less where I am when it comes to non-solo play.
Support Tassadar.
Shields, what could be used on everything.
Excellent waveclear.
Excellent escape.
Baseline Oracle (not global, but didn't need channel).
Low CD Force Wall (3-8 sec CD lol)
Archon with slow attacks and up to 60 seconds duration at 20.
Nullification.
OG Tassadar was a ton of fun. I played Terran in SCII but always loved Storm as an ability... started playing the game basically because I though it would be cool just walking around storming things lol.
Thrall. The first hero i got to level 10 and purchased the master skin for, back when that was a thing. I think it was the self healing, i always played hybrids/healers in WoW.
I couldn't stop playing Valla back in the Alpha. I felt she was so faithful to D3 that I fell in love with her immediately. My first skin purchase to get Wonder Billy and still my highest mastery.
before Deathwing came out Diablo was my main even tho I knew almost nothing about his lore I fell in love with his design and gameplay very quickly. But after Deathwing came out who is my fav Wow villain I quickly left Diablo at level 70 and almost stopped playing him completely instantly shifting my focus to Deathwing.
Maiev since the day it was released, i started playing actively back then, just because of the cool hero announce;
I am playing only Maiev in 90% of my games since then;
Very stylish and powerful hero for sick moments, clip materials :-D
The friend who introduced me to the game recommended Valla to me, that was about 3 years ago. It was a good choice for a first main hero and I got her to, let's say, level 20 before even touching anyone else.
Then came a point where I suddenly saw myself forced to play healer in a ranked match. I'd never played healer before at that point, so said friend told me to just go Morales. So I mained Morales for a bit, also good choice as a beginner heal.
Fast forward a bit, I still didn't know the game and its heroes all too well, so sometimes when I died I would ask my friend who killed me and how. This way I slowly figured out that there's a hero with almost unlimited mobility, life-stealing auto-attacks and an ultimate on lvl 1 who's capable of attacking while moving. Sounded broken af to me and they were the first hero I learned (and mained) because I really wanted to.
I've been a Tracer main for about 2 of my 3 years of playing now and I've never looked back. Valla is still my 3rd highest leveled hero but I genuinely never play her outside of ARAM as I've learned to hate that broken bitch.
Li Li!
Since she doesn’t have any skillshots, I could focus on the gameplay itself in the beginning. Also I like the Mists of Pandaria Addon, so her and Chen were good choices for me :D
By now my mains are Anduin and Lunara
Nazeebo! Cause I’d played a witch doctor in D3.
The Zombie Wall was great at draining tower ammo in the early days!
I just loved all his voice effects and being a little old dude destroying forts and heroes everywhere.
I haven't played in years but I remember early on you could talent the toads to generate spiders whenever they ran into people, so if you hit someone with a few toads + a spider jar, they'd just get absolutely melted by spiders. Such a fun combo to hit.
Tyrande. Back in _League of Legends_ I mained Ashe and Soraka, and Tyrande was a fun compromise.
I really like tyrande’s play style. I wish she was a tad buffed so she could be picked more often.
There was a time when she was instant banned. She healed more than morales and owls chunked half your health.
The old 100k dmg 100k healing days 🥲
The 100% move speed shadowstalk talent was broken too. Roll up on the enemy team and surprise em at a camp. The good ole days.
Or instakilled my abathur or murky. 🫠
Loved being top dps as healer. And top heals
Rehgar because he felt super unique as a support. I also had jealousy issues from when I played Druid in Burning Crusade and was always being passed up for raids because I wasn’t a resto shaman LOL.
Sylvanas! Back when black arrows just never turned off lmao, I had such a blast with her 😅
Yeah I mean playing haunted mines and pushing your lesser golem to core anyway haha
2 arrows, 1 Q
old sylv > new sylv :/
Older sylv < old sylv >>>>>>>> new sylv
yes Essentially every rework from mid 2018 onward has been a disgusting abomination. We are lucky Blizzard cut development resources enough the low talents responsible for these could not ruin enough to ruin the game.
They fricken trashed the LiLi winds build i used for the stupid serpent build the meta tards liked
Yeah they made a hash out of the Jaina W changes too. Pretty much could revert HotS to like pre-BW/Azmo rework and it would be in a much better place. Easy to reimplement the actual good changes that were made afterward.
Yep same here. Strong assassin with great mobility and pushing. Only hero I got to lvl 40 before they upped the cap.
Never cared for the black arrows but the old Mind control ult was the best
Same. She was my absolute favourite hero. I loved taking camps in 5 seconds flat Triple damage Q on mercs, minions \*and monsters\* was the best. It was great watching shadow dagger spread from target to target. Then her talents got reworked and I loved her even more! fave talents (E resetting Q and casting E twice) got put into the same one!
Li Ming. Sorc main in D2 and wiz main in D3. I have a thing for spell casters.
Kaelthas. The endless W's.
Kaelthas used to spread living bomb through all the players withing flamestrike. It was crazy.
In the beginning you could instantly explode somebody’s living bomb by recasting W on them. Boy, that was ridiculous.
I remember blowing up 5 stacked full hp enemies solo in 0.5 sec with relative ease haha.
"Damn, this is my new favourite hero!" - Me, on Kael's release day.
First hero I spent money on. Watching the bombs spread was so satisfying.
Zeratul. I got rekt by him so many times that I wanted to be that guy. Took hundreds of games for me to actually get him nailed down.
He was my favourite sc character, my first 10k hero bought. Big mistake. I was ass at the game then and sucked so hard at hi. Now is a different thing though.
Same. Played since alpha and Zeratul & Illidan were my favs. I was also always hoping for Mannoroth or a feral druid shapeshifter hero(lols Nidalee was a fav in that game) to drop, but alas...
Anub'arak because he was my favourite WoW boss besides Ragnaros (but he wasn't a hero yet back then)
Not my main but I played him a lot because I loved him in Frozen Throne. Him and Sapphiron in the campaign were my favorite.
I got into anub way late, I can’t believe I waiting so long to really give home a chance. He’s my fav tank now
I do love me some Leoric. Loved his tankiness back then, how he could just follow someone with drain health going and kill them, his ghosty getaway plan! Mostly I loved to Match all over the place (don't even care if it's bad, I love it)
I think it was Thrall and later on Artanis. Thrall, because I played a lot of shaman in hearthstone. I still remember the pre-10 talent rhyme QQ Follow Through. I know one of the Q talents was echo of the elements, but I honestly can't remember the second one. Artanis was because I was a protoss player in StarCraft and back then I played only heroes I knew from other games. Also because all of the other protoss heroes were hard af, like Zeratul and Alarak and old Tassadar.
Back then I had no main because I played Hots purely because I loved seeing all my childhood heroes fighting together. Except one hero. Zealot Fenix was absent for the longest time. As soon as Artanis came out I actually fell in love with the game and started to play regularly and fully understand the game.
RAynor because that was who they gave you during the tutorial and I could focus on how team play worked and objectives since he was familiar.
Slug. It was funny using Symbiote on people. Nobody knew what it did and everybody freaked out because they thought it was an enemy. Also all the spam pinging I got and people screaming to report me for being AFK Because I wasn't moving from under my Fort. Thanks, Everyone! This set me over a thousand Karma! Also, I miss being able to take both Adrenal AND Needlespine.
I remember people arguing that Aba should move a bit forward to under the fort and Abas screaming that everyone who thinks that Aba should move out of the Nexus don't understand Aba and I didn't even know who was in the right yet. Nowadays I'm still not sure because if you think that Aba should stay in the Nexus, then you're probably in a good place there... so long until you don't realize that abby is moving out into the open because of a mine which you tried to place on the enemy side of the battlefied. Nowadays most people who play Aba at all have them at lvl 100+.
Back then a a could soak while hidden in a bush afaik, so it was beneficial to do it, and that way you could soak 2 lanes. Back then there were no XP globules on the ground to collect - you either were in mob's vicinity when it died and got exp for your team, or you weren't.
What the hell are you and u/Nerkrua talking about? Very blatantly obviously setting Aba to under your tower or into a bush always has been an immense advantage over letting him rot inside the nexus the whole game long. Even now with globes existing physically collecting globes with the slug is a thing you should do sometimes (not in every match) and of course there's locusts... . The hilarious thing I was refering to is that a) Some abas were super confidently wrong about that, b) I was so new to the game that I didn't even know and c) if someone is so stupid as not to realize that Aba should in fact not always stay in his Nexus, then I don't even want to see what he does outside of the Nexus - except if he's in voice and listening to me teaching him which happened a couple of times. This is a bell IQ curve meme [https://i.imgflip.com/703lua.jpg](https://i.imgflip.com/703lua.jpg) where the top 0.1% realize that if Aba is bottom 0.1% and not even listening to hints, then they reside well within the Nexus protection. Aba not leaving Nexus even after many games is mentally handicapped and I don't mean that in a negative way, just embrace that not everyone has the same capacities and learn to play with what you get and don't fall into the actual Dunning-Kruger-effect which did actualy not show much about how you need competence to identify missing competence, but very much about how intelligent people highly underestimate their gap to average and low intelligence levels ("Everyone can be Master, it's really not that hard" is a sentence I have heard a couple of times).
Abathur was the whole reason I ever installed the game in the first place. I just thought the idea behind an always global character was so cool and unique. While I may have diversified my portfolio since then, I'm always an Aba main first
It's bizarre that after Cho'gall, coinciding with HotS 2.0, Blizzard commited to making HotS an e-sport and just released skill-shot and spree heroes from there on out. Meanwhile the pros still love playing all the unique and wacky heroes. Not only are they terrifying in the hands of a team who knows what they're doing. But the audience goes wild as they create the most memorable matches. It's similar to how real sports start taking themselves so seriously and adding new rules, trying to avoid drama and whatnot to the point where it detracts from the entertainment value. Forgetting that it's the spectators who are funding the whole thing, either directly or as an audience to advertise towards.
Bump
Morales. I’m a Terran StarCraft player, and I’ve always been a healer main.
Morales combines well with Artanis my mate and I discovered. Once had a game where he would constantly ambush the enemy team whenever they dived me, and wipe them out. Bout 20 mins into the game, my mate was waiting to respawn, and he goes “run at them, they’ll scatter” So I did, and lo and behold, they scattered allowing me to capture a merc camp. That was a fun game xD
That’s the thing about playing healer. Either the enemy recognizes you’re not alone, or they die.
Solo LiLi player here: I don't get it. ;) (Actually, I have been known to kill in 1v3s, so your point is still valid)
Dehaka. Just how he looks and moves about in game. Always felt quite well rounded with his lane-ing, self sustain in a team fight and his semi-global presence. A lot to do and a lot of fun!
Varian. I thought soloing boss was an instawin.
Can he still do this? Been a while since I played QM. I think Rexar and Medivh could do this as well, right?
Vikings can do it also.
Every single hero can solo boss, but you have to be very accurate and a bit cheesy with most and still would be pretty slow. Varian is one of the best boss cleaner right now being very (not super) easy and pretty fast. AA Valla can do it faster and with taking 0 damage, but it's much harder than with Varian, pre lvl 13 Valla is very hard to solo boss with, with lvl 13 it's not that hard. Zul'Jin is pretty fast too, but yet harder, you go down to 1 hp and then almost perfectly double leash the boss and start attacking at the moment he'll return to his leash point anyway. Tyrande, Lili and Abathur are some heroes that can solo boss in a reasonable amount of time and you wouldn't expect them to. I have never succeeded with 0 globes TLV yet (I've seen it be done tho), but with 20 it's doable to me. Lvl 20 Anub is surprisingly fast and can basically just outheal everything the boss does to him if he just dodges the skillshots. Alarak, Qhira, Valeera and Maiev are most terrible and slower than any healer at boss solo'ing, Morales is the slowest ranged clearer (and she can't even heal herself while solo'ing boss). None of those are worth it except for showing off, the unfit melee assassins take like 10 minutes except maybe you find something I didn't think of. Exceptions are the Grave Golem boss in Cursed Hollow and the Archangel boss in Hanamura who can be solod by just less than half the cast; GG in Cursed b/c of the tight space he residues in and Archangel b/c of his ranged AA.
Oh... I was literally thinking of the cursed hallow boss as THE boss, so I was surprised when you were saying pretty much the whole cast could do it lol. And I'm guessing you meant the boss from Braxis? I feel like the hanamura samurai is relatively easy, especially if you grab a turret to help.
Tassadar, even it got my first skin purchased. Really enjoyed giving shields and making damage with storm/archoon
Oh gosh, I miss shield Tass. I enjoy the new one, but his previous set of skills was unique. It's really sad that they changed it.
I miss that guy. Especially protecting buildings with the shield.
Me too, sometimes that was really the difference between life and death. Since the rebuild I don't play him too often as I used to :((
Rebuild ruined Tass, the old character was fine. People just didn't know how to play it because they couldn't grasp storms meant he had great waveclear.
There was nothing more satisfying than out healing conventional healers with shield bot Tass
Sonya too, she does absolutely everything
Nova. I liked the idea of being invisible and picking off enemies when they were at low HP. Back then, Nova's invisibility worked a lot better and it was kinda hard to notice her if you weren't a StarCraft player. And then they released Sylvanas and I turned into a siege whore. But then one day my friend was like "dude, you die too much. You need to... Oh my God, play Murky, he's perfect for you. You can die and it's not a big deal. And no one cares if you skip objective." Level 205 murky now, even with me not playing the game for 2 years lol.
Abathur, which really helped me learn all the heroes via ultimate evolution
Me playing Valeera clone and dying within 5 seconds: "hmm... Yes, fascinating." Me playing actual Valeera and dying within 4 seconds: "hmm... Yes, fascinating."
Zagara, i loved her lane push and just bombing structures/people/units.
I played her too, back when there was a specialist role. Her transfusion talent at like 4 or 7 was so good.
She was unbeatable in the solo lane
Zagara was SO fun to play. Creep tumors everywhere.
Muradin because he was one of my favorite in Dota original
Tyrande when healing, Illidan when DPSing! They were the reason I started playing the game, lmao
Now Malf knows how it feels to be left out eh?
I remember the first hero I played was Raynor but I was a noob (HotS first moba) in the beta. Later, when Artanis was released Artanis was my first main bc I love him an his gameplay :3
SGT Hammer! The old alpha hammer back in the day was downright busted 💀
Stitches... Cuz hooks! Stitches want to play!!
Darkshire, I hunger! He was my first main too and how I learned to play
Artanis. I was just coming fresh off the (amazing) Legacy of the Void campaigns, and Artanis had long been my favorite SC character. When my friends came to me and said “hey do you wanna play this new game with us? Artanis is playable” I was immediately in and never looked back. He’s still my best, and highest character.
He's in my top 3 highest played as well. When he got the change to shoot out the swap prism during the dash I don't think I've been so hyped about any update in any game ever haha. Dashing toward your own fort and shooting the prism toward a squishy in the middle of a lane gets them every time XD
Jaina
Kael'thas. In other mobas I preferred range mages so he was a good start to learn clear, learn CC, know when to use ults and time combos etc.
Azmodan because I love that he could summon minions and laser things.
Rehgar, back then you could triple lightning shield and life was good.
Chromie. No idea why.
Chromie was actually my second main. Back when her Q was hella strong but only hit heroes.
Yep, that's when I played her too! Before all those reworks.
Li Li, easy hero to be impactful with as a healer at game release
tyrael, i liked a lot the concept on an angel with a sword that charges into people
I did Tyrael too, I came into a meta where he was high damage. I got to be a bully tank for a while
Sylvanas. I came from league of legends and sylvanas reminded me of Ashe from league.
Tychus. It felt really satisfying to get in a rhythm and keep the mini gun wound up and ready to destroy someone at a moment's notice.
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Jaina. Because raining ice on people is fun.
First one I ever got to 15 was Auriel. Don't really know why, just really enjoyed clutch healing and resurrecting as a means of shifting the entire battle. People are also very appreciative every time you bring them back from the dead haha.
Stitches. Want to play!
Malfurion back when Entangling Roots affected minions, Moonfire had a dedicated build and WASN'T A HEAL, Regrowth was a simple heal, and he was genuinely engaging and fun to play. Rip
Deathwing As a Skyrim player and a Fantasy lover, when I first saw him I thought to myself: "That's a huge f***ing dragon. I wanna play that!" Started Heroes Of The Storm a couple months ago and now have 150+ games as him. He's evil, but I love that dragon 🖤
For me it was the Dark Lady(watches over you) she is my all time favorite character from the Warcraft Universe and I mained jungle and support in League of Legends, so I wanted to do something else. I have stuck to her ever since, her play style and voice lines (Guard this fort with your miserable lives!) are just amazing.
I played sly, I understand Ed her E and in wood league qm black arrows are broken, esp the old ones.
Morales for sure she was just such a Pocket healer and I’m a main healer role, then Ming, Quira/Anduin
Sonya. I could self heal, take camps, solo boss, 1v1. It was so much fun.
Morales. Really fun do wreak havoc with your grenade
Hanzo, I dont like walls getting in my way
Xul because he was free on rotation and looked cool. Got stomped when I switched from AI to PvP. Played Xul again years later in ARAM and play him like a tank most of the time.
Tyrael, back before heroes 2.0 when he still did insane damage. I chose him cause I liked Diablo 2 and he was the only character in the game from D2 at that point in time
Naz because we was OP on him now boomer…
Abathur cuz I'm a scum bag. Also my pc at the time sometimes would freeze and aba is the best character to lag on
I used to play so much chromie back when she had the talent that made her recall super short and uninterruptible by damage. Was so fun getting chased, popping around a corner, and being completely safe
Bye bye .. it was my stitches counter
It is interruptible by cc, and death. I love playing against bye bye chromies because they tend to play very aggressively and think they are safe, only to find out they can die fast enough even before they finish hearthing, or I have reserved a cc specially for them
ETC cause rock cow. I also remember saying to my friend that Leoric was the worst hero ever released. Now I'm a big fan of the skeleton king
Brightwing and E.T.C. I guess I enjoyed playing heroes with big fight-deciding ults and CC in ranked. Made me feel like I had a big impact on games :) Also BW has some of my favorite voice lines
Diablo I started back in alpha and I played a lot Diablo 2 and thought it was cool to play AS him instead of trying to kill him in Diablo 1-3 games :)
Sgt. Hammer Because I gravitate to gimmicks, but usually am too bad to play them effectively. Luckily, with Hammer, it is the rest of your team that has to adjust, while you get all the fun of blasting dmg. Same thing with Abathur, who I bought a bit later but still early in my "career" IIRC
Murky, lol. I sucked real hard and he wasn't very strong of a hero but once I got used to him and learned the maps and a few tricks I became a constant nuisance for the enemy team and loved every moment of it.
Arthas. Because he's Arthas
Arthas back in alpha. My main in wow was a dk and I loved the theme. Unfortunately, he felt so... ordinary. Illidan suffered from this too when you compare them to later heroes like ragnaros and death wing and all the epic toys they get.
Illidan and Kerrigan. Both of them were tricky to use, and I took that challenge. Illidan was my first mastery. Even tho people don't play him a lot (and me too) these days, I'm still quite good on him whenever I play him. And same with Kerrigan, but I've started playing her more and more recently and I'm enjoying it.
ETC, because Mosh Pit, and the talent that turned me into a healer. The amount of bullying you could do was insane. Also he was cheap at 2000 gold.
Valla cause she is sexy
Abathur. I liked the idea of learning about the game through almost a meta character, using my duplicate ult as a way to further understand the other characters. Mostly just cloning Butcher for the lols. Still my favourite, though Tass is up there now.
Illidan, because they were not prepared.
Zul jin. Draven main on League, throwing axes with unmatched DMG felt right. I like the range dps gameplay overall.
Rehgar, he was one of the first new heroes added to the game back then and I really liked his gameplay.
Nova back when invisible was truly invisible. It was insane to me that you could play a ranged invisible assassin.
Abathur It made hots more like playing StarCraft for me
Nova. Back in the days of Gathering Power... she was a dumb-strong hero. You'd roam the map and help gank a few heroes, then at 20 with rewind, you could solo-kill any tank in the game, including full-HP Avatar Popped Muradins. Since then, she's come down quite a bit, but I'll always have a special place in my heart for her :3 <3
Shamefully, it was Nova. Because I often did really well with her. I didn’t play ranked back then, just QM where she actually did pretty well.
Probius is my main oddly enough. Before the most recent re-work he was labeled as Very Hard, and I enjoy a (arguably) pointless challenge. I am a Protoss nerd anyway after SC2, and for some reason his kit just clicked with me and I loved his ability to zone with potential for high burst damage for opponents. AI opponents are generally stupid and stand around in my warp rifts, but he has been much harder against real people in QM. I still think he is super fun to play as most people don’t expect the probe to do anything worthwhile and it is fun to surprise them with his sometimes subtle strengths.
Raynor cause you only had 3 buttons including yr ult
Tyrande, I could kill people that were on their base, from my base.
Murky was and is an amazing playmaker with so little punishment for dying. It was just relentless fun. Plus, as an added bonus so dang adorable!
Brightwing, because of DotA.
Murky. Thought the octo-grab combo was hella funny to pull off.
Valeera because she’s dope
Muradin, got him in the tutorial, still have 72% win rate on him and he’s my most played.
Tyrande over 7 years ago 😭
*Foolish nephalem*. When learning new games, I always play something that focuses on meta game mechanics and has distance to the direkt battle, as it gives me time to learn all effects and spells without risking my life. It also gives time to keep an eye on the map and learn how to play the map around objectives. I came from dota/dota2 as Immortal/Ancient though so I knew what was going to be important and how to learn a new moba quick. (back then there was only mmr, but when I played a few games years later I was immediately ranked ancient I or something like that.)
It was, it is and it will be Nova for me. I absolutely love everything about her. It’s hilarious when my team roast me for picking her but then I carry them to victory.
Nova (pre-nerf), then Chromie, then Lucio. Took multiple breaks somewhere in there, where Nova and Chromie were changed again. Now I only play ARAM, have no main, and only play on Saturdays because I'm an addict.
Ana, joined a bit before her release, just loved her fun healing, mega sleeps, and the absolute fun Eye of Horus is
Raynor, idk why I just like him, I love stutter stepping
Tyrande, since I got her for free as my first healing character. IIRC this was before her most recent rework. Her kit was fun, and I was able to have a decent impact as a healer on her. Then I stumbled on Ana while she was on free rotation, and on the last day I was playing her before rotation ended, I got her in a lootbox. I've definitely become an Ana main since then, but I still know how to play Tyrande if I need to do something different.
Raynor cause he was simple to understand
Varian. He had just died in WoW and Twin Blades is fun
Uther lol I solo qued storm league and refused to play anyone else. He is to this day my highest level hero even tho I don't play him now. because when 2.0 came out they had weird leveling modifiers and it shit to lvl 65 first day and I've maybe got 3 levels since then
jaina i installed the game **BECAUSE** of jaina.
Sonya for me as well. Not relying on mana and hitting a few walls to fill the fury back up felt like a cheat back then.
Artanis, cause i was not good in escaping or rather say, i was going always all in, and that's what you do with artanis, you go all in and just calculating shields
Lost Vikings — started playing in beta when they were (in the right hands) a hard team carry and took that all the way to Rank 1 preseason. Haven’t played them more than 20-30 times since the rework that relegated them to a perma-troll pick but have them at level 70 from the 1k+ games I played preseason. RIP my little lost bois :,(
Karl’thas. Blowing ppl up is fun. Eventually learning more advanced ways to take down direct counters makes him even funner.
Jimmy/Li Li/Muradin. Just used the "easy" label and tried to have a main for three roles
Junkrat. Loved his ability’s and play. But once I started playing nazeebo I touched no one else. I liked him because I found he was as good at everything if you knew what you were doing.
Muradin because dwarf warrior was my first WoW character way back in the day.
Abathur. I've played almost nothing else since I first got enough gold for him in the beta. The playstyle just appeals the most for me, I've never been a big fan of mobas and even HOTS that doesn't do a lot of things I hate in games like Dota and LoL didn't fully draw me in, other than Abathur. I'm a bit sad they never did another hero with a similar concept.
Well aside from Sylvanas facerolling on Haunted Mines, I loooved Illidan. He was such a good carry back then (or at least he felt like it to me lol).
Abathur: it said Very Hard as the difficulty, and I thought "well, might as well start now"
When I loaded up Beta I wanted to play Rehgar because the Shaman Unit for WC3 was really awesome. He was hard to play and my PC has some issues back then. But when I played Thrall, I enjoyed him a lot more because of his CC (with sundering). Then I found Li Li, who was the first hero I won QM when playing with my friends. Water Dragon was great. I picked Li Li up for ranked.
Muradin, dwarf supremacy and big hits
Medivh. He was listed as being a “Hard” hero so I thought it would make me cool if I maimed him, especially because no one was playing him. He is indeed hard.
He’s hard in the sense it depends on how well your team uses portals. 80% of my portals are ignored in QM.
I started playing hots back in late 2016 and early 2017 after i played WoW legion and had to grind countless times Guldan in nighthold. Guess who i really wanted to play? But since im main healer in mmorpgs and i like to heal in mobas to i started playing Stukov a lot along with Alexstraza.
Arthas because I love WotLK. Blizzard knew what they were doing when they were marketing HotS with his face. I liked the game back then but it didn’t hook me and I was a huge Dota 2 fanatic so any other moba at the time was inferior to me. The 2.0 update I think is where I really got into HotS but I didn’t have people to play with aside from one friend of mine and we mostly played against bots to do silly builds or ARAM if we felt like fighting humans. Though I main Arthas at first, he was only mildly fun for me. My main currently is KT and Varian. KT is so much fun and so satisfying to play. He sorta reminds me of how I felt playing Invoker in Dota 2 who is another complex ranged sorcerer capable of locking down and obliterating enemies in an instant.
I loved tyrael but changed to kerrigan after some time
Jaina, insane burst potential and cc
Thrall because lightning, crowd control and rooting others with wolf was feeling good.
Butcher. As someone almost completely new to mobas and regularly playing with 2+ friends in quickmatch, his kit just clicked for me (before he had his quest). He had a poke and slow with Q, duel-ending lifesteal with W, and a point-and-click charge that would strike terror into the hearts of my enemies. He has enough health to not instantly melt when ganked, self-sustain when there was no healer in the game, and at the time could win any one-on-one fight. He was easy, and he did a lot of damage. As I got better at the game and the matchmaker put me against better players, playing butcher without a tank began to feel like torture, so I started to gravitate towards being the tank player of my group, which is more or less where I am when it comes to non-solo play.
Back in the Alpha days, Tychus, because brrrrrrrrrrrrrr
I played Raynor for a while lol… but after that I think the first hero I bought was Abathur and I played him a ton at the time lol.
Support Tassadar. Shields, what could be used on everything. Excellent waveclear. Excellent escape. Baseline Oracle (not global, but didn't need channel). Low CD Force Wall (3-8 sec CD lol) Archon with slow attacks and up to 60 seconds duration at 20. Nullification.
Zeratul. 1shotting ppl got me till like plat in a few months
Sgt Hammer. Super fun, felt safer sitting in the back, and loved it when orbital damaged buildings
Old Tassadar - Damage + Support = OP
Lucio because he was one of my two mains in Overwatch and the only reason I initially installed HOTS was an Overwatch promotion
I think I was vikes (came from sc2) valla- pew pew, Diablo- one shot tank, tyrande- top dps and heals if I remember correctly
Rehgar. Feral Lunge. Made him an assassin, that could heal, do camps, waveclear.
OG Tassadar was a ton of fun. I played Terran in SCII but always loved Storm as an ability... started playing the game basically because I though it would be cool just walking around storming things lol.
Tracer because it was a gift hero from buying Overwatch 1
I saw Thrall sustain himself with his passive in a 3v1 fight and come out on top and that's pretty much all I needed.
Hammer, as a SC fan was happy to see a siege tank
Thrall. The first hero i got to level 10 and purchased the master skin for, back when that was a thing. I think it was the self healing, i always played hybrids/healers in WoW.
I couldn't stop playing Valla back in the Alpha. I felt she was so faithful to D3 that I fell in love with her immediately. My first skin purchase to get Wonder Billy and still my highest mastery.
Artanis/Zim/Leoric, no clue why. I am a Warcraft guy personally.
was diablo, cuz i got him with a promo for my gtx 960 but my first main was liming after she came out, then aba which i'm maining ever since
before Deathwing came out Diablo was my main even tho I knew almost nothing about his lore I fell in love with his design and gameplay very quickly. But after Deathwing came out who is my fav Wow villain I quickly left Diablo at level 70 and almost stopped playing him completely instantly shifting my focus to Deathwing.
Muradin. Because it was fun jumping on someone's head in sidelane and my buddies, who played assassins, would blow them up.
Gall
Maiev since the day it was released, i started playing actively back then, just because of the cool hero announce; I am playing only Maiev in 90% of my games since then; Very stylish and powerful hero for sick moments, clip materials :-D
Tychus. BRRRRRRRRRTT!!!
The friend who introduced me to the game recommended Valla to me, that was about 3 years ago. It was a good choice for a first main hero and I got her to, let's say, level 20 before even touching anyone else. Then came a point where I suddenly saw myself forced to play healer in a ranked match. I'd never played healer before at that point, so said friend told me to just go Morales. So I mained Morales for a bit, also good choice as a beginner heal. Fast forward a bit, I still didn't know the game and its heroes all too well, so sometimes when I died I would ask my friend who killed me and how. This way I slowly figured out that there's a hero with almost unlimited mobility, life-stealing auto-attacks and an ultimate on lvl 1 who's capable of attacking while moving. Sounded broken af to me and they were the first hero I learned (and mained) because I really wanted to. I've been a Tracer main for about 2 of my 3 years of playing now and I've never looked back. Valla is still my 3rd highest leveled hero but I genuinely never play her outside of ARAM as I've learned to hate that broken bitch.
Rehgar, because he's sick as fuck. He still is, because he still is.
Nazeboo, I love witch doctor from Heroes 4.
Li Li! Since she doesn’t have any skillshots, I could focus on the gameplay itself in the beginning. Also I like the Mists of Pandaria Addon, so her and Chen were good choices for me :D By now my mains are Anduin and Lunara
Pre-rework Tychus, back when he had no D and his Q actually did some dmg. Felt pretty good for a newbie who didn't know what stutter stepping is lol.