Heroes of the Storm

Vittra, welcome to HL. I went on a great winning streak with my buddy to get him rank 1 and me rank 4. The next couple days after that I lost 9 games in a row. Some with him, some with others because I was trying to mix it up a bit. I got stuck around rank 9, winning losing winning losing, until a couple days ago I had another winning streak.

Heck, one game my friend and I got queued with really high MMR players that I only got 13 rank points at rank 8. The fuck is that? Matchmaking truly does suck.

I went on a fairly bad losing streak myself a week or so ago (29 to like 33) and just stopped caring about HL. I primarily play healer, and there's only so much a healer can do to carry a team. I'd rather play QM for fun every so often than watch my HL rank slowly drop.

Vittra_sl said:

Starting to have a rough time in HL, I climbed to rank 22 consistently and now hit a losing streak back to 25. I feel like my games are being sabotaged by idiots, as if I fell into the noob bracket and can't get out. People AFK at the draft screen so it auto picks a second healer and no tank, people rage quitting by level 6, just getting stomped by reasons out of my control. It always seems to start right at the draft too with stupid picks. My QM MMR is over 2800 but my HL is miserable in the 1700 range. I need some people to play with or something! Vittra#1784 is my tag

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I'd say focus more on yourself and make sure you're playing optimally. I rarely group but Xith and some of his friends grouped the other day and it was pretty obvious Xith and I were the higher MMR players and his friends were mid-20's HL players. The biggest difference is positioning and not getting yourself killed from my personal experience between a middle and a mid-high MMR player.

You were alright Slip but those other two were facechecking into 5man bushes. Which implies a problem with map awareness. So many times they'd run into an area completely shrouded in fog of war while all 5 of the enemy team was absent from the minimap as a Jaina or Zeratul and -- shockingly -- they'd get ganked. Even in my ranked HL matches you will still get Jainas who facecheck. It is a really basic skill people need to work on is simply not dying so much. The only time you really should be dying is against a committed gank (generally requiring use of heroics) and during team fights. If you find yourself randomly dying it is a you problem.

Usually what I do is simply ask "What am I doing and why? Is it beneficial? Does somewhere else need help?"

Another big thing is simply taking the long way around. So many people die on rotation because they rotate through neutral or enemy territory. Just take the extra 2 seconds and rotate from behind your towers and gates. Unless a team fight has broken out just above you and you simply have to be there at the absolute moment take the extra time for safety.

kegkilla_sl said:

How do u check your MMR?

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Hotslogs is the only way which is unofficial. You have to download a program to upload your replays (others can upload your replays too if they're in the game with you). Its relatively painless, run this program in the background and it uploads all your replays. Pretty much don't even know its there.

https://www.hotslogs.com/Account/Upload

So to kind of piggyback on the "Don't die" aspect of the game something I've been really working on is making sure when I'm playing assassin I try and shroud myself from vision near where a team fight will break out. Really to figure out where a teamfight will happen it is where ever your tank is. So I follow behind him by maybe 2 seconds or so. I then let the fight occur and I do nothing. I wait for their carries to unload all their skills into the tank. Because I don't want to eat them. After I see most of the skill spam occur that is when I actually reveal myself. The benefit of this is not only do I avoid a ton of damage but I can also observe the battlefield and find the most optimal place to convey my damage.

Now this may sound pretty simple but is is something I see very few players do in practice. Most people take the mantra of "If I can hit that target I'm going to hit that target." Which means you have no exposed and revealed yourself. People will avoid slamming skills into the tank because now you are a more prime target. This is especially true for players of short-range bursty characters like Jaina. Where you see a Jaina running into a fight, unloading her combo and dying immediately. But with a combination of smart positioning and smart engagement timing you can suddenly make 3 people eat a full combo of Northern Exposure and pretty much combo all three down at once.

Another thing you need to remember is smart engagements as well. I see carries doing something similar to this but then they just flank the back line. Flanking doesn't do much but it exposes you massively. So now you're away from your support and will probably die a bad death. You have to wait for their carries to get out of position. You don't want to engage by putting yourself in a bad position.

Win streak to rank 5. Lose streak to rank 8. Completely different kinds of players in both streaks. Sometimes wildly different MMRs. MM is so bad I don't know how they ever release the 1st season of HL.

Watching tournaments, the team draft meta is so much more interesting then HL ends up being. Double Warrior. All Specialists for damage, no Assassins. HL you pretty much take the standard comp over and over because anything else requires your team to think to much.

Dustin said bans was in the works for TL but will be delayed until they flesh out the support pool a bit more