Heroes of the Storm (HotS) is Blizzard’s free to play MOBA (multi-player online battle arena) game. The genre itself, while relatively new, has been getting a ton of buzz ever since the genre was popularized by already mammoth titles like Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) and League of Legends (LOL). Blizzard is experimenting quite a bit with the established genre when it comes to HotS, as its turned into quite a fantastic game that’s been bringing in a lot of new players.
Blizzard is certainly breaking the mold with HotS, as they have added a ton of features that are incredibly fun and have never been seen before in MOBA games. Veteran MOBA players that have been playing DOTA and LOL for years are flocking to the game in droves, including professional players, and the game is also bringing a ton of players who’ve never played any MOBA games into it as well. If Blizzard’s history as a game developer tells us anything, Heroes of the Storm will be to MOBAs as World of Warcraft was to MMORPGs.
MOBA noobs and veterans alike will have a ton of things to learn with this game, so let’s take a closer look at Heroes of the Storm and see just what it’s all about.
The MOBA genre was birthed from the real time strategy (RTS) genre, so if you’ve ever played a top down RTS map like Starcraft, you’ll be a bit familiar with the mouse-focused and hotkey driven controls. Essentially, a MOBA game will feature two mirrored teams fighting in a tug of war style battle for dominance. Each team will have identical walls and a constant stream of low-health minions going at each other fighting in what are called ‘lanes.’ The players take control of an individual ‘hero,’ which each have their own special abilities and will be responsible for pushing into the opposing team’s base and ultimately destroying their main building (in HotS, this is the “Core”).
MOBAs have been around for a while but HotS is much different. Normal MOBA games generally only feature the lanes themselves with team fights being the main thing that defines progress, but Blizzard is also adding in depth map objectives. Each battleground has a specific mechanic, such as being able to collect coins to buy a cannon barrage that’ll directly attack the opposing team’s base, that’ll allow each team to have a variety of different methods for control. In addition to that, there are also some very interesting hero types, such as the Specialist, which are unique in MOBAs, but we’ll get into each of these more in depth as we move on in the guide.
Reminder: This article is only a beginner guide to the Heroes of the Storm. If you want to read a more advanced guide that could help you to master all heroes and increase your winning rate within a few days, this Heroes of the Storm Complete Package is a must have. Written by a group of expert gamers, this guide package comes with advanced strategies and builds for all heroes, battlegrounds guides, gold making tips and more!
A hero is the unit that the player controls in the game. There are five for each side, and they are used to push lanes, siege barricades, collect map items, hire mercenaries, and kill other heroes. Death is a thing in the game, but you’ll quickly respawn back in your base. Each hero has their own special abilities that give them different strengths and weaknesses. As the game progresses, you’ll earn experience from killing mobs or enemy players that’ll cause your side’s heroes to level up and unlock even new powerful abilities and upgrades called talents. With almost 40 different heroes and more being added each year, this is a lot of variability. Luckily, each hero will fall into one of four different categories: Assassins, Support, Warriors, and Specialists.
So you’re new to the game and have all these heroes to select from. Which one do you choose? Some of the heroes can really be complex to play and are better left in the hands of a MOBA veteran. There are a few in particular that are absolutely great to start out the game with. Don’t assume that makes them bad either, as even with their ease of access, they can still crush enemies just as good as the others.
Jump to the gold section of the guide if you need more money to unlock one of these heroes to play. Again, we’ll go more in depth on each of these heroes, as well as the others, later on in the guide. Make sure to read through them first so you know exactly what you need to do to destroy your opponents.
Reminder: This article is only a beginner guide to the Heroes of the Storm. If you want to read a more advanced guide that could help you to master all heroes and increase your winning rate within a few days, this Heroes of the Storm Complete Package is a must have. Written by a group of expert gamers, this guide package comes with advanced strategies and builds for all heroes, battlegrounds guides, gold making tips and more!
Heroes of the Storm can be extremely confusing to new players when it comes to leveling. There are three separate leveling brackets you need to look at. These are important to understand fully, particularly when it comes to things like maximizing gold income.
Generally speaking, you’ll have your “Account Level,” your “Hero Level,” and your “In-Game Level.”
Whenever you start a new game, your hero will be at level 1 and will progress in strength and talents with the more mobs, buildings, and heroes you kill in the game. This restarts with every new game. Once you’ve completed the current game, you’ll get experience based on whether you’ve won or lost and based on just how much you’ve contributed to the game.
That experience you receive after the game is over is what is put into your hero level (the hero level that persists and is added to throughout all your games). Think of this as a measure of your personal experience with the hero itself. This doesn’t having any real bearing in game, but will give you things such as gold, skins, and other cool things. The only time this is different is in the first couple of levels for each hero, as your talent pool will be locked down to make it easier to play, but these will be eliminated within just a game or wo.
In addition to post-game experience affecting your persistent hero level, that same experience will also be put into your account level. Think of this as a measure of your personal experience with the game in general. This is much slower to level and will persist throughout the lifetime of your Battle.net account. Like hero level, it unlocks some pretty cool rewards such as gold, portraits, etc. Once you get your account level to 30, you’ll be able to do ranked “Hero League” matches (assuming you’ve bought at least 10 heroes, but we’ll cover that more later). Level 40 will unlock the next tier up, “Team Leagues.”
Player Reward
Level 2: 1,000 gold
Level 4: 1,000 gold
Level 6: Unlock Daily Quests
Level 8: 2,000 gold
Level 10: 2,000 gold
Level 10: 7 Days Stimpack (Level Booster)
Level 12: Hero Rotation Slot
Level 15: Hero Rotation Slot
Level 20: 2,000 gold
Level 25: 2,000 gold
Level 30: Hero League
Level 30: 2,000 gold
Level 35: 2,000 gold
Level 40: Team League
Level 40: 2,000 gold
Hero level
Level 2: Unlock Second heroic ability
Level 3: Unlock advanced talents
Level 4: Unlock expert talents
Level 5: 500 gold
Level 6: Hero portrait/mount variation 1
Level 7: Skin variation 1
Level 8: Skin variation 2
Level 9: Hero master portrait/mount variation 2
Level 10: Master skin unlocked[2]
Level 15: 1,250 gold
Level 20: 2,500 gold
Reminder: This article is only a beginner guide to the Heroes of the Storm. If you want to read a more advanced guide that could help you to master all heroes and increase your winning rate within a few days, this Heroes of the Storm Complete Package is a must have. Written by a group of expert gamers, this guide package comes with advanced strategies and builds for all heroes, battlegrounds guides, gold making tips and more!
Now that we’ve seen some basic mechanics, let’s start getting into the battlegrounds themselves. We did say that HotS features maps that are wildly different from one another. This is true, but each map still has the same fundamental parts that make up a MOBA base game. Let’s cover these universal elements in depth before plunging into specific maps.
Every battleground will feature two identical bases for you and your enemies. Each base is made up of the following parts:
Now that you know some of the basics of the game, you’re ready to understand what the specific battlegrounds each entail. As we mentioned before, this is a relatively new area that HotS has brought to the MOBA genre. Generally speaking, in addition to the individual heroes empowering each lane in a back and forth tug of war, each map itself will have a variety of ways that can be used that’ll give your side an advantage. Each battleground has wildly different mechanics to consider, so let’s take a closer look at each one.
Each of these maps have their own specific mechanics but will also feature a number of mercenary camps that are located at key locations throughout the battleground. After dying, the mercenaries may be recruited to rush into the nearest lane and begin pushing for you. These are powerful additions that force the opposing side to stop pushing and come defend their base.
There are three types.
Siege mercenaries are the easiest to obtain and can generally be soloed early on in the game, followed by bruisers, which can only be soloed effectively by a few key heroes, and finally the boss mercenary, which can only be taken down through a concerted team effort.
If you find that your enemies have nearly completed a map mechanic, then make sure to go after mercenaries so that they’re forced to go defend their base rather than following through with a strong attack that’s backed up by the map’s mechanics themselves.
Reminder: This article is only a beginner guide to the Heroes of the Storm. If you want to read a more advanced guide that could help you to master all heroes and increase your winning rate within a few days, this Heroes of the Storm Complete Package is a must have. Written by a group of expert gamers, this guide package comes with advanced strategies and builds for all heroes, battlegrounds guides, gold making tips and more!
Blizzard has added a number of ways to play the game that’ll suit all sorts of different players. These are intended to allow the player to slowly introduce themselves to the game at their own pace. Let’s take a look at each one.
This is the simplest game mode available and the one you’re stuck to for your first match. It’s good to use it as a way to test out heroes you haven’t played yet in order to get a good feel for their mechanics.
It features you on a team with four computer players against a team of five computer players. It does not reward gold but will reward some experience points.
This is the third option on your game menu, but should be mentioned before Quick Match. This will team you up with four other real people from around the world and allow you to fight against computer players. The A.I. opponents’ difficulties will be tweaked based on your team’s combined ranking.
Again, this is not in the same order as you will see in game, but this Quick Match option is a step up from Cooperative. It features you on a team of five randomly chosen real players versus another team of five random players. If you don’t want to play with random people, you are able to invite as many as you would like into a party before starting.
This is intended for more advanced players. You have to be at least account level 30 and have to have at least 10 heroes purchased (weekly free heroes don’t count). You can join up either on your own or with a group and will engage in ranked play. This is similar to Quick Match, but not entirely, as before the game begins, you must choose which hero you want to play.
In Quick Match, the same hero can show up on both teams. In league play, a character can only be chosen one time. This is done fairly by allowing one team to choose a hero and then the other team to choose the next. This is done back and forth until everyone has a hero chosen.
This is similar to Hero League but involves completely pre-made teams versus other completely pre-made teams. You have to be at least level 40 and still must have at least 10 heroes purchased. The way heroes are chosen before the beginning of the match is the same, but there will generally be more strategy involved with choosing a hero based on what your opponents have chosen.
Custom Game mode allows you to choose a map to play on and invite whoever you want on whatever side you want along with observers/referees that can watch both sides. You can even set A. I. players.
Reminder: This article is only a beginner guide to the Heroes of the Storm. If you want to read a more advanced guide that could help you to master all heroes and increase your winning rate within a few days, this Heroes of the Storm Complete Package is a must have. Written by a group of expert gamers, this guide package comes with advanced strategies and builds for all heroes, battlegrounds guides, gold making tips and more!
The best way to get your feet wet in the game is to go through the tutorial system and play a couple of practice matches on your own, but this isn’t everything. You will need to supplement what you’ve learned on your own with what other people have discovered (such as by reading this guide!) in order to fully unlock your potential as a powerful HotS player.
Reminder: This article is only a beginner guide to the Heroes of the Storm. If you want to read a more advanced guide that could help you to master all heroes and increase your winning rate within a few days, this Heroes of the Storm Complete Package is a must have. Written by a group of expert gamers, this guide package comes with advanced strategies and builds for all heroes, battlegrounds guides, gold making tips and more!
We’ve mentioned purchasing heroes some in the previous sections. While the game is free to play, you only have access to a random 7 characters each week and must purchase heroes with gold (or if you prefer, you can just pay cash). The amount of gold varies based on the hero and can range from as low as 2,000 on up, but the most common price is 10,000. You can visit the shop by pressing its button in the top left hand corner of your screen. There are a number of great bundles if you’re looking to maximize gains by using real world cash. For the individual purchases, there are heroes, interesting looking skins, and also mounts that can be bought. Many are available to purchase with gold or cash, while some can only be purchased with actual money.
If you aren’t looking to use real world money in the game, then you’re going to need a ton of gold. Generally speaking, you’ll get quite a bit starting out but the rate at which you collect it will get slower the more you play the game, so make sure not to spend anything before fully understanding the gold system. There are a number of ways to earn gold, so let’s take a look and see the best way to get as much gold as possible early on so you don’t waste it on something you don’t really want.
Are you looking to get 10,000 gold right off the bat to purchase your first hero? Well, there’s good ways to do this and there are bad. To get to 10,000 as soon as possible, there are a few important factors to consider.
You’ll get 6,000 gold fairly early one in the game. This comes as a 1,000 gold bump at level two and then another at level 4. After that is a 2,000 gold bump at level eight and then ten, which adds up (1,000 + 1,000 + 2,000 + 2,000) to 6,000 gold.
In addition to that, there are seven free heroes to play each week. Once you get level 5 on any of the heroes, you’ll receive an additional 500 gold. It doesn’t take very long at all to get to level 5 on a single hero, and significantly less time if you’re focusing on winning first (so make sure to read each guide section for each new hero you use, as it will help you win). That’s a possible 3,500 additional gold per week until you’ve cycled through all the heroes. Combine the 3,500 with the 6,000 and you’ll have 9,500 gold in the first week. The remaining 500 you need will already be in your account since you get 20 to 30 each time you play a game.
After that, you will receive a free stimpack at level 10. This will automatically begin the moment you reach level 10, so make sure to hold off on it if you’re not going to be able to play much for the next 7 days. This will significantly increase both your experience and gold. You’ll go from winning 20 and 30 gold per win to 50 to 75 per win. This is the only free stimpack you’ll get, so do make sure to hold off until you can use it to your full advantage.
Playing each daily mission goes without saying, as that can give you anywhere from 200 to 800 additional gold per day. Keep in mind that the big 6,000 gold you get from your account will only be there once. Don’t waste it on a cheap hero thinking you’ll get enough to get you back up to 10,000 for the hero you really want within just a couple of days. It really does get difficult to gather gold the further you get into the game, so do make sure the first time you spend gold is when you’re purchasing a hero you ‘really’ want.
Reminder: This article is only a beginner guide to the Heroes of the Storm. If you want to read a more advanced guide that could help you to master all heroes and increase your winning rate within a few days, this Heroes of the Storm Complete Package is a must have. Written by a group of expert gamers, this guide package comes with advanced strategies and builds for all heroes, battlegrounds guides, gold making tips and more!