Question ^^^
On first principles, this would make sense. On the other hand, non-ARAM maps have more corridors, bushes, etc. so…maybe ARAM does not have much “teaching” value, even for team-fights. 
What do people think? Would you recommend focusing on ARAM in order to significantly improve team-fighting/micro, or is sticking to non-ARAM modes just as good?
There is no good answer to the question, as it varies too much by hero to be useful. I find ARAM good for practicing tanking and healing micro, as their kits are basically designed for team fighting. For a hero like Zeratul or Valeera, it is pretty terrible as they aren’t really designed for all in brawls.
Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy ARAMs, and can find it useful for practicing heroes I do not play very often, but I would hesitate to really call it a teaching mode.
I dont find it appeling if you want to learn the game. The mode teach people the game in a wrong way if. Players will think sticking to one lane whole game is the right choice but when they join a normal game they will get confused about what happens around them.
Why does that lane suddenly have merc camps running my forts down where did they came from ?? Or what does objects do ?? Are we not meant to just afk mid lane until we reach core.
That is what I see and ofc I end up losing because of that.
I watched a 4k master yesterday on Fan’s stream. An offlane main who constantly have less hero damage than the healer. He almost never played ARAM. It was frustrating to watch his decision making, leaving his team in a 4v5 all game long.
I recommend ARAM to to only learn new heroes, but to practice constant sharpness in team fights.
I’d say that a good ratio should be this:
SL: 60%
ARAM: 30%
QM: 10%
Excluding scrims.
Even one of the best player (Iksir) plays ARAM quite a lot.
Maybe. IMO ARAM is good for A) Trying new things B) A fun carefree game mode (Or at least should be)
In my extremely limited experience – I rather loathe ARAM, but am wondering if I am missing out on an opportunity for focused practice – that is often not the case. 
I cant help but get sick of ARAM almost immediately. It just lacks camp, lane rotations objectives to go and generally everything the game is about.
I just endup feeling like ive played enough of it after just 5minutes.
No.
You’re fighting against comps that will never happen in an actual game
You use talents that you would usually not pick in an actual game.
For low level players no, they always brawl anyway. For high level players who got the macro in the bag yes, it can help ur mental endurance. It’s not rare to see plat players with the micro of an average master player in arams.
Yes but also no.
Clearly you wont be facing any double Stitches teams in SL.
But if you have a problem of getting hooked too easily by an enemy Stitches, facing 2 of them ought to be a good learning experience.
It’s not as if a fight against something like Anduin, Arthas, Thrall and x2 Mephisto has absolutely nothing of value to learn.
Or a game against x3 Azmodan.
I can agree to this, sorta. At the very least, some of those talents I would only pick in ARAM is something I would conventionally only pick if I’m on the 4man lane of Braxis or Hanamura.
On topic, so would I say that yes, it would make you a better team fighter, because you would simply team fight more. How many times or chances do you have to teamfight in a conventional game?
How many times do those lategame chances get ruined because one guy gets picked off at a terrible time and then the enemy steam rolls you?
In regular games, you can spend the majority of the game not actually team fighting and it being more of a macro fight and smaller skirmishes and just getting mercs and getting rid of mercs.
This is even more true on spread out of objectives such as Warhead’s Junction or Dragon’s Shrine.
Naturally ARAM is not for all heroes. You wont learn much at all if you pick a hero that is simply terrible for ARAM. You wont have many chances to do anything as Illidan, Valeera, Samuro, unless the enemy has similarly terrible picks or it just so happens that they’ve gone for a weirder comp less focused on ranged assassins and more on healers, bruisers and tanks. And some heroes are way stronger in lategame such as Zeratul so they’re riskier.
I find ARAM to be a great place to train your overall skill more efficiently, because it is all about teamfighting.
It is also a place that would teach you better resource management as well as, depending on comp, the importance of playing safe and avoiding any and all kinds of damage possible.
What do you do as Hanzo in a game without a healer and without the ability to B back to heal?
The only options for healing is the weak globes and healing fountains every 90 seconds.
So you would really have to play it safer than usual and only go farther in when it really matters.
Naturally one weakness of ARAM is that you don’t have to worry as much about being ganked in the same way as in normal games. Map awareness isn’t as important.
It is useful, but not as compared to regular matches.
I wonder how many have read until this part? If you have, nice.
And yes ARAM wont teach you much about macro or about mercenaries. But to that I say; who cares?
Learning about soaking and mercenaries and such is not really rocket science. If someone has a problem with winning because even after playing 500 regular matches of HotS, they still ignore lanes to brawl mid, then another 500 games are unlikely to help them.
Those people need a wake up call, not experience/skill.
And arguably, mercs/soaking isn’t all that much of a skill as it is simple knowledge one just has to apply. Some people simply refuse to apply this knowledge for god knows why reasons.
ARAM gives the most uptime towards actually fighting which teaches what I consider to be the most important aspects of the game: Skill and experience with heroes.
As mentioned before the weakest part is that some heroes are weaker in ARAM. It would be nice if ARAMs were changed to make melee heroes more useful; like broadening the overall length of map, more distance between forts. Melee heroes generally are weak in ARAM, but they can make a comeback in lategame when forts and keeps are down and they have more space to work with.
But hey, don’t take my word for it. It’s not like I have anything to show for it. 
I think this and the fact that ARAM basically not requiring macro as part of the game make it the worst mode for learning something.
Constant fighting gives out the illusion that some talents are better than they are. Stacking talents (Crash Lighting, etc) or even stacking heroes for instance. In normal games, rotating, downtime in skirmishes, full on team fight occur. ARAM not having those, getting used to the playstyle of ARAM, I’d say makes the player worse in executing other decisions (team fight is only important in conjunction with macro of the game. not just out of the blue).
Despite how clownfiesta comp QM can be, that’s why I think QM is still better in learning (whether herors or how the game works), if AI match is not part of the option. It at least has the normal game routine.
It can help you only while playing with others you trust in big fights.
Step One - Practicing side step to avoid potential danger from enemy teams and abilities and learning how to position heroes in the big fights.
Step Two - Best chance to learn how to heal in ARAM. As I mentioned in previous step about dodging danger you can keep your safe distance and managing abilities cooldowns.
Step Three - Strong chance how to secure kills with tanks and learn how to peel (Protect your back line) by taking percentage of the output damage from the enemies.
Be careful on this because most likely enemy will one shot you with certain heroes like Tychus, Lunara, Hanzo, Malthael, Zul’Jin.
ARAM won’t improve your games on Bruisers as in Ranked they do solo lane and hide and wait the perfect time for engage. This exclude Thrall, Chen, Hogger, Thrall and D.VA since they are stronger in ARAM.
As for Melee Assassins in ARAM most recommended are Maiev Samuro and Zeratul, other than those you will have either to wait for power spike or get snowballed.
Overall while it’s good it’s also bad. What I mean is that when you play ARAM most of the time you will likely develop bad habit by chasing kills on single lane.
If you play Ranked that’s the most common reason you losing matches. ARAM boost your damage output from Ranged Assassins.
In Ranked you need to soak and watch minion/mercenary camp push wave and you have to do play Macro (that means control on the map). ARAM will not teach you that.
ARAM just transform players to damage dealers and then when they do poorly in Ranked by playing other role than Ranged Assassins and then cost the game the matchmaker is not the one to blame.
The sad reality is that this game is not balanced by roles. While Assassins dominate the game Tanks and Bruisers are deficit.
This is why I suggested this idea but I have no clue if it’s even read and considered by development team
It can give you practice.
And you’ll get better at what you practice.
Some people just practice sucking though.
That is truly, and utterly irrelevant.
It’s literally the same as saying one shouldn’t do running exercises to train for sports, because the ball isn’t present.
Yeah, you remove some aspects of the game to focus on a specific aspect and improve THAT.
It can be a problem if you then forget everything except running when you go into the game, but people aren’t supposed to be that stupid.
It can be a problem if you use bad running drills and technique, but that’s why you’re supposed to go into it with the intention of improving something specific.
I have no definitive answer to your question. Personally I have always liked the idea of ARAM as a more relaxed environment for players to feel free to explore new roles or unfamiliar heroes they might not be inclined to play in other modes.
It’s not a terrible environment to practice micro on some heroes, but as Hoku noted your mileage will vary depending on the hero, some heroes are simply not optimal in ARAM mode.
That’s not how you use the word ‘literally’. And no, it’s more like saying, walking is worse than running as exercise.
I would say yes. ARAM makes you a better teamfighter in general, but it doesn’t mean you will be successful in other modes than ARAM, because other modes have other important aspects of the game to consider like camp timing, objective, split-pushing, ganking and so on.
Another important aspect why teamfight practice in ARAM makes you good at it, because if people are relaxed and in less try hard mode, they can learn things better, which might improve the player skill faster in that area.
That’s a dumb comparison though. Teamfights in ARAM are actually much harder than in other modes, because they are constantly active, because there are mostly no other tasks (aside from some camps on some maps).
And if people would use their knowledge about Samuro in ARAM and tried to use it against him in other modes, he would lose his power to scare people.
Hmm OK, fair enough. Probably I will just stay out of ARAM. It is at once too wonky and too boring for me, can practice team-fighting in non-ARAM.
I could have said practically or virtually, but your bad analogy with walking shows why I had to say literally.
Only if you force yourself to not understand what I’m saying. Walking is less efficient than running in terms of exercising, playing/practicing in ARAM is less efficient than, say, QM in terms of learning how to team fight.
And no, ‘literally’ literally doesn’t make sense in anyway. You’re just making excuses. ‘Basically’ is a good word.
I disagree. Team fight in ARAM is easier imo. One of the reason is the bolded part, team fight being easier because there is no context behind it, where, in real games, there is always context behind it (and some, not worth the fight because your team can have more to lose depending position). In ARAM, you can forget about other stuff about the game, but just team fight.
Other reason is the layout of the map and how it basically makes each team clutter. Skillshot is easier to hit and AoE spell becomes more efficient in ARAM (reason why Azmo is one of the best in this mode). Player will have less luck in normal games.
ARAM is a too special type of game in my opinion, that it can’t teach you much about playing other modes.
There are enough heroes that are considered a troll pick in SL matches but excel in ARAM matches (KT and KTZ for example). But many heroes have specific Builds in ARAM, you could never seriously play in any other mode.