Fountains vs Base vs Healers: Strategic Musings

General Discussion
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When I first started playing the game healing was simple. I fight, and then if I get low I go to a fountain. If the fountain is unavailable I go back to base.

I took a two year break from Heroes of the Storm and upon returning I found that my old healing strategy was overly simplistic for my new playstyle and mindset. If I’m laning and I get into a fight that ends with me being at 10% hp and my opponent being at 80% hp then healing at the fountain will only bring me back up to 50% hp, which still leaves me at a disadvantage if my opponent and I get into a fight again. In this instance I find its better to heal back to full at base so that I don’t need to worry about dying in lane.

In some ways the fountain has become something of an emergency healing source for me. My favorite use for it is to get back to a team fight as quickly as possible, but even then there are times where my gut will tell me that it would be better for the team to retreat as a whole or that there is an even bigger team fight going to happen soon in which case I warp back to base and save my fountain for when I need it most.

Of course there are quick matches where players choose to go healer which might eliminate the need for using a fountain or the base, but even in these cases, and depending especially on who the healer actually is, it might still be better for me to go back to base.

One reason that I especially like to use base or fountain healing as opposed to support healing is that the support has a limited pool of mana and an entire team to heal. If a team fight is not in progress and no one is in need of me, I prefer to go back to base so that the healer has more mana to use for the people that are most likely to get into a confrontation soon like a tank, or even the healer themself.

Despite my desire to go back sometimes the healer will heal me anyways and I will take that as a sign that they think its worth it to keep me in the fight, in which case I will stick around while they bring me back up to full, even if I think its a waste, because it sucks to heal someone only for them to warp back anyways.

All in all I find a lot of joy in deciding when is the best time to use a fountain and I feel that I have been contributing a lot more in matches by making sure I’m at 100% hp at the start of EVERY major team fight. I still have a lot to learn about the game, but I appreciate you taking the time to read musings!

What are your thoughts and strategies concerning healing? Do you think about this sort of thing as much as I do, or less so?

6 Likes
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Well, if you still have high mana, or playing a mana less hero, it’s still worth to heal you even if you are low. Because objectives are telegraphed with warnings, you shouldn’t be that concerned with healer mana in between fights as they should be backing to come to fights fresh with mana anyways.

Backing removes a player from the map for a period of time which has a real effect, so if that can be avoided, then that’s generally good. So long as you’re not taking excessive damage and applying good pressure, it’s the healer’s job to keep you going.

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Gotta use fountain as much as possible

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I play alot of healer so to me the fountain is mostly for mana. Healing these days is efficent enough to full heal you for very little mama if your just patient enough.
Breaking the fountain near an objective can be really powerful on some maps. Volskaya porbably being the biggest one. It feels like not getting the fountain hurts the healer more then most other heroes.

Your healers mana is a recource for the team that you should be mindful of but 9 of the healers can heal efficiently enough to gain net mana so don’t worry to much about draining their recources, especially if you help them get health globes while waiting for healing. A good healer will adjust their healing speed based on when the next fight is coming so they don’t go oom.

Also depending on who your playing you can also heal by leaving to soak a single wave from the nearest lane. Some heroes like Sonya can out pace the fountain like that and some can even do it with canps.
Just keep in mind that time going back to base is time spent doing nothing productive. Sometimes it’s worth it but there are often alternatives that let you get atleast a little bit of value when healing. Going back to base at the wrong time can someones be as bad as a death.
Now that’s not to say you should take the slow efficent route every time but it’s important to consider your options.

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I usually try not to back from a teamfight if I have a healer and they have the ressources to heal me.

Normally, I’ll be full health and mana at every objective with my fountian off cd. If my health is so low that it would take a long time for my helaer to heal me, or if I feel it would require too much of his/her resources and I’m not the tank, I would back/ hearth.

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as vikings ive found it to only use healing fountain if the other 2 vikings are midfight, but otherwise just heal at base.

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Maybe I am weird, but I like to hit the fountain just as a big fight is breaking out in front of my fort/keep, so I essentially have an extension on my base health pool. Doubly so if I am playing Devil’s Due Diablo at full souls.

Then again, I play a lot of tanks and bruisers, where HP is the resource that determines fights, more so than mana.

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I experience quite the opposite, but it’s probably because I play around high-silver-plat or just because I am used to be being solo laner, but I am used to play to independent from my healer as much as possible, because A) then he could spent his ressources more wisely and B) maybe even try to be offensive. So in that case I try to utilize the fountains or the hall of the storm as much as I can.

Edit:

True, but on the contrary, if someone is low on mana, but 50-100% health with fountain on cooldowns is usually not always helpful.

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Some healers require more restraint then others to be efficient. Unless, I trust that the healer knows what they are doing, I generally wont stick around waiting for heroes like Uther or Auriel to heal me up but an ana or lili? totally.

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Well Ana… don’t remember me on this hero… I played a game last night, where our highest player (gold 1), who is usually tank main, just picked up Ana and failed miserably… I don’t trust Ana players in general, because this hero is too hard to play for the majority of players. :joy: But you’re right about Lili though.

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Results may vary but its decent healing for only 10 mana. :stuck_out_tongue:

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One of my rules I follow (or at least try): As the game starts, I got up to 1 minute of game time to use the fountain to heal. If I use it later than that, I won’t have it for the objective (some exceptions of maps).

^ This rule also makes me try to force an enemy to drink their own fountain if it’s safe for me to do so around past 1:30. That’s when I ask my team for a gank. It’s not really for the kill :wink:

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I usually HS instead of using the Fountain because the latter is like an ability with a long CD, I need to be strategic with it. Most the time I try to have it during the obj, so at the first skirmish I can retreat and get some resources back. Or often I tap when I’m not on full but will quickly jump into a fight so I have an extra passive regen.
Also sometimes (not early game where Base is basically instant 100%) I heal ppl who’s HSing not to keep them where they are, but to take them to 50% so they can run back faster.
Plus when I’m regenerating at Base I leave before 100% because the rest regens back while I’m traveling and I shouldn’t waste any sen in a game like this.

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As a side note, there are some heroes where you actually don’t want to be at full HP. When I play Artanis, my shields do not kick in until 75%, so healing me above that actually works against the way his sustain is designed. Hovering between 60-75% is ideal.

Zul’jin is similar in that it is often better to let the person playing him manage his HP for more damage.

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The whole thing with backdooring healing wells is slightly obnoxious, not for reasons of being impossible to stop due to lack of communication or some other factor, but it is something that can almost be expected at most levels of play and simply isn’t fun because you need to consider it being a possibility at all times.

There are some irregularities such as Genji+Aba which you won’t be able to stop despite your best efforts, because you most likely losing out elsewhere by guarding the structure. This can be slightly frustrating.

Either increase the base value of shield or drastically increase regen rate and the period required for it to trigger. For example we have WHJ with Nukes; the weapon isn’t particularly threatening in the early game, and without any brawl happening, you will keep holding onto it for additional 90 seconds after the first spawn because it won’t destroy fort wells before minute 4 due to scaling. There is some value here and it feels engaging, or you can rather choose to nuke your 4-mob mercenary camp. Healing wells near the keep however use a different formula and won’t get destroyed by nukes until long into the match, this reduces their value and possibly prolongs the game.

Wanted to add something more but I lost my train of thought.

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Or just gut aba and tlv. Uninteractive must go

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They must go, because a player can’t deal with them or play them? Congrats, if we follow your proposal we will end up with only one hero and one map.

That’s why my suggestion would be for a new mode: Final destination, Fox only to translate in Hots that would mean:

the perfect map would be ARAM with only Raynor for everyone, so everyone has the same chance to win.

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No talents tho, we cant let any variance or fun get in the way of our true test of skill.

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Another thing to consider are healers who don’t have to worry about their mana pool for healing. Morales for example has a rapidly regenerating energy pool and can usually spare a small portion of that to heal someone up to full. Brightwing doesn’t need it for healing and a lucio who took party mix doesn’t really have mana mangement issues just as a few examples.

But it is good to save your healing fountain for when it will really make a difference instead of just using it off cooldown like I see alot of people do in QM. There are some heroes who can use it more liberally such as diablo with “devils due” or tracer with “is that a health pack?” or D.va with “liquid cooling” Deathwing also isn’t healed by hearthing so him popping a fountain before using dragonflight can get him back into the fight much faster than normal.

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I still find zuljin or artanis want to start the fights at full though. and healing zuljin can be very beneficial as it can keep his hp balanced at a point where he won’t be knocked over by a stiff breeze but is still at a decent attackspeed while keeping his berserker on for the added dmg. Morales works decently well with him with stim and the constant sustained healing.

1 Like