Returning player, been playing in Bronze 1-2 for about a month, and I play mostly tanks and healers
I’m in my early 30s, married, full time job, and planning for children in the near future. I usually play around 10 games a week. So yes, very much a casual.
However, I’m a competitive person, and try to make every match count. And because I don’t have much time to study match ups, I noticed that I tend to do better with well rounded heroes and struggle with heroes built with very pronounced strength and weakness.
That makes me think I should focus on small pool of heroes that can do reasonably well in most situations.
For a casual player who plays 10 games a week, how many hereos should I realistically main as a tank or healer?
Would I be better off having all my mains in one role, or should I have one for the secondary role? Example, 3 tanks vs. 2 tanks/1healer?
Any recommendations for all-purpose tanks and healers that are easy to learn, hard to master? I currently do pretty well with E.T.C, Rehgar, and Anduin.
I try to have at least 2 of each role that I feel confident playing, but I do focus mostly on tanks and bruisers, as those are the roles I enjoy the most. I strongly recommend having 2 in the roles you play the most (tank/healer) and at least one bruiser or assassin you feel like you can play, in those rare cases the other roles are filled.
ETC is probably the best tank in the game, so keep him on your roster, and I would add Muradin and Johanna (although she is banned a lot), too. All three are straightforward, and solid at all ranks, so as you climb, they will still be strong picks.
For healers, Rehgar and Anduin are perfectly fine, so unless you feel like branching out, you really don’t have to. Lucio is fun for something different, though, and not too hard to get the basics down. One nice thing about Lucio is that he does have a lot he can do, so you never really feel like just a healbot if you are playing him well.
For other heroes, you may want to pick up a basic bruiser who does enough damage to play as a melee assassin in a pinch. Thrall is a great all around pick, that also scales well into higher ranks.
In video games with multiple characters, the best thing you can do is being an onetrick guy.
Dosen’t matter if we are talking about ow, tekken or this one. You should play with one hero again and again, until you became an one-trick guy.
Pick one hero, then play with it a lot. Notparadox youtuber created a few beginner guide for certain heroes. You should watch those for tips.
Dosen’t matter witch role. If you like the hero, then you will put a lot of effort into the learning.
I sustain at least one per role, better for two, bit that the best practice is probably three picks per role barring Support since they seem to be gradually retconning it. Otherwise 3 tanks, bruisers, ranged etc…
You are after all working against other teammates picking, enemies banning and certain picks being countered. Three picks at least gives you a hand of variety.
this, although I would push it a bit and do 2 ranged, 2 healer, and 2 tank/bruiser. if you get really good at these 6, you would be well prepared to do a draft mode at some point, should you choose.
as a start if u wanna learn a bruiser, try ragnaros. his build talents are SUPER clear and obvious, and he is an unconventional powerful hero that not everyone touches. his mechanics are also simple.
Personally, I would recommend at least 3 of your preferred role.
Just in case your first choice gets banned and your second choice gets picked by the enemy team, which is much more likely with roles that have a smaller number of viable heroes such as Tank or Healer.
bruh malty isn’t the easiest. he is actually the only bruiser i never learned to play despite a ton of trial. his builds are not as clear as rag’s either.
If you play that few games, honestly, just play whatever the hell you enjoy and are good at. Life is too short. I would maybe have 2-3 heroes you’re REALLY good at, and just stick to those as much as possible, while leaving yourself open to learning new ones when practicing. You don’t realistically have the time to master a bunch of heroes.
The biggest lie people tell players is that you should be well rounded. It’s nice to be able to play more heroes, but realistically, to be good at them is a completely different story. You’ll find that the best players don’t actually play everything all the time. They actually tend to stick to what they’re good at.
In my early 30’s, single, full time job, no plans for children. Sometimes play 15 games in a day, and sometimes go several days without playing at all.
Am in diamond, consider myself casually competitive.
And I play every hero in the game, though some I clearly play more.
You shouldn’t care about match-ups, play whatever you enjoy.
Draft pretty much doesn’t matter in bronze.
The thing you should concern yourself with, if you want to make every game count, is game sense, and that applies to all heroes.
I was playing on EU and it placed me in bronze for some reason.
Have a 70% win rate in gold now.
I only have Johana for tank on EU, if she’s picked/banned and no one else wants to tank I’m probably just going to pick Uther.
And I’ve had some moments where I was soaking XP as Uther (who I’d argue is one of my better heroes), because I really saw it as the best option at the time.
tl;dr play what you enjoy, but learn to play it better
Stick with E.T.C, Johanna, Mal’Ganis and Muradin(with Sledgehammer and Bronzebeard Rage). They are easy to learn and less risky draft wise.
Every tanks are hard to master. It comes with the role.
Good choice for Anduin and Rehgar as they are easy to play if you have to fill.
Ask yourself those questions: How many of those tanks do I like? How many of those healers do I like?
Then main those tanks and healers.
Just main those heroes you that you like and that is all you need. You don’t need to main any assassin because we have an oversupply of assassin main.
I only main 4 tanks, 4 bruisers and 4 healers. There few other hero that I know how to play but won’t call them “the main hero”
I would main 2 heroes. Both tanks but recommended that you have heroes who can do multiple roles.
THAT’S IT!
Don’t believe these other people who say oh main 12 heroes and such is all a bunch of huey.
Get good with your 2 well rounded heroes and you’re good. I am in a similar boat as you and you don’t get to play enough to get good with more than 2 heroes at a time. This doesn’t mean that it has to be the same 2 heroes ALL the time. You can change but I wouldn’t focus on more than 2 at a time.
If you can do more then do more but I wouldn’t expect to do more and still be good.
Tank hero and/or healer heroes who can do more than role:
Arthas - Tank and Bruiser
Blaze - Tank and Bruiser
Uther - Healer and Bruiser
Kharazim - Healer and Bruiser
But you don’t have to, the core concept of the game is always the same no matter which heroes you play, barring maybe extreme situations like Abathur or TLV.
It’s different to play a tank with an escape than to play a mage, but the only REAL difference is where you should stand and what you focus while you’re there. Your squishiness and damage potential just change where you are most valuable, everything else is pretty much the same, and there are times where mages should body block for the tank and provide zoning for the tank, and that’s something you won’t learn if you think about them as vastly different.
It is true that people focus on a small portion of the roster, and people do best with the small group they focus on.
I think it’s more of a gradient, but what people call ‘mains’ is closer to 6-7, but if you think 2 is fine then make them very good.
I get what you are saying but we are talking about a person who plays maybe 10 games A WEEK. If you want to be at all competitive you’re going to need to focus and get good with a few heroes to start.
If he has the potential to be good with 10 heroes or more he’d be a player that wouldn’t even need to ask the first question to begin with. He does then good but pushing someone to be mediocre with 6-10 heroes is bad advice to someone who can play so few games. Is just going to lead to more frustrating games and ultimately leave the game.
The only other advice I’d give the original poster. Be prepared to switch mains. You never know when a rework or rebalance patch comes around and completely changes/removes what you liked about the hero.
But I’m not telling them to play any number of heroes, just that focusing on the heroes you play rather than the game as a whole is not a good way to go about things in my opinion.
It’s what leads to the attitude of “lost at draft” and “x hero OP” rather than “what do I do in this situation, how could I have contributed more” and yes those do shift per hero, but only in a general sense like heroes with bad wave clear shouldn’t be focusing on a lane UNLESS you’re just soaking temporarily while your better wave clear heroes are taking camps or whatever.
It lets you look at the big picture. That’s what I personally find anyway.
When I started I just decided I was going to play Abathur, because I liked him. And I tried every talent, and found ways to make him useful even on maps that aren’t his best, or with allies he doesn’t particularly synergize with (one reason I love QM is it forces you to think about these things)
Because the advice I really gave was play what you enjoy. Because if you are playing the game only occasionally, because you enjoy it, maximizing your enjoyment should take priority over rising in ranks.
If you really want to rise you’ll find time to gain the experience, and you’ll find through experience which heroes you do best with, the question answers itself.