How to be Better at HOTS

General Discussion
1

So I see a lot of people lacking base game sense in this game and making really bad choices all the time. So I wanted to make a post to hopefully give some advice and prevent someone from acting like a monkey.

Objective:
The objective of this game is destroying the Core.
Not kills, not highest damage, not lowest death count and not pushing all lanes. The Core.
It may sound a bit simplistic, but that’s the base thing that many of the people miss when playing this game.

For example, have you ever seen a situation where the Dragon Knight walks to a side lane to destroy a T1 fort at level 20 with most of the enemy team dead, when he has an open core down mid? He can just walk up and finish the game, but he chooses to push the least pushed lane like an NPC.
That’s the result of poor decision making that I’m talking about.

In HOTS (and any other MOBA) there’re two concepts that win you the game:

  • The Immediate Goal Decision
  • Risk Vs. Reward.

Combined, they let you make choices that win the game

The Immediate Goal Decision
When you play the game you’re often finding yourself at a state of not doing anythign much. Just laning or you’ve had a teamfight and it’s over, and you now need to decide what to do.
In that instance, what you need to do is make a decision. What is the best thing that you can do? How can you do the most damage to the enemy team? You should ask that question to yourself at least every 15 seconds, or more often if you can. Even during the teamfight, really, because sometimes continuing the fight is less beneficial than doing something else.

Example 1:
Their Mid is open and is pushed. You’ve just had a good teamfight and won and 5 of them are dead for 40+ seconds. You have 5 alive.
Your decision should be to push the core with creeps and destroy it.
If you can’t, you may want to instead destroy another structure
Instead, what often happens is taking a boss, which allows the enemies time to resurrect and defend. You’re basically letting them to come back.
Remember: Boss and Camps are only means to an end to destroy the structures and core. If you can do it faster by yourself - you shouldn’t waste time taking the camp.

Example 2:
Again, you had a great fight, killed 4 of them, and you’re open to go Core. But Murky (or even just a camp) is pushing a lane.
Going back to defend is a mistake. You can win the game and it won’t matter if he destroys a structure.

Example 3:
The enemy have taken a boss, and it’s pushing into you. But the Curse tribute is spawning and it’s their 3rd tribute, so they get curse. The Boss will 100% kill your T2 if left alone.
What often happens is that people want to defend and kill the pushing boss. But this is a HUGE mistake.
Because OK, you will save that structure. For like 15 seconds. The enemy will get Curse, and they will definitely destroy it anyway - plus they will destroy a few other structures, if not the core.
The correct play - is to let the boss push. It can’t kill the core - let it die under it. Give up the structure to prevent enemy from taking curse and finishing the game. This is a prime example of people putting too much weight into structures and wanting to defend them at all costs. Sometimes they’ll even go and defend against a smaller camp or even a large wave of normal minions.

Risk Vs Reward.
Most actions in HOTS are risky, when the enemy team is alive. What you need to do here - is not to take unnecessary risks.

Every action or decision in the game has an element of risk and reward. If you think about invading the enemy camp, you should analyze your situation.
Ask yourself:

  • What are the chances I manage to take it and escape safely, and get AHEAD?
  • What are chances of me getting caught and killed, and getting BEHIND?
  • What are the chaces of me being caught and having to flee, which still puts me BEHIND because I wasted time and helped them take a camp?
  • And what are the chances of me taking the camp and getting killed for it, which still puts me BEHIND?

As you can see, taking an enemy camp under their nose is risky, and should not be attempted unless there’re mitigating circumstances, like them all showing far away on the map, or them being dead.

Here, another important thing comes into play - a state of the game. It’s a combination of factors, but basically, it consists of:

  • Level advantage / disadvantage
  • Structure advantage
  • Team advantage

When thinking about the state of the game, you should ask yourself - if the game continues normally, and everyone plays on the same level - who’ll win? If you have all your structures intact and the enemy has their core stripped - it’s obvious that you are at an advantage. The minions will keep pushing, and if you just play safe - you will win.

If the game is in a state of advantage for you - you should NEVER make risky plays. Don’t try to solo-push. Don’t try to gank someone alone even if you know you can kill them. Don’t start the boss when enemies are alive.
Your optimal play is to let your enemy take some risks and punish those. If you start the boss, even if you’ve won every teamfight before that point - you may be caught under it and the enemies will come back.

On the other hand, if you are at a severe disadvantage - then playing safe is simply pointless. If you just keep defending - the enemy will keep gaining advantage. HOTS is a game of snowballs, and you can’t win it by defending well most of the time.
Instead, a single risky play may win you the game That is the time when you can safely take risks, because you don’t really have things to lose. If it doesn’t work out - you still lose the game, but if it does - you may just turn it.

One thing that you should not take for granted is enemy strength. Even if you’re winning every teamfight early on, if they have heroes that scale better with late-game talents, you could still start losing later. Against such team, it’s important to win as fast as possible. So while you may hold an advantage currently, you may also know that the scale will tip the other way as soon as they hit 16 or 20, and you may want to expedite your advantage while it lasts.

Things to do and not to do in a game.
Here’re most common options of what you can do at any given moment, and some tips:

Pushing a lane solo.
This MAY be a good thing to do, but for this to work, you need to make sure of a few things. Otherwise it’ll be a mistake.

  • First, you need to be sure that your team will either not get to fight, or will win a teamfight without you. Pushing solo during objectives is mostly ever recommended only if at least 2 of the enemies are dead (while yours are alive). If that’s not the case - your team may lose, and whatever siedge damage that you do becomes completely inconsequential.
  • Second, you need to be sure that you will not die. If you see the enemies on the other side of the map - then it’s OK. If you have good escape mechanics - it’s OK. Or if you know they’re dead.
    When pushing, pay attention to the map and their death timers. If you notice that a hero is about to res, or if several are missing from the map - back off immediately.
  • Thirdly, it doesn’t matter what hero you have and how awesome it is at pushing lanes. Participating in important fights and objectives is generally more important
  • One exception is if your team is on board with your decision. Think of a Murky game. He rarely if ever comes to the fights, especially at first. But what he enables the team to do - is to stall for time while he pushes 2 lanes at once and forces the enemy to send someone to defend. If your team can pull this off, and you are sure that they in fact WILL play defensively, and if the map allows it - then yeah, you can push. The deciding factor here is still making sure that they win the teamfight or stall and never lose. If there’s a chance they lose - then you go, no matter how good of a pusher you are.

Taking a camp:

  • Only if you actually can take that camp fast and without losing too much health.
  • Only when you’re sure that it’s safe and you won’t get killed (look if they’re dead, look at the map, look at the state of your team and if they can cover your back.
  • Pay attention to danger pings from your teammates.
  • If this is an enemy camp, then make sure to really be safe.
  • Pay attention to objective timers and spawn spots. The best time to take a camp - is on the opposite lane from the objective and so that you can finish it BEFORE it spawns and be at objective in time to contest. DO NOT start the camps if you can’t finish them before the objective spawns.

Ganking:
In HOTS, there’re no junglers. Everyone can rotate and gank the enemy.

  • The best time for it is generally if you’ve pushed a lane of minions towards enemy half of the lane. It becomes less safe to keep pushing, and you also can spend some time for a gank or a camp and be back in time to collect the experience from the next wave.
  • Pay attention to what happens on the neighboring lanes. If someone has low HP, or if they pushed deep into your half - then they are a prime target to gank.
  • When rotating, make sure that the enemy doesn’t see you mount up and ride towards another lane with purpose. I even move away from any creeps so as to not show the rotation on the map.
  • Don’t overcommit. If the gank failed and they escaped - just go back to your lane or do something else. The fact that you’ve given them a scare is already enough, and losing HP under towers isn’t worth it to continue to press.

Objectives:

  • Objectives are THE STRONGEST win mechanic of this game. If you have a choice between objective and something else - always chose the former.

General Advices:

We all love that LvL 1 5v5 on mid lane. What you have to understand is:

  • It is very risky.
  • Getting kills there gives you a miniscule advantage.
  • It’s not worth losing XP on other lanes.

So what you should do - is go mid with your team. See if you can score that juicy lvl1 kill. But if not - rotate to the other lane in time to get ALL the XP from there.
This is a meta-win strategy in lower MMR, because often what happens is that you get a huge level advantage while the enemies are staying in onle lane as a group of monkeys.
If you know they have Abathur or Murky or anything else like that - it’s even more important that you get to that lane quickly.

Pick the talents based on the Map.
For example, those “Additional damage to monsters” will be invaluable on any map with PVE objective (Blackheart’s Bay, Battlefield of Eternity), or maps with many strong camps. It’s also strong on maps where you expect to defend against PVE objectives (Spider Tomb, Alterac, Braxis)
But it’s less viable on maps with bad camps or no PVE objective (Volskaya)

After 16, and definitely after 20, it’s a good idea to start going everywhere as 5. The laning phase of the game is long over.
You may feel like you could do a lot of damage pushing solo, or taking that camp really fast - but most of the time it ends in either the team being engaged 4v5 because the enemies see you show on the map elsewhere, or you getting ganked.
My general advice: do things solo in the late-game ONLY if half of enemy team is dead.

Do NOT engage at a disadvantage ever, no matter what the enemy does.
Perhaps you have spotted them taking a boss. Engaging 1v5, 2v5 and even 3v5 to disrupt them is stupid. LET THEM TAKE IT, and stay alive to defend. You lose way more if you die.

Do not get overconfident.
One of the worst ways to throw a game is when you win every teamfight, and then your teammates start thinking of themselves as supermen, and start engaging at severe disadvantage or takind unnecessary risks.
Don’t be that guy.

Better give the enemy some objectives than to keep dying 1-by-1.
A lot of the times I see after a lost teamfight people starting to resurrect and immediately go to fight the enemies solo. So let’s say there’s a tribute, and 4 of the enemies are trying to take it. Our “Hero” will ride there as fast as they can, disrupt the tribute channel, then gets engaged 4v1 and dies.
But not to fear! Our world can always use more heroes! So the next one rides behind, disrupts the channel and also dies.
And so the enemy gets 5-6 stupid kills like that as your team just rush them head-on solo like lemmings.

Don’t do that. It’s better to let them have that camp, that boss, that objective - and then defend it as 5. And on maps like Volskaya - you can most of the time afford to wait safely behind your walls and still have time to engage them 5v5 for a full teamfight instead of running it down as fast as they can. They gain nothing from the objective until it gets to 100. So hang back and relax, and let your team to resurrect.

13 Likes
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Blasphemy. When all 5 enemies are dead and we have an open route to their core, I’ll go back and do a siege camp on our side of the map! #campvalue #playsafe #norisk

9 Likes
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Nah, I disagree. If one teammate dies at the objective, everyone else must dive in and die as a show of solidarity.

Fighting when we are level 9 and they are 11 is also very brave. It shows we aren’t scared.

And we can’t just “kill” the enemy core. Only catapults, minions and mercs can do that.
And the boss, of course.
Players can’t damage the core.

4 Likes
4

Kills against Kael (if he takes Convection), Alarak, Tracer (if she takes Untouchable), Butcher (before he’s stacked), and healers/tanks are pretty important. Why? All 4 of those heroes can lose stacks when killed. The more you kill them, the harder it will be for them to finish their quests and become really strong. If the longer you prolong their power spikes, the better off your team will be. On the other side, heroes that get rewarded for kills or take downs get stronger faster.

High damage is important if that damage leads to kills. If its damage that doesn’t finish off a target then yes, its useless damage.

Low death counts are important to keep the enemy from gaining a lead on XP, or keep heroes like Butcher from getting stacked.

Pushing all lanes is good on Alterac Pass because it lowers the core armor, which is good. Its also good for split pushing strategies where the enemy team has pressure everywhere and is forced to split up or suffer the consequences of not defending.

Yes, the main goal of the game is to destroy the core, but giving advice like this without explanation can make people think its okay to die, okay not to have damage, and okay to not have kills. Stats don’t win games, but depending on the hero/team, it can make it easier or harder.

5

You forgot to say hit every illidan, genji, zeratul, tracer, and valeera with the spray when you stomp them.

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I don’t object that.
I’m merely saying that I saw several games thrown because people prefer to chase after somebody to kill them instead of doing something useful in that time.

I also see a lot of bad players boasting how they have “The highest damage” or “The least deaths” in the game, while in fact they contributed very poorly to the match.
Like, I often see a tank (Especially Sonya and Leoric) ride far ahead of the rest of the team, engage 1v5, deal a ton of inconsequential damage and die. And the rest of the team is left 4v5 with no frontline.
And in the end, Sonya has top damage and calls everyone noobs, even though that player single-handedly threw the game.
Or I see people hanging far in the back, not engaging teamfignts for a few seconds, and then retreating with full HP and Mana when they get scared and think that TF is lost. And then loudly point out that everyone on their team feeds while they (the only good player) have 0 deaths.
I recently saw a muradin who engaged the enemy on foot, cast his abilities and then immediately jumped back with over 50% HP, letting the rest of the team tank. And that dude didn’t die! And he was proud of that fact.

It’s simply not the aim of the game.
Of course high damage and low death count are good, if they don’t actually prevent you from winning the game because you’ve chased after those superficial goals/stats instead of playing to destroy the core.

Disabling a hero with some quest count can be a great benefit and an objective of its own.

I understand what you’re trying to say, but I think you have misunderstood what point I was trying to make.

1 Like
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No I understood your point 100% and I agree with you completely. I just think its important to note when/where kills are important. :relaxed:

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Good attempt.

Sadly, the players making these massive misplays are convinced that they already know everything they need to know. So they will never read this.

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SEE THIS BLIZZARD?? this is a good intro to noobs. i always wanted to match with a pre-lvl 100 lad who KNOWS what hes doing.

i remember a guy that i matched with in QM who was like lvl 120. he was REALLY GOOD and he was not even a smurf. i friended him too. wish everyone was like that lad

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Yes this is really important. You can trigger them with B stepping if they don’t want to attack.
I like you man xD

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People flame me so hard when we’re 2-3 levels behind and I refuse to join them in their practically ritual suicide. No thanks. I’ll keep soaking and stacking, in the (probably vain) hopes of a mid-late game turnaround.

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Not that disadvantage.
2-3 levels is perfectly fine to engage upon. I was talking more about numbers than level difference.

And also read the section about Risks and Rewards. I specifically go over the matter than in HOTS you can’t afford to play passively if you’re behind already. Most of the times, you gotta take that fight.

1 Like
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Early 2-3 level disadvantage. Not late. I should have mentioned that.

And I did read the whole thing.

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Oddly enough, when someone B-steps at me, I attack them less cause I don’t want to be B-stepped at lol.

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Good points ; I only ask for 4 simple things from players :

  • stop happy suicide in the first minute
  • stop having happy solo strolls in unscouted bushes and areas
  • go to the damned empty lanes in early game
  • when engage, go together instead of kongoline 1 by 1 so you always are 1 or 2v5

I don’t ask for much but I am still disappointed.

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Nice try.

Forget all about it, and learn to win brawls.
If you fail to win brawls, you’ll lose objectives and the map in the process.
If you do, you autowin those.
Probably that’s the reason behind my 25% winrate this season. I’m playing the map, and it f#in NEVER works. And nobody f#in appreciates it either! They upvote the 10k heal Uther just because he kept being in the fights dying. XP, camps, they are nothing, they get cleared up and countered by kills.
Macro has zero impact whatsoever. ZERO. ZZEERRROOOOO.

17

Wow, so much salt.

Your problem is putting macro above everything else. Macro has significance, but it needs to happen at the right moment.
You mention Uther being upvoted for being in the fights - which implies that you are NOT in the fights every time. Which is a mistake.

If your team makes a call (for example to fight), what you should do if you disagree - is ping/warn them against it. If that doesn’t work - it is better to JOIN them than to let them make a wrong call 4v5. Going solo because you’re smart and you are making the “correct call” - is not the optimal strategy.
It is BETTER to support your team in making a sub-optimal call, than to make a correct call alone and either they die 4v5 or you get caught or something.

My personal rule of thumb - is to make a correct call, ping the map and wait. If my team listens to me - great. If they do not listen after 5-10 seconds - I turn around and join them.

Again, yeah, they may be a bunch of dummies that make a wrong decision. But it’s better to support them in that play and perhaps we still win - than to let them die 4v5 which puts YOU directly behind, no matter how smart you were.

If your team wants to fight at a 3 level disadvantage - JOIN THEM. By going solo-lane you’re making a mistake.
If you join them - you have a 70% chance of losing, but it’s still better than you making a “better call” alone, let them die and have 95% chance of losing.

The things that you’re taking about - “Playing the map” etc - is exactly the type of hubris and bad play that I am talking about. You’re the one who most needs that thread, IMO. You’re only looking at things on a surface level, thinking that soaking XP is universally better, or playing the map is universally better. Treat your teammates like a force of nature. If they don’t listen to calls - it’s better to go with that force and hope for the best, than to go alone and DEFINITELY lose.

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Teammates are more a weakness of nature than a force of nature. :innocent:

1 Like
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I totally admit, I’m a mine at its prime now.
By the way, just followed your-mine advice this match. Teamwide 0 soak, first camp at 20, inting until death, not even a fountain. Well, I had to go back for mana. Such a clear cut victory, with a lot of upvotes even.

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I grantee you that everyone will disagree with this theory even there is a poll. Cause players will always think about great numbers first what leads to wins. even when players go at each other about their stats. like high deaths, low damage etc as what u are saying.

but yes numbers don’t mean $h1t. cause it proves nothing on the playing field.
only to win games actually is by working together as a team and by putting a lot of pressure on the other team. The more pressure you put on the opposing team they have to work twice as harder to make up the loss.