Some heroes I find almost unplayable with a locked camera (for example The Lost Vikings or Abathur), but others like Tracer or Genji give me headache trying to follow the fight with an unlocked one.
Do whatever leads you to getting a positive win ratio on those heroes (or if that is not important to you, what leads you to having fun).
People even at the very top of the ladder use both. There’s no need to religiously fixate on one.
My mind is absolutely blown. I didnt even know that people EXIST that play with camera-lock hahahahaha. I cant imagine playing with camera-lock, i truly cant believe people actually play like that.
It takes away so much awereness of youre surroundings and it makes it much harder to hit skill shots. PLEASE UNLOCK guys hahaha but if it works for you then so be it i guess.
I’m in Masters and I never unlocked my camera (all right, I did to test it and it felt horrible to me).
So do what feels good for you?
It’s kinda like the Cast-settings. Some do quick cast, some do on release, and so on. Every kind of these ppl are in Bronze-Masters (can’t talk about GM).
You do realize you have unlimited vision by clicking the small minimap, even with lock on?
It moves the camera just like moving your mouse to the edge of the screen does. You can instantly watch what is happening on another side of the map.
And as said above: There are people in Silver who only played Unlocked, and people in Master who have played nothing but Locked, so clearly one style does not lead to a higher winrate, rank or skill.
For example I could never imagine playing locked camera on Abathur. I’m not even going to try. But I will probably not play Genji with unlock. So far I had 57% with him in SL, and it comes down to a thousand factors besides camera.
Gall is the only hero I used the locked camera for.
I’m too dumb to adapt to the unlocked camera… Whenever I have tried I miss my shots or end up dying either in the middle of the enemy team or in front of a fort…
So I’ll just stay away of it (also it sometimes happens that when I get nervous I press L in the middle of team fights and end up getting screwed…)
I play with camera locked casue i dont want to deal with adjusting my camera 400 times doing a game.
Maybe only when i play Aba i dare to unlock it but with others i dont.
If you play with a locked camera and do well, that’s fine.
Hell, sometimes when i’m playing with my unlocked camera I will have my vision skewed and don’t see the enemy right next to my hero because its out of my view! Its rare but it happens lol.
I hotkeyed the lock to my mouse. The only hero I can’t use locked on is the Lost Vikings because if one dies the camera jerks back to spawn and then the other 2 shortly follow because the camera is on the opposite side of the map of where the action is.
But generally close range is great for locked on, and then I go free hand for the long shots or when I want specific visibility and the lock on is in a place where the camera wastes most of the screen (bottom corner of a map for instance)
I agree, Vikings almost demands unlocked. Maybe Aba too. Any other hero is fair game for both cam modes.
You naturally look at your map more often when you play with unlocked.
I wouldn’t play with Tracer, Zera or Genji unlocked though. (Actually, I just wouldn’t play Genji)
I don’t think that’s true. I have my eyes on the minimap constantly. I’d say the opposite is true, since I use the minimap to control my camera.
I mostly use Locked when tanking, as positioning is critical, and in a giant pile of bodies, I will sometimes lose track of my hero, especially when I am also watching my back line for their positioning and readiness to go in. The tank is also one of the heroes most likely to be hit by displacement (throw me, Garrosh, throw me!), so having the camera follow me when I go flying across the screen allows me to more quickly determine the best escape route.
Thanks all for your replies, I feel better now. The only thing I keep wondering is why would you use unlocked when you’re doing a camp for expample, if you set your camera to get vision of the rest of the space you won’t watch anything, at least there is some Lunara wisp or any kind of vision spell, the only way you could see some enemy coming to invade is just when they show up near of your vision circle. Thanks all once more and enjoy.
it would depend on your hero. For a hero like Artanis for example, you don’t really need to do anything besides click your Double Strike. Or whatever the ability is called.
Same would go for someone like Varian, who is just gonna “mindlessly” AA.
Watching the map to see more detail than the minimap gives you (which minion wave is winning in the closest wave? Does my ally in bot lane have low HP? Is there an enemy who has low HP i can try to gank after?).
Of course, you can do this with a locked camera by clicking on the minimap, I just find that PERSONALLY when my camera is locked, I tend to do these things less, as I’m not panning to look. It takes me more active thought to click on the minimap.
Which is something I should work on!
Man that sounds so strange to me.
When i first started playing HoTS i used to play unlocked. This was because i was used to playing RTS games like starcraft.
Aba was the very first hero i bought with gold. To me, simbiote is similar to playing gall. You can’t control the body; only the skill shots. Locking my camera felt so much easier when playing aba. When im not using simbiote, Aba is a very global hero so i typically click the minimap to bounce around the map.
After locking my camera i never looked back.
Tl;dr: Aba was the REASON why I transitioned into camera locked. Based on everyone else’s responses…how wierd am I?
I mostly play with locked camera. There are a few situations I unlock it but generally play with locked camera.
The main reason to use locked camera is because it is less effort that unlocked camera. Unlocked camera needs constant panning while locked camera does a lot of this for you only needing minor situational adjustments. For macro awareness they both perform the same. For mid range awareness unlocked can be better due to no leashing but this seldom matters too much and often can be compensated by macro awareness. All the effort saved on panning the camera can be put to use with better micro in fights.
Some skill shots are easier to land against moving targets when you and your camera are moving as well. Others are more difficult since the camera movement adds another vector of motion to compensate for. Generally for point and click targeting it makes no difference since the hero movement results in most of the click misses anyway.
A skill shot that benefits from locked camera is Tracer’s Pulse Bomb since you can line it up with moving targets very easily when moving yourself. A skill shot that benefits from unlocked camera is Hanzo’s Scattering Arrow since you can more precisely control the reflection when the camera is not moving.
I only used locked camera when playing Gall. Otherwise I like the freedom of open camera to help with map awareness.
I only unlock on 4 characters: Aba, Rexxar, Samuro, and TLV
Micro is just too important on the rest.
Use whatever is comfortable to you, you don’t need to change a setting just because majority are using it.