Why Blackheartsbay and Warhead Junction are never in the rotation?
Those maps have many different strategies and approaches than other maps. As a result, some people don’t like them at all.
Simply to put it, those maps are annoying to play
random question cus I never seem to see it
is Garden of Terror in rotation as well?
And I would never like to see those maps in rotation. Thank you
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Garden of Terror isn’t in the rotation in SL.
BHB is currently under observation for a rework (at BlizzCon they’ve said that there is already a new version of it on internal testing), because it has a “PvE-focused” gameplay that reward mostly lanes rotation and farming coins with few occasion for PvP. On top of having a too powerful objective.
But I don’t know what is the reason about WJ not being on ranked, aside from being a map that requires an unusual strategies since its size is so massive that global and split push have are very relevant there.
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Blackheartsbay and Warhead junction both are maps that were specifically disfavored by pro and high level players pretty early on in HGC. HGC games where they were selected would usually result in games that were not very entertaining to view or play. One team would gain a significant advantage, and then PvE merc camps and push for the rest of the game straight into victory. Thus, the objective on these maps didn’t really result in major team fights and high level players really only relied on macro play and siege damage to win games.
For Blackheart’s Bay this was exceptionally true as it did not make it into the pool of maps considered acceptable for a pro-level HGC match. Heroes moderators took this negative feedback from higher ranked players regarding BHB and WJ into consideration and removed them from the map pool.
In lower level play, such as Quick Match, teams will brawl regardless. If you want to try the pro-level PvE strategy, you will find that your teammates will have entered into a hopeless 4 vs 5 and will be raging at you while they respawn, only to dive into the enemy team once more. Your only hope for victory is to brawl with them. Thus the “there is no team fights” crisis is averted. Therefore, these maps are entered into the pool for the people that like them.
I myself HATE BHB, but love Warhead junction. I think a map rework for either would be welcome, but seeing how the haunted mines and hanamura rework went, (Haunted mines’ many edits did not fix its fundamental problems. The Hanamura map improved it in some ways, but still needs some balancing on the objective power (it is too weak, imo.) I am not sure that improving old maps should be a priority over developing new maps. Alterac Pass and Volskaya Foundry were very good new map additions, and I feel like the HOTS team does a better job starting a brand new map concept from scratch than trying to fix maps with fundamental flaws.
For BHB there was a Brawl that may be a good starting point for reworking the whole map, while keeping its pirate theme and mechanics (gathering and delivering a resource) but with a completly different gameplay.
The issue of WJ are far more deep and I hardly see an easy fix for that, more like HM that even after several changes was again not so good to play on.
Considering also the reduced resources Devs are working with, I hardly see anything coming for those two maps but I hope BHB may be fixed in some way.
I think Blizzard need to fix both these maps before add new maps to the game, Blizzard needs to fix Haunted Mines too and put it back into the game before try to add any new map.
is Warhead junction that awful? I think it’s not the best but still ok
because they are too difficult they say… so we are stuck with the others, which are all basically the same map…
Would get warhead instead of boring hanamura/braxxis
personally i hate that map. its a horrible brawl imo.
meanwhile i like the overall idea of BHB. i do agree it needs to change for ranked, but its still a fun map.
2 months later. 
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4 minutes later.
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