Tips for getting better

General Discussion
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Hey there! This is my first thread and 3rd post on these forums. So, a few months ago after not playing HOTS for a year I returned to the game.

I’ve noticed that I’m an okish player, but have noticed I have a lot of issues with things such as muddling up which character is mine on screen when a lot of action happens or mana management.

My mains are Anduin, D.va, Jaina, Ana (Sometimes), Tracer (Not so fond of her after the rework though.), and Auriel.

Note: I am perfectly fine and comfortable with my talents and can use the builds fine, it’s more these main issues for me.

My three top mains though are Anduin, D.va and Jaina. With Jaina I’m ok with mana, but with Anduin it’s more difficult. (Especially when I’m the only healer.) Because a lot of the time to heal my team properly I need to basically spam his abilities.

Another thing I noticed is that sometimes I find it hard to macromanage and pay attention to what’s going on everywhere. (I have gotten better with checking the minimap/my Teammate’s HP at the top so I can change lanes to heal or protect my team if needed.)

I also sometimes panic and make really stupid desicions, but I really want to improve, especially before I try Storm League.

So, yeah. Thanks for reading and any tips would be appreciated!

Edit: I apologize if I don’t reply quickly, I do read all the messages but for some reason I keep getting the message that I need more people to participate to reply.

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HailFall UwU !!! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts::heart::kissing_heart:

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The number one advice I can give you to improve is, watch your replays.

When you’ve seen yourself make a mistake without the heat of the moment, you can never make that same mistake again.

You may also want to watch high level game play of heroes you use.

This specific game has excellent play by the Anduin player, and they show the talents regularly. I recommend it.

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First Step. Unranked Draft. If you play QM you’re playing a completely different game.

If you’re playing heals: My primary tip is focus your energy on keeping the tank alive. They need to be topped off as much as possible. Keep your CC for your asn allies. You want to avoid healing the assassins on your team and the best way to do this is to avoid having them be hit. For every heal you use on your backline, that’s one less heal on your front line. This doesn’t mean don’t heal your backline. It simply means focus your heals on your frontline. Let your CC be used for peeling for the back line. This may help your mana issues for healers.

For Jaina, pick the easiest build you can play. That means one that allows you to run out of mana the least. To my knowledge, Jaina has 2 mana abilities. Only ever pick one and learn to spend your mana. Once you learn to do this, learn to play her best build if you want. Give yourself time to learn the hero before you play them on master-mode, and even then, most ppl will still pick mana talents. It’s normal. Not running out of mana is crucial.

Another piece of advice: Hit what you can. A lot of ppl say stupid things like “WE NEED TO KILL MORALES.” While it’s true that killing their healer is optimal, it makes no sense to go for their healer if she’s being heavily defended. If you can land a abilities on her and not be smacked around, go for it, otherwise aim for that diablo. If they have no frontline, you can focus on their backline.

As for D.va, I got nothing for you. Of all the “bruisers” I think she’s sub-optimal. I’d say pick a different bruiser to play. It’s not that she can’t be good, it’s that it’s hard to bring value as her.

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Thank you so much for the tips! So I should try my best to only heal the assasins if they’re super low and focus more on my tanks/bruisers?

I usually pick both mana abilities but I suppose the quest is good enough.

As for D.va, she’s the only bruiser I know how to play. The others sadly don’t really match up with my playstyle so I tend to suck.

Edit: Oh great I can’t reply because not enough people have 'participated.

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Soak more exp at nearly every stage of the game (until you hit 20).

This will push your win rate up by a tidy 5-10% compared to players in your league.

Whenever you see a big wave approaching your fort or an empty lane, instead of pinging, go clear it yourself. Depending on random teammates almost always fails.

If you need to take a camp before an objective spawns, try taking them yourself as well. Expecting a teammate to do it rarely works out.

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Thank you for the video! I’m watching it right now and I shall watch my replays more often when I play quick play/Unranked. Thank you for replying.

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You shouldn’t be required to require both mana talents as Jaina. If you do, you’re you’re probably being lazy and just spamming your abilities. This is fun to do, but it does very little but inflate your stats. You have powerful abilities, use your abilities intelligently, you see an option to land frostbolt on Valla, hit her, force her back. Another option is to play her as a secondary asn instead of a primary. So let’s say Raynor is your 2nd asn on your team, focus targets with him. You abilties sync with his talents and your abilties offer “peel.” This can be very powerful.

As for your heals, I’d say yes. Idealistically, that’s what you should do. If you have no frontline, you have no protection. You’re front line is crucial. What balance will you find between the 2 is something you’ll have to learn over-time. Although, keep in mind that this rule isn’t written in stone. They’re times when healing your back-line is more important than healing you’re front-line, for instance, against a team heavy on diving. Again, you’ll have to learn when to do this with experience.

As for bruisers, perhaps Ragnaros might fit your play style; he’s more of a spellcaster which seems to be your type. Also keep in mind that Tyrael and Arthas can also fit in the realm of bruisers if you haven’t tried them.

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Ah. I try my best, but it’s more difficult as Anduin because I have to heal (Plus his waveclear is so bad it’s not even funny like yikes.) I’ve noticed a lot of my teammates won’t soak and I can’t really do much about that one.

(Not blaming them or anything, nothing wrong with making mistakes or not knowing.) But as other characters I’ll definitely put the extra effort to SOAK in.

As for the camps and minon waves. When I play as Anduin I basically need another person to help clear them out because again his waveclear sucks (Maybe I don’t play him right idk, but I always have issues with clearing minions as him.)

Also true with the camps. I’ll try to take them myself if I can without being a bad teammate, but I will ping if I think it’ll be tricky. (Hope that isn’t bad.)

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Practice with Thrall, imo. He can poke, he can set up, he can finish. OK wave-clear and durability. Thrall is a high-impact generalist, so you should be able to develop a play-style that suits you.

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I don’t know if this is what you’re doing, but one of the easiest things you can do to be a better healer is to basically hearth before objectives and go to them with full mana and preferably an untapped well as well.

Inexperienced healers tend to always forget this. Between this and not constantly choosing to soak as a healer, those are the two simplest things you can do that will dramatically increase your win rate as a healer. Beyond that, you’d have to send a replay to see how you are playing mechanically, but if you’re going oom, that at least means you are capable of using your abilities.

Stupid decisions are just part of playing. So long as you learn from them, it’s only going to make you a better player in the long term.

The minimap isn’t that difficult. When you’re engaged with the enemy, you don’t really need to concentrate all that much on it unless you’re the primary wave clearing person. Just whenever there’s a lull in the battle don’t just fixate on your lane and minions, check the minimap, if there are any anomalies and you should be fine.

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Oh ok! Thank you for the reply. I will take the fact that I should try to soak even as Anduin into account, I almost always hearth before major battles or objectives if I’m low on mana.

The thing is in a lot of games my allies have been so low on HP I’ve had to stay behind to heal them so there was no time to do so.
(Not blaming them or anything, I just find it difficult to decide when to hearth in such situations.)

I usually just use the minimap to double check if any enemies are nearby before I go into an area or try to see the easiest way to get to an ally or to check for enemy mercs. (Of course not when I’m battle unless it’s for an escape route.)

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No, I said do NOT try to soak as a healer. That is not your primary job. If you have to cover a lane because the team is getting camps temporarily, go ahead, but putting the mantle on yourself to soak and not heal is why your team dies, which defeats the purpose of the advantage of soaking.

If your team needs healing before battles, it’s better to just not heal them. So long as they’re not engaged in battle, you’ll most likely be able to catch them on your way back, and hopefully that also tells them, maybe I shouldn’t engage and should hearth too. You can also signal to them to back also. Don’t be afraid to communicate as a healer what you need.

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One thing that I have found that works when I heal is to ping my mana bar (Alt + left-click on your mana bar by your portrait) when I need to hearth or if I don’t want my team to engage right then. If they know they aren’t going to be healed, even if I am standing right next to them, they tend to be slightly less likely to go full Leeeeeeroy.

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For this, play solo laners or abathur to improve on this. As a solo laner, you always have to be looking at your map because the gank attempt is inevitable.

When you play heroes that require you to have map awareness like that, you’ll find that those skills translate to non solo laners as well, making you a better player overall.

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Sorry. I misread what you said.

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To the OP.
I wish there were more threads like this.
It’s far more constructive than the normal crap, thanks

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a lot of these post are great answers to help you improve, but sometimes people are missing key points of the actual game.

To get better you want to know the characrters you are capable to play comfortably like your mains. To get a quick feel of a character play in Training mode, to see what kind of talents works for you, when picking talents, you want damage and speed. Those two attributes are vital to the game.

Try to play almost every character of the game, then you get the better overall on their style and how people would play them. To test this method would work in AI or Quick Matches.

When picking talents, you want to go that works offensively. Like for Jaina if you pick mostly defensive talents like in order from 1-10. Fingers of Frost, Arcane Intellect, Ice Lance, Summon Water Elemental, Ice Barrier, Numbing Blast and Wintermute. this build can be considered too defensive, cause you selected more defensive talents than offensive talents, try not to have too much talents into one skill cause that will backfire pretty often. spread your talents picking out.

Pick at lease 2 talents that are defensive and the rest offensive. It works better result on the field. But everyone has their own thing. If you pick too many talents that is more on the defensive side, your going to have trouble playing offensive.

Another good tip is to play offensively or aggressive as much you can, cause that puts your opposing team to play more defensively, but it works better if everyone is at the same pace. Basically putting your opponents into pressure leads to victory.

Don’t stare at the stat’s page, look at the talents page during the game. it gives you the better outcome on how other players are playing. Don’t rely on the numbers like hero damage, deaths, kills etc. it wont’ get you anywhere better. The stat pages only matters last. It’s not what leads to wins or losses. Cause it cannot prove how good the player did.

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Try every hero you can. You might find one you really like and it also gives you a better understanding of the hero. Such as knowing their abilities better as well as their strengths and weaknesses.

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Watch high ranked streamers and your own replays. These are the best ways to improve imo.

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