Why not listen to this music while you read my opinions for the next few minutes:
When you’re making a MOBA that acts completely differently to other MOBAs, with quirks that change some of the core features of a typical MOBA, things are bound to go wrong. The safe option is to have maps that don’t do anything crazy, in case things go haywire, and you end up with a terrible map (like hanamura, for example).
Cursed Hollow is great. It’s the purest form of Heroes of the Storm possible. Simple objective for beginners, emphasising pushing lanes and/or winning teamfights. Simple. Fun. Wonderful.
But Blizzard didn’t just do that. They went further. Sure, there’s Tomb of the Spider queen. But that still has the basic gameplay elements. Sky Temple is about controlling an area and pushing, but that’s still about pushing and teamfighting. They’re all slight evolutions of the basic Cursed Hollow concept.
Then you’ve got Towers of Doom.
What the hell were Blizzard thinking when they made this map?
Honestly, it should’ve gone totally wrong, there should’ve been forum posts campaigning for the removal of this map.
This is a map where heroes cannot attack the core themselves, there’s only 6 forts on the entire map and to do damage to the core you need to channel on anywhere between 1 and 3 altars. Also at the same time, this map has to account for teamfights and allow lanes to be pushed and also allow for comebacks.
But somehow, they pulled it off.
There’s many different design choices at play with this map. Lets first look at how attacking the core works. Both teams start off doing 4 damage per altar. Each core has 40 health. Without any other mechanics at play, that would mean that you win by getting 10 altars before the enemy does. This would be incredibly flat.
However, to make every single type of character useful in some way on this map, the amount of forts you have determines the damage you do. This means if you let Zagara get one of your forts (because you were too lazy to go down and stop her.) Their team needs only 8 altars to win the game, and your team now needs 13.333333 (recurring) altars in order to win.
You can push forts quicker with the unique pumpkin bomber mercenary camps. However, these only appear on the “specialist lanes” AKA Top and Bottom lane. This design choice means that you really have to pay attention to those lanes. If you lose top AND bottom lane, not only are you behind on XP, but you need a whopping 20 altars, and the enemy needs a puny 7. No slacking off! If enemy pumpkin bombers pass by enemy forts and make it to where the core is, each one deals a damage point, and they get total map control if they get all 6 forts, which constantly deals a slow and steady 1 damage to your core every few seconds.
But those comeback mechanics, how do they work? It’s not like you can get those forts back now, they’re long gone!
OOPS, LOOKS LIKE YOU CAN TAKE FORTS BACK. In one of the strangest moves of any map in this game, you can take the forts back (you even get the healing fountain back!) You can even use the Pumpkin bombers to get it done quick if your team lacks the same pushing power, so you don’t need to have siege characters on your team. Also, because core damage is tied to getting altars and getting pumpkin crooks through the lane, you can make some intense comebacks when you’re over 20 core health points behind the enemy team.
There’s also a boss on this map, placed very purposely close to the middle of the map, and is very obvious. The winning team can try and take it, but if the losing team notice everyone is absent, they can easily steal it away from them. If the losing team kill all of the winning team, they can usually take it and deal an instant 4 damage.
So now it’s been established that this map works REAAALLY well from a gameplay point of view. But what about from an aesthetic point of view?
Personally, I LOVE IT. This feels like one of the only maps with a real conflict that goes beyond just fighting the enemy team. This is the REAL nexus lore, as the side you are placed on changes which announcer you get and what lines are said during the game. The raven lord wants to capture this realm as his own, as the Grave Keeper fights to keep it.
Both of them are solo announcers on other maps, so it feels like a cross over inside a cross over. It’s also the only map where it feels like the 2 sides interact, the next closest being Alterac Pass, which was made a good few years later!
The fantastic music also replicates this feeling, being a mix of the Cursed Hollow and Haunted Mines main melodies, and the whole map has this real Hallowe’en feel, which I personally dig.
So to sum up: BEST MAP IN THE GAME. HANDS DOWN. However, I’ve got no problems with people disagreeing with me.