Hell, It's About Damn Time | Timing Is Everything

Hey lads! Today our Heroes of the Storm Boosting team and I will be talking about the importance of patience. Timing. Easily one of the most important abilities that any very good HotS player needs.

Timing is really essential if you are trying to keep strong pressure across the entire map and it will guarantee you a huge constant advantage over your enemies. And sometimes, it can even be the single turning point for a whole game, making your opponents want to delete their Heroes of the Storm accounts.

Map Timing: Pushing with Mercenaries

But why is timing and patience so important? What do our HotS Boost experts mean by timing? First and foremost, let's focus on map timing.

Each map has its very own objective that appears at a certain specific time of each game (the single exception to this is the Tomb of the Spider Queen). Your timing for certain maps is always fixed and having this knowledge will give you a huge advantage since you will be doing the decision making in every game.

Usually, it is a thoughtful idea to take a mercenary camp right before the map objective spawns. The simple reason for this is that you are leaving your enemy team with only two possibilities: If they try to contest the map objective, then they are forced to leave the mercenaries unattended to push an entire lane; but if they focus the mercenaries, then odds are they will have no chance to arrive and contest the objective.

Also, make sure that you use your heroes that are highest on the HotS Tier List to ensure that they will carry your fights.Here, you can see how the boss is free to push a lane with absolutely no defense because they have to contest the objective.

However, bad timing on taking that mercenary camp will lead to the exact opposite result. It will be a complete waste of time that not only puts the camp on cooldown after the mercenaries are taken down in under 20 seconds, but it probably will make your team lose the next teamfight near an objective or be deprived of the experience you would have gained by experience soaking a lane.

There is a great recap of every map timer here. Buying a Heroes of the Storm Account is a great way to practice this timing to make sure you get it right for your ranked play.

Map Timing: Bosses

The arguments that our HotS Boost team made in the previous paragraphs can very easily be extended to all bosses as well. However, there are a few other aspects that you need to consider when talking about the boss.

First and foremost, the boss's behavior is much different. The boss does not just basic attack the heroes, but it also goes through a stun attack set and a root or a tornado attack (with the sole exception of the Headless Horseman).

A boss’s stun phase Another thing that must be considered is that all bosses take much longer to be captured, so finding perfect timing is much harder than mercenaries. Most of the time you will need more than three of your team’s heroes to take the boss down and this factor increases the chance of that bad outcome that we discussed earlier.

The exact time that you start taking the boss is very important. In fact, the very second you begin to destroy the boss will be a factor in determining its power and health and also its effectiveness. The specific map creates another aspect when we are talking about boss timing.

Use the heroes highest on the Heroes of the Storm Tier List to maximise your effectiveness in these boss fights. In Tomb of the Spider Queen for example, it is probably a good idea to destroy the boss camp when you see the Webweavers falling to ensure and increase the push pressure on the top lane.

However, in Cursed Hollow, trying to take a mercenary camp rather than pushing during when the other team is cursed is probably a bad idea. As a general rule of thumb, if you have the opportunity to choose between a fort and a mercenary camp, destroying the fort is always the right choice.

Abilities and Cooldowns

A good habit to have is to time and track of the cooldowns of important abilities, especially big heroic abilities of heroes who heavily rely on them. It can also be a strong hint to know if you want to start a team fight against your opposing team or if you are able to be more aggressive. It's not always an easy task but if you do it well you are sure to have a huge advantage. If you are struggling, buy a HotS Account to practice on.

A few examples: E.T.C.'s Mosh Pit: It has the lengthy cooldown of 120 seconds. Once he uses his ability, if you simply memorize this global timer, you will know for certain how long he will not be able to use it. During this two minute timespan, your assassins can play much more aggressively and your team’s positioning can be radically different.

Try to shut him down so he can’t access the power that makes him pretty high on the Heroes of the Storm Tier List. Uther's Divine Shield: It has a cooldown of 90 seconds. Let's suppose that you are using Illidan or Greymane and your team has an Uther on your team. Knowing that he teammate has Divine Shield up will allow you take more risks and dive a lot deeper. (Of course, only do this if you can trust your teammate, and here is where your communication is also important);

Bolt of the Storm: Cooldown is only 70 seconds. This talent will be used both offensively as well as defensively, but a majority of the time it will be used as an escape. Remembering the cooldown of this talent will enable you to play properly against your opponent who may or may not have this talent available.

Various Other Kinds of Timing

There are a few other time-based things that every player can keep track of to improve their awareness to play better. Just to name a few: Combo timing Knowing when to push a lane.

Try to always be aware of situations like these and always seize the perfect timing for them. Utilizing heroes higher on the HotS Tier List can help you focus more time into timing and less into fighting, allowing you to master these skills. Please feel free to leave a comment about the article below.