Hero League - Interesting Map Specific Picks - Pt.1

It’s easy to see that some heroes are almost always picked – in every MOBA there are OP picks and people complaining about it. HotS is not an exception, and this justifies the fact the a few heroes should always be first picked for each map.

Of course every players should play the game “for fun”, but to maximize the chances to win in the Heroes of the Storm Season 1 first picking the best hero is essential. But there are some other interesting map specific picks that you should consider. I'm talking mainly about Hammer, Falstad and Brightwing. There are different metas for every map, so our Heroes of the Storm Boost team will guide you through each map.

Battlefield of Eternity: Hammer (with Raynor)

Hammer is the hero of choice specifically for Battlefield of Eternity. The reason is simple: her huge range gives Hammer a great safety, and it’s very hard to play around her knock up in this specific map.

BoE requires versatile picks, as every time will probably need to siege and to defend at some point, and sieging is the key to win in this double lanes map, rather than focusing on bursting the enemies. This is exceptionally true in the first ten minutes of the battle: as soon as the first Immortal hp drop below 50%, every Immortal will become invulnerable for 10-15 seconds- enough time for the enemy team to respawn at full health, reposition, reengage and probably wipe out your team.

This is why our Heroes of the Storm Boost team suggests the Hammer pick: her great kit is perfect for long team fights, and she is great at turtling and defending. Specifically, she can protect the friendly Immortal using her immense zone control, just standing on it and waiting on her knock back.

If Hammer can pick off a single enemy knocking him into the Immortal’s stun, the team fight victory is pretty much guaranteed. But our Heroes of the Storm Boost team uses Hammer also because of her range. As soon as the defensive phase ends, she can just sit out of danger and siege, damaging the enemy immortal in total safety.

There is little counter play to this strategy: dealing with her implies passing through her whole team and let’s not forget her knockback! Tunneling too much to get to her will result in disaster for the enemy team. The perfect hero to help Hammer is Raynor: thanks to the attack speed buff and the extra crowd control and vision Hammer will become even stronger at sieging- that’s how Hammer dominates the preseason and hopefully HotS Season 1 meta in BoE.

Blackheart’s Bay: Falstad (with Tyrande)

In this Preseason and maybe Heroes of the Storm Season 1 another interesting pick for Blackheart’s Bay is Falstad. BB is very different from the other maps, and the key to victory here is great mobility and vision control.

Falstad excels at both, making him the first pick priority. He can apply a lot of global pressure, especially in the first minutes of the game: securing the watch tower before the enemy team is often enough to win the first team fights, and thanks to his 'mount' he can get to the tower, secure it and leave before anyone else in the game. His great mobility is incredibly useful in the other stages of the game: Falstad can instantly reach the chest spawn points and assist his team, with low possibilities of counter play for the enemies. In this map every team needs to collect coins from the four doubloon camps, the merc camps and the treasure chest.

Now Falstad excels at securing the chest, because the spawning is totally randomized: as soon as the chest appears, Falstad can fly to the closest position before the enemy team has time to react. If you add the extra vision from the watch tower control, collecting coins becomes really easy. Using this strategy Falstad’s team can earn 10 coins pretty quickly, and turn them in to Blackheart in the middle of the map, creating a massive cannon barrage.

If Hammer + Raynor is the best combo for BoE, for Blackhear's Bay our Heroes of the Storm Boost team advises you to give a shot to Falstad and Tyrande. Her Howls are great at scouting and getting safely vision around the turn in. and her Hunters Mark have an incredibly synergy with Falstad’s ability to capture early the Watch Tower, since Tyrande can stun from outside the tower securing quickly the first kill. This is surely a very interesting duo for Blackheart's Bay in the Heroes of the Storm season 1 meta after they both get buffed which they likely will.

The Cursed Hollow: Brightwing. Honorable mentions for Sylvanas and Sonya

Lastly we have Cursed Hollow. This is probably the most difficult map in HotS, and there are many viable strategies and heroes: we suggest to try Brightwing, Sonya or Sylvanas, depending on the tactics and the team comp, but Brightwing is probably the best choice.

The Cursed Hollow map has a lot of objectives, and her ability to instantly teleport to a boss or tribute spawn location makes her top tier. In addition her strong kit makes her a great support with good team fighting abilities.

As we know, in the Cursed Hollow map there are 2 extremely powerful bosses, separated from the rest of the map; but the main focus should be around the tributes. They spawn periodically in the top or bottom of the map, most of the time closer to one team’s base. This means that, maybe with the exception of the first tribute, there will be a large team fight at every spawn, because as soon as one team collects three tributes the enemy team will be cursed. Cursed team’s towers don’t fire, except for the core, so it’s a major deficit that can really turn the tides of the game. It’s almost impossible to stop the enemy team from pushing if your towers are not firing ,so capturing the tributes should always be a priority, and Brightwing is great at controlling them.

The best strategy is to soak experience before the tribute spawns, than teleporting to the location with the exp advantage. As long as your team is in position, Brightwing will have a great lead in exp over the enemies thanks to her map presence. Her kit allows her to bring great utility in the tribute team fight, thanks to her basic attack block, the polymorph that will totally stop an enemy from damaging and last but not least her passive area of effect heal.

Her passive ability, combined to the basic attack block, is extremely powerful early game because of the low mana pool of the heroes: usually every hero will use all of his mana during the first team fights, being only able to use basic attacks in the end. Well, Brightwing will block the basic attacks, and the passive heal will give her team an edge. Using Brightwing to control tributes is surely the best option, but there are different viable strategies.

For example, ignoring the first tributes to get an advantage in experience during the early game, snowball it and basically get a substantial lead before the enemy team can activate the risk. This is a very high risk-high reward strategy, but with the right comp it’s surely viable, and Sylvanas is the perfect hero.

A third strategy is to focus on bosses: in this case we suggest to pick Sonya, as her ability to solo the boss makes her a great hero in the Cursed Hollow. However the last two strategies are not very safe, so in the end Brightwing is the best pick in this map, if used to properly control curses and to get an edge in the early team fights.

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