Tips For Tomb Of The Spider Queen

Today, our Heroes of the Storm Boost team brings you a Tomb of The Spider Queen Guide. Make sure to soak in the information in order to prepare yourself for Artanis">Artanis on 27th October!

Endgame Strategy

Prioritize pushing out the top lane as far as possible when Spider Queens are active (preferably up to and including the gate and two towers in front of the keep). Capture the boss when safe (i.e., when at a talent advantage or after a favourable team fight). A late game boss plus 3-5 heroes (depending on who is alive on the opposing team) marching together towards the core is a guaranteed win even if the top keep is still standing.

Key Phases

Collecting gems

As much as possible you want to concentrate your gems on as few heroes as possible. Yes you read that right. This is a team game not a free for all so either be diligent in collecting the gems yourself or trust your teammates to carry those precious gems with them.

If your teammates are carrying too many at any point, then follow them around to protect them, or ask them to turn in. By concentrating your gems on as few heroes as possible, this minimizes the time spent turning in gems and maximizes the time spent pushing out your lanes, setting up potential takedowns and damaging structures. The more pressure you can put on your opponents, the higher the chance that they will not be watching the turn in points and you will have the advantage to have a safe turn in.

First turn in of gems

You want to prioritize defending or pushing the top lane, depending on whether you managed to get the first turn in or if the enemy team beat you to it. It is also not always important to get the first turn in. It is usually more important to have a turn in immediately after you get your heroic abilities. This makes your push with your Spider Queens much more dangerous for the enemy team since now they not only have to worry about the Spider Queens, but also potential takedowns brought upon by heroic abilities.

Denying turn in of gems

After the first wave of spider queen ends, your next task is to deny the opponent’s next turn in. The game can snowball out of control if one team is allowed to turn in twice in a row. You can prevent this by staying mounted and just constantly check the turn in points. Remind yourself that this is Hero League and no one else might be doing this for your team. Keeping as many abilities off cooldown as much as possible is also important just in case a fight breaks out at one of the turn in points. There is no need to completely push out the minion waves during this phase of the game. Just soak the XP and let your cannon towers as well as basic attacks do the work.

Ways to fall behind in Tomb of the Spider Queen

1. Getting ambushed while rotating lanes (i.e., respect the opposing team and take the safest route when rotating)

2. Slow rotations when defending against a wave of spider queens

3. Slow response to a ping to defend at a contested turn in point

4. Losing XP at a lane due to unnecessary lane rotations

5. Overstaying your welcome when pushing down a lane

Comeback Mechanic

If things are not going well (all (3) keeps are down and you have lost all of the previous team fights), it is in your team’s best interest to just push down the top lane and hope to decisively win a team fight such that you can capture the boss and march down that lane all the way to the enemy core. As a side note, I’ve actually won more games from behind on Tomb of the Spider Queen than any other map.

Emergency Plan

As long as you were diligent in pushing out the top lane during the early stages of the game, you can still win the game with a favourable team fight and a captured boss. If you are behind in structures and XP this means that the opponent’s minion wave will push out further and you can safely soak the XP.

At any point that you catch up in XP and get back in even talents with the opposing team, you will want to look for a team fight. Communicate this to your team. Setting up ganks on specific locations on the map is also something that can get you back in the game. Tomb of the Spider Queen is full of narrow corridors perfect for an ambush.

Top Compositions

Either pick-off combos such as Tyrande/Muradin/Arthas and so on, or AoE comps, or combined! Our Heroes of the Storm Boost team prefers Tyrande/Arthas/ETC/KT/Uther.

Feel free to check out our regular Heroes of the Storm Tier List.