imagine people hyping this game is getting "revived" and they just made it no fun to play because of hero diff every game

This is a pet peeve of mine. But hey, at least something to complain about other than a certain someone, right?

It has now been MORE THAN A YEAR since they added this mechanic: September 30th, 2025, to be precise. See for yourself: https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/article/24229032/heroes-of-the-storm-live-patch-notes-september-30-2025

And yet. Almost every match I see people failing to basic-attack structures that are besieged by whole waves of friendly minions, wasting this huge buff. Even healers and mages whose basic attacks are generally of minimal use for anything else.

New and returning players, please accept this as a teaching moment. Attacking towers, gates, forts, keeps, everything except walls and cores I believe will trigger this buff. It only lasts 3 seconds so you may have to re-activate it, but only every 3 seconds. As long as you can do so safely, it is almost always worth trying to proc it, even while retreating. If you are pushing gates or trying to take a fort, for example, this is an absolute no-brainer. Even if your basic attacks hit like moist flannels, attack the structure to INSPIRE the troops! Congratulations, you are now Jim Raynor.

NB: You can tell that the troops have been inspired by the red 'INSPIRED' aura glowing round them like a kind of Bloodlust on your minions. You can therefore also easily see when it has faded.

Obviously, if you are in the middle of a teamfight, do what you have to do to survive. But know that there is a free 'INSPIRE' buff going asking if you just click that structure for a second. Most of the time even when fighting next to an enemy fort, it makes sense to inspire the troops periodically, so that the fort will fall, especially if you are backline and have near-zero basic attack damage. If you lead a wave of minions up to a gate or fort, give the structure a quick poke before you run off, especially if you're ranged. It takes a split-second.

And yet almost every game I see people fail to do this. I can only assume it is because people don't know about the buff, despite it being in the game for over a YEAR now. Again, new and returning players, that's not your fault. How everyone else has somehow overlooked this since September last year I do not know.

Attack the structure to INSPIRE the troops! Please.

Sermon concluded. Let the downvoting commence. This is Jimmy.

Haven't played HotS in a very long time, heard about the Deathwing rework so decided to try it out.

Booted up try mode and took a look at his new mythic quest. After looking everywhere I could think of, I realized it has no description of what it does in-game. That's kinda important to know, don't you think?

What does it do when you complete it? How do you gain stacks? These are all questions it should probably answer.

Hello friends, let me tell you a funny story.

I used to be super competitive in hots. Played a ton back in the day, used to love duo queuing with my buddies who were equally into it. We were all insufferable "if you're diamond you're trash" tryhards.

I became a pretty rough alcoholic and smoked copious amounts of weed while laddering but stayed diamond though I didn't enjoy playing. Eventually I dropped to plat and felt super salty and went to LoL.

I grew to hate HotS even though the game wasn't all that different, I just became a worse person while playing it.

I came back recently and played my placement matches. Got placed in bronze 1 after 2 wins and 1 loss. I no longer drink and I don't care about my rank. I play to have fun and enjoy the game. I'm glad it's getting some attention.

I just thought I would share.

With Xal'atath's arrival, Blizzard released a blog detailing the six Design Pillars they say they want to follow. The first of these is "Hero Fantasy: bring each hero's power fantasy to life". This assumedly means that each hero has their own fantasy, which Blizzard wants to capture in their gameplay.

Now, they get things right for maybe all the other heroes, and this is just my opinion, but I don't think Chen's power fantasy is about him dealing a ton of damage. Chen is an elusive brawler, who enjoys long fights for their own sake. He is durable to the point of being annoying, but not an assassin or a tactical nuke. He should more often win fights by taking positive trades, and not by pushing the enemy back to their hearth with one ability rotation.

An infinitely scaling damage quest, that ends up dealing ridiculous amounts of damage by mid game, does not fit Chen's hero fantasy. What would fit better, would be a self-heal, or a slowing effect, or damage reducing effect, that got progressively stronger. Not damage, not to this level. If Chen is to be annoying to fight against, it should not be because of his damage, and the risk of giving him stacks, but because of his sustain and slows.

Chen, as a character, as a panda brawler, enjoys long fights, and that is currently not brought to life in gameplay.

i really think its the people that dont care about this game to a point that its just a waste if time,, people in bronze 5 play this game to lose ..

ima vent a little cuz today has been a particularly strange day... played like 6 games.. lost all 6.

here are some of the drafts

1) two bruisers no tank (lost)

2) two healers no dmg (lost)

3) two mages vs stiches + yirel + tons of magic resist (lost)

4) two tanks no healers (lost)

5) three assassins no bruiser (lost)

6) murky + no tank (lost)

for those really trying to escape bronze 5. .. settle in.. its gonna be rough

best bet is TANK + BRUISER + 2X ASSASSINS + HEALER .. but getting 5 strangers to see the benefit of a balanced draft is impossible... ranked = QM = ima play what i want not what the team needs..

and every now and then get trolled.

Maybe it is intended but I am not seeing it mentioned anywhere

How much work would that be? I think the first one is the easiest, right?

I need more options for the true warchief!

Considering Dark Heart doesn't have a health bar, this seems unfair to the spider mines.

As the pictures show, i have the mastery icon for nova (level 15) but in hero select she is only level 12??? make it make sense.

I am the Ana here and in a desperate attempt to save Nazeebo, I give him all I have. The spell damage leech from [[Nano Infusion]] is all this fella needs to "Call an ambulance! But not for me!"

Our skin survey reached a whopping 250 comments! Huge thanks to everyone for being so active. It was genuinely fascinating to read through all your opinions.

So I’ve read all your comments (well, almost all of them). You guys shared so many different perspectives and the thread quickly evolved into a massive debate about global game design. Pulling out rigid mathematical statistics is pretty much impossible. However after analyzing yesterday's discussions I managed to map out 6 key trends that perfectly define our community mindset:

1. People are ready to pay for quality.

Mecha Tassadar, Azmodunk, Prime Evil Diablo and Dreadlord Jaina are not just skins. They are complete visual and audio overhauls of the characters! A massive number of commenters emphasized that custom VFX, voice lines, and unique animations are what truly matter. Skins like these feel like artifacts from HotS golden era.

2. People love unique event themes, but design requires caution.

Cross-universe crossovers (like Medic Uther) and alternate history concepts (like Priestess Maiev) are highly demanded. The community feels they perfectly capture the core identity of HotS. Global events like the Mecha or Dark Nexus lines are incredibly popular and dearly loved. While events like the Candy Kingdom or Winter Toy themes are generally considered a miss. This highlights an important rule: event themes can and should be diverse, epic or funny, but they shouldn't cross the line into total absurdity.

3. People love fanservice. Let’s not deny it.

Fanservice has always been a part of HotS - and people want more! Swimsuit Nova? Awesome. Swimsuit Whitemane? Mega awesome. Thicc swimsuit Alexstrasza? Absolute Cinema! The game shouldn't be shy about making bold choices here. High-quality fanservice is a reliable, straightforward way to game monetize for any modern popular game.

4. People still adore iconic Blizzard heroes, but the technical aging of old models is becoming a problem.

Crown Prince Arthas scored surprisingly high. Many redditors admitted they bought this skin with real money a long time ago. But in 2026 the outdated base models are pushing people away. To quote literally: "We want new models for Arthas, Uther, and other old heroes with proper proportions." It’s a painful point, but it needs to be said - while the game aged well overall, some of its oldest components desperately need a facelift.

5. Not everyone wants or can afford to pay for content. And that’s a fair opinion.

Whether players "owe" money to a free-to-play game is a matter of pure demagoguery, and I don't want to start that debate here. My stance is simple: if a game runs on a free-to-play model, it must provide a viable progression path for everyone. At the end of the day F2P players are our teammates in the game.

6. BattlePasses are a solid monetization tool.

Moreover, according to some players who actually attended BlizzCon, the devs were actively considering a Battle Pass system in the game.

Of all the skins I mentioned in the poll Dreadlord Jaina was the most popular. She ticks every single box: she is highly detailed, has an amazing alternate-universe design, and carries a good amount of fanservice (I mean, did you see her thighs? uf). If skins of this caliber become the main rewards of future BattlePasses - it’s an absolute win-win for everyone.

To wrap this up on a slightly bitter note:

Looking at the final results of our survey I am now more convinced than ever that locking hero Xal'atath behind a two-month paywall was an incredibly risky and unreliable move. We don't know the devs internal plans, budgets, or anything like that. But this survey clearly proved one thing - people want and expect cool skins. Starting the game revival with high-quality cosmetics would have been a much safer and more efficient strategy.

Instead the devs chose the hardest path possible. We can only wish them luck.

Thank you all again to everyone who took part in this survey! We did some great work together. I truly hope our feedback gets taken into account in the future.

Good luck in your games.

r/lookingforheroes

Since this game is getting new blood, there may be players looking for groups to play with. There this older subreddit that’s not really active at the moment, but I’m going to post my own post and hopefully others will start checking it out.

Ive reinstalled the game after a long time, I played a little bit in Alpha and post launch.

I wanted to get back into the game because new characters, Blizzcon, etc and thought this would be a fun and casual moba to get back into but holy shit match making is so bad for new players.

I understand the player base for this game now is small but there is no way new or returning players are going to have any fun getting back into HoTS because ive just been getting absolutely stomped on online. Ive played about 30 games or so and not won a single one.

Like I know compared to long time vets im trash but the skill gap is so high this is unfun to play solo and would love to find some people to maybe explain something I'm missing or actually be able to chill and chat with to have some fun in this game again.

If you’re having trouble with Xal, here’s some stuff I’ve seen work!

Zeratul - hit Xal with that crystal that lets you teleport to her and you can chase her down and just beat the shit out of her. Pop it right after she teleports so you’re still on her ass. Having this constant threat helps prevent rotations and stops her from pressuring lanes.

Sylvanas - she’s gotta stand still when she’s channeling her bigass ult. Mind control her to cancel it, pulling her towards you. Once her high octane abilities are turned off, she’s a tiny sack of hit points and black arrows / withering fire / her poison knife W can really crush her, especially if you’re properly stacked.

Share what you’ve seen work, or what’s worked on you!

Broxigar the Red is just pure badassery. I'd love to see a character like him added.

When can I get this for Jaina

As someone who grew up in the 90s, The Lost Vikings was the first Blizzard game I read about in magazines, and Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness was the first one I played. The first StarCraft game turned me into a lifetime Blizzard fan (even though I had almost given up on them for, well, obvious reasons).

You can't imagine how rad it is that characters from that era like Zul'jin, Cho'gall, TLC or Fenix are in the game. It would've been so easy to turn the game into an advertisement for the newer games (and of course there has to be some synergy, so I understand why would they pick Xal'atath for the new hero, and for the same reason the Overwatch heroes have never annoyed me).

I'd love if more heroes from the older games were added at some point. The likes of Lothar, Doomhammer, Blackthorne (or Alleria, or Grom, or so many others) would delight me and I assume other older fans to no end.

Now I fully get that the game is in a spot where it's not like we're going to get more than a couple heroes per year. Heck, the best scenario is that the new heroes are released alongside the new ranked seasons and there're 3 heroes per year. And that seems almost unrealistic already.

So I'd also understand if we actually never get another "nostalgic" hero because, well, there are dozens of popular characters and not enough "slots" to please most people.

Still, I'd like to show my appreciation for said characters.

(Yeah I'm one of the people who would never use a Zul'jin skin that isn't this tint. If you know you know)

Hey, everyone. I'm new to the game and absolutely loving it. I have a question.

Since I have shoddy internet and am so new, I'm not really looking to get into PvP matches just yet, so I've been playing AI matches. I've noticed that my allied AI bots will often act in a way that isn't realistic to how human players would play, and it's detrimental to my play experience. For example, they will sometimes walk up to the objective to turn in spider gems or treasure coins but only let the "turn in" bar get 75% before walking away, and they'll horde 25 gems or coins the whole game. In other "hold space" objectives, they will dance in and out of the objective without securing it, even if enemies aren't there. The weirdest one is that they'll leave skulls dropped on the ground in the mines instead of picking them up after clearing out the undead.

My question is this: is there some way that I'm playing that is telling the AI to play incorrectly? Is the AI designed to make me do it to learn the game? For example, do I have to turn in coins more often to force the AI to also do it? Do I have to be the one standing on the point so that I get practice standing on the point?

Any suggestions or tips would help. Again, I'm loving the game, so I just want to make my AI games feel more predictable and less frustrating. Thanks!

Sorry if the flair is wrong, I'm not sure what flair it should have.
Do you think this skin could be made in the following years? (That's Anduin by the way)

WE'RE SO BACK