Heroes of the Storm Guide - How to Level Up Fast and Other Tips and Tricks for Ranked Season 1
45With the brand new ranked revamp in Heroes of the Storm coming up, here are some tips on how to level up fast and some other tips and tricks. There's something that's really refreshing about this game, so I urge you guys to check it out - what's to lose? It's free to play and a ton of fun. Plus it has ragdoll physics. Majestic.
With that said I wanted to put together a guide for people who are new to the game and want to get into ranked. I'm fairly new to the game myself, but I'm not a stranger to competitive play in general and have played enough Heroes of the Storm over the last few weeks to offer what I think are some decent tips to anyone getting into it.
The first tip I have is to help level quickly. You need 14 heroes at level 5 in order to qualify to enter Hero League games. One of the things you can do is buy a 7 day boost - but if spending money isn't your thing, the next best thing to focus on is forming a party and adding those people as friends in order to get the bonus XP from playing with a friend. People freely add people as friends for this reason, and it's such an easy thing to do to get a huge XP boost. You also receive an XP bonus for winning - but I don't think I have to tell you that winning should be your goal in all of your games.
Next up is attitude. This is huge. Especially as a newer player. You might be coming from a ton of past moba experience with DOTA or League of Legends - and that's awesome, you certainly have a leg up on a lot of people mechanically speaking. However, there are quite a few differences in Heroes of the Storm when compared to other games in its genre. As a side note, going over all of those differences is a bit out of scope for this guide - but if there's interest I can put together some videos going over the major differences between them. let me know in the comments if that's something you'd be interested in. I've played all of them extensively.
But your attitude needs to be one of self reflection and positivity if you want to truly get better, and isn't that what ranked play is all about? Improving your play, having fun and competing with other like-minded individuals? If someone is playing poorly, some positivity and words of encouragement go a long way. Raging at them or insulting them just puts people on tilt, wastes your time and clouds your focus. It does nothing productive, so just don't do it. If you have problems with immediately raging or other players are putting you in a funk with their keyboard diarhea - just disable allied chat. 95% of the communication can happen in this game via pings alone.
In the attitude vein - go into the games thinking about what heroes you're against, what your team composition looks like and what kind of things you expect you'll need to do in team fights. Have an idea for the build route you want to go. You can look at your talents in the hero select screen and get a plan in your mind for your build. There are often multiple effective builds and the talent choices can significantly impact the playstyle of the hero you've chosen. Once the game starts - pay attention to what's going on and where the pings are. If you die or lose a fight, take a moment to replay it in your mind and consider where you went wrong. If you're honest with yourself, you'll realize that almost every single death of yours will be your fault. Figure out what you did incorrectly. If you have trouble doing this mid-game, watch your match replays and pay attention to your mistakes.
When you're learning the game and preparing for ranked play, you need to learn what all of the heroes do and how they are played. You can learn these things by playing against them - but the most effective way of learning how a hero plays is by playing them yourself. So make a point while leveling and learning the game to play a wide variety of heroes and roles. It will sometimes be expected for you to fill roles that you don't necessarily consider ideal - and having 1 or 2 heroes for each role that you can go to with confidence is a huge boon for your play.
On that note, try to pick a few heroes to main, but diversify enough that you aren't a one trick pony. Personally, I am trying to decide on a main for each role - this should give me flexibility during the hero draft while giving me the necessary practice, focus and knowledge in a small number of heroes that is necessary to progress. On the opposite end of the spectrum if you play all of the heroes randomly (unless you're able to play a ludicrous amount of games) you're going to progress at a slower rate because your practice will be inconsistent across heroes.
Above all - remember that this is a game and it's meant to be fun. It's not meant to be super stressful. We have enough stress in our lives - life is too short to spend your leisure time stressing out over a video game ranking (I mean, unless you're on a professional team - but then you're not likely watching this video)
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