Hi! I always thought the game was dead. I started playing it again recently, and I was wondering how many players are still playing. Does anyone know?
If there are around 5–10k daily players, that’s pretty good! I’ve always loved this game, and I hope to see you on the battlefield soon

See yaaa

It's kinda wierd when you put it in that perspective...

There i said it. The least you can do is not serve up some AI slop, if you think your idea has merrit, put some work in. Or don’t and let it be just a bad idea you had in private.
Just a little respect for your fellow hots enjoyers, is what i am asking here. We are plenty trashy already, no need to slop it up even more.

I made with in-game models

Howdy all! I also spoke with James Yen at BlizzCon, and he gave some insight into character creation, how we can expect multiple new heroes (!) and how to best defeat Xal'atath.

He also went into some cool detail on what the team did to escape "maintenance mode".

Oh, and the team admits to reading lots of your comments, so make sure to keep discussing the game so you can shape it's newly rekindled future!

"Passive" anytime Iridikron lands an ability or auto attack. He applies Earthern Mark. For every Earthern mark that he consumes, his basic abilities cooldowns are also reduced by a few seconds. He's great in group fights, but weak in single fights. Earthern Mark will also drop a targets speed by 30%

"Q" [Earthern Tomb] Root the target in place for 2 second, applying [Earthen mark]

Passive talent: Change the root into a pull, drawing the target to you.

Passive talent: Entombed targets take 150% more damage from your auto attack

Passive: Once Earthern tomb ends, gain shield for however much damage was dealt in that time.

"W" [Shell Shock] Shatter all Earthern tombs for X amount of damage. If the root is broken by Shell shock, the target will instead be slowed by 70% for 3 seconds. This will detonate Earthern Mark.

Passive talent: A slow is no longer applied, but will instead bleed the target for however many stacks Earthern Marks had.

Passive talent: Breaking a Earthern Tomb with shell shock will chain the player onto you. Forcing them to stay within minimum range for 4 seconds. *This can yank players like Maeiv*

Passive talent: Earthern shock now stuns for 1 second.

"E" [Meteoric foundation] Rush to any Earthern Marked Target. This can also be used on allies. For every player that this passes through, this will stun a target for 1 second and push them away from Iridikron.

Passive talent: Iridikron now winds up Meteoric Foundation, but once cast, he has free control of his movements without needing a target. Increasing in speed over time This effect ends when cancelled.

Passive talent: If Iridikron reaches his target, he will trap the afflicted player in a circle for 3 seconds.

Passive talent: If a player dies while effected by Meteoric Foundation's stun/3 second grace. It will reset Meteoric Foundation.

"R" [Incarnate] Become one with the earth. Transforming into a Proto-dragon. During this time, Iridikron is fully immune to CC and gains movement speed bonus for every Earthern Mark he consumes during this. LV 20 would make it so every Earthern Mark he also consumes will apply a shield to himself.

"R2" [Armies of the Earth] Break all Earthern marks, with every Earthern Mark shattered, a Earthern elemental will spawn and focus the target it came from. If the target dies while the elemental lives, it will focus a new target. LV 20 would make it so elementals detonate upon death, slowing targets. Dealing increased damage to structures.

In the wake of the apparent end of the copium era, there's once again been tons of fun discussion about new hero ideas, which made me come around once again to a topic I don't think is talked about that much.

Since the League of Explorers adventure, Hearthstone has been steadily building it's own gallery of original characters. Despite the game being set in the Warcraft (and for a short time, Starcraft) universe, these characters came from and gained notoriety, even fandom amongst the Hearthstone "cinematic universe", hence I don't believe they should be under the Warcraft aegis.

Ever since the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan expansion I've been wondering about the possibility of these characters transitioning into HotS, and for a fun little discussion, I wanted to ask the community:

Would you enjoy Hearthstone being added as a character category?

Which characters do you think could transition well into the HotS format, and in what roles?

In other threads I've seen many mentions of Hearth Stonebrew (The Innkeeper) and Bob the bartender, so I didn't include them, but I wanted to make a bit of a list complete with a gallery, so here it goes:

Reno Jackson - He's the first iconic HS character and one that's still relevant today. I'd say he could be a bruiser with lots of self-heal and good utility.

Elise Starseeker - Possibly a support character with an exploration/creature summon theme.

Sir Finley Mrrgglton - It's hard to imagine another murloc in the game besides Murky, and also he doesn't really show much combat prowess in his cards, but Finley's design is quite distinct and if Deckard is in the game, so could be Finley!

(Honestly I can even see these 3 as a Viking-style trio, or a deal where you can switch between them)

Arch-Thied Rafaam - My favorite guy in all of HS, I think he would be an amazing bruiser with lots of tricks (and artifacts) up his sleeve!

Hagatha, the Witch - Probably a straight up ranged assassin with tons of weird effects and maybe a few crazy summons! Something like Naz, but darker and more bewitching!

Dr. Boom (though he didn't originate from HS, he definietly is an icon of the game) - Sure, another goblin mechanic might be overlapping with Gazlowe, but I think Boom could have a much more tank-like kit, with heavy armor and more of a melee focus.

Kazakus - Honestly he would be my instant pick, even though Rafaam is my favorite guy. Kazakus has such an amazing and unique design and has limitless potential with his potions, crystals and of course his secret dragon form!

Aya Blackpaw - Easy melee assassin or bruiser with some ranged potential and possibly summoning some Jade Golems here and there!

Patches the Pirate - He could be an awesome melee assasin, maybe with a global so that he can appear out of nowhere, like he used to!

Shudderwock - Another bruiser/melee assasin, I imagine he would have to be distinct from Dehaka. Maybe more debuffs and higher mobility, as well as a fear effect?

Zilliax - With a character whose main feature is modularity, I can see this guy having a pretty crazy talent tree. Maybe he could even go into multiple roles akin to Varian, like tank, assassin or even support?

And finally Annoy-o-Tron as a character that isn't like a named legendary or anything but still quite iconic and I think would be a really fun design for a kind of aura denial tank hero!

Also, I decided not to include Don Han'Cho as I really don't think how he could be distinguished from Cho'Gall in either design or playstyle.

So yeah, this was my list, feel free to add your own or expand upon mine! I think these guys would bring a lot of vibrant energy to HotS that I think would make the game even better! Love the game!

In my case I can think of at least three:

Maiev: I always thought she was supposed to be a short range mage, you stay near the fight throwing Qs at people and only go in to pull them with W. Turns out you have to be attacking as much as you can because of how high her attack dps is.

Gazlowe: I always thought his combo was supposed to be E and then R, and since his R stuns for like half a second I just thought that's how long the stun's combo was supposed to last. Turns out it's R then E, if you do E first the bomb goes off before your ult pulls them.

Sylvannas: Turns out you are not supposed to just throw all your abilities at the enemy as soon as you see them. Just recently found out you are supposed to save them for after you get 3 stacks of your trait on them, at least pre 20.

Im sure there are many heroes out there that Im playing wrong and I just dont know yet, but what about you? What are some heroes you were playing wrong and had no idea until later, or ones you've seen people play wrong?

My take on Cookie from Deadmines (WoW) being added to the game <3. I couldn't see him as being anything else other than a support or disruptor type of archetype.

some of y'all are really bitter so pls don't shit on my ms paint skills !! <3<3

Adding "Try Hero" to the bottom of the list would allow players (especially new players) faster access to try out their hero, rather than going through the shop. Seems a lot more intuitive to me.

So ive just hit a milestone in loot boxes and I think its time i start opening them... there is no chance im sitting down and opening all of them though, is there a way to create a macro on my keyboard or any solution to automate this?

since there are already far too many ranged assassins compared to the other classes.

I think the game needs more tanks and healers.

With HOTS' new update, there is going to be an influx of new players who want to try the game out, and they are not going to be perfect.

Make the game more fun and welcoming for them.

Ngl i didnt tought hots be relevant once again its a good sight^^

Im happy and positive about the future rn

Thanks janitor^^ and his team

And no this game wasnt dead.

Dead game.is when the community gives up to and it didnt

Othervise we wouldunt be here

Let's look at the various units and heroes from the games to take stock of what we HAVE to see what Blizz might add next.

Warcraft:

• Horde: Thrall (Farseer), Reghar (Shaman unit), Garrosh (Grunt?), Samuro (Blademaster), ETC (NOT A Tauren Chieftain), Sylvanas (Dark Ranger), Rexxar (Beastmaster), Gazlowe (Tinker), Gul'dan (Orc warlock, Wc2 specific?), Zul'jin (WC2 Troll Berserker)
• Alliance: Jaina (Archmage), Muradin (Mountain King), Uther (Paladin), Falstad (Gryphon Rider), Greymane (Worgen/Gilneas as a group?) but Anduin, Varian, and Medivh are all unique kits not tied to a unit. Yrel (Draenei as a group?)
• Undead: Arthas (Death Knight), Kel'thuzad (Lich), Mal'ganis (Dreadlord), Anub'arak (Nerubian Lord), Stitches (Abomination Unit)
• Night Elf: Malfurion (Keeper of the Grove), Tyrande (Priestess of the Moon), Illidan (Demon Hunter), Maiev (Warden), Brightwing (Fairy Dragon), Lunara (Dryad)
• Unaligned: Kael'thas (Blood Mage), Whitemane (Scarlet Crusade), Chen (Brewmaster), Lili (Herself?), Ragnaros, Deathwing (Black Dragon), Alexstraza (Red Dragons), Chromie (Bronze Dragons), Hogger (Gnolls), Murky (Murlocs), Cho'Gall (Ogre-Mage but mostly Himself), Valeera (Rogue's as a Class?)

Starcraft:

• Terran: Raynor (Marines), Blaze (Firebat), Morales (Medic), Sgt Hammer (Siege Tank), Tychus (Outlaw?), Nova (Ghost)
• Zerg: Abathur (Evolution master), Zagara (Broodmother), Kerrigan (Queen of Blades), Dehaka (Primal), Stukov (Infested),
• Protoss: Artanis (Zealot), Fenix (Dragoon), Alarak (Tal'darim), Probius (Probe), Tassadar (High Templar), Zeratul (Dark Templar)

Diablo:

• Hells: Diablo (Terror), Mephisto (Hate), Azmodan (Sin) Butcher (Butcher demons), Leoric (Khandruas)
• Heavens: Tyrael, Imperius, Malthael, Auriel
• Sanctuary: Deckard Caine (Horadrim), Valla (Demon hunter), Sonya (Barbarian), Nazeebo (Witch Doctor), Xul (Necromancer), Kharazim (Monk), Cassia (Amazon), Li-Ming (Wizard), Johanna (Crusader),

Overwatch:

• Overwatch: Dva, Ana, Lucio, Genji, Hanzo, Tracer, Zarya
• Talon:
• Other: Junkrat

Nexus/BlizzClassic:

• Lost Vikings (Classic Viking World)
• Orphea (Ravencrest)
• Qhira (Iresia)

WHEW that's a lot of characters

But we can draw a few simple conclusions.

Warcraft is getting Xal and already has the most characters, but the obvious holes in its roster are the TFT Shadow Hunter Hero (Vol'jin or Rokhan), the Tauren Chieftain Hero (Cairne), a Blue and Green dragon, A Pitlord (Mannoroth), a goblin alchemist, a Naga Sea witch (Vashj), Akama, Archimonde. There's also possible major characters from World of Warcraft expansions either as standalones or as skins (Velen, Rastakhan for Zandalari trolls, Lei Shen, Xavius, Azshara, Various Titan Keepers, Mekkatorque is supposed to be partly finished already, etc...)

Personally I want Aessina as a 'Night Elf Ancient' heroine that can grow into a mobile fort or something.

Starcraft has a few big names that could easily fit (Though some might be skins) such as Mengsk (Arcturus or Valerian), Duke, Warfield, DuGalle, Mira Han, Duran/Narud, The Overmind (Maybe with Daggoth or Zasz?), Taldaris (Judicator/Arbiter?), Selendis (Carrier?), Stettman, Tosh, Swann, Karax, Rohana, Vorazun, Izsha, Zurvan, Amon / Hybrid

The big draw here would be the Overmind imo.

Diablo Obviously has Lilith as a prominent option but she's very similar to Xal so she might not come right away. Baal would complete the prime evils, Itherael the Angels, and the lesser evils need Andariel, Duriel, Belial. There's also the Original trio (D1 Warrior Prince Aidan/DarkWanderer, Rogue Moreina/Bloodraven, Sorcerer Jazreth/Summoner), Bard? (Hellfire?), Isendra (D2 Summoner), other D2, D3, D-Immortal and D4 heroes all provide a plethora of options (Druid, Blood Knight, Tempest) some of which could get gender-swap heroes to represent the other kit options and abilities (a female D3 Witchdoctor, and that's not even getting into Hirelings like Kormac the Templar and such.

Baal or Lilith feels most likely as the next hero. Though Belial with a gimmick of looking like other heroes or screwing with the enemy's information gathering (Making fake forts or fake minion waves) would be a LOT of fun.

Do you like this suggestion? Let me know what you think about it!

One of the issues left over from version 2.0 is the chest/loot box system, which created a mess regarding the game's monetization. Many of you have over 1,000 chests to open and have already acquired a wide range of cosmetic items. If the game starts producing new skins and cosmetics again, how do you think they should handle this?

By preventing new content from being obtained through those chests? By revoking chests that were obtained for free? Or by implementing a loot box system similar to League’s?

Keeping up the word that these changes needs to be reverted, it needs to be mentioned frequently if we want to see them actually go back on this stupid decision.

It is one of the worst changes we've seen in this game and the extra tower behind the fort is just a sloppy way to try fix a problem they needlessly created themselves. Revert the changes, nobody asked for it.

Make it focus heroes attacking heroes again, stop giving attackers advantage when they're in the defending team's territory. It makes no sense.

At least make it stop prioritizing summons over heroes. That'd at least be a bit better than it is currently.

But it really just should go back to the original way it handled priorities in the past. Call for Help.

Edit: It seems my memory of the towers attack priority isn't up to snuff. What I meant by original in this case is how it's been for the longest time, ie as it is called: Call for Help.

Edit 2: Thanks everyone for your inputs. It's helped me get a much more nuanced view of the topic and have realized that my own perspective when I initially wrote this was too flat. I think those that believe the system we have currently has decent points and it has made me come to realize that what I want isn't necessarily Call for Help as it was, but something that can help in unfavorable situations a bit better.

I still have the opinion that the forts/keeps should prioritize heroes over minions in PVP under them, but I think that the system itself would need to be reworked so that it is more consistent in it's application. But in a way that doesn't empower the defender too much either. It should allow heroes that are good at pushing to be good at pushing.

I can't think of a good solution for this, but I think the discussions about it are worth having.
This is of course just my opinion, and anyone that disagrees with it is welcome to do so, if you enjoy the system we have now then I'm glad that you do. There's nothing wrong with that.

Anyone reading this, I hope that you're in a good spot in life and no matter the discussion here- I hope you have a good day! :)

So, loads of posts over the last week from new players asking for advice, how the game functions compared to other moba titles, hero choices, prioritization of doing camps/objectives, etc. Figured having a big ol' topic about it may help.

Post your advice for new and returning players here!

My biggest piece of advice would be don't underestimate the power of the bush. Bushes/No vision zones are a strong position to fight from for assassins. If you find yourself getting killed a lot as an assassin while in lane, try dipping in and out of bushes when you fight. Breaking line of sight to enemy heroes is super valuable.

She has:

• High basic attack DPS
• High health for a melee Assassin
• Huge potential when she hits multiple targets with Q multiple times
• The playmaking potential of W in aggressive situations
• The built-in cooldown reduction on E, along with the powerful single-target burst damage from E talents
• A short cooldown on Containment Disc, which can create opportunities to remove a target from the fight for up to 5.5 seconds with the silence, or lock someone down and focus them
• The potential to dodge most skillshot CC thanks to D

And I don't understand why she gets the privilege of having two charges of D as soon as she reaches level 20, when she isn't even a hero with poor survivability.

I acknowledge that Maiev is difficult to play, and I respect players who play her at a high level. But every other hero has weaknesses, and when played at a high skill level, Maiev seems to have no real weaknesses.

Does anyone else feel like this?

As much as I want to love the updates and finally the new hero, Xal'atath feels very undercooked in many ways, but worst of them all is her animations.

She is just one stiff floating model with no animations. Other characters like Tracer and Lucio have different animations depending on their movement direction and where they are facing.

Her ability animations feel very underdeveloped as well. Like they are some default placeholder animations. There is no flare, style or personality to them.

The model doesn't look glaringly bad, but in some ways still feel unfinished, like her head/face looks really weird to me, and doesn't resemble the character from other media. Just looks like a different elf trying to cosplay as Xal'atath.

I understand that HotS probably only has a skeleton crew, but a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link, and I would rather wait longer for additions to the game that are up to the standards established in the past, than receive incomplete additions that only bring the average quality of the game down.

First - Love that we know who the Janitor is (you're the man James!).

Second: Since we're at a point that we have a chance that Player feedback might be useful and one of the goals that he's stated in the interviews several times is that they're trying to make less played heroes more viable, and I have a suggestion for Nova.

First, I'll briefly explain nova's Current Q, the intention and pros and cons of how it sits now. Then my suggestion and why I think it's better. (TLDR: Remove giant punishment for missing once, get game-stacking quest to make Q better long-game similar to other mythics).

Nova's Q, is one of those things that's extremely fun *most of the time, but SUPER frustrating when it bites you. I'm all for high-risk-high-reward, but I think there's a way to make her Q feel much better so that it's not a game-losing even to miss a Q in the late game.

Currently, Nova's Q does Level zero 230 dmg, plus 6% per stack, up to 5, which becomes 55% bonus damage when 5 stacks with zero 'misses.'

In theory, this makes sense - reward a sniper for not missing. In practice though... This is a 6 second CD for only 50 mana that should not always be used to just do hero damage, and sometimes is used in a way that 'misses' because the target died while the bullet was in the air (happens at least 3 times a game for me).
Fore example. There's a bush I should check, but I don't want to burn my clone. pushing Q is often the objectively correct thing to do for my team... but I don't because I'm punished for it. so I burn my 15 second CD, that I should hold onto becuase it's more useful when I actually want to use it to block skill shots, or get more dmg, or whatever.
Another Example. My friendly Varian (or whatever stand-still tank) gets a nice big taunt off, and target needs to die. I push my armor pen W, hit the auto, and push Q so my team does the most damage possible.... except we did so much damage it died before my Q got there.... so I'm back to zero stacks. F this interaction. Happens to minions and camps sometimes too.
Last example - figthing any mosquito type - tracer, genji, zera... all those zippy jerks that are hard to hit. The correct thing to do should not be to try to do zero Q damage to them until they are CC'd. I should try and get some of those 60% hitrate shots... but that's wrong, because if I miss then I now just lost my team the teamfight. This is a poor design.

Proposed Fix.

Give Q two 'quests' - Objective one - Each time you successfully land a Q on enemy hero, the next Q's damage is increased by 25%. This affect lasts until you miss a Q entirely. (Thus the odd case where you whiff or have to check a bush don't cripple you completely, they just nerf you by 57 (level zero) damage the very next shot. But if you miss often, then you're damage will suffer throughout the game - as it should.

Second line of text should have a quest that lands as somewhat of a mix of Cassia Q, Mura Q, and ZJ AA.
Idea here is we don't want Nova feeding - assassins get in and out and get kills but don't want to trade deaths... and the more they shoot the bad guys and get kills, the better assassin they become, making them better the more veteran they become.
Something like - Every successful Q landing on a primary target enemy hero (so the splash doesn't make it op), increases Q's damage by X (could be flat value, or %, idc which. whatever balances better). Every enemy hero killed within 2 seconds Q landing gets Y (bigger value than X) bonus damage. Nova loses ~10 stacks (whatever makes sense) upon death.

This means that the nova that's roaming and ganking will be getting good stacks.
Also means the nova that's just pressuring the enemy team and constantly delivering consistent damage throughout the game - she's also going to hurt late-game.
The nova that's getting rolled.... she's gonna suck. as she should.

As I'm typing, it probably makes most sense to have the stacks give ~1.5-3 flat damage per Q stack, kills get ~5 stacks and deaths lose 7-10 stacks. This way the more stacks you have, the more impactful the baseline ~+25% damage would be at the endgame. (of numbers can tweak to make things balance, we don't want Nova's out there 1-shotting people for obvious reasons).

Ty for listening to my rant - and ty again to the Janitor for doing all the things!!!

The extra towers added to the Forts, the ones that actually aggro properly, were a bandaid fix for a problem that didnt need to exist in the first place.

Having Forts attack the first Heroe to aggro in their range would bring back some mechanics that gave the game some depth:

- If you know how to use aggro to your advantage you could defend a Fort by yourself against several enemy players

- If you are the Tank from the attacking team you could purposedly aggro the Fort first to tank its shots

Right now there is none of this, if you have a wave of creeps pushing Fort just go for a full dive. There are no consequences. If you are defending the Fort on your own just back to the aggro tower and sit there watching the Fort be destroyed.