Free Hero Rotation Week of Tuesday, June 16th
Available at all levels: Malfurion, Valla, Chen, Brightwing, Kerrigan
Available at level 12: Sgt. Hammer
Available at level 15: Kael'Thas
Brightwing Blinks to Top
Following last weekend's DreamHack Heroes of the Storm Tournament, many people in the community began to voice concerns about the viability of support classes in the meta. The professional tournament meta is often diferent from the more casual Hero League meta, however, to say one does not influence the other would be patently false. This week we take a look at the HotsLogs.com stats for support Heroes.
You sure are good at murder (and healing). Brightwing tops the ranks of supports and is third overall across all leagues in winrate, coming in at 56.6%. However, no one seems keen to put their faith in the light, as our second ranked healer, Uther has a 49.1% winrate, which puts him at 16th overall.
In Master Leagues Brightwing dominates yet again with a 64.5% winrate while holding her spot as 3rd overall and top support. The gap remains, however, as our next group of supports; Rhegar, LiLi, and Uther, rank 15th, 17th, and 18th overall. The disparity continues in Bronze Leagues as Brightwing is 3rd overall (51.4% winrate) and Uther ranks 13th (43.7% winrate).
It is clear that currently there is Brightwing and then there is everyone else. Perhaps it is because of her mobility and the current size of the maps in the map pool, perhaps high pitched voices simply heal better. What is clear, however, is that this situation may need to be addressed in a future balance patch in order to prevent Faerie Dragons from taking over the world.
On Our Mini-Map: Team ASH
Hailing from the Russian Federation, Team ASH (Rank #11), has won six straight matches as they blast through European teams in both the Zotac Cup and the Go4Heroes tournament. Among their vanquished foes are MuffinNinjas (Rank #91), Team Kinguin (Rank #20), One For Four (Rank #74), ROCCAT (Rank #16), Imaginary Gaming Heroes (Rank #10), and a team which should win an award simply for their name, Abathur Stole My Bike (rank #54). With an overall record of 11-4 throughout the month of June so far, Team ASH is heating up at the right time.
Skins vs Skins: A Song of Ice and Forrest
Spoiler Alert. I warned you. Seriously, this is about Game of Thrones. Spoilers incoming. Whatever.
Our Skins vs Skins battle this week was going to be A Song of Ice and Fire, but it seems like the Lord of Light decided he had better things to do and his punk-ass child-burning minions have the battle sense of a group of toddlers. With the Lord of Light AFK in spawn, and the characters who represent fire literally surrounded by enemies, to whom shall we turn to save us from the White Walkers? And more importantly, how can I salvage this Skins v Skins idea?
Thankfully, Heroes of the Storm has the Children of the Forrest skins. This week we pit the skins of Arthas and Jaina, the ice monsters that they are, against Illidan and Malfurian, the cool (yet likely smelly) hippie tree people. Which skins do you think are better? Don't vote with your heart, because if Game of Thrones has taught us anything, it's that if you have a heart, you're likely to get stabbed in it, repeatedly.
[easypoll]55807836e4b045ff871dc55d[/easypoll]
Storm Stream of the Week
This week we highlight Balrogfan of Nexus Night Owls. As is tradition, I asked him a few questions and I'll let the man speak for himself.
"My favorite hero in the game at the moment is Tyrael. I enjoy him because he is one of the strongest warriors in the game. He is very mobile hero who excels at picking off low health targets. He enjoys the one of the best engage tools in the game in Judgement. His AOE shield is also great for helping your entire team out during full 5v5 engages.
My favorite class is tanky warrior because I enjoy the responsibility of engaging the enemy team, using hard cc on priority targets, body blocking to secure or deny kills, and peeling for my team members who need to survive. I feel good when my dps barely died and had huge numbers at the end of the game. I know I did my job as a warrior and put my entire in a good position to win.
The main thing I feel is overpowered in this game is Murky's egg mechanic. Its completely counterproductive to the style in which this game is played. When engaging another team it's all about risk/reward and who can come out on top. The punishment for losing is a death timer that allows the winner to take control of objectives, lanes, or mercenaries. A good player using Murky throws all that out the window and constantly makes you pay for attempting to play the map especially in maps like Dragon Shire.
The most underpowered thing in this game right now is probably any talent choices pertaining to siege such as demolitionist or mercenary lord. They just feel like a waste of space right now and I would love to see that fixed in some way.
I would describe my stream as "A group of friends who enjoy playing and teaching others how to play Heroes of the Storm."
Last thing I forgot to say is that I couldn't do it without my streaming partners Digitality, ZenoUltima, MasterBlitz, and ElementZer0"
Other information you may want:
The Nexus Night Owls is every Thursday night @ 10:00 PM PST twitch.tv/balrogfan
I work for Blizzpro.com creating content for the website and co-hosting The Heroes Power Hour on Tuesdays 7:00 PST twitch.tv/blizzpro
My twitter is @balrogfanbp and email is [email protected] and my youtube page can be found searching Balrogfan Charlie.
The Nexus Night Owls can be reached @nnohots on twitter or email us at [email protected]"
We get it, you're scared. You don't know what you'd do with all the fame that comes along with being a big time streamer. How would you spend all that insane twitch money? How would you fend off the countless groupies? There are a lof of things you'd have to worry about, but be brave, young one, be brave.
We are still looking for streamers who would like to be featured on Storm Stream of the Week. If you have 1 viewer (which we all know is your mom) or you have 1000 viewers, we don't care, hit us up. We'll ask you a few questions, then we'll promote your stream in the most lovely and elegant of ways. So please, e-mail hexagrams, he gets such little e-mail that it really is a joy to see his face light up when his inbox isn't empty.
If you'd like to be featured on Storm Stream of the Week, e-mail [email protected]
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