#361 - Into the Nexus: “Mountain Out of a Gnoll-hill”
• Garrett • Kyle • NotParadox or Guest
Tracking Link:
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/
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Into the Nexus is back with your weekly heaping helping of Heroes of the Storm news. Garret and Kyle walk the recent blue posts, predictions of the incoming season and our favorite new segment: This week I learned. We also have a heaping helping of Hogger strategy. Your emails and more! We will see you on the other side of BlizzcOnline.
Intro: Welcome to Into the Nexus! The Heroes of the Storm podcast!
Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN
Thanks to our Patreon producers Declan H, CheezyBob, Chris K, Mike C, & Shawn B.
Patron Thanks Doc for keeping track
LIVE STREAM TOMORROW!
News
No AMA for Now
Blizz_Daybringer:
Hello Friends - Happy Presidents' Day!
We actually discussed doing exactly this, but decided not to for a few different reasons, the largest being the fact that we don't have a lot to share at this exact moment. As you have seen many times in the past, our development cycle goes through ebbs and flows and we are caught in an ebb at the moment, which is very often the case coming out of the Holiday season. That doesn't mean that we don't have anything on it's way, just that we don't have anything we want to spoil, and having an AMA where we can't answer most of your questions isn't really a great AMA, IMO.
The team is still hard at work, pumping out as much content as we can that we will be sharing with you as soon as possible - Spazzo has already been doing his best to spoil as much as he can ;)
Blizz_Daybringer now lead developer?
Spazzo posts the undocumented patch notes and is the dataminer within the HOTS community.
Links
Season Roll in 6 weeks
Next week - February 24 - Likely Balance Patch and update with BlizzcOnline items
March 22 (in 5 weeks) - PTR Patch
March 30 (in 6 weeks) - Content Patch
Next Season:
Event? April will mean 7 months without event for Heroes
Links
What's happening between CCL
CCL Players are nuts for Eternal Return: Black Survival
Valheim is also attracting a TON of Blizzard fans.
Many streamers are combating “staleness”
Some YouTube reviewers have commented how they love that they can comeback to Hots and see so little changes.
30k & Chilly Mountain Tournament $750
https://heroeshearth.com/b/michaeludall/read/30k--chilly-mountains-750-offseason-tournament/
This week I learned:
“Gandalf and the Hobbits” - Medivh Lost Vikings
I am frustrated and not sure what to focus on. Good time for Alan Hicks’ question from the Discord:
Alan Hicks
Here's a question for the show - What do ya do when it seems nothing you do will work? I'm currently on an 11 game losing streak in Storm League. Whether I'm solo queue or partied with my NGS team on comms, I simply cannot win a game. It's incredibly frustrating. I've dropped 4 ranks in 11 games over the course of the last four days. I'll only play two or three losing games in a row before quitting to avoid feeling tilted. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Strategy
How to play Hogger
Why we play the main build: https://heroeshearth.com/builds/hash/19k-19n-19r-19s-19v-19x-19C/
No control is untalented. Meaning you need rage to actually kill anybody
Staggering Blow Rage Generation
Gotta hit my Ez Throw Dynamites :(
Hogg Wilds damage is dependent on rage
All cooldowns are reduced by rage meaning more damage
Only 3 seconds before massive rage decay
Can you avoid Aggro Range?
Emails
LDAP
Did you sign the Heroes of the Storm change.org petition and retweet it from your Twitter in solidarity with other members of the HotS community? If so why, if no, why not?
Ryan B
In your minds do you think the current way blizzard is handling HotS is sustainable?
Valkamer
Several heroes enjoy a crossover role such as MT Leoric or offlane Arthas, which hero has been your favorite to watch grow into a side role and why?
Array
As someone who hasn’t played the game really since the end of HGC, what should be my motivation for picking up the game again as a solo player mostly.
Outro
Patreon Shout Out
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Thanks to Gorath for our intro music and briangriffithmusic.com (@briangriffith) for our outro..
Personal Stuff
Garrett
Kyle
Valkamer
Melee assassins have been in strange places that I will call “narrowly overpowered”. How do you see current usage, future balance, and desired changes?
Access547
What heroes would you like to see reworked this year?
Mangral
A more strategy based question if you want to talk about playing the game instead of blizzard ignoring it, might be some info Kyle can pull from his NGS/HL games:
How do you recover when behind in organised games? It's rare that someone is out of position in a lane for an easy kill, is there anything you can do other than safely soaking? When can/should you take a risky boss or camp steal as a last attempt to pull the match back into your favour?
Frollino95
I write this question because I'm in a somewhat peculiar situation in my HOTS gaming experience, and maybe you have some suggestions to help me.
I’m a decent low plat player, but somewhere around 2019 first season the game randomly decided to destroy my enjoyment by removing me about 600 point for every loss and giving me only 100 for every win, dropping me very fast in low gold. My MMR is still pretty high, as confirmed by an extensive collection of data in HOTSlogs and the fact that I get paired almost exclusively against smurf accounts. This situation, combined with the fact that i’m a decent player but nowhere near good enough to carry a normal low gold team against one or two smurfs made it impossible for me to ever recover my rank, and i’m stuck here with my duo buddy, losing game after game vs either smurf accounts or five stacks. Is there a magical way to solve this? And if there’s no solution, do you think there should be?
We gave up after a 20 minute queue and a 21 minute queue (I am diamond 1 and subject to the new rule)
Kyle
I do still struggle with anxiety of joining games with live players. I rarely, if ever, dabble in QM, but never have tried storm league.
The feeling of being bad and letting the team down makes me too anxious to even queue up. I am not the best at mobas, and have slow reflexes. I'm a shift worker, so scheduling to play with others regularly is hard, even if I had friends who played this game.
Anyways, just would like your thoughts, or hear what makes you feel confident in HOTS, or any recommendations!
Much love from Cape Town South Africa!