#222 - Into the Nexus: “Sound the Horn!”

• Garrett • Kyle • Jeff or Dunk

http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/

http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/461640300-user-60002053-222-into-the-nexus-sound-the-horn.mp3

Sponsors:

• Patreon.com/ITN

Our Patrons support Into the Nexus at Patreon.com/ITN. If you enjoy the show consider supporting it with 25 cents, a dollar, or however you would like! We thank all our Patrons for their support!

Intro:  Welcome to Into the Nexus! The Heroes of the Storm podcast!

Top of the Show: XP Changes seem really healthy

Now that some time has passed I’ve been thinking about the XP changes to structures. I think it may be my single favorite change to the game. Definitely the healthiest change this year.

Powerful leads (I’m talking 2 Levels and above) seem to really only be attainable through a lot of kills, or well-spread macro play. And by that I mean I’m only seeing comfortable leads through completely outclassing the opposing team in fights, or by playing all aspects of the Battleground well (farming, structure destruction, and moderate kills).

Anecdotally, my most oppressive wins have been on Kerrigan and Zagara as of late. I can out-micro most opponents on Kerrigan and I can out-macro most on Zagara.

News

Alterac Pass is out!

Non-Ranked Battleground Pools Temporarily Reduced

In order to maximize each soldier’s exposure to Alterac Pass, the number of Battlegrounds available for play in Versus A.I., Quick Match, and Unranked matchmaking queues have been temporarily reduced. This reduction will remain in place until the Echoes of Alterac event concludes on July 9. All of the Battlegrounds removed from the non-ranked pool will remain available for play in Custom Games.

• Alterac Pass
• Braxis Holdout
• Cursed Hollow
• Dragon Shire
• Infernal Shrines
• Tomb of the Spider Queen

Please note: Hero League and Team League Battleground pools have not been adjusted, as Alterac Pass will not be available in ranked play until the week of July 9.

Links

• https://old.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/8sjf1z/it_seems_someone_at_ign_really_likes_hots/
• https://old.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/8si8ha/math_of_the_storm_alterac_pass/
• https://heroesofthestorm.com/en-us/blog/21867181/its-time-to-take-alterac-pass-by-storm-2018-6-19/

Codes!

The Heroes team was kind enough to hook us up with some Yrel codes to give out to celebrate Echoes of Alterac!

15 codes to give away!

• 12 to Twitter
• 3 to the livestream after the show

#AlteracTips

Mid Season Brawl

Stuff you noticed in the Brawl or influence you noticed in your home games.

• Jaina Deletes
• Malfurion Tranquility (now has a higher win percent on Hotslogs, though at 38% popularity
• Bot Control Towers of Doom
• Stitches wins - won 6 of his 7 games.
• Final Cut got the core kill

Indirectly related evolutions

• Solo lane Hammer
• Abathur No Tank Battlefield of Eternity

Links

• https://www.invenglobal.com/articles/5364/sake-in-my-time-as-a-pro-gamer%C2%A0-even-winning-blizzcon-this-was-the-toughest-day-ever-in-my-career
• https://old.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/8s2y73/hgc_midseason_brawl_final_day_towers_of_doom_it/
• https://old.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/8sich2/in_case_you_missed_itthe_greatest_finish_in/
• https://old.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/8s38y0/spoiler_geng_vs_dig_finals/

Drops Engaged

Tuning into any Heroes of the Storm stream anytime between 9:00 AM PDT June 12 – 11:59 PM PDT July 9 for a combined 3 hours will earn you a Rare Loot Chest!

Watch your favorite Heroes streamer or look around for some new entertainment! You don’t need to stay on one specific channel for the entire 3-hour requirement.

Tuning into any Heroes of the Storm stream for a combined 6 hours from anytime between 9:00 AM PDT June 12 – 11:59 PM PDT July 9 will earn you two exclusive Echoes of Alterac-themed portraits inspired by the Alterac Pass Generals, Vann’dar Stormpike and Drek’thar!

Just like the 3-hour reward, you don’t need to tune into one stream for the combined 6 hours, so feel free to find some new favorite streams!

During the Mid Season Brawl they gave out 10 Heroic chest, which unlocked every hero including Yrel

Links

• https://heroesofthestorm.com/en-us/blog/21867505/heroes-of-the-storm-twitch-drops-2018-6-14/

Patreon Mention: Patreon.com/ITN

Thanks to our Patreon producers Declan H and CheezyBob.

Patron Thanks

• Joel Turnbull
• idiomkrone        
• Eugene        Frier
• aguywithnopantson        
• jarded        

Strategy

Alterac Deep Dive

Doesn’t enter Hero League until July 10th. Pros will likely be secretive so it’s up to us to make sense of it for now

The first objective

• Starts at 3 minutes
• Must be channeled for three seconds uninterrupted
• Channeling the enemy camp pauses the progress
• Four guards watch the objective area and interrupt channels with weak attacks.

• Their channel takes 6 seconds and can recapture the objective

• The first objective must be protected for 30 seconds
• There is no partial credit for this objective

Subsequent objectives

• After all three are defeated, the next prisons will spawn in 110-150 seconds.

• For each minute of game time, the respawn is cut but 2 seconds

• For each objective completed, the objective takes 10 more seconds to complete.

This is a long objective. Defend with a partial team or using a global to soak. Mud pools will reduce you abilitiy to soak the nearby lane.

Calvary Spawn

• Cavalry unites have a 5.5m aura that gives 30% movements speed and increases damage by 10%
• The second objective gives 15% damage, maxing out at 20% damage for the 3rd wave and beyond.
• Cavalry gain 5 armor per allied hero within the aura

Mercenaries

• Ice Giants are reskinned Grave Golems with a snowball instead of a root circle. It deals 36% less damage and slots for 50% for 1 seconds. There is a lingering slow effect of 35%

This will likely lead to boss trades.

• They are very distant from each other, not counting the mud pits.

• Gnoll camps are reskinned Hellbats. Except there are three and they run down the middle lanes only.

Middle camps are always the easiest to clear though the extra unit over a normal hellbat camp means significantly increases survivability if left alone.

The Core

• A general
• 24000 HP
• Charge and whirlwind ability
• Tagged as a structure for any ability and talent interactions.
• The general is immune and has 60 armor while all keeps are standing. Destroying a keep lowers the armor by 20.
• With two keeps standing, generals have 20% more effective health than a normal core
• With no keeps left, the generals are 28% weaker than a normal core.
• Generals can fully regenerate their health from 1% to full over 62.5 seconds.

• Normal Cores can only regeneration a third of their heatlh

Due to the regeneration, if you don’t think you can end the game, it is better to take another Keep

Reavers

• Specialty Gnoll version catapults
• Reavers do single target damage and no bonus damage to structures
• They have 75% armor against structures and 50 armor against minions.

Mud Pits

• Ramp up to a 60% slow over 3 seconds. 
• Passing through mounted gives you a 10% slow, walking through gives you a 30% slow.

Heroes

Numbers are skewed because of the ongoing play Warcraft Heroes event.

Quick Match

• Cho’gall currently has the best win-rate at 59.8% (up to 71% in Unranked)
• Fenix - 58.4%
• Varian 58.2
• Tracer 57
• Sgt. Hammer 56.5
• Lunara
• Tyrande
• Li Li
• Dva
• Kerrigan (60% unranked)
• Thrall

Unranked

• Probius
• Zagara
• Rexxar
• Lost Vikings

Not so good in draft

• Illidan - 35%
• Greymane
• Hanzo
• Xul
• Zeratul
• Ragnaros
• Malthael - 25% in masters

https://tempostorm.com/articles/increase-your-fenix-dps-how-to-abuse-weapon-mode

https://old.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/8s1te5/ts_psalm_here_to_teach_how_to_maximize_dps_as/

https://old.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/8s0zvs/heroes_profile_official_release_new_website_for/

https://tempostorm.com/articles/math-of-the-storm-alterac-pass

Emails

Arandomguy

I have been listening to you two for almost two years and have learned a TON from the insight you share. Recently, my friends and i have lost several games where it seems like I was the obvious weak link. I typically play support but have been trying my hand at the assassin role and notice my damage is usually 10-20k less than my opponents that ive seen in similar roles. I’ve been watching my KD ratio and usually i break even or come out ahead.

Assassins i typically play, greymane, butcher, lunara, and chromie.

Supports i normally play, Malfurion, Morales, Brightwing, and LiLi

Thanks for all you do!

Nate

Hey guys,

Love the podcast! It motivates me to get better, and climb higher. However, I've become burnt out as of late. This season has been such a horrendous mess. I've been stuck in Silver 1 for 50+ games this season. I seriously haven't budged out of it. I've had about 8-10 promotion matches, but each one has ended in a disappointing (and often humiliating) loss. As most people in my rank don't know how to tank, I've taken it upon myself to re-learn tanking; and have been sticking to only a small handful, per your suggestion. Over and over again, I feel that I do my job well, at least 75-80% of the time. But my team constantly overextends and dies, preventing me from setting up any type of kill. I then proceed to get toxically b*tched at because I'm not doing whatever they think I was supposed to do to magically prevent their inevitable death. I anchor during camps and obj, but am attacked because I'm not helping. No amount of explaining during (or before) seems to help. I went from 65% win rate the first 15-20 games, to like 35% this season; and I rarely feel like I'm the offending agent in this. I've re-watched my games, and can confirm this most of the time. It feels like as I'm on the verge of getting out of silver, I'm inevitably placed with a losing team. Additionally, I feel like no matter how well I play, I don't get anywhere; mmr seems to mean nothing.

As a fun little cherry on top of all of this, I played the pre-promotion match game (super excited to hit promotion, and then maybe get Gold). We lost....HORRIBLY; like QM horrible. The team attacked me, the solo tank, as usual. And suddenly, I'm scaled all the way back to a demotion match....from a single game. I swear someone at Blizzard hates me.

I've gotten to the point where I loath playing after about 2-3 games. I love this game, but  I can't stand the toxicity in HL, nor the terrible playing despite the engine supposedly placing me with "players of similar rank."

How do you guys keep the faith? Where can I play with people that aren't assholes? Lol!

John

Hi Guys, Love the show.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on how players can get into team league and any suggestions you might have for up-and-comers.

Where should they look to fill out their team?

How to organize scrims?

Finding and entering small tournaments?

I notice the chat on the podcast focusses mainly on Quick match, Hero league, e-sports and not much in between - Is low-level team league on the radar for you guys much?

I really appreciate the podcast and all of the hard work you both put into all you do.

Take care

https://www.chairleague.com/leagues

Tuesday and Thursday nights

Outro

Patreon Shout Out

ITN is supported by our badass Patrons. You can become a ITN Patron by going to Patreon.com/itn.

Thanks to our Patreon producers Declan H and CheezyBob. ITN shirt at shirts.amove.tv. Coffee mugs and glasses are over at etched.amove.tv.

Catch the live show Thursday at 5pm Eastern / 2pm Pacific on Twitch.tv/Amovetv. Mobile live stream provided by Alpha Geek Radio.

Follow the show on Twitter @ITNcast and ITNpodcast.reddit.com.

Thanks to Gorath for our intro music and briangriffithmusic.com (@briangriffith) for our outro..

Personal Stuff

Garrett

Follow Garrett @GarrettArt

NOMOONart.com for Garrett’s stream designs.

The Angry Chicken: A Hearthstone Podcast

The Angry Nerd

Kyle

Kylefergusson.com

Outro

Patreon Shout Out

ITN is supported by our badass Patrons. You can become a ITN Patron by going to Patreon.com/itn.

Thanks to our Patreon producers Declan H and CheezyBob. ITN shirt at shirts.amove.tv. Coffee mugs and glasses are over at etched.amove.tv.

Catch the live show Thursday at 5pm Eastern / 2pm Pacific on Twitch.tv/Amovetv. Mobile live stream provided by Alpha Geek Radio.

Follow the show on Twitter @ITNcast and ITNpodcast.reddit.com.

Thanks to Gorath for our intro music and briangriffithmusic.com (@briangriffith) for our outro..

Personal Stuff

Garrett

Follow Garrett @GarrettArt

NOMOONart.com for Garrett’s stream designs.

The Angry Chicken: A Hearthstone Podcast

The Angry Nerd

Kyle

Kylefergusson.com