How I got into Mobas

     Thought I'd do a post about how I got into mobas (multi-player online battle arena games) and tell you a little about why there's such a buzz around these kinds of games. Okay, so mobas are basically top down games where you control one hero unit that levels up like an RPG character and has multiple skills and/or abilities. In some mobas you can buy items to enhance the stats of your toon (character). Mobas are basically the most popular PC games. Why? Because all of them are free to play. But that doesn't mean that people don't use real money on them. They all have in game money shops that you can use to buy heroes, items, and skins. The two biggest mobas are League of Legends and Dota 2. I tried both of those games and also some other ones like Strife, Heroes of Newerth, and a DC Superhero one as well but none of those stuck with me for some reason. For one thing in LoL and Dota I didn't like how long the matches lasted. Sometimes I would be in a game for 45 minutes, only for one player on the enemy time to get fed (get a lot more xp and level up higher than us, by getting tons of kills) and just completely annihilate us. Also, I didn't like how there were all these extra things you had to know about, like which items to get with certain heroes and so on. Don't get me wrong. League and Dota are great games, especially Dota because it has great graphics. But they just don't move at a fast pace and I get tired of sitting in the same match after an hour has gone by. It wasn't until a certain game came out in beta access that I became a true moba player.
     Enter Heroes of the Storm. Online it says the closed beta came out in 2015 but it seems like I've been playing it much longer than that, like 2014 or something. Basically Heroes of the Storm is amazing. It's been one of the constants in my life, just like washing up, eating, and going to work. Heroes is the first beta that I ever participated in and it was the best. The game has only gotten better with more maps and more heroes. Its easy to see why Heroes is such a good game and why I prefer it over League and Dota.
     For one thing, Heroes matches only last around 20-25 minutes. If things are a little too even you might possibly go to a 30 minute game but those are the rare games. Experience (xp, what gives your toons the ability to level up) is shared by the whole team collectively. So when you kill an enemy player you're getting experience for the whole team to level up, not just your own. This is a rare exception because in LoL and Dota you have to earn kills and get xp on your own. Also, there are no items in this game, just pure skill and characters from Blizzard's diverse gaming universe-from Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo, and even some earlier Blizzard titles like Lost Vikings. Heroes feels like more of a team game than other 'serious' mobas. In this game you only solo lane until level 10. When you hit level 10 you get your ultimate ability and have to move around the map as a death-ball with your team, otherwise you will get picked off and die. Like I said Heroes has been a constant in my life ever since early 2015.
     I usually start every day off by getting up and getting ready for the day. Then I immediately play Heroes for a couple matches, usually enough to complete the quests in the game. These quests earn you in game gold that you can use to buy more heroes. You can also use real money but I've only used real money to buy hero skins (different costumes for your heroes, they have some bad-ass ones). Its hard for me to say that Heroes is my favorite game because I feel like I have so many other games that I'm playing that I like equally as much, like for instance, Smash 4. But Heroes is definitely my most played game. Every match is fresh, exciting, and anything can happen. I have to improvise all the time and decide what to do on my own as well as collectively as a team. I play with friends when they are online but usually I'm left to my own devices playing pugs (pick up groups), basically just playing with whatever players that are online. I use the in-game chat to come up with strategies and stuff so we can work as a team and not get ganked (ambushed) while moving around the map. It's good clean fun! The community sometimes isn't the best in Heroes of the Storm but I've come to expect that in a lot of PC online games. I have like 800 games played so far. I know that doesn't sound a lot but it is a lot because it just came out in 2015. I consider myself a veteran playing from the early days of beta access. I've come to play certain characters and classes exceptionally well.
     I focus on playing support most of the time. That means I'm usually playing a healer class making sure my team doesn't die. I usually main the medic from Starcraft Broodwar, Lt. Morales in most games. And when I'm not healing as her I'm healing as Uther, a paladin from Warcraft III. Morales is great because she's the best 'pure' healer in the game but she's glass-cannon (goes down like a wet paper nap, weak) and doesn't do much damage. Uther, on the underhand can take a hit or two but his healing has more cooldowns. The cool thing about Uther is that he has a stun that I use to get a lot of kills. Stuns are very OP (over-powered) in this game. If you stun an enemy player when you're whole team is there to attack them they are definitely dead.
     When I'm not healing I sometimes play tanks (characters that are meant to take hits and absorb damage). My favorite tanks are Johanna and Leouric. Johanna is a great tank. I think she's the best tank for beginners because all her abilities just work perfectly for new players. Leouric is a bit tougher to play but his defense is really good. He has some ok abilities but I feel like you have to get to know how to play him a bit before he becomes op.
     And to a less extent I play assassins and specialists. I started off playing Heroes as a Nova main, like pretty much every other player. Nova is just a super easy character to pick up when you first start playing the game because she's a sniper that can cloak and run and hide. But when you get to ranked matches you learn that she's a lot tougher to play at the higher levels of the game. And when I need to play specialists for a quest I almost always play Sylvannas. Not only is she a cute Undead Night Elf girl from Warcraft III she absolutely wrecks forts (towers, enemy structures to get to their core, the thing that you have to destroy to win the game). She's also not bad in team fights, having a cool ultimate called Wailing Arrow, that silences (stops them from using any abilities for a few seconds). It's very helpful at critical moments!
     Heroes of the Storm has gotten a lot of attention since it came out. The best thing about it is that it's free to play! Just like League and Dota. And just like LoL and Dota there are tournaments and stuff. Its not as big as like the 2 million dollar Dota or League prize winnings. But maybe one day it will be. I can see the game changing a lot over the next few years, putting in new and more interesting characters with different mechanics. If you have a computer and play PC games you should definitely download this game. You will not regret it. This game got me to really understand mobas and see them in a new way. They are actually good!