Do you always play the same build?

[GodlyBob]

I feel like I'm a reasonably competent player; if the ranking system is to be believed, I'm up in the 90-percentile and hotslogs has me at about a 2850 MMR in hero league. However, I feel like I get a ridiculous amount of flack for taking some less popular talents in situations where the normal choice is less than ideal. We all have our ideal builds, maximizing damage on assassins, maximizing cc on tanks and so on that work fantastic in a vacuum, but I will alter my talent choices to match my team or the enemy better. I do things like pick up perfect storm on Muradin instead of reverb if the enemy completely lacks ADC or get frost strike over rune tap on Arthas if my team is missing snares.

I had a game earlier today where I picked up water dragon on Li Li because we had a Tyrande to pick up the slack on heals. We were already 3 levels behind by the time I got the ult, but after I used it for the first time to secure a kill, a KT on our team immediately lost his mind and declared that water dragon was the reason we were losing. We had positioning problems like you wouldn't believe and the enemy had a Johanna setting up precision strike combos on the other side and really just melting us before any heal outside of an Uther ult could have prevented, but my dragon was the reason we lost.

Anyway, does everybody else like to keep things on the rails every round on their favorite heroes in terms of talents, or do you like going off script to suit the game better? Or to put it another way, is there always a single optimal build for most heroes and if you deviate you're doing your team a disservice?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Yes and no; generally in QM I will go my favorite builds, but in HL I will build to complement my team. I never take Regen Master if a teammate has it so I do not compete with them; if we have two tanks and the other goes tank build I will go fighter build, and as Abathur I will always build around the strengths of my team.

[GodlyBob]

Yes and no; generally in QM I will go my favorite builds, but in HL I will build to complement my team. I never take Regen Master if a teammate has it so I do not compete with them; if we have two tanks and the other goes tank build I will go fighter build, and as Abathur I will always build around the strengths of my team.

If two people with regen master both pick up a health globe does only one person get the stack? I figured both would because y'know, the things split.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

If two people with regen master both pick up a health globe does only one person get the stack? I figured both would because y'know, the things split.

IDK how it is now, since I've never tried taking a second regen master, but if two players in the same lane had the talent, only the one that picked up the globe got the stack, even if the other was in range to get the heal as well. May have been changed, but that's what it used to be.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

More or less yes, I will vary 1-2 talents depending on comp/map but mostly play the same build each time.

[GodlyBob]

IDK how it is now, since I've never tried taking a second regen master, but if two players in the same lane had the talent, only the one that picked up the globe got the stack, even if the other was in range to get the heal as well. May have been changed, but that's what it used to be.

Eh, it's never really seemed like a grossly strong talent choice to me anyway for the most part. I'll take it if the enemy comp means the other things in the tier aren't desirable, like on Arthas if they don't have an ADC and we're already good on cc. I imagine it might become more of an issue with Leoric coming out soon and that ability helping to lower his death timer. BTW, did I mention I like Arthas?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Eh, it's never really seemed like a grossly strong talent choice to me anyway for the most part. I'll take it if the enemy comp means the other things in the tier aren't desirable, like on Arthas if they don't have an ADC and we're already good on cc. I imagine it might become more of an issue with Leoric coming out soon and that ability helping to lower his death timer. BTW, did I mention I like Arthas?

It's mostly used for mages the likes of Jaina/Kael/Tass/Azmodan who need to be using their abilities constantly, not necessarily for raw damage but for utility, and in a sustained team fight lasting longer than twenty seconds they're going to burn through their mana to OOM levels in a blink of an eye.

[GodlyBob]

It's mostly used for mages the likes of Jaina/Kael/Tass/Azmodan who need to be using their abilities constantly, not necessarily for raw damage but for utility, and in a sustained team fight lasting longer than twenty seconds they're going to burn through their mana to OOM levels in a blink of an eye.

Ah, conjurer's pursuit, I was thinking the health regen one, not the mana. Yeah, love conjurer's pursuit on lili, would definitely want to know if I wasn't getting the stack for something that like.

[ophion1990]

I swap around talents based on the comp aswell. On Valla or Sylv, for example, I'll swap between single target builds or more pusher builds. On Kael I might go for Verdant Sphere/Nether Wind if there's no healer, I'll generally never take GP if we don't have a healer, for example. Just like on Zagara I won't always go for a full creep build. Abathur is probably the one with the most diversity in builds.

It's the same in WoW though. People copy paste talents/enchants from top ladder players (or in the case of HotS, maybe talents they saw in a tournament) and everyone who doesn't use that build is nuts...

[Deleted]

Depends on hero and maps. Uther for example has one build, everyone runs it. Other heroes got more choices, like malfurion can take scouting drone on some maps, mule on some.. etc. So, depends on hero and map :P

[Deleted]

Depends on the hero really, the two heroes I play most are Johanna and Tyrande where I adapt a lot to freindly/enemy comp but on other heroes I play less, like Valla and Nazeebo I tend to stick to the one build I know how to use effectively.

[Nerraw]

For most heroes I have a go-to build, and then I iterate on it depending on what I'm facing at the time, and of course the map I'm on.

[FobManX]

I may change one or two talents. For example when I play Kael'thas, I won't take Gathering Power if the other team has a lot of bursty ganker types that will be gunning for me(Nova, Zeratul, Illidan etc.).

[Hanzan]

Kinda tend to take a look at the other team and see if I can do anything diffrent. Then look at my team and make my choice from there. Unless im the only tank/assassin. Then I go all out

[Lothar]

IDK how it is now, since I've never tried taking a second regen master, but if two players in the same lane had the talent, only the one that picked up the globe got the stack, even if the other was in range to get the heal as well. May have been changed, but that's what it used to be.

wtf you talkin about. one picked up the globe both got its benefits, that is heal/mana plus whatever stack you get for whatever talent.

[Tziva]

I don't play ranked and I'm a baddie, so sometimes I will take less than ideal talents that help compensate for my weaknesses (like, a self-healing or survival talent on an assassin where the "correct" choice is something dps oriented). There are other talents I switch around depending on the map and my team or where we are in the game based on what I legitimately think will be more useful. Like, I play Rhegar a lot and on some maps Bloodlust is crazy awesome, but on others -- or with teams that fail at teamfights -- it's more useful to take the super heal.

[Deleted]

I have 1 goto build on all my heroes. But depending on matchup and map I can swap one or two talent.

[Deleted]

I pick the talents our team and I need to play effective.

[Waaldo]

I usually try to find different builds for different situations. Some characters have a go to build that works all the time that I will use, I almost never change my Naz build unless I think I need sprint.

If someone is complaining about your build choice they are probably just an annoying twat who get's all their builds from some online site that said "BEST BUILD." You learn a lot by trying out new builds on your own, I have yet to look up builds online and I've been doing pretty well.

It's always better to play what you're comfortable with. I've been in a lot of Hero League matches where someone will say " which character should I play, X or Y?" and someone will answer with one of them. I always say pick who you are most comfortable with. Because I would rather have a good Stitches than a bad KT. Same thing goes for talents.

[sam86]

The accurate answer is same build at same map, you always pick mule at temple map, while you won't take it at for example spider one
And I still fail to see anyone who change talents ever in tournaments, always same builds at same maps, no one ever picked Kael - one of most picked champs - and thought 'maybe pyroblast is good' or sylvanas and picked charm, unlike what those narrators like to make impression (and they are even more hilarious defeding activision-blizzard games than the most idiot fan boy) there isn't 'diversity', those talents offer no free choice and u'll be idiot if u don't pick for example globe of annihilation talent at azmoddan t1, or pick murky in first place in competition