Which Assassin to buy?

[Kelimbror]

The only assassin i own is Valla so i don't have much of a choice. Think i got her due to RoS Collectors Edition or what not. She feels quite good? Easy to get into , good damage and mobility etc

I believe that is where she comes from and she is very strong compared to how easy it is to use her.

That said i agree with Kelimbror, killing other players seems as important as in any other MOBA.

And even though I like Nova, she may turn into absolute crap at ranked. IDK because I'm not a world class MOBA player. I'm just a regular person who enjoys the game. I do however agree with what I said and you also agree with. I did fall for the marketing that this would be less PvP, because I don't enjoy it too much. I did have a stint with LoL where I got really into it for a time, but it's not my thing in the long run. I do think the team aspects are very important and I love that they are there.

I feel compelled to get either a Specialist or a Warrior so i can do the dailies and if so which heroes you guys recommend around the 4000 Gold ballpark? I know this is a Assassin thread, but i feel silly making a new one just to ask the same question basically.

I too feel like I need a specialist to do the dailies, but I don't like the looks of any of them. I'm curious what people's experiences with them are. From having teammates play them, it seems like Azmodan is pretty strong. I think I'd rather wait and see how the Vikings and Sylvanas turn out b/c I think they both will be specialists if I'm not mistaken.

[Kelimbror]

Serious question: Where was it marketed that HotS would be "less PvP"?

It was clearly labeled to be 'different' than LoL and Dota b/c 'there's objectives on the map and you have to use teamwork'. I didn't mean Blizzard is intentionally trying to mislead, just intentionally trying to sound different and then we ran with it in our brains to turn it into 'pve'.

Clearly many people's brains went the same way since it continues to be used for various ideologies. To me it actually seems like they have made the PvP hyper competitive in the fact that it's forced and structured and if you do not capture those objectives you will lose pretty easily. Before playing though I definitely had the impression it was not like that.

[Mormolyce]

Well technically HoTS does have a PVE mode, if you want you can complete all your dailies there too IIRC.

Dunno if regular MOBAs have player vs. bots modes.

[Lesane]

Well I'm not in ranked yet b/c I just started playing, so you're right on that. Could be that the skill cap of most people in regular matches are not experienced MOBA players atm. I definitely don't think the same things will work at higher levels of play, but for all I know there will be strats that function just as well. It's not high risk low reward, it's high/high. Additionally, Nova is very useful in the PVE aspect at higher levels once her primary can penetrate and her ult has two charges.

If by very useful you mean slightly less worthless, then sure. Also, in order to get those talents you have to sacrifice better options. You lose Bolt of the Storm, your first and only escape. And the other choices in the same tier as Railgun are better except for Double Fake if you didn't take Lethal Decoy at 13. Railgun is also a level 16 talent, at that point PVE talents become less useful since you won't be doing PVE stuff nearly as much anymore.

While I'm not saying zomg best hero ever, I have noticed the trend of people trying to differentiate Heroes using the PVE 'excuse' since this game was announced. Killing heroes is just as vital in this game as it is in LoL in regards to the overall team's goals. Trying to shunt off that aspect of the game as irrelevant becase *pve reasons* is a fallacy at best and downright ignorant at worst.

No one said that, but both things are equally important. There's a reason why people in the NA meta always go for Melting Point on Tychus. It does nothing against other players but it 1 shots creep waves and demolishes buildings. Same with Sledgehammer on Muradin, again something that is worthless on heroes but is pretty sick for the PVE part.

As I mentioned before, of course killing heroes is important. Fact is however, Nova is not as good at killing heroes as certain other ranged assassins are. Pair this with the fact that she's absolutely useless for laning and mercing since she has to drop stealth and has zero sustained DPS and if enemies happen to walk by you're a free kill, and you get a pretty mediocre hero. There's worse heroes in the game but I'd say Nova is definitely the worst ranged assassin in the game right now. Even with the low amount of heroes the game has right now, she should never be picked in competetive situations.

Now that's not to attack the people doing it because I was under the same delusion when I first played. Yes, no pvp...just pve objectives and it's going to be great! No. All the PVE objectives are designed to maximize hero encounters and leads to even more of it than a game like LoL even has. This is not a PvE game, no matter how they want to try and market it/explain the design.

Exactly, objectives attract players which means team fights occur. That's an area where Nova sucks because she has to play super safe in order to not get killed. If a melee ever catches up with you you're simply dead. She has no AoE damage outside of Precision Strike. She is reliant on Gathering Power stacks which means dying is even more of a penalty. Nova is really just good at finishing off low health targets only, which there are a lot of in low MMR games because people play way too risky there.

The reality is that they are trying to foster a team game, not a pve game. They don't want 5 people soloing a map and occasionally having intense pvp. They want people working together the entire time with intense team brawls being forced by map mechanics.

Yes, and when you play a hero whose main damage comes from a body-blockable skill shot that also has no escape move, team fighting is not your strongest area.

The only assassin i own is Valla so i don't have much of a choice. Think i got her due to RoS Collectors Edition or what not. She feels quite good? Easy to get into , good damage and mobility etc

You get her either from having pre-ordered RoS or owning the collector's edition.

And even though I like Nova, she may turn into absolute crap at ranked. IDK because I'm not a world class MOBA player. I'm just a regular person who enjoys the game. I do however agree with what I said and you also agree with. I did fall for the marketing that this would be less PvP, because I don't enjoy it too much. I did have a stint with LoL where I got really into it for a time, but it's not my thing in the long run. I do think the team aspects are very important and I love that they are there.

Don't know where people get the idea from that this is less about PVP and more about PVE than other MOBAs. Blizzard has always marketed this game as an online "team brawler". It's probably the exact opposite, that PVP is more prevalent in this game than the others. That being said, PVE still plays an important role. That doesn't mean pure PVE, because there's always players around. When you are laning it's a mix of PVP and PVE for example. The whole game is really. That's why a hero that is absolute dogshit at the PVE part and is not better than other heroes at the PVP part is weak. Nova is such a hero. Gazlowe is the opposite version of her, weak for PVP but crazy at PVE (more so than Nova is at PVP), and he's also weak and very situational at best.

Compare Nova to Zeratul, the only other stealth Assassin. Zeratul can actually lane really well and do merc camps. His team fight presence is much better due to VP which is one of the best ults in the game. He actually has an extremely safe and low CD escape move, that also becomes and offensive move at level 13. And to top it off he probably does the same, if not more damage than Nova and it's also bursty just like Nova's. The only thing Nova has on him is range. Zeratul just outclasses her everywhere, just like how Anub'arak used to outclass Muradin in every aspect before he got nerfed (now it's the other way around). When you have 2 heroes with a similar playstyle and skill set, there's pretty much always one that's going to be obsolete. In this case that's Nova.

I too feel like I need a specialist to do the dailies, but I don't like the looks of any of them. I'm curious what people's experiences with them are. From having teammates play them, it seems like Azmodan is pretty strong. I think I'd rather wait and see how the Vikings and Sylvanas turn out b/c I think they both will be specialists if I'm not mistaken.

You don't need to own a Specialist. There's always one in the free rotation. The specialists tend to be gated at level 12/15 though. Many specialists are specialists just by name really. Nazeebo and Sgt. Hammer could've just as easily been a ranged assassin. Zagara too actually.

Azmodan is good for random games but not for competetive ones. His team fight presence is pretty non existent outside of dropping healing ward and melting a tank with your laser if the enemy team allows you to do that.

Well technically HoTS does have a PVE mode, if you want you can complete all your dailies there too IIRC.

Dunno if regular MOBAs have player vs. bots modes.

Pretty sure LoL has this too but I hardly consider this a PVE mode, it's just a game vs bots. They did mention in one interview though that if they get to the point where they have enough/too many heroes and maps that they might come up with a PVE mode. I can imagine them releasing a Hearthstone style adventure that costs gold/money to unlock and rewards you with a hero at the end that can only be gotten through that adventure.

[Mormolyce]

I would totally be onboard for a HoTS adventure mode.

[Kelimbror]

You don't need to own a Specialist. There's always one in the free rotation. The specialists tend to be gated at level 12/15 though.

Right...and many people aren't that level yet. I'm about rank 7-9 and don't have them, but needed it for the last daily. No big deal though since it will reset and give me something else. In any case, their daily system and free heroes is very fair.

[Lesane]

Right...and many people aren't that level yet. I'm about rank 7-9 and don't have them, but needed it for the last daily. No big deal though since it will reset and give me something else. In any case, their daily system and free heroes is very fair.

Your daily quests won't reset and there's no way to cancel them like you can in Hearthstone. That specialist quest you have is staying until you complete it. You can't get the same daily quest more than once though, so you won't get another specialist one.

[Pyromelter]

So, in terms of which hero to buy, it really depends on what you like to do. I main nova. I never play her in ranked/hero league. Nova is viable in ranked, IF you have a team comp that can support her (one time an opposing team had nazeebo and gazlowe, naz used his circle of undead dudes with naz's ult, and then nova's ult right behind it, it killed 3 of us straight away, very impressive coordination there). You never, ever, ever solo queue with nova in ranked though.

In quickmatch, nova is very viable if you like playing her.

In terms of the "best" assassins, it goes thusly, at least as of 2/8/2015:

Thrall >> Valla = Tychus = Kerrigan ≥ Zeratul > Raynor > Illidan > Jaina > Nova > Falstad.

It is likely this ranking will change with beta updates.

If you are trying to buy heroes to get into hero league, valla, tychus, raynor, illidan are all cheap and viable. Jaina, Nova, and Falstad will gimp your team if you are solo queueing in hero mode. In quickmatch, really any hero is viable as there are a lot of green players who are learning, and they are bad, and I don't mean to say that derogatorily, it just means their skill level is low compared to people who have been playing for a while.

Use this page to see where heroes are standing with percentage wins:

https://www.hotslogs.com/Sitewide/HeroAndMapStatistics

[Kelimbror]

Your daily quests won't reset and there's no way to cancel them like you can in Hearthstone. That specialist quest you have is staying until you complete it. You can't get the same daily quest more than once though, so you won't get another specialist one.

Hrm. The explanation on the wiki is deceptive then. It makes it sound like the quests just reset on their own if they aren't completed. Uggh. That's an awful system then. Very terrible. I guess I'll have to submit feedback and hope they change it.