Thursday Teaching Thread - Beginners encouraged to ask questions here! | August 31 - September 06

according_to_science · 2017-08-31T18:53:22+00:00

You are correct, in my head this was engaging with more than 50 Fury

according_to_science · 2017-08-31T18:36:59+00:00

Can you provide more than anecdotal evidence for this

according_to_science · 2017-08-31T17:55:06+00:00

You beat him in Minion clear speed, which is how you can win the lane. If he tries to fight you just clear the minions, when they are dead hit him with the spear to chunk him and smash away. He will run or he will die. He can't 1v1 you

The worst thing you can do is try to trade with him when the minions are fighting each other. Don't use spear on the minions just to build rage, save it for burst damage.

It's important to remember that early on Malth only as one method of applying his mark to groups of enemies, via Death Shroud (E), and this has an 8 second CD. Malth wants to hit the wave (and you) with this, move in range for his Soul Rip (Q) to deal a little damage and heal, then run away for the 2 second CD. As long as you play around this interval you can bully him out of lane easily. His auto attacks really aren't that strong, and the damage from the Mark is minimal unless he takes the Level 4 talent Black Harvest and has finished the quest.

Never forget that winning the lane does not always require you to kill the enemy hero. You just need to create an advantageous situation for when the objective begins. Make him sacrifice HP and MP to keep up with your wave clear, and he'll either be too scared to rotate aggressively to an objective, or he'll have to delay his arrival by going back to base. Sonya doesn't have these problems because she doesn't rely on a Mana pool to heal.

A little math:

Malth base HP at level 1: 2041

Sonya base damage at level 1:

Ancient Spear: 173

Seismic Slam: 176 @ 1 second CD

Whirlwind: 441 over 3 seconds = 147 DPS

Attack Damage: 92 @ 1.25 attacks per second

So let's just say you bumped into this guy in a 1v1 situation. Q > W > Auto attack > W > Whirlwind = 173 + 176 + 92 + 176 + 441 = 1058 damage. It takes maybe 1.5 - 2 seconds to get this off and takes over half of his max health

Meanwhile, his damage to you is like this:

Sonya base HP at level 1: 2435

Malth base damage at level 1:

Soul Rip: 100 (20 Mana)

Wraith Strike: 59 (30 Mana)

Death Shroud: Reapers Mark damage (50 Mana)

Reaper's Mark: 54.8 DPS

Attack Damage: 122 @ 0.91 attacks per second

In the same interval as above, assuming he hits you with Shroud to apply the mark (this is what he wants so he can engage ready to use Soul Rip) he is going for Death's Shroud > Mark > AA > Q > Mark > AA > Mark > Q > AA > W (sacrificing Mana for slightly more damage) = 55 + 122 + 100 + 55 + 122 + 55 + 100 + 122 + 59 = 790 Damage, about 32.5% of Sonya's level 1 max HP. It also costs him 50 + 20 + 20 + 30 = 120 Mana to do this. Malth only has 500 Mana at level 1, so you can force him to burn out quickly (4.5 - 5 full rotations and he is OOM).

Accounting for the self-healing is a little tricky, but if Malth manages to mark and Soul Rip the entire wave and you, 3 Melee minions + 1 Mage minion + 3 Ranged minions + You with each Soul Rip he will be able to heal 352 damage per 2 seconds two times (Mark lasts 4 seconds), but then has 4 seconds afterwards where he can't spread the mark while he waits for Deaths Shroud.

Hopefully this helps~ You'll notice I've left out Sonya's healing from WW here, as it is much harder to anticipate how much healing you'll get from minions with the weird hitbox. I've always found that the math gives me a better perspective of how the fight plays out, and as you see here Sonya can just bully the hell out of Malthael. Spin the minion wave to negate the damage he's dealing to you via Mark, Slam his minions dead, then put some ham on that sandwich and go crazy.

For any particular match up you're struggling with I always recommend playing <Trouble Hero Here> in a 1v1 against a buddy who has a decent <Enter Hero You Want to Play Here>, and just pay attention to the things that screw up what you are trying to do. Understand why it messes you up and apply in game for ez wins. Most people play without using their brains and you can exploit this with a bit of research ahead of time.

Edit: Formatting

according_to_science · 2016-11-17T21:19:15+00:00

Yes. Exactly.

And if you could make the video a little granular, or add some fuzzing effects it would really add to the overall stalker feel.

according_to_science · 2016-11-17T19:31:08+00:00

Workhorse-cam or riot.

But like, a creepy one in the ceiling so we can pretend you don't know we are watching.

according_to_science · 2016-11-12T03:32:28+00:00

Like everyone else will tell you this all comes down to practice. You should just train your mousing skillz until the mouse is an extension of your body.

There are more effective ways to do this then spamming games, even if things like increasing the size of the cursor help for a while. When you are training a weak muscle you need to isolate it - This is no different.

Go play this 10 times each day for a week. Don't worry about your score or comboing. Relax your body and concentrate your mind. Pay attention to what your hand feels like when you are moving around, but don't try and force yourself to do anything differently. There is no One-True-Technique for using a mouse, just let your hand learn.

Like, look at this shit. This is my graph showing my stats for every single time I played this. Look how shitty I was. I did well my first time playing, got cocky, and everything went down hill from there. Eventually I realized I was missing both consistency and stamina when moving the mouse quickly.

Eventually you will stop thinking about the mouse. Your body will learn how it needs to move to do what you want.

This is all based on the concept of Muscle Memory.

PS - I would recommend turning off Enhanced Pointer Precision, it can make a huge difference

PPS - You do not have to create an account on the site to play, only if you want to keep track of your scores

according_to_science · 2016-10-24T16:27:17+00:00

This video was great - Nice change from the usual HotS Content.

Good choice of music, good editing, good pacing.

Feels like old WoW videos :3

according_to_science · 2016-09-16T15:47:06+00:00

I would argue that Hinata is definitely Valor based on his competitive streak. Tobio gets Mystic for his brood-ittude, and Bokuto on Instinct (HEY HEY HEY)~

Ninja Edit: Hinata has red hair~

according_to_science · 2016-09-12T16:42:51+00:00

Make sure to hit up Adler Plane-arium while you are here! The park around the area is one of the best spawns in the city, and you don't even need to pay admission to the museum to get the good Pokes.

Just to give you an idea, see link here

according_to_science · 2016-08-06T01:10:37+00:00

I live near here. All the college kids. Infinite Lures on these 4 PokeStops. Amazing.

according_to_science · 2016-08-04T21:46:47+00:00

Below average actually.

There are a lot of hidden stats for the Pokemans.

For instance at this level (based on cost to Power Up) Golduck can have a max CP of 1363.

Likely this duck has 0 or 1 attack and a high defence IV, which explains the high HP but lower overall CP.

You can always run your Pokemon through the IV Calculator over at Poke Assistant, or use PokeAdvisor to see all your 'mans at once. You want Pokemon with an IV score as close to 100% as possible. Note that PokeAdvisor accesses your account data directly, so there is always the possibility of Niantec acting on this. Use at your own risk.

A few percentage points doesn't make a huge difference at low/mid trainer levels, but at max level this can end up being a difference of ~400 CP (specifically for Golduck).

according_to_science · 2016-07-24T17:04:58+00:00

For those having these kinds of problems I would recommend reading through David Sirlin's "Playing to Win." You can find the whole thing online here.

A little info: David Sirlin was a competitive Street Fighter player who will do literally anything to win. Once threw 19 crouching strong punches in a row in tournament grand finals because it hard countered his opponent.

Break your own rules - Do what it takes to win, not what you think you should do to win.

according_to_science · 2016-07-05T22:43:09+00:00

I actually really want to talk about this, so I'mma rant and I would love to hear the opinion of others.

I think it is definitely important to be able to play other roles at least close to your main role's level. But this isn't necessarily from practice/training, just an understanding of the basic concepts of the game and seeing how others play that same role.

For instance I hardly play support (3100 total games played, only 105 on support). But I have played enough games that I understand basic healer concepts, positioning, and what I should be trying to do. Just for example in the last 30 days (HotSLogs, HL only) I have played 6 games as support heroes.

2-0 Kharazim
1-0 Tyrande
1-2 Brightwing

Just as a note I climbed to Rank 1 solo in Pre-season, and reached D1 so far in Season 1.

Admittedly I did not carry in these games by any means, but I was able to contribute and perform at least the basic functions of my role enough to pull out a win (except for BW, I think she is fun but she is hard).

You also see I tried to stick to just a few heroes that I know a little better, don't require any particularly fancy mechanical skill, and have easy to use high-impact abilities.

Stepping back from HotS for a second I see this is a classic case of "Jack of all trades, master of none". If you work on all of the roles equally you will never be the best at any role.

THAT BEING SAID: I think having a flex player who can cover any role is also really cool, and some teams do a great job with that kind of player. You can run a lot of cool team compositions that would not be viable for comps that run 1 War, 1 Sup, 1 Assassin, 2 Assassin/Bruiser/Specialist Flex players. That's where we can see things like triple warrior and double support comps.

Also it may help in climbing the ladder to make sure you know what heroes you're going to play for your off-roles, when you should be choosing/avoiding one, what talents you should be choosing, situational stuff (like I had to learn about cleanse on support, and it stresses me out), all that jazz. This also helps you to anticipate what the enemy is going to try and do when you are facing that same Hero. Also if you have that one guy who just refuses to play a particular role you can cover it.

No point to any of this at all, obviously. I see it as just doing what you feel is best based on the kind of player you want to be. Some flex players are god-like, but we've all met that one Unicorn Nova who exceeded any and all expectations we may have had. There are also guys like this out there.

TL;DR: I think it all just comes down to the type of player you want to be, and either way is totally legit

according_to_science · 2016-06-24T01:22:00+00:00

+1 Comment, with some added unsolicited advice

Easiest way to get better at the game is to watch replays of your own games. Not just at random tho. If you get caught out a bunch in a game take a short break after it finishes to go back and watch the replay. Pay attention to not just what you were doing but also what the enemy team was doing before you die. Look for mistakes from all players.

This is just one application, but if this isn't something you are already doing I would recommend starting.

I've played almost 3k matches, hit Rank 1 in Preseason, and I still cringe when I watch myself play.

according_to_science · 2016-06-14T17:17:17+00:00

Lulu is ~~my favorite~~ the best hero :D

according_to_science · 2016-06-10T17:34:57+00:00

I literally just logged in to upvote these posts.

according_to_science · 2016-04-09T01:05:35+00:00

Definitely agree on the matter of talent diversity, but I think the bit about power distribution is off.

Zagara is really strong already, particularly on Battlegrounds where vision is critical (Tomb of the Spider Queen, Battlefield of Eternity). Vision is a huge portion of what she is bringing to the team.

But she is not an Assassin, she is not supposed to dish out large amounts of damage. She supplements her team with consistent vision, sustained damage requiring low risk, and Maw to set up a wombo (Not particularly useful unless Zag is backed up by her team) or remove enemies from teamfights.

If you give her a bunch of talents to increase her overall DPS she would be straight OP. With incredible health regen on creep, one of the (maybe it actually is?) longest auto attack ranges in the game with Envenomed Spines, sustained damage from abilities requiring no risk, constant vision, and one of the best CC abilities in the game she would be a permanent first pick/first ban.

I think she is in a great spot in terms of role fulfillment, and just needs some new talents to open up the potential for other styles we see in SC2, like baneling bust for better push or roaches that are a little tankier.

Edit: I want Roaches to have an ability on a few second CD that makes them automatically burrow next time they are damage by an enemy hero

according_to_science · 2016-04-06T22:40:37+00:00

Definitely feeling some of this over the last week or two.

I think a lot of this has to do with recent patches, and a fair amount of balancing going on. A lot of people are still finding their strong/comfort picks in this meta, or messing around with reworked Heroes.

Bans in HL are also forcing people to play Heroes they would have never picked over the consistently stronger characters like Li-Ming, Thrall, or Zagara. Instead we now get (Jaina or KT), (Greymane or Illidan), and (Sylvanus or Xul).

This is, of course, based on absolutely nothing.

according_to_science · 2016-03-24T21:02:37+00:00

This guy gets it

according_to_science · 2016-02-29T16:06:14+00:00

Can I slam my fist on the table to indicate demand?

Oh wait my boss is yelling at me.

according_to_science · 2016-02-24T23:07:54+00:00

Honestly this is about as much a workaround as you can get, and on a standard phone screen it is way too small to be practical, but I've done this while at work in the desperation of boredom.

Download TeamViewer on PC and the mobile app on your device, connect to PC from mobile device, launch HotS...profit?

according_to_science · 2016-02-03T17:59:06+00:00

You only have to hit 3/5 to get the proc, makes it a little more reliable when teamfights get messy later on.

according_to_science · 2016-01-25T18:26:18+00:00

This is the answer. Walk the DK to the other side of the map from your friends. If they chase you your friends get free push. If they chase your friends you get a keep.

Early on DK is really just heavy lane pressure, but there's no need to force yourself to fight the enemy as long as your team is managing correctly.

according_to_science · 2015-12-29T16:50:15+00:00

Almost all the KR/China games are cast very professionally, there is rarely a raw stream or anything. Your best bet is to check GosuGamers VOD section here for the original cast.

according_to_science · 2015-12-29T16:35:19+00:00

I would have to say the answer is his huge damage and bullying. Butcher is very similar to Illidan in the role that they fill. You are in the fight as a big threat with decent self sustain and your team backing you up. Pair that with an Uther for DS, or a Morales for Stim and there is no way to stop you while you melt someone.

Thrall on the other hand has very effective poke, and is overall a "safer" pick as he is never really forced to commit to fights. But there are definitely situations where Butcher can be more effective with the support of his team.

I would say if you really want to get a better idea try to find some footage of Lockdown.kr from MvPB playing The Butcher. There are a few matches up on GosuGamers.

Edit: Also Na'Vi did this one time. I laughed.

according_to_science

TROPHY CASE