Intro

So as my video (hopefully) just explained, there are quite a few things a tank needs to think about before engaging: allied positioning, allied cooldowns, enemy cooldowns, number advantages, level advantages, talent tier advantages, positional advantages, etc… It can honestly be quite overwhelming at first, and it’s something even I constantly strive to improve on.



Like with any complicated scenario, the first thing to do is to break down all the factors into smaller pieces and analyze them 1-by-1. This way, you can introduce them into your play 1 at a time, bit-by-bit until you can handle all the information at once. Even if you can’t handle everything at once, introducing any one of the small things I talked about can improve your consistency by a lot, so chin up and do what you can. I promise the results will be worth the effort.

Alright, enough lectures, let’s get into some learning.



Positioning Intro:

Let’s starting with something simple, like where to stand. Positioning in a game of Heroes of the Storm is often fluid and ever-changing, but I’ve broken down tank positioning into roughly 6 basic positions (or 3 pairs).

These positions are:

Frontline Walling Fishing Sideline Gating Flanking Free Scouting Anchoring

Each of these pairs share similar positioning, but with very different goals, and are broken up into offensive and defensive variants respectively. Don’t worry, this will make a lot more sense when I go into it, so let’s just skip the formalities and go straight into the first two positions here.



Also worth mentioning, tank is a position that inherently is going to take a lot of risks. You will make a lot of mistakes on the way to improvement (heck, neither of the plays you saw in the intro were flawless.) Don’t let these mistakes get to you. Just remember, the only bad mistake is the one you don’t learn from. (Disclaimer: This is not permission to go into your nearest HL game and feed your ass off under the excuse: “ishb00 told me to.” Pls pls pls do not do this.)

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Walling:

General Positioning for Walling: Stand at the front of your team at around the AA range of your backline carries. No one should be able to melee you without being in range of your backliners. Make sure to identify what kills your backline and ensure they are in front of you at all times. ETC by himself sliding past you won’t kill anything. ETC + a Li-ming follow up might, so if ETC moves to slide past you, zone off the Li-ming instead before peeling back to assist your teammate.

Best Heroes for Walling: Johanna, ETC, Muradin

Best Heroes to pair with: Valla, Gul’dan, any set of carry backliners that can threaten the enemy tank/frontline if they step up to you

When to use Walling: When you have the better backline and the enemy has to focus them, rather than you, to win (i.e. if the enemy team engages on you, your team should win that fight.) Requires the enemy team to have little-to-no threat on you as a tank.

Things to keep in mind when Walling:

Walling is not taking damage for free. If someone is hitting you, your team should be either hitting an enemy or clearing a wave. If the enemy is hitting you and your team is getting nothing off of it, back off. Save skills for enemies trying to get past you. If the enemy tank/frontliner walks up to you, auto-attack him and body block him. Do not waste skills unless you can kill him or he makes a move to get past you. If you cannot control the engage, control the follow-up. Sometimes you can’t stop an ETC from Stage Diving into your backline. Instead of wasting time chasing him, look for whoever will follow him up and use your skills on them instead to buy your backline some time to recover. Make sure to not stay too long though. You do not have kill pressure on the enemy backline by yourself, so peel back with your team after using your skills. Keep track of what can kill you on the enemy team. If the enemy team literally can’t kill you unless you royally screw up, feel free to Wall to your heart’s content. If, for example, they have a Tychus, you can only wall when his trait, Minigun, is down. Try to bait it out and then get in position. If that’s not possible, walling is not the correct position, so do not keep standing out in front and dying. That’s not helping your team at all.

Keeps your team safe, no matter how poorly they position

Shuts down enemy dive

Great at providing slow pressure on objectives and forcing enemy cooldowns

Requires enemy to draft to threaten your tank to fully counter, which frees up the rest of your team’s picks

Rather easy and intuitive to pull off

Weakness of Walling:

Super comp reliant, can’t do it if there’s more kill pressure on you than on the enemy tank or if enemy backline outranges yours

Inflexible and rigid, not very adaptable to flanks and impossible to hold once a fight has broken open

Some heroes simply cannot be walled (genji, illidan, etc…)

Straightforward and limited in effectiveness



Conclusion: Walling can be a great way to keep your team safe, and is super important to do in HL when your backliners have… suspect positioning. That being said, the tactic is SUPER rigid which is why it often fails when played in competitive play. I mention Walling first because it is the easiest to understand and the most intuitive of the 6 positions, so it stands as a great starting point. Later techniques, like Gating, will require some level of competence from your backliners which might make it less suitable to some HL games, even if it does happen to be a more effective position than Walling. For the most part, Walling is a great place to start with tanking and super useful for climbing the ladder, but it is limited. Once you get the hang of it, look to expand and experiment with what you can get away with. You’ll find some teams don’t require you to stand in the front at all.

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Fishing:

General Positioning for Fishing: Stand at the front of your team far enough up to threaten the enemy, but far enough back to ensure your team can follow up on your engages. This changes tank-to-tank, for example:

Stitches: Stand more laid back, never past minion waves unless you have a huge advantage. Have your cc follow up (malfurion, kael’thas, etc…) standing behind you, in range to follow up immediately. Other teammates’ positioning is more free

ETC: Move into the minion wave to about 50% up in the lane and be prepared to slide anyone that steps up too far. Your team should also be pushed up on the wave with you, ready to follow up DURING the duration of your Powerslide’s cc. Do not use W immediately after sliding so that you don’t push the enemy out of your team’s skillshots.

Best Heroes for Fishing: Stitches, Garrosh, ETC

Best Heroes to pair with: Malfurion, Tychus, Tyrande, any additional burst damage or cc follow-up

When to use Fishing: When your team has strong kill pressure off of your cc (i.e. if your team’s burst damage is enough such that the target you cc dies before you die)

Things to keep in mind when fishing:

Keep in mind your teammates cc’s and positioning. Don’t waste your abilities if your team doesn’t have any way to follow up Don’t overextend past your threat range. This strategy can feel super good if you’re the tank, but you need to know your limits. If you extend so far that you no longer have your teammates’ follow-up, that’s just feeding You don’t always have to use your abilities. Throwing out a hail-mary hook and missing loses pressure and forces you to retreat until cd’s are back up. Sometimes the threat of a hook alone is enough to win an objective, and you can save your cc for when your opponent is in a more predictable situation



Strengths of Fishing:

Applies constant pressure to enemy team, which can force mistakes

Great snowball potential if you can stagger enemy deaths

Strong on small maps where enemy can’t avoid you as easily (i.e. Braxis, Tomb, Dragon Shire)

Super demoralizing to be on the receiving end of it



Weaknesses of Fishing:

Inflexible, requires kill to get ahead

Super ability reliant. Team is much weaker if the combo doesn’t hit and you are forced to retreat till it’s back up

Able to be outmaneuvered by globals and push comps on larger maps (i.e. Cursed Hollow, Warhead, Towers)

Weak siege potential since abilities need to be saved for kills



Conclusion: Fishing is a super snowbally strategy that depends heavily on your draft, but it gets the job done and can let tanks straight up carry an HL game. This strategy heavily punishes disrespectful players (which is like, 90% of HL) so it can be excellent for climbing the ladder. That being said, you have to convince your team to pick around you, and you have to get them to follow you. Also, and probably most important: You have to hit your $%#&. Missing skillshots will cost your team and make them lose faith in you. If that starts to happen, the comp will break down. This strategy is for super confident tank players, so if that’s not you, try out Walling first and transition to Fishing once you’re more comfortable with the heroes in question.