Introduction

Hello! My name is Halorin. I'm a caster and commentator in the North American Heroes of the Storm community. As my first MOBA, Heroes has been something of an interesting challenge. I often find myself developing tunnel vision and, as a consequence, losing sight of both the micro and macro level decisions that could improve my overall game. I've endeavored to create an acronym to help me address this shortcoming, and after some thought I believe I have something that will help me become a better Heroes player.



This acronym is a series of checks I want to run down before I make any serious decision at various stages of the game. It aims to force me down a path of thinking that leaves me making a more objective and informed decision, hopefully making my choices best serve my team and my chances of success.



I don't want to look back in hindsight and realize things I should have seen going into a decision I've made. I believe with practice the thought process this acronym encourages will metabolize into my snap responses through a form of muscle memory, and I will be able to process scenarios faster.



Without any further ado, let's learn how to THROW.





Tier

A simple concept, but in most situations if your team is down a tier you want to avoid engagements. If your team is up a tier you want to play more aggressively. Avoidance while down a tier reduces the chance of staggering deaths or allowing a game to snowball. Being up a tier allows you opportunities to invade a camp, or push down a structure.



Also something to consider is if a tier is around the corner for your team or your opponents. Walking into a level 9/9 fight may seem like the right call, but the enemy team will have a 10 second window where they will have their Heroics you may be setting yourself up for a bad time. Likewise if your team is on the verge of a tier advantage you may want to play a bit more forward to best capitalize once the tier is gained.



An offshoot to this is consider numbers. If the enemy team has a tier advantage, but you have a solid 4v3 engagement you may be best served going for the fight.





Heroics

Sanctification is an incredible Heroic, but it's not on a 15 second cooldown. Knowing what Heroics are available or not for both your team and your enemies will give a lot of insight to how a potential engagement will go. If you have a Rehgar on your team, knowing whether or not you have Ancestral Healing available will change your approach considerably. If the enemy team has an Uther, knowing you baited out Divine Shield 20 seconds before the Punisher phase on Infernal Shrines is a huge advantage you can exploit.



This part of the acronym aims to make me more informed on when to make the right move.





Resources

What resources are available to me right now? It can seem like an enigmatic question. I have difficulty asking that of myself on a steady basis throughout the course of a game. Prime example being instances where my team will when a team fight over a tribute on Cursed Hollow at level 8 near the enemy boss. My thinking will be to go heal up, or go back to soaking. However, the resource of the boss is available to my team. If there are enough of us there that can take the boss while 2 enemies are still dead, it could be a huge macro level benefit to take the boss before heroics and before a curse.



Concepts like this fly over my head often when I tunnel vision into a specific thread of thinking, but this acronym could help change that.



Another huge resource is the mini-map. On Cursed Hollow, if I'm solo laning bot and I see 4 members of the enemy team that do not have a global presence, they would not have the resources to respond quickly if I push super hard and knock down a tower or the whole wall, even if I eat tower shots in the process.



If I see the lone support is mid lane and see the enemy solo laner with no escape in the bottom is playing up against my teammate, I know I could potentially move out of middle lane's vision then rotate down and set up a gank.



The opposite is true. If I do not see enemies on the minimap, I potentially need to watch for ganks, or could reasonably surmise they are on a camp or boss my decisions might be affected.





Objective

A real simple idea here is the idea of comparing value in other decisions to the objective. If I can push for a fort for free while the enemy gets defenders for a Punisher I could ultimately defend without losing structures, then the objective overall does not hold optimal value.





Where Is My Team?

A classic situation I see in Hero League all the time is the argument where 4 members of a team are all on the same page, decide to invade a camp or punish poor positioning by engaging in a team fight, and die while the support is off on their own.



The chat floods with 'why are you there' 'why did you go in without me' 'we needed that fight' 'noob' and everything else. Who's right? Who's wrong?



It's a trick question scenario to me, because even if the 5th person is considered wrong by 99% of the people who play the game conceptually in action the 4 people walked into a fight without their support. The objective truth is a 4v5 without a support is often a losing proposition.



Regardless of opinions about the fifth person's position, the objective truth is they aren't there. At this point, there are two likely outcomes:



1) The 4 go in, die, and ask 'Why weren't you there?' to the 5th person.

2) The 4 back out and ask, 'Why aren't you here?'



To me, the latter seems the better play. The 5th person being dead wrong in my mind for not being there won't magically place them there, so I shouldn't go in on some principle that they should be there. Doing so prioritizes pride and ego in my understanding the game over what will actually help my team to succeed. Heroes is complex enough a game to where there are generally more than one 'right' answer, so why go in and die over my answer?







Conclusion

In conclusion, I'm no expert at the game. I play it quite a bit, and talk about it quite a bit more. I want to get better at the game, and running through this macro on a consistent basis will help my game sense improve, I feel. The more I commit that to instinctive memory the more I can use that mental capacity to better positioning myself or making stronger plays.



I'm going to play with this acronym in mind, and hopefully it helps! Hopefully it helps you, too. :)



-Hal