by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

Before a game of Heroes of the Storm even begins, players are faced with some important decisions.  The most obvious example is which talent to take.  Players often invest quite a bit of effort in preparation for this decision.  They read guides to learn what builds the top players are running.  They watch videos to see these awesome builds in action.  Maybe they even visit HOTS Logs to find out the win rates for different talents.

What they spend a lot less time thinking about is which lane they should start in, and why.  This is unfortunate, since such a large part of Heroes centers around grabbing an early experience lead.  Most players quickly learn the importance of having someone in each lane during the early game to soak experience.  Sadly, that is where is ends for some players when deciding what lane to take.  There is so much more that goes into proper lane assignments than simply making sure that there is a Hero in each lane.  At the very least, you should consider what map you are on and who is on your team.

While proper lane strategy can be very complex, particularly in premade groups, we are going to take a very broad overview today.  Rather than discuss how specific Heroes should be played, we are going to focus on the overall philosophy behind lane assignments.  Once you have that knowledge, you can decide for yourself which lane your particular Hero should be in.

Laning 101

The basic goal of laning is to gather experience.  That is why you want to ensure that you have at least one Hero in each lane when the battle begins.  The secondary goal of laning is to push the lanes farther than your opponents can.  While this sounds quite basic, many players seem to forget this when deciding how to assign their teams.  It is quite common to see teams evenly divide their Heroes between the different lanes.  Generally speaking, this isn’t the most efficient way.  Remember your goal is to 1) soak experience and 2) push the lane.  Because of this, you are usually better off to overload one lane and push it hard, while leaving a single Hero in the other lanes to soak XP.  As long as you are pushing your lane faster and farther than your opponents, it doesn’t matter how far they push theirs.

This is apparently counter intuitive to some people.  Many players tend to be overly cautious, and fear the push of the enemy team.  Haunted Mines is the perfect example of this principle.  It is a two lane map, with your golem pushing one lane while their golem pushes the other.  The natural instinct for many players is defend against the opposing golem.  They don’t even consider pushing their golem, they just immediately move to defend when the golems spawn without a second thought.  I get it, having a golem wreck your towers and forts is scary.  However, all things being equal, if your golem is pushing faster and farther, does it really matter how many buildings their golem destroys?  No, because your golem is going to reach the core first.

Now to bring this back around to early game laning.  If you are on a two lane map, consider going with a 4-1 break down.  If you are not sure what that means, it is four Heroes in one lane and one Hero in the other.  On a three lane map you should probably go 3-1-1.  From an experience point of view, stacking one lane can increase your XP gain because you are more likely to take down towers and keeps faster than if you divided your push evenly between multiple lanes.

Going Solo

When it comes to assigning lanes, it is often easiest to identify who on your team is best able to solo a lane and then go from there.  Going back to our two lane map example, rather than trying to pick the best four Heroes for one lane, simply pick the best solo Hero and send everyone else to the other lane.  Specialists such as Sylvanas, Azmodan, and Zagara are excellent choices to solo a lane.  If your team does not have a Specialist, then ranged Heroes are a great alternative.  Healers can also make good solo laners since they are so self sufficient.  The important thing to remember as a solo laner, is that your job is to soak experience and do what you can to slow the enemy push.  You can’t do either of those things while dead, so stay alive!  You are very likely to be outnumbered, so be very cautious and don’t overextend.  If you find yourself with a bad match up, don’t be afraid to ask someone to rotate with you.

Stack Attack

Now that we have our solo lanes covered, lets talk about the lane that we are going to be overloading.  Our goal is to push this lane hard.  While that means being aggressive, it does not mean being reckless.  Overloading a lane involves having more Heroes in that lane than your opponent, which is hard to do if people are constantly having to ride back after dying.  Strive to apply continuous pressure, and be ready to focus on any enemy Hero who get out of position.  Which lane you focus on is often determined by what map you are playing.  It can also be influenced by how your opponents deploy themselves.  In some cases you may want to change lanes as the game progresses, as pushing too far down a single lane can leave you vulnerable to ganks.  Mercenary camps can also add quite a bit to your push.  It is often a good idea to send a Hero or two to capture them, while the rest of the group keeps up the pressure in that lane.

Exceptions

Deciding how to divide your team up is dependent in large part by what Heroes you have on your team.  If you are playing Quick Match by yourself, there is no telling who you will get on your team.

You might end up with a team that is all melee Heroes, facing a strong ranged team.  Pushing can be very difficult in those situations.  You could also get a team that doesn’t have a strong lane presence, like Nova, Zeratul, and Abathur.  Soaking can be tough with team like that because Nova and Zeratul are more effective when they are able to roam, as opposed to when they have to stay in a lane and clear minions.  Sometimes you might have a decent overload team, but the enemy team is even better suited for pushing.  Despite your best efforts, you simply cannot push as fast as the enemy team.  In cases like this, trying to beat them at their own game simply won’t work.

So, while overloading one lane may be preferable, there will be plenty of situations where is simply isn’t and option and you are better off with more balance lane assignments.  If you go balanced, try to spread out your ranged and melee Heroes.  In most cases you are better off with two lanes each containing one ranged and one melee Hero, than with two melee Heroes in one lane with two ranged Heroes in the other.  Two melee in the same lane can often be rendered ineffectual by strong ranged opposition.

Sadly, there is also another reason that strategies like this don’t always work.  That is if your teammates don’t listen.  Maybe they are new and don’t understand the strategy you are suggesting, maybe they think their way is better than yours, or maybe they can’t even see what you are typing because they have allied chat turned off.  Regardless, sometimes you have to accept that your team is going to do their own thing, and try to find a way to make the best of it.  Even if the plan is bad, you are usually better off to have everyone behind it than to have some people who don’t participate because they know better.

There is a lot to consider when deciding which lane to take.  Overloading one lane isn’t always the best way to go, but it should at least be considered.  Hopefully this information will help you make the best lane choice possible, even if you can’t always influence where your teammates go.  Next week I plan to give a brief breakdown of the standard lane assignments for each map.  Good luck and have fun!