heroes Free-to-Play Hero Rotation: Week of February 22nd

[Stan 5,246]

A new week has started in the Nexus and here's the updated free-to-play rotation!

Free-to-Play Hero Rotation: Week of February 22nd

• Blaze
• Cho
• Gall
• Genji
• Jaina
• Lt. Morales
• Muradin
• Nazeebo
• Raynor
• Sgt. Hammer
• Sonya
• Uther
• Xul
• Zeratul

Data taken from The Nexus Compendium

[Apologised 20]

Oh god. Cho-Gall. This week just got interesting. Otherwise a fairly balanced mix of classes with no real squibs.

Blaze
Adhesive Petroleum used to be a lot lower level than it currently is and you should all be thankful you don't need to deal with that bullshit anymore. As it is, Blaze is still a really nasty Tank with a heavy emphasis on slows but also great waveclear and jungling. He's also a good amount of damage output as well, his Bunker is pretty good but Combustion does less damage than you think it does. For Battlegrounds with fixed objectives, the Bunker is for my money the better bet, but I could see an argument for both when you consider Combustion as part of Blazes overall quite good area denial game.

 

Cho-Gal
As a concept it's genius. To play against his massive health pool and tons of damage is oppressive. But... the elephant in the room here is that we're just coming from a week with Deathwing and Cho-Gall kind of feels like a let down. He's vulnerable to crowd control, he takes up two team slots and he kind of feels less tanky overall compared to Deathwing. He does outdamage the Draconic Destroyer of Game Balance though. The other problem is, that since DW people have become really aware of where their %Health damage talents are, and Deathwing has talents to mitigate some of this (Draconic Might mostly) but Chogall, who takes up two slots again, kinda... doesn't? He's not bad. He isn't. But he's kind of a risky All In sort of strategy.
Also... this QM, and Cho-Gall needs to work as a team, and this is QM. Again, and I can't emphasise this enough; this QM where you are lucky if you are playing with people who even use the same alphabet as you.

 

Genji
If you can click with him, you'll be a nightmare, I find him too fiddly however. Very evasive hero but his damage output always feels really slight for all the effort he demands.

 

Jaina
Great assassin with excellent waveclear, a quintessential mage, she goes in the backline, tosses out AoE spells that hit like a freight train and have slow on everything and generally struggles not to contribute. Good jungler too.

 

Morales
TF2 Medic. Nobody can match the immiediacy and speed of her healing. Find a low health, high damage hero who likes to initiate and stick to them like glue. But don't be afraid to switch healing targets to people who need it in a pinch. Due to the difficulties of herding players in QM, Morales effectively only has one heroic and it's her version of Nano-Boost. WHICH IS DIFFERENT FROM ANA'S.
THIS IS THE ONE YOU CAST ON AUTOATTACKERS.
ANA'S IS THE ONE YOU CAST ON MAGES.
FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST PLEASE STOP GETTING THIS MIXED UP.
MORALES = ATTACKERS
ANA = MAGES

I WILL CONTINUE HAMMERING THIS HOME WHEN ANA COMES UP ON ROTATION.

 

Muradin
Can't go wrong with Muradin. But PLEASE can one of you actually pick Avatar form over Haymaker? It's not even that good of a heroic! Avatar forms lvl20 Unstoppable Force is INSANELY good for how it effectively gives him another 20% of health, and gives you cooldown reduction on Thunderclap, which thanks to Reverberation at lvl4 reduces the cooldown on your avatar form again and again. You could find yourself going back to back avatar forms if done right.

 

Nazeebo
A very tanky Support Assassin who excels at pushing lanes, dealing damage to buildings and clumps of enemies, and catching his own teammates in zombie rings. Fairly hard to get completely wrong, but please don't do something stupid like lane against a Tychus. %Health damage HURTS Nazeebo hard.

 

Raynor
I've talked about Raynor before, and I'll talk about him again. A good all rounder with no real weaknesses. I might suggest people give his Execute Orders talent a look. Sure the Hyperion isn't that great of a heroic... but that 35 second respawn timer reduction is HUGE, and unlike other effects that mess with respawn timers, it's just always on, and always working. In a tight game it could make all the difference. But, as always you should experiment with what works for you.

 

Sgt. Hammer
I still dont know why they nerfed Graduating Range twice, when everyone always just picks Hover Engines at that talent tier anyway. I do however fully understand why they stopped Around the World BFG from being able to damage buildings. A magic button that basically can't be interacted with and basically does a ton of damage to buildings is just bad game design.
Boy, sure is a good thing there are no Battlegrounds that do this ISN'T IT BLACKHEART BAY YOU PIECE OF SH[snip]
Anyway, great hero with a unique playstyle that's pretty fun when you work it out. Has two good builds, a generalist backline aoe assassin who also sieges down buildings and a crazy spidermine build that's equally hilarious.

 

Sonya
Could some of you try NOT spinning in a teamfight, and thus not contributing at all? Slam build does more damage and you all know it. Hell, Ancient Spear hits like a truck as well, can't do either of these if you're spinning. Sonya is a bruiser who leans on the damage dealer side of the equation more than the damage taker one. Play her more like a melee assassin and you'll get better results.

 

Uther
The frontline Tank extra-ordinaire. Uther's healing is a little on the low side compared to some other healers, but he MORE than makes up with it in tank, crowd control and damage. Plus, his healing is point and click, no skillshots or improved regen or incredibly cumbersome combo mechanics here.

 

Xul
I've only ever had success with Cursed Strikes Xul, but Spectral Scythe build probably works as well. To be honest he feels like a weaker version of Nazeebo, which might be deliberate, but as always your own mileage may vary.

 

Zeratul
There might be other ways to play this guy, but I've been permanently wedded to a 3221213 build that I saw online once, and it's just a ton of fun to play. Core gameplan is to stick someone with a Spike, and then use Seeker in the Dark to teleport to them, do your damage, teleport away, Vorpal Blade back, just keep popping and out on them so they don't know what's going on. When you get it right it looks hella stylish.
Might of the Nerazim allows you to double teleport escape if you need it as well... just remember what talent you have slotted into it.
I go Master Warp Blade because Sentenced to death is trash and does less damage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Slam 40]

That's the longest comment I ever saw on a week Heroes rotation news! 😄

anyway enjoy it 🙂 I still love to play that game 

[Ken007 97]

Am I the only one that feels this game still has a lot of potential?

[Arcling 898]

2 hours ago, Ken007 said:

Am I the only one that feels this game still has a lot of potential?

It does, but most of its team is gone now. There aren't even enough people and funds to make a new hero. At most, we can still get few more skins (like once or twice per year?) and balance patches. That's probably all we can expect.

[gerbercage 15]

When microsoft come in, hope they can do something for this game.

[Othello 2]

Hopefully there will be a Master Chief and a Zealot 😎