Like with any new multiplayer online battle arena, Heroes of the Storm may be tough for new players, even with Blizzard simplifying the game’s design.
If you’re one of the newbies who just loaded up Heroes as the open beta hit yesterday and find yourself losing game after game, with teammates going ham on you and not the enemy’s core, fear not. If you can play better than the game’s bot, which takes over for players if they disconnect from a game, then you’re good enough for the best pro team in the game.
Yesterday Cloud9 Maelstrom faced off against compLexity in the sixth week of the ESL Heroes Major League. The 3-2 compLexity entered the bout hungry for a win, just barely above the cutoff to reach the playoffs. A win against the undefeated Cloud9 would surely see them through.
Things certainly seemed to be going compLexity’s way on Tomb of the Spider Queen as they built a small lead and pushed into Cloud9’s middle keep after scoring a couple kills in a team fight, punctuated by a disconnect of Cloud9’s tank player John Paul “KingCaffeine” Lopez.
That left the bot filling in on Elite Tauren Chieftain. The commentators wondered if Complexity would leave the bot, which has a tendency to get caught out of position, alone instead of picking him off over and over to build an even bigger lead. The match was too important for compLexity to go easy, after all. But the ETC bot had the last laugh.
As compLexity pushed their advantage in the middle lane, Cloud9 and ETC bided their time, lulling compLexity into a false sense of security. With ETC, it only takes one well-timed Mosh Pit to change a game. And change the game he did.
At just the right moment, when Complexity’s three melee characters thought they had caught out the bot, he starts rockin’. The Mosh Pit, one of the deadliest ultimates in the game, opens with a quick drum riff into ETC shredding on his guitar, forcing nearby enemy heroes to dance in place to his tune. With three compLexity players stunned for a full 4 seconds, Cloud9 easily cleaned up the enemy team.
By the time Lopez restored his connection, the game was over. Cloud9 had to win another decisive team fight a couple minutes later to seal the deal, this time scoring three kills in essentially a four-on-five situation, with the bot twiddling his hooves. That’s a testament to Cloud9’s supreme team fighting, the thing that’s made them the most feared team in the game.
You can watch the full series at the ESL Twitch channel. Cloud9 took the second map handily with KingCaffeine back in the saddle.
But they wouldn’t have made it that far without ETC bot pulling off the play of the series.
Sadly, today I announce my resignation from competitive HotS.
— DenialKingCaffeine (@CallmeCaff) May 20, 2015
@KenziDK @CyaSteve ETC Bot showed me up man I have no choice
— DenialKingCaffeine (@CallmeCaff) May 20, 2015
So if you’re struggling as you first take to the Nexus to play Heroes of the Storm, remember: if you can win a cooperative match against bots, you’re good enough to play for a team like Cloud9.
