Gaming
Gaming
All you need to know: Heroes of the Storm’s Medic
The best healer of them all joins the Nexus and here’s what you should know to keep your team alive.
Heroes of the Storm’s Medic
© Blizzard
Lt. Morales is reporting for duty this week, as the StarCraft medic finds herself tossed into the Heroes of the Storm. There have been many healers mixing it up in the Nexus for a while now, but this medic almost redefines what it means to support your team with life-giving buffs and saves.
A lot of the time in HOTS teamfights, there are arguments to be made over whether it's better to take out their carries first, or hit them in the supports. Now, once Morales is on the battlefield, there's no question anymore. The medic dies, or you all die.
When she's on your team, however, you're in for a smooth ride – but only if your Medic knows how to medic. So here's a helpful guide to get the most out of your walking, sass-talking ICU and how she'll affect the pro meta at this month's BlizzCon.
First of all, yes, there is a sign stuck to your back saying 'KILL ME FIRST'. If you want to know why, let's look at your abilities for a moment.
Healing beam: heal an ally at a max of 420 (40 + 20 per level) health per second. That is a lot of health, if you hadn't noticed. Add to that a Resistance buff of -25% received damage for three seconds and you can keep someone on the brink of death throughout a teamfight. Your only real offensive ability is a displacement grenade, to knock back any enemies eager to get up close and personal to you, and there are going to be a lot of them.
That brings us onto your first lesson: Learn your positioning. As the enemy will be out to get you from the very start of a teamfight, try not to give them any openings by staying well behind your team. Of course, this presents a dichotomy, as you also need to be near the ally taking the most damage, who is often at the front of any engagement. You'll get a feel for where to be depending on the layout of each fight, but you can always use your Resist buff on yourself if you start getting focused.
Lt. Morales
© Blizzard
It's important to watch your own health, as you have no self-heal until you reach level 13, but this is hardly the best use of your skill, and could be much better used on a carry in the front lines. Pro players would probably keep it in reserve, waiting to see who needs it the most while doing what they can with their heal beam. There is no casting time or penalty for switching the beam target, so make sure you're always re-evaluating who needs healing the most. However you should also keep an eye on that mana pool.
The trick to a good Medic is balancing the useful healing with the absolutely necessary. You don't want to run out of mana in the middle of a fight where you could have save an ally because you were topping up a Tank against lane creeps.
This becomes especially important later on, after you take your level 13 talent, if you're wanting to pick-up Intensive Care or Couples Therapy. That extra four mana per second will really add up if you don't pay attention. And you don't want to be taking a Medivac trip just to go back to a healing well, even though you're at full health.
As for that Heroic ability, the Medivac is surely going to be the ultimate choice for pros who manage to sneak a Medic through the bans phase. There has been nothing close to this level of mobility in HOTS before now, and being able to move a team en masse across the map will open up all sorts of objective-based options.
For example, on Dragon Knight Shrine, there's no need to split your team so much between the lanes, as you can roll over one shrine with greater numbers before hopping into a Medivac and claiming the middle. The reduced time it takes to move between important map objectives like this can vastly increase advantages you can gain off a well-placed pick on the other team.
Also, it opens up the possibility of getting picks on the other team, dropping in behind them for a gank while others close in from the front. This sort of macro-positional advantage will surely be of greater worth to professional teams than an increased speed and attack single-target buff from the other Heroic, Stim Drone. Hit level 20 and it suddenly becomes a trip to the fountain for no extra cost with 100 health per second heals for everyone on board.
It'll be interesting to see if any teams can adapt to this level of insane total mobility, but if they can we'll be in for a bumpy ride come BlizzCon time.
