Iv'e played MOBA's or mobile online battle arena, for numerous years now dating back to the original version of DoTa in Warcraft 3, there has been numerous offerings in the MOBA genre, starting with Heroes of Newerth, Dota 2, Smite, League of Legends and many others, so finally Blizzard decided to try their hand at making one, but how can it compete in a veritable sea of MOBA's in the 2017 and what exactly makes it stand out? well lets take a look below as i review what makes Heroes of the storm a standout in the MOBA genre.

What is Heroes of the Storm?

Heroes of the storm, hereto known as "hots" is a game in the moba genre which is an off branch of RTS games that condensed your play limits to your hero character, instead of building bases, training troops and using tactics or management you control a single powerful hero unit that can be upgraded over time through kills or farming in lanes to attain gold or experience, Hots lacking the first one, it's a pure killing field where your only objective is too outplay the other team to get ahead.

Many MOBA's differ in their ways of gaining experience or an edge on the competition usually though upgrading items or killing special monsters for buffs, Hots on the other hand takes away these things, there is no gold farming, no items and the special monsters instead join your minions in lane and offer a powerful boost to attempt to take down the others forts and finally their nexus.

So lets jump into why Hots stands out among other MOBA's.

Focus on your play style and choices.

As there are no items in Hots, it really comes down to how well you play your character and how well you build them, each hero character is given 1-4 choices per upgrade level to change their hero to the way they enjoy playing, while some melee characters can become ranged and even some ranged can become tanks, your base skills don't change but are instead mutated and changed with upgrades, as an example lets look at the Lord of Silvermoon, Kael'thas.

Above you can see Kael'thas as he starts out in game, he has 3 standard abilities, one ultimate and a passive, while leveling up you can choose which tree's you want to focus on, as an example we will take my usual build, his fire bomb(W) attaches to a player and burns before finally exploding and spreading to nearby enemies that are in range, while his Flame strike(Q) is a single area effect spell, as his gravity lapse is used in both builds i'm going to skip that for now.

So i mainly focus on firebomb, going through the levels i can change his skill to adapt to different situations, for example, dealing more damage, increasing it's explosion radius and finally spreading indefinitely to enemies within range as it's a 5v5 game sometimes if done right this can kill an entire team or force them to retreat, it also relies on positioning and spatial awareness of the enemy team.

However that's only one play style, there are numerous other's Kael'Thas can enjoy and this is true for all heroes in the game, being tailored to suit what you need on the fly, however choose wisely because once you have, there's no going back til next game.

So why does this stand out against other MOBA's? well simple really, you don't face the same enemy all the time, as iv'e shown above Kael'Thas specced into fire bomb will shred a closely packed team, however adapting to the situation, if the enemy team manages to stay apart from each other they can effectively mitigate Kael all together, causing the person playing Kael to adapt to the situation and wait for the perfect moment to throw one out.

This is true for all heroes that work in synergy with each other, Elite Tauren Chieftain has an ultimate ability that can stun 5 characters together giving Kael an almost guaranteed team kill with his firebomb and giving you a significant edge in the game, but how does this differ from most MOBA's? it almost sounds the same as every other, well lets explore that below.

3..2..1...its already end game.

Since Hots doesn't have items or gold and focuses solely on your character, everyone is relatively the same from the beginning of the game til the end, unless you have an extraordinary level advantage there is no real penalty for death apart from having to wait to respawn, which means as soon as the gates open you can engage in entire team Vs team fights something that most MOBA's take 15+ minutes to accomplish as you are stuck in your lane farming for gold to upgrade items with and deaths costs money.

This means that the game is also a lot more fast paced as you can find a match and immediately start fighting with other people, it also means that there won't be certain members of your team who only "get good" when they have the items they need or need to stay out of fights to obtain those items, out of all of the MOBA's on the market as far as I know, only hots brings this play style to the game and it's incredibly addictive, it's hard to go back to sitting in a lane for 15 or 20 minutes when you can immediately start battling from the moment you spawn in to the game in Hots.

It also means there isn't a very high chance of "Snowballing" meaning in some mobas getting early kills and farm may snowball your team so hard that the other has no chance to fight back and will be a very short one sided game, as there are no items all that matters is your level and your ability to work as a team.

The Nostalgia Factor.

Look, we've all played SOME blizzard game in our lives, from starcraft to warcraft and everything in between, all your favourites are more than likely there, which makes the game fun as it's a nostalgia trip it also adds characters from current games as well so there's always a new champion being added every few weeks or so.

Misconceptions and surprising gains.

There's a few common misconceptions about the game that should be cleared up, even yours truly fell for them at some point so lets go down the list and clear some up, but also add some surprisingly neat things about the game.

• It's "Too Casual"
  
  The game can be played very casually if you so wish, however the game has a surprising amount of depth to it once you start versing higher level players and entering ranked mode, I fell for this trap at first because i believed "Pffft no items and gold? casual as" however as you play the game longer you realize that items and gold farming actually feel more casual compare to hots as the game play revolved entirely around your team and your skill as a player in PvP, not in micromanaging gold, healing items, damage and armor items or "warding" in the higher ranks of competitive this game actually becomes very hard to play as your opponents are rather skilled and usually in teams that work well with each other.

There's is a lot of diversity in skill in Hots and you'll find yourself more times than not being matched with people of your relative skill, completely dominating a less skilled team or, being steamrolled completely by a guy named "Fish exploder"(I hate you Fish <3) it really is a MOBA for anyone, taken are your own pace you can play against extremely skilled players or if you're just a casual you can learn and train your skills in training and bots before going to the real thing.

• "Pay2Win"
  Another common misconception is that the game is Pay2Win, as you can buy characters and such with real money, this is pretty far from the truth as much as blizzard fail in Warcraft to balance things they have done a great job of balancing Hots to make each character feel unique and powerful in it's own right, it really just depends on your play style, if you pick Jaina Proudmoore, a very squishy mage and run into the front line you're not gonna live long at all, however standing at range throwing giant balls of ice at people will make you feel like a god.

• Surprisingly fun
  
  One thing iv'e noted with Hots over other MOBA's is that the game is always fun even when losing(unless you're a grumpy noob in that case don't bother) as each character works in synergy in their team it actively promotes teaming together and getting everything just right leading to a lot of enjoyment, for a better example here's a quick video of my friends and I pulling off a great play against an enemy team.
  

You don't have to dedicate your entire day.
One thing i absolutely love about this game is that you can pick it up and play it straight away it really is the definition of easy to play, hard to master, I have friends who only play when we're in a group and I have friends who spend all day playing Hero League, the best thing about this game is that there's only one thing you need to learn, what characters do and how to defend against them, you don't need a spreadsheet like in DoTa to write down every point of gold and how many minions you have to kill to get a certain item, it's just you Vs the world and the only thing that matters is understanding the other teams play style and countering and adapting to it

Game Modes

One thing that makes Hots stand out is it's different maps and PvE objectives that can give you an edge, these also have the added bonus of forcing the teams together to fight over them, for example blackheart bay will see your team attempt to collect dubloons to pay off the pirate mercenaries on the map to attack your opponents forts with cannon fire, while tomb of the spider queen will see you collective gems off lane mobs to summon three powerful spiders, there are multiple game modes and maps that add a nice change to the standard one map - one mode type of game play from other MOBA's, this also adds another level of "difficulty" as you can easily be winning and have the tide turned if you ignore the objectives(Looking at you Warhead Junction).

Overall there's something for every type of play style in this game and the game modes seek to add a differing level of awareness, sure you can be amazing at your character but if you ignore the objective for too long you may find your base getting nuked into the ground, it also offers a great catch up mechanic for teams who have lost previous rounds and need to make up the difference.

Overall Opinion.

Hots is a fast paced fun battle game that can be played for hours at a time without getting boring, it's graphics are sleek and appealing and the character design and choices don't leave much to be desired, it has a position for every play style and skill level from Pro to Casual the game does an amazing job of balancing the game towards either skill level, it's range of characters mean there's something for everyone and the customization lets you mess around with skins, mounts,announcers and voice lines.

Whether you're playing alone or playing with a bunch of friends Hots can fill the gap that groups of players want without being too full on for first time users which means you can drag new friends along in your team for the first time and they and you will still have an enjoyable experience.

Thanks for reading my review on Heroes of the Storm, if you have enjoyed this please feel free to up-vote and resteem, have a comment or question? also feel free to leave it below and i'll be sure to respond to you, thanks!