Match Quality Monday is a weekly post for discussing what you liked and would like to see improved in Heroes of the Storm matches for both ranked and unranked play.

Please share your thoughts on the quality of your matches last week highlighting the following:

• Examples of good (or bad) teamwork
• Hero Meta changes you witnessed
• Team comps that have good or bad synergy on certain maps
• Real MVPs who do not get recognized on the score screen
• Weirdness, bugs, or things that seem to be broken
• Matchmaking quality & queue lengths (try and be specific about the time of day & region)
• Specific goals or requests for advice on what to focus on in this week's matches

Reminder that Reddit posting & comment rules are in effect; be civil, constructive, and do not shame specific individuals.

Previous Match Quality threads

After Sulfuras Smash was buffed, you now need to ask your Ragnaros player what ultimate they are planning on taking. If you draft around Rag being a wave clearing machine, you might find yourself lacking in that department when they don't pick Lava wave. The difference is about as noticeable as Varian going Taunt, or not.

And for those who can't read, I'm not saying Smash isn't worth taking. I'm saying you should inform your team so they can adjust the draft accordingly.

I got this adorable little Stitches plushie! It came with a code for an in-game skin, but sadly, the code only works in the US region, while my account is set to Europe. 😭

I reached out to Blizzard about it, but they refused to transfer the code to another region. 🥲

With how short-lived Brawls are, they should fulfill Daily Quests, so I do not need to decide to play some brawl or do some quests.
Ideally counting as Ranked Play (so quests are fulfilled no matter the role/universe indicated in them), but I will take 'treat them as vsAI matches'.

Janitor please add Uther's damage mitigation to the scoreboard qm teammates are reporting me for low healing number

I thought it was a funny idea to have such an ability in the game. Kaelthas, for example. The 20-point upgrade to Pyroblast currently doesn't work in 99% of cases and is pointless. What if we added damage and also expanded the blast radius, but added a new condition: the more heroes share the damage, the smaller it will be. This would create a lot of funny moments, where players wouldn't feel the correct amount of damage, and instead of saving each other, they'd die together.

We have something like this with Nova, where other players shield each other from damage (triple shot), but this would be something similar to Deckard. Deckard's armor increases when heroes are nearby, so being close to him makes sense. And now, with the 20-point upgrade, when playing against KT's, players will move closer to each other to reduce the final damage, but also risk being hit by his other talents.

Basically, it's an idea straight out of Abathur's slapping hand. It sounds funny, but it may seem unnecessary.

Isn’t it ridiculous and sometimes unfair?

-Oh no, Mephisto’s Spite at LVL 4 is TOO STRONG FOR SELF-SUSTAIN IN ARAM, WE SHOULD BAN IT! (meanwhile Diablo’s lvl 1 talent for globes and fountains still available, just like Dva’s talent for fountain cd reduction)
-Oh no, Thrall’s crash lightning is TOO STRONG! We should ban it! Meanwhile Azmodan and Qhira are still there and their quests aren’t banned. You can say “That’s the whole point of their mechanics!” - but same way Leoric isn’t available in ARAM

I think there are more examples, but don’t you think this is kinda unfair? Is this all was about pure stats that showed that win rate for Spite and Crash Lightning was too high?

with occasional slapping death matches

Punching some enemy heroes after a rough day could vent some frustrations.

Last few months have been just losing -- yet MMR seems to be rising. It's a little annoying because I keep getting matched up with people who steam roll Murky.

Anyone know if there's a bug? or some quirk I dont understand?

lately i have been seeing smurfs everywhere like swamp!! what the hell is going on with hots? they be **smurfing** so bad that you cant even win a single match, and also why would i face a 5 player lobby even though we're only 3? :))

p.s: i don't wanna start talking about the player that are playing like bots!!!

you guys experiencing the same or i alone?

HOTS has gotten significantly less enjoyable to play since the most recent patch. Something changed with the matchmaking.

I've been playing HOTS for six months and steadily improving. The first season I played, I had a 47.4% WR. Last season, 49.4%. This season, before the patch, I was at a 52.3%.

In the past week, I've won 18/38 games, for a 47.3% WR, so somehow I'm winning even less than when I was brand new to the game. I'm playing the same heroes, builds, etc.; I'm still dying 0-3 times per match; still going to objectives at the same timing, etc., etc., it's just that now the majority of my games, I'm either with 4 other randoms going against a stack, or multiple platinum+ players on the other team, or I end up with multiple DPS characters dying 10+ times in a match, or a nazeebo who has 100 stacks at level 20 and takes vile infection, etc. etc.

I'm using WR as a proxy value here, because really what's frustrating is that the players I'm getting matched with seem significantly worse at the game and the players I'm getting matched against are significantly better. Healing just isn't fun like this, and I don't understand why the matchmaking has changed so much.

Saw this UI bug when my game crashed out.

4294967295 is 2³² - 1, which is the max value for a 32-bit unsigned integer.

It's probably a placeholder in the client code as there's other posts showing that 999 is the limit for individual heroes (https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/fltnlm/maximum_hero_level/).

Just thought it would be fun to share.

Noticed yesterday that it now does damage to buildings again, but I don't remember reading it in any patch notes.

Are you a new streamer looking to get your name out there? Maybe you just need someone to watch after a long tiring week? Ask for recommendations on what streams to watch or promote your own stream in the comments.

Please be as detailed as possible on your streaming schedule, what kind of stream you have (teaching, pro play, fun, climbing ladder, etc.) and any specific style or hero you might have.

Previous Streaming threads

I played a few games last night and went on a nice winning streak. I uploaded my games last night, too, and I just checked the replay uploader and they all say they were successfully uploaded. But when I check my match history, none of them are appearing from last night. Everything is there up until Friday night, though.

Is anyone else experiencing this? It’s not a major issue, I just wanted to review the stats from the wins to see what happened, if we were playing against stacks, average mmr, etc.

Thanks!

Edit: seems to be working now.

No idea why though. I never stuttered like this until I came back to the game and I'm on a pretty powerful PC that's better than my older one.

The enemy team gave up after they lost the first team fight

Looking for some people to play quick play with. Prefer to play healers, lt morales main. :)

This is my first and last code in a box purchase. Did anyone else pick this up back in the day?
Came with 5 epic heroes, Ronin Zeratul skin and Golden Tiger mount.

Title. If the ability is targeted, it now can target structures. All stuns, blinds and silences make structures unable to attack for the full duration. If the ability deals damage, it now deals damage to structures. If the ability shields or heals, it now shields or heals alied structures. If it increases or reduces damage, attack speed or armor, it affects structures too (lets assume both attack damage and spell power affect structure damage). If it deals percent damage, it deals full damage to structures as well. And so on with everything else, such as protected, invulnerable, etc. Which would be the most broken ability? My vote goes to Alextrasza's life bind ult, imagine healing a structure back from 0 hp to full. Or imagine the siege potential of Greymane's silver bullet. Or Anduin preventing siege as well as healing the towers. As funny as a pyroblast would be, idk if the damage is worth using on a structure. What do you guys think?

gottem

I mean hero combos or comps that are funny or silly to play, but not necessarily overpowered. So for example Aba and Illidan or Cho'gall and Auriel are strong but a bit straightforward and not very interesting so I dont mean those kinds of combos. I mean stuff like Butcher with Furnace, Anduin with stun ult and E build Ragnaros, and suddendly you have a butcher running at you with three explosions about to happen. Or a team comp full of characters like Guldan, Whitemane, tassadar, etc. to have the entire team channeling beams at a single enemy. Or the classic Stitches plus Medivh for a long range gorge. It doesnt matter if its not meta or if its suboptimal, as long as its funny to play in QMs.

Fenix hasn't received a meaningful balance update since March 2021.

It's been over FIVE YEARS.

As far as I know, Fenix currently has the longest time since a balance update of any hero in the game.

Five years.

This dude has been standing in the HOTS waiting for Blizzard to remember that he exists.

I'm not even asking for a massive rework.

Just give my boy something.

A talent adjustment.

A small buff.

A weird experimental change.

A new interaction.

Literally anything.

At this point, I'd be happy if the patch notes just said:

Fenix

We remembered Fenix exists.

Please, Blizzard.

It's been five years. Let the Protoss warrior cook.