How to complete your HotS cross promotion in a stress free and efficient way (Malthael's Bargain/Ghost Kerrigan Wings)

In light of some dissatisfaction I've read from diablo 3 players feeling forced to play an ungodly amount of a game they dislike and some HotS player complaining at afk and bad mannered play on the HotS side of things I have decided to pay a visit and see if I can get the word out there on how to get your games done in a fast and stress free way.

Heroes of the Storm is a whole lot of fun. I encourage you to actually give it a shot and see what its about, this is what this promotion is for. If you just want to get it over with thats okay too and this is how you will wrap it up in about an hour to an hour and a half.

You will want to do what we call AI rush. The concept is to get a group, ideally 5 man, to spam Low AI games that you win as fast as possible. In order to get progress towards the promotion you are going to want to be partied with a friend and to be playing a diablo hero.
Getting in a party with a friend is easy, its common practice in HotS to just ask in party chat for someone to add you as a friend so you get exp bonuses or other forms of participation.

In order to get a party for this event, assuming you dont have a friend (or 5) to do this with, I recommend you join general, reddit and LFG channels. You will do so by typing /join general /join reddit and /join LFG. You will then be able to talk in these channels.

Once you have joined those you will either message that you are looking for more for AI rush or looking for a group. For example : LFM AI rush Diablo Event or LFG with the same wording. This should be pretty easy as people are actively pursueing this at the moment, you should either form a group or be picked up by one shortly.

This brings us to how you win easy AI games very fast in order to be as efficient as possible in the process, thus actually properly AI rushing. This can take as little as 2 minutes to 2 minutes and a half per game but granted that everyone will likely be playing diablo heroes and some of you are less experienced players 5 to 7 minutes per match is probably a more realistic target.

You will want to be fighting the easiest level of AI (beginner) in the VS AI. Gamemode. (this is how you make a VS. AI game) You will want to do so in a party that has an understanding of how to properly AI rush, feel free to help them out if they dont, they really just want to get their shit done as much as you do and are likely to be cooperative.

Your strategy will be to completely ignore any map mechanic and 5 man rush a single lane for the whole game. Instead of playing the match and splitting between lanes like you normally would, you are going to rely on AI stupidity to roflstomp a single lane that you will push extra hard all the way to the core which you will then whittle at and kill in a timely manner. You will not struggle doing this because the beginner AI is really dumb, they will be going for mechanics, constantly trickle-in and try to split push you while you win every single fight in the lane you chose. You will want to prioritize towers over walls and forts/keeps over towers. Make sure to avoid catching too much heat from defensive structures, early game you can do so by trying to stay behind your minions. By the time you reach the enemy core you should be 2-3 levels ahead and close to lvl 10 traits (heroic) and completely crush your opponent in any form of engagement. In 3 lane maps the convention is to do this in the middle lane, in 2 lane maps generally I do it in the bottom lane, just ping where you are headed at the beginning of the match using the 'G' key and people should follow. If you see someone going by themselves in another lane just remind them what you are trying to achieve and how they can better contribute.

There are 2 exceptions to this strategy, two maps out there where the core is invulnerable to conventionnal attacks. Here are strategies to AI rush on them.


Hanamura – Ignore all the payloads. Pick a lane and push it all the way, destroy both layers of fortification this getting rid of a fort and a keep. When that lane is destroyed take your whole team to the other lane and do the same until all structures are down. You will be getting a bonus shot for every fort/keep destroyed. At this point you will have the equivalent of 5 shots saved up out of the 7 you need to destroy an enemy core. There should be two payloads up for escort at this point in the game. You will want to escort them both to land a total of 6 shots on the core and kill the boss for the missing 7th shot, this should take about 6-7 minutes.

Towers of Doom – Shove bottom lane extremely hard, you should be able to get that fort down before the first altar mechanic comes up. This fort will flip and become under your control. Your team will split to channel the altars which should come up around the time the bottom fort falls. You will want to be winning all 3 altars available on the first wave. You will then get your team back to bottom and defeat both pumpkin camps (siege camps) and escort the pumpkin mercenaries all the way to the enemy wall, past where that fort you have stolen is. Each pumpkin that makes it is worth a shot on the enemy core. At this point you will want to be alternating between capping and escorting the pumpkins and channeling the altars when they are available. Kill the boss as soon as possible, you should only have time for one boss kill during the whole match, he is worth 4 shots. Another strategy for this is to try and cap and control all 6 forts and rely on them shooting + channeling altars for the win but in my opinion its not as reliable for new players and you may just want to go the safe way I explained above that might in the end get you a faster kill.

The diablo heroes in the current free rotation are pretty great. Diablo and Sonya are melee brawlers, Cassia is a ranged assassin and Nazeebo is a ranged specialist that packs a lot of punch by spamming the spider jar.

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