The Role of Experience
Understanding experience in Heroes of the Storm is key because it is a measure of your team's power! The Experience bar can be found in the top middle of your screen, with your team in blue, and the enemy in red. As you gain levels your hero will gain attack damage, health and other useful stats. Experience is shared between all of your teammates.
With the November 17th patch, each level will scale your damage and health by about 4%.
1 Level ahead means: 4% stronger base stats than your enemies
2 Levels ahead means: 8.25% stronger base stats than your enemies
3 Levels ahead means: 12.5% stronger base stats than your enemies
Will everything else equal it is always advantageous to fight while your team is ahead in levels, simply because you are more powerful.. Keep in mind this changes both the value of your health and damage, which makes the total effect stronger than 4% power difference per level.
Engaging the Winning Fight:
But we have many factors, other than experience to consider before engaging a fight.
Is my team on the same talent tier as my enemy?
Previous to this patch, levels were considerably stronger in the early game making early game leads much more likely to snowball into later game advantages. But the main consideration now is "Do I have the same talent tier, or a different one?"
Talent tiers happen at these levels:
Level 1
Level 4
Level 7
Level 10: These are your ultimate abilities, one team having these first is an incredible advantage
Level 13:
Level 16
Level 20
Later game talents are almost always more powerful than earlier level talents. The exception to this is at level 10 ultimate abilities are often stronger than level 13 talents, and level 16 talents. This means the greatest power spike your hero will receive is at level 10, and this talent should be used to secure an advantage.
Other considerations for starting fights should include:
Are my teammates at full health and mana?
Are my teammates ultimate abilities on cooldown? (you can check this by pressing tab, and hitting show talents)
Do we outnumber the enemies in this scenario?
Is an enemy out of position?
If we win, will it be worth our investment? (You can lose experience, chances to take objectives, and other opportunities)
Getting ahead:
So now that we know what experience is, and how to leverage it to our advantage we need to get some experience!
Methods for getting experience:
Soaking
When enemy minions die from your hero's abilities, or within a certain range (about as far as you can see on your screen) of you or a teammate your team is granted experience. Many newer players make the mistake of missing experience while in lane, this is a simple mistake to correct by standing a little closer to enemy minions. Soaking all of the lanes is the best way to secure early game experience.
Catching up: You can give up a map objective that you have no chance of winning and soak lane experience instead
Killing an enemy hero
Kills get more valuable as the game progresses - this is because more experience is awarded for later game kills. Furthermore killing a hero later on in the game causes them to take longer to re-spawn. While enemy heroes are dead they can not take objectives or soak experience. Kills help your team and hurt the enemy team!
Catching up: Killing an enemy hero while your team is behind in levels will grant your team the kill experience, plus a bonus! This means even trading a kill for a death will help you catch up.
Taking enemy towers
Enemy towers grant extra chunks of experience to your team when they are killed. Pushing a lane and taking enemy towers will give your team a lead!
Catching up: If the enemy team is ahead, pushing one lane, and you can't beat them in a fight you can trade buildings with them. For example if they are pushing your outer fort on the bottom lane of Blackheart's Bay, your team can take their top fort. This will help you catch up because it takes them more experience to get to the next level than it takes you. Towers grant a constant amount experience no matter what level your team is.
With the November 17th patch, each level will scale your damage and health by about 4%.
1 Level ahead means: 4% stronger base stats than your enemies
2 Levels ahead means: 8.25% stronger base stats than your enemies
3 Levels ahead means: 12.5% stronger base stats than your enemies
Will everything else equal it is always advantageous to fight while your team is ahead in levels, simply because you are more powerful.. Keep in mind this changes both the value of your health and damage, which makes the total effect stronger than 4% power difference per level.
Engaging the Winning Fight:
But we have many factors, other than experience to consider before engaging a fight.
Is my team on the same talent tier as my enemy?
Previous to this patch, levels were considerably stronger in the early game making early game leads much more likely to snowball into later game advantages. But the main consideration now is "Do I have the same talent tier, or a different one?"
Talent tiers happen at these levels:
Level 1
Level 4
Level 7
Level 10: These are your ultimate abilities, one team having these first is an incredible advantage
Level 13:
Level 16
Level 20
Later game talents are almost always more powerful than earlier level talents. The exception to this is at level 10 ultimate abilities are often stronger than level 13 talents, and level 16 talents. This means the greatest power spike your hero will receive is at level 10, and this talent should be used to secure an advantage.
Other considerations for starting fights should include:
Are my teammates at full health and mana?
Are my teammates ultimate abilities on cooldown? (you can check this by pressing tab, and hitting show talents)
Do we outnumber the enemies in this scenario?
Is an enemy out of position?
If we win, will it be worth our investment? (You can lose experience, chances to take objectives, and other opportunities)
Getting ahead:
So now that we know what experience is, and how to leverage it to our advantage we need to get some experience!
Methods for getting experience:
Soaking
When enemy minions die from your hero's abilities, or within a certain range (about as far as you can see on your screen) of you or a teammate your team is granted experience. Many newer players make the mistake of missing experience while in lane, this is a simple mistake to correct by standing a little closer to enemy minions. Soaking all of the lanes is the best way to secure early game experience.
Catching up: You can give up a map objective that you have no chance of winning and soak lane experience instead
Killing an enemy hero
Kills get more valuable as the game progresses - this is because more experience is awarded for later game kills. Furthermore killing a hero later on in the game causes them to take longer to re-spawn. While enemy heroes are dead they can not take objectives or soak experience. Kills help your team and hurt the enemy team!
Catching up: Killing an enemy hero while your team is behind in levels will grant your team the kill experience, plus a bonus! This means even trading a kill for a death will help you catch up.
Taking enemy towers
Enemy towers grant extra chunks of experience to your team when they are killed. Pushing a lane and taking enemy towers will give your team a lead!
Catching up: If the enemy team is ahead, pushing one lane, and you can't beat them in a fight you can trade buildings with them. For example if they are pushing your outer fort on the bottom lane of Blackheart's Bay, your team can take their top fort. This will help you catch up because it takes them more experience to get to the next level than it takes you. Towers grant a constant amount experience no matter what level your team is.