List of terminology

The following is a list of all the Heroes of the Storm terminology.

AFK

AFK (Away From Keyboard) is a term used while you have to stop playing for a moment. It also has a derogatory meaning when one of the players simply stops playing.

If a player does not issue a game command for a some time during a match, that player will receive an inactivity warning via chat. If a player does not issue a game command after receiving a warning, that player will be dropped from the game. As with leaving or disconnecting from a game before it is finished, the A.I. will take over the dropped player’s hero until that player rejoins the game. Additionally, that player will earn no experience points, quest credit, or rewards if they do not rejoin the game before it concludes.

Aggro

The targeting priority (or enmity) of an A.I. controlled minion, monster, merc, etc.

Minions and mercanaries on the lane attack you on sight. The related usages here are "aggro range" or "aggro radius" which is the distance at which the mob will attack. Most monsters and mercs in their camps however, will only attack after taking damage.

ARAM

ARAM is an acronym for "All Random All Mid".

The ARAM match style has initially been seen in Dota and has since spread to MOBAs such as League of Legends. The playstyle encourages constant skirmishes by funneling players into one area and trimming the fat, so to speak, from other activities such as jungling. It also adds an element of unpredictability via the “random” requirement.

In Heroes of the Storm, many players have been shoehorning custom matches for ARAM into regular maps, but have to rely on players to observe certain rules by sticking to a lane, not wandering to do objectives and not hearthing back to base. Blizzard has seen that players have been creating one-lane matches on Heroes' existing maps, so they wanted to create a Battleground that makes things a little easier—and maybe even a little more exciting—for everyone who enjoys these game. With the release of the Lost Cavern map it makes it easier for players to stick to the rules by only featuring one lane and also removing objectives and disabling starting-area heals. Silver City, another ARAM map, came during the Heroes Brawls.

Area of Effect

Area of Effect (short: AoE) abilities do damage in an area as opposed to just on one target. A target is hit by an AoE if the ability hits the circle beneath its model called Hitbox.

Bait

To Bait is to feign weakness in order to lure the enemy into a trap.

Bodyblocking

Bodyblocking is a technique for impeding an enemy's advance by positioning your controlled unit(s) on their path and forcing them to walk around you. The technique exploits the fact that two given entities can not simultaneously occupy the same physical space, and is generally performed by moving in a zigzag pattern while actively trying to stand in the way of one's intended target. Body blocking can be used to prevent the enemy from fleeing by positioning on their fastest route to safety or to peel for your allies by placing yourself between them and the enemy. Its offensive and defensive uses make it an important skill especially for tank and melee assassin players.

Bot

Bot is used to refer to the bottom-most lane on the battleground. Bot is also occasionally a term for AI heroes.

Buff

In terms of gameplay Buff means a positive status effect and the act of applying one on a Hero. Buffs usually make the hero deal more damage or take less damage through various means. The opposite of 'buff' - a negative status effect that weakens a hero - is called 'debuff'.

Buff can also mean developers changing a Hero's Statistics or the function of their abilities and talents in order to make them stronger in terms of overall game balance. The opposite of 'buff' in this case is called 'nerf'.

Bullying

Bullying means harassing an opposing Hero in a laning context. The term is usually employed when it is difficult for the bullied Hero to efficiently retaliate. The main goal of bullying is to force an opponent away from their lane so that they miss out on Experience, are unable to protect Structures, or can not regenerate their Health or Mana in a timely manner before fighting over a Map Objective. Zagara is often said to be a good Lane Bully.

Burst damage

Burst damage (also called Nuke) is a massive amount of damage in a short of time, used to kill someone outright. Chromie is an example of a hero with a high burst damage.

Carry

A carry is a term describing a Hero or player that largely influences the outcome of the game by either dealing high amounts of damage or by providing decisive utility in form of crowd control or peeling. In its most primitive definition, a carry is a player that contributes majorly to the win of the game for your entire team, and is as such mainly used to describe a Hero with immense damage, as crowd control and peeling are valued only by the more experienced players.

Chase

To pursue an enemy Hero as they're running away.

Choke Point

A Choke Point is a narrow passage which makes freely moving difficult for groups of Heroes. They generally force teams to adopt suboptimal formations, making them ideal ambush locations.

Clamping

Clamping is a property of Point targeted Abilities that causes the Ability to be cast at its maximum range when the Ability is targeted beyond its maximum range. If the Ability does not have Clamping, the Hero will first move into a position, where the Ability can be cast on a targeted point, before casting it. If Clamping would cause the Ability to be cast on an invalid location, e.g. Tyrael's El'Druin's Might cannot be cast on unpathable terrain, it will not be cast.

Combo

A Combo (or Ability Chain) is consciously using two or more Abilities in quick succession, often in a synergistic manner.

Commit

To Commit is to not retreat. To stay in a fight until the battle is over, or until your Hero is slain.

Counter pick

To choose a particular Hero during the Draft phase in order to oppose a particular enemy Hero.

Creep

Creep is a term often used for Minions and sometimes Monsters and Mercenaries. It also refers to Zagara's purple goo created from her tumors.

Demotion Match

A demotion match is essentially the opposite of a promotion match in Ranked Play. If your rank points drop to zero, you risk dropping down to the next lower division, and the next ranked match you play will be a demotion match. If you win your demotion match, you stay in your current place, and you'll gain enough rank points to be safe from immediate demotion; if you lose, you drop down to the next lower division.

Dive

A Dive or Diving is to pursue a specific target (often a squishy Support or Assassin) into a highly dangerous area, typically behind the enemies Tanks or even Forts. It is a high risk, high reward maneuver.

Illidan and Genji are considered as good Divers.

Duelist

A Hero who excels at combating enemy Heroes one on one (e.g. Artanis).

Feeding

Feeding is dying repeatedly to the other team, thereby assisting them. A player who does this is a feeder. Feeding is reportable.

Feeders do not necessarily assist the enemy team intentionally. Players who are new to the game and thereby lack experience tend to die more often and more easily to skilled players. Feeding is also a vicious circle. Every time a feeder dies, the enemy team gets stronger and is thereby even harder to defeat next time.

Besides non-intentional feeders, there are also Griefers. Griefers are intentional feeders who die on purpose in order to actively feed the enemy team. They either do it in order to speed up the game's process if they do not see any chance to win anymore, or simply to ruin other player's games. Griefers usually lead their team to defeat, as the enemy team will be given a hefty advantage.

Flank

To Flank (or Flanking) is to try to bypass the enemy frontline and go directly to the enemy backline by going from an alternative route, mainly from behind. This strategy is useful for assassins, bruisers and divers, because they don't have enough tankyness to survive a barrage of CCs and direct damage, thus, trying to get past the frontline can mean death for them.

Dehaka and Zeratul are great heroes to use to explain flanking. Both heroes don't want to run straight towards their opponent; their goal is to use bushes and corners to get as close as possible to them without being seen. The moment they engage, their team will also engage. However, if your opponent reacts correctly or has a hard disengage hero, flanking can become a problem for your team. A Tassadar with Force Wall or Falstad with Mighty Gust can separate your teammates from each other. Your opponent can then use this to his advantage and turn the fight in their favor.

Focus

Focus (or Targeting) involves choosing the right target for your abilities. This means effectively healing/damaging and protecting targets that will most likely result in a won teamfight. You can usually work out who you should be focusing before the fight begins, but you should react to how the game is going.

Focus fire

Focus fire is concentrating the damage output of several Heroes upon a determinate target in order to quickly destroy it.

Gank

Ganking is moving around the battlefield with the specific intent of taking down one or more opposing Heroes. Generally seeks to exploit a numeric advantage or an element of surprise. If someone calls out for a Gank, it means they want someone to come in behind their enemies and kill them. Ganking, is a twist on the idea of Flanking. Having a third person come in from behind their enemies will trap them in a pincer maneuver hopefully allowing you to kill them quickly. Nova or Zeratul are good Gankers.

Gap closer

An ability or spell that shortens the distance between the Hero and the enemy.

Grand Master

Beyond Diamond, Master and Grand Master await. This is where the best of the best face off against each other in intense, nerve-racking, epic battles that shake the Nexus to its core. Ranking in the Master leagues works slightly differently. Instead of divisions, the Master league shows you the total number of rank points you've accumulated. The top 200 point earners in Hero League and top 100 in Team League enter the Grand Master tiers. There, your badge will now show your position in the overall Grand Master ranking for your region, updated daily. If you run into a player who is ranked 3 in the Grand Master tier, that is the third-best player in your region, so you better step up your game!

Hybrid

A Hybrid is an unofficial dual role and a middle ground for classes. Instead of committing into a pure one sided build, a hero can instead be a combination of two such as an assassin/warrior (also called Bruiser), an assassin/healer or an tank/healer. Tyrande can build into a support who secures kills, Tyrael can be secondary support tank and Kharazim go into a Hybrid DPS and Support Build.

Initiator

An initiator is a hero you want to use to begin team fights, usually due to a high health pool or CC abilities. Fighting without such a hero is ill-advised.

Jungle

The Jungle refers to the area of the map that surrounds the lanes. There are a lot of bushes here, lowering visibility and the pathways are curving and seldom straight. If someone says they are going Jungling or Roaming, it means they plan to kill the Heroes or Mercs in the jungle. Zeratul, Nova, Samuro and Valeera are heroes often roaming between lanes.

One large difference in Heroes of the Storm to other MOBAs is that it doesn't have a dedicated Jungle in the sense that you have one hero dedicated to being in it all of the time, and then ganking lanes in between Jungle routes. Instead, Heroes of the Storm has some battlegrounds where you'll want to spend some time in the Jungle, but once you defeat a mercanary camp you can actually capture it, sending that camp to push a nearby lane. Some maps have a more dedicated Jungler depending on how many of these camps there are.

Kiting

Kiting means retreating from pursuing enemy Heros while attacking in such a way that they are unable to effectively retaliate. Generally performed by ranged Heroes, particularly those with access to movement reduction effects, against melee Heroes.

Macro

Macro (short for "macromanagement") refers your ability to manipulate the battleground in your favour. Heroes that rely on good macromanagement include Abathur, Azmodan and the Lost Vikings. Micro (or “micro-management”) refers your skill or capacity to control your Hero well on a small-scale level.

Successfully macromanaging means:

• Correctly timed mercanaries
• Soaking all lanes
• Building up map pressure

Mage

A mage is a ranged hero whose damage depends almost exclusively upon abilities. Their auto-attack is usually weak and they tend to be very dependent on mana. They often deal large amounts of AoE damage.

Mage heroes

Chromie Gall Gul'dan Jaina Kael'thas Kel'Thuzad Li-Ming Mephisto Nazeebo Nova

Micro

Micro (short for "micromanagement") refers to the level of granular and specific control a user has over his Hero. Macro (or “macro-management”) refers to a more global aspect of the game.

Successfully micromanaging means:

• Positioning
• Cooldown and Mana managment
• Stutter-Stepping
• Body-Blocking
• Focus

MOBA

MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) - Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) is a game genre that included League of Legends, Dota and Heroes of the Storm. It's also known as 'action real-time strategy.' Unlike traditional RTS games, MOBAs don't include unit construction and you control a single character at once.

Mobility

Mobile Heroes (or Heroes with mobility) are able to reposition themself to a different location faster than other Heroes. Some Heroes (like Lúcio) can increase their Movement Speed, others like Genji can use movement abilities, such as dashes and teleports, to quickly move to a different location.

Some Heroes are called High-Mobility Heroes due to having multiple abilitites that grant mobility and are able to reposition themselves very quickly and often.

Mobility Creep

The term Mobility Creep is used to describe the process in which newer Heroes being given more and more mobility.

Nerf

In Heroes of the Storm, a nerf is a change to a Hero that reduces the power of his damage, his abilities, his health or other Statistics in order to maintain game balance. The term is also used as a verb for the act of making such a change. The opposite of nerf is buff (in one of that term's two usages).

Overextending

Overextending is a highly detrimental behaviour where a given Player is positioned out of the effective support range of other teammates, making them easy to take down for the opponent. Most new players are way too aggressive when it comes to engaging enemy players. They go too far into enemy territory to chase down weak opponents. They recklessly dive into the middle of groups. They get to objectives too soon and don't come in with reinforcements. All of these are examples of overextending, and each can result in quick deaths and even quicker losses.

Peel

To Peel or peeling is shorthand for "protect your allies" and means to keep an enemy off of your allies. When the enemy team dives into yours to try killing your Support, peeling would mean using some form of CC, like Stuns or Slows, or body blocking to force the enemy away from the ally.

Placement Matches

When you first start Ranked Play and at the start of each new season, you will need to complete a series of ten placement matches to help the matchmaking system develop an understanding of your personal skill level. Note that you can only queue together with other friends who are also doing placement matches while you're still in placement matches. Once you're done, you will receive your initial placement for the season and can start earning rank points.

Poke

To Poke (or Poking) is using a long ranged ability to do damage to an enemy. Mostly happens before a team fight, you can often see Heroes with long ranged abilities poking the enemy, like Chromie or Li Ming.

Power Spike

At the major talent levels, Heroes will see significant power spikes which should be capitalized on situationally.

As you gain familiarity with the Heroes, you'll learn the differences in when these spikes occur. For example, Nazeebo receives a spike at level 20 (Vile Infection), whereas Ragnaros gets a spike at level 16 (Giant Scorcher). Learning when each of the characters see their spikes, will in turn help you gain confidence in making the most appropriate decision depending on how the battle is unfolding.

Promotion Match

To reach the next division in Ranked Play (or to move up to the next league tier, if you’re in division 1 of your current tier), you will need to prove yourself in a promotion match. The process is pretty straightforward: once you've earned 1,000 rank points, your next ranked match will be a promotion match. If you win your promotion match, you move up one division and receive a nice chunk of rank points in the process. If you lose your promotion match, you stay in your current place, and you also lose the usual amount of rank points.

PvE

Player versus environment, or PvE, is a term used to refer to fighting computer-controlled enemies — in contrast to PvP (player versus player).

Escape From Braxis is the first Heroes of the Storm PvE Brawl without any PvP content.

Roaming

Roaming is continually traveling between lanes in order to catch players that are isolated, low on resources, or otherwise positioned in such a way that they are easy to take down. Zeratul, Nova, Samuro and Valeera are heroes often roaming between lanes.

Season

Player ranks persist for a finite time interval called a season. At the end of each season, the rankings are reset, and everyone gets a fresh start to earn ranks again. You get end of season rewards, including unique mounts, based on your peak rank and your initial placement in the new season derives from how well you did in past seasons.

Self-sustain

Self-sustain is a given Hero's aptitude to reliably refill their own Health pool over a short period of time.

Siege Damage

Siege damage is all Damage done by a Hero to enemy minions, structures and captured mercenaries.

Skillshot Ability

Dehaka landing a Skillshot Ability

A Skillshot Ability is a Point targeted ability that fires a projectile from the Hero casting the ability towards a chosen point. A unit is hit by the Ability if their Hitboxes collide. Skillhots usually only hit the first enemy they come in contact with. Skillshots cannot be self-casted, with the exception of Johanna's heroic ability, "Blessed Shield". Due to their projectile-like nature, skillshots are susceptible to miss moving targets.

Split-Pushing

Split-Pushing involves a single Hero in a pushing on at least one lane while the rest of their team is contesting an Objective or otherwise distracting the opposition. The goal of split pushing is generally to simultaneously threaten two strategic points at once, forcing opponents to make brash decisions. Specialists like Azmodan or Abathur are often good Split-Pusher.

Squishy

Squishy means Fragile. It refers to Heroes that are ill-equipped to take much damage (like Lunara or Jaina) before being taken out.

Stomp

Stomp or Stomping is the act of destroying/owning another Hero or Team.

A pubstomper refers to a Hero that is quite good against uncoordinated, less skilled players (ie: in Quick Match), but a even halfway decently organized/smart group will shut them down. The Butcher is often called a Pubstomper.

Stutter Stepping

Stutter-stepping is a technique that involves rapidly moving during the short time window between consecutive Basic Attacks. Typically done to maximise Basic Attack and movement uptime by eliminating inactivity. Also known as orb walking. Stutter-stepping is an important (often overlooked) factor in all MOBA games and Heroes of the Storm is no exception. It can be easily defined as movement in between auto attacks. This makes enemy skillshots harder to land and can even confuse your enemy. Stepping is more rewarding and also easier on ranged heroes, while doing it using a melee character is harder.

Summoner

A Summoner is a Hero whose damage and battleground presence depends almost exclusively on their summons.

Summoner heroes

Azmodan Gazlowe Probius Xul Zagara

Sustain

Sustain is a heroes ability to heal themselves without relying on Regeneration Globes, healers, the Hall of Storms, or a Healing Fountain. Having a good sustain allows you to stay in a lane for a long time. Thrall, Dehaka and Raynor have good sustain.

Trading

Trading is a broad concept involving the forceful exchange of one thing for another. Two Heroes damaging eachother, two team destroying eachother's Structures, or Heroic Abilities being used by both sides are all examples of trades.

Waveclear

Waveclear is a given Hero's aptitude to efficiently destroy a large number of Minions in lane. Heroes with good Waveclear are for example Jaina, Murky, Xul and Kael'thas.

Unaccompanied Minions can now quickly overwhelm Structures, and Heroes with strong push potential can further push pressure to the team. Teams that lack proper wave clear, or ignore the threat that Minions present, will quickly find themselves overwhelmed during late game.

Wipe

Taking out the whole team in a fight.

Zoning

Zoning or Area Denial means preventing an opposing Hero from performing certain activities in a given area through highly aggresive behaviour.