Heroes of the Storm - Drafting Guide: Sustained Damage Dealers

During my first few weeks into Heroes of the Storm, the first thing I picked up on was the importance of damage in any game of HotS, and to some degree, it's kinda true. Damage is the source of most interactions you have in HotS, you need to push lanes, take down towers, defeat and capture mercenary camps , push back objectives or even benefiting off of objectives. And that all excludes hero interactions, a healer is only useful if there's damage to heal in the first place, and damage mitigation is only needed when incoming damage is kept in mind. Damage was such a crucial breakthrough for me that, for a time, the only advice I would give to newcomers regarding talents were, "When in doubt, go for damage!". Because regardless of the situation, you can always find a way to put extra damage to good use, as I mentioned earlier. Although this is still true sometimes, and please note I've only just gotten into heroes at the time, I overlooked hero roles and other key aspects like maps, globals and objectives.

But it does make a good starting point, in any draft you should always have a Sustained Damage Dealer or Sustained DPS, because no matter what draft you have, you can't do anything without enough damage output and if you don't know what that means, keep reading and if you're unfamiliar with Hero Classes and Roles, go read my post about that here.

Valla, AKA the Queen of Sustained Damage

A Sustained Damage Dealer is a hero that can constantly dish out damage, which differs from a Burst Damage Dealer, which deals a large amount of damage in waves and not constantly, there are delays between each instance of damage. 

A good rule of thumb is a Sustained DPS hero must be ranged so that you can safely deal damage from a distance and must have high attack damage or attack speed. They're mostly from the Assassin Class but that's a bit of a grey area.

Here's a list of some Sustained Damage Dealers in HotS:

- Valla ( at the time of this post, the BEST Sustained DPS)

- Greymane

- Falstad

- Zul'jin

- Gul'dan

- Tracer

- Lunara

- Raynor

- Cassia

- Tychus

Valla, Greymane and Falstad are top picks for the Sustained DPS role because of the fact they have great sustained damage but at the same time are capable of dealing significant burst damage when needed. Gul'dan is the only mage class Assassin that can be considered a Sustained DPS hero so if you like mages, try Gul'dan out! Valla and Raynor cost 2000 gold in the shop and are good purchases if you're just starting out in Heroes of the Storm. Tychus and Cassia are the least favoured because of their shorter attack range although both have unique skillsets when needed. Tychus can easily melt heroes with high health because he can deal damage based on a percent of the enemy's health while Cassia is exceptionally tanky against physical damage.

Ok, so now how do you play a Sustained DPS Hero?

One of the skills you have to learn with this type of hero is the Stutter Step, look it up on YouTube for a clearer example, but to put it simply, it's the ability to move between attacks. This allows you to reposition your hero, whilst attacking a nearby target. This ensures you have a steady stream of damage being dealt to the enemy even though you need to retreat or engage. Tracer can attack while moving so this doesn't really apply to her, but you need to make sure your attacks target the right enemy while you're vigorously clicking.

Isn't it annoying seeing her attack non-stop? Yeah, be that Tracer!!

Another thing you have to keep in mind is that, your damage is completely free, meaning if you're not attacking whenever you can, then you're missing out on precious damage that could have decided the teamfight. And by this I'm not asking you to charge head on into the enemy, a Sustained DPS should be placed between the frontline and the support backline, ready to step forward to get some damage out, and then retreating behind the Main Tank and Bruiser back to safety. Lunara is a hero that benefits a lot from poking (dealing damage constantly in small opportunities) her enemies because of her poison. So you're actually making it really hard for the enemy team's healer to keep up with your damage.

The Queen of Poke, IMHO

Sustained DPS Heroes should never let the enemy's engages and initiates be uncontested. Whenever a tank hero tries to charge in or a support is left out of position, it is your civic duty to attack that hero. This equates to more damage their healer has to heal back up leading to using up more mana which causes two things to happen, the hero takes too much damage and has to return to base or their healer runs out of mana. Both grant you a significant numbers advantage, given the fact that one hero is missing from the fight which is what can lead to you winning a decisive battle that can win you the game. With this in mind, the DPS Hero should always prioritize taking out a Support Hero or DPS Hero over the Warriors but should not pass the opportunity to damage the Warrior as well if there aren't any other nearby targets.

Warrior? Support? Assassin? Which ONE?! You'll get the hang of it ;)

Last but not least, your presence is required if your team is taking Boss Camps or contesting objectives. Especially those times where there are Garden Terrors, Dragon Knights, Spider Queens or Zergs attacking your base. Your damage is your worth so if you can't deal damage, you're worthless.

Brutal, I know, BUT TRUE!!!

But out of the 3 Main Classes needed in every draft, the Sustained Damage role is the easiest, so just practice and make sure you're never alone when engaging or treading into unknown territory.

Have fun and kill those heroes with your SUSTAINED DPS!!!