The Rise of Basketballmodan

I have spent a lot of time playing beautiful and strong female characters in games. 90% of the time my main is female. Johanna was the first character I felt that I meshed with in Heroes of the Storm. Our blog is called “Tanks in Heels” for a reason: lady tanks are the bomb. However, somehow this ugly mother fu$%er has stolen my heart.

I’m no expert, but HoTS is the type of game where you have to become proficient in a number of roles and on a number of characters. Branching out beyond my signature melee role has been mildly frightening – and often deadly. Yet, in one fateful loot pack I unlocked the basket ball skin for Azmodan, birthing my current obsession with this character (lovingly nicknamed Basketballmoden).

Azomodan took a bit of trial and error to understand. I have never found my stride with ranged characters, mostly because I love to get in an enemy’s face to deliver my hits. Azmodan is what they call a “ranged specialist.” His specialty is long-range assaults and sieging.

In terms of how to build this character, and to gain a basis of understanding, http://www.icy-veins.com as some incredible insight. Their interpretation of his strengths and weaknesses are on point – and to that end, it should be emphasized that Azmodan is not mobile at all. You need to stay as far away as possible from your enemy in order to maintain your health and a good head start if you need to GTFO.

Azmodan’s greatest strength lies in his ability to call minions to his aide. His ‘w’ ability, Summon a demon warrior, has a short cast time and after level 4, a relatively low mana cost. It takes a little time, but I have found some success in building up my mini-siege and overwhelming structures with my minions.

Icy Veins suggests the level 10 ability Demonic Invasion which with, while I have never tried the alternative (Black Pool), I tend to agree. This ultimate creates a burst of damage from a small army of minions that is enough to push siege damage and overwhelm your enemies for the duration of their health. The incredibly useful part of this is that the damage against you is primarily focused on your crew, thus you don’t have to dip too far into your health pool to cause a stir.

I’m just at the tip of the HOTs iceberg. Right now Cass Elle and I are branching into more difficult matches. Up until now, since I am so new, I have been playing against bots. So, this is as far as I am comfortable going when it comes to talking about a hero – there is much more to learn! I am hoping that in the coming weeks I can share some of my Basketballmodan adventures against real humans with you – and perhaps provide some footage of the matches!

I feel like the beauty playing a beast. Honestly, for a long time I didn’t believe I could branch out beyond melee characters in HoTS and in WoW. The gates are opening and my reign of terror will be flowing through them.

As always, if you are a HoTS player and have any suggestions, comments and can help with newbie rise in the ranks, please email me @ tanksinheels@gmail.com or just comment below.  Until next time, game on!