Free Hero of the Week: E.T.C.
Free Hero Rundown will focus on one hero from the weekly set of free heroes. During the week, except for daily quests, you’ll see me playing this hero, hopefully kicking butt and taking names.
Possible Talent Choices
Heroes of the Storm has 4 character archetypes: assassin, support, warrior, and specialist. So far, assassin and support have been covered by Free Hero Rundown. This week, we take a look at a hero from the warrior archetype, E.T.C. Warriors tend to be tanky characters that focus on soaking up damage, but they can also be built to deal damage.
Basic Abilities
E.T.C. has several crowd control moves that stun or otherwise incapacitate your foes. His Q is Power Slide, a forward dash that stuns any enemies hit and deals damage. This is one of your most flexible forms of CC and, with good positioning, can set up a knockback combo with Face Melt. It can also be upgraded with talents to synergize with his Heroic Ability Mosh Pit, allowing you to reposition and stun people you missed with your first cast.
His W, Face Melt, damages in an area around E.T.C. and knocks the enemies hit backward slightly. This ability can knock enemies out of their own channeled abilities. Power Sliding in front of an enemy and using Face Melt to knock them back into your team is pretty much your go-to combo. This can also be used to squeak out an escape if a melee enemy is trying to chase you down.
Guitar Solo is E.T.C.’s E ability. This is just a basic self heal, but it makes a difference over time, giving you more survivability in lane or letting you survive just a few extra hits in a team fight. It also activates your trait, just like your other abilities, giving you and allied heroes near you an attack speed boost.
Heroic Abilities
E.T.C.’s starting heroic ability is call Mosh Pit. This is a very powerful AOE stun that, if positioned well, can lock up several members of the enemy team at once. If you pair it with the Tour Bus talent at level 20, you can use Power Slide to reposition and add 2 seconds to the channel duration. Being able to move and keep the stun up is a great way to lock out the enemy team, and that makes this my favorite of his two heroic abilities.
One note of caution when using Mosh Pit though. It is a channeled ability, which means someone with a ranged stun or silence can knock you out of it, ending the effect early. Take that into consideration if your opponents have a lot of CC on their team.
His unlockable heroic ability is called Stage Dive. This is functionally a map wide teleport move that can get you back into a team fight very quickly. When E.T.C. lands, he does damage and slows any enemies hit for 3 seconds. There is a cast time for this ability, so landing a big Dive takes practice. It’s also not so useful as an escape because it’s easy to knock E.T.C. out of move, putting it on a short cooldown before it can be used again.
Talents
For E.T.C.’s talent choices, I went with most of the talents that reduce damage, intending to use him as a front line tank. Block is a solid 1st choice as it reduces a significant amount of damage over time. I also took the buff to Guitar Solo so he heals by doing basic attacks for the duration and the talent that reduces damage after a Power Slide, giving him more sustainability being in the thick of things. Imposing Presence is a strong talent as well, it reduces the attack speed of a hero that hits you by 50%.
I picked up Mosh Pit at level 10 and Tour Bus at level 20. I already stated how powerful I think that combo is and the amount of crowd control it can generate has won me several games.
As a front line tank, you want to be in the middle of your enemies, using your CC to lock them up or knock them out of the group for your allies to pick off. While E.T.C. can hold his own against melee assassins in lane, it’s best to team up with another teammate and bully your lane opponents. Finally, while it’s tempting to save your Mosh Pit for a big 4 man stun, anytime you can use it to kill an enemy hero and set up a 4v5 for your team, you should.
Now that Heroes of the Storm is live, I’ll looking for new people to play with. It’s a fun take on the MOBA genre and a fun way to experience all of Blizzard’s interesting characters. I’ll be in game playing as AGRitterific. As always, for a friend invite or any questions, drop me a line at ritterific@agentsofgame.com.
