# Heroes of the Storm HotS is Blizzard's effort at taking on League of Legends and DotA2 in the MOBA genre. It features characters from Blizzard's other games (chiefly the Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo series) and makes a few changes from the paradigm LoL and Dota are known for.
## Getting it HotS is priced much like LoL. It's free to play, and you earn gold by playing which can be spent on in game items like heroes, mounts, skins etc. You also have the option to spending real money to speed up the process, but this is entirely optional.
Each week, a randomly selected 7 heroes are free to play for everyone. You can level these characters freely, and will pick up where you left off whenever you next play them.
** I get goodies for referring you, so please ask me for a referral if you do not already have a Blizzard Battle.net account! **
## Differences to LoL
### No gold! Gold is not a thing. There is no resource to collect (outside of those that form map objectives).
### No gear! No gear.
### Talents! At levels 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16 and 20 you can choose one of four (per level) talents which enhance your character somehow. Level 10 gives you your Heroic (Ultimate) ability, and level 20 enhances it. Some talents are active abilities, most are passive effects.
### No last hit! Last-hitting is a dreadful thing and all right-thinking patriots hate it. It's gone. You acquire XP if you're near a source of XP when it gives out that XP (i.e. be near a dying hero when it dies, be near a dying minion when it dies, etc.). You may be wondering how this effects levelling, well ...
### Level as a team! Your team gains XP, not your character. You all hit a new level together.
### Such maps! HotS currently has 10 maps, each with distinct objectives and aesthetics. All revolve around the destruction of the enemy team's core, but each provides different methods of doing so (in addition to whacking it repeatedly). Map objectives are never essential but are hugely helpful in actually trying to win.
## Heroes
Heroes fall into one of four categories:
- Assassin: high damage
- Warrior: high survivability
- Support: buffs, heals, etc.
- Specialist: varies, but they tend to excel at one particular job (or, in some cases, are just too weird to fit into any other category)
Special mention to:
-
Abathur is a specialist, but plays differently to any other hero. He "possesses" a friendly hero who remains control over their movement, but have Abathur's "hat" tag along. As a result Abathur can essentially empower other heroes while increasing his own vulnerability.
-
Cho'gall, a two-headed ogre, is actually two heroes and requires two players to play him. Cho is a warrior class who controls movement and melee attacks, while Gall is a ranged assassin. Their life pool is combined and thus very high, but a Cho'gall death grants the other team double the usual XP.