We don't want to enforce too strict a meta on the game, but I do think we have a few pillars.

• Team fighting should be a major (but not neccessarily the only) focus of the game
• There should be periods of intense action and periods of light action
• We've found that the game is most fun when there are a variety of useful roles, primarily at least a tank, a damage dealer, and a healer on both teams.
• There should usually be multiple strategic options on a map. Even if we require the an objective to be paid attention to, there should be multiple strategic options with how to deal with it.

A lot of us play the game solo. Personally, I almost exclusively play solo Storm League, which is just how I've always played the game. I enjoy meeting random people and challenging myself to climb the ladder on my own. I think the biggest takeaway I have from playing solo for so long is that our game could do a better job of teaching you how to be successful in a given match. Things like building team compositions, Battleground dynamics, macro play, zoning, and playing from behind aren't easily learned mechanics. We don't think that Heroes should hold your hand and tell you exactly what to do, but it should do a better job of surfaces the questions for you to figure out on your own.

For a long time a lot Twitch, Youtube, and online guides have done a great job of educating the player base, but only a fraction of people engage with these on a common basis. So we're looking to see if we can make a few things more intuitive in these areas.

Stay tuned. She should see some minor balance adjustments soon.

It's important to us to have Heroes in HotS reflect their inspiration for their character, but they don't need to be 1 to 1 copies of their most current iteration. This is true when we first make them, and also if they've changed in their original game after we've added them to our roster.

We also recognize that what may work in one game genre may not work in another. While a fantasy and a kit reminiscent of their inspiration are very important, fun gameplay is always first on the list. Sometimes that means we need to diverge slightly from the existing source material. This is true at a Hero's creation, and also with their continued existence in the Nexus.

That being said, we do follow everything that's happening to our Heroes in their original games, and if we see something that's really cool we use it as inspiration for new Talents, changes to Abilities, or sometimes complete reworks if the Hero needs it.

Appreciate the kind words!

Purely statistically, Rexxar is the strongest Hero in the last month. He's about 3% higher than most others, putting him in a tier of his own at 57.9%. He's played less often, but it's still a significant amount of games. We've always seen him high on the list, which is partially due to him being a niche Hero that's often picked on favorable Battlegrounds. However, when looking at overall Hero win rate information we typically filter out anyone that's below roster level 10 in a Hero to remove learning curve from the equation (so the "only experts play Rexxar" has less impact here, though still somewhat applies).

The pack is pretty close after that to be honest, there's a very gradual curve of winrates after Rexxar right now.

On the bottom end, Genji is the lowest winrate Hero at 43.8%. He's still a strong pick in the right situation, but we've found that when he's too strong he pushes out too many other Heroes and limits the metagame. And to be fair, I don't think many people are upset when a Genji is on their team due to his power level. My personal opinion is that a large part of his lower winrate is because doesn't fulfill a lot of the checkboxes that make poorly drafted team comps work in unorganzied play: wave clear, sustained damage, global presence, CC, or self-sustain.

I don't know that I have a personal sleeper OP Hero, but I do know that some of our less standard Heroes get a bad rap. Murky and Probius for example are actually doing fine in terms of their winrates, but teams often tilt when allies select them due to not understanding how (or sometimes wanting) to play alongside them. Sometimes they're wacky and do weird things, but that doesn't mean it isn't effective or viable. We're still happy to have them as niche picks since playing every game with a wacky Hero gets old pretty quick though.

Fun fact: Diablo and Garrosh are in the bottom 7 in terms of winrate, even though they're some of the highest banned Heroes. At Platinum and above, Diablo is the second most banned (41% of the time), and Garrosh is the 5th most banned (22% of the time).

Bonus fun fact: Kael'thas has one of the wildest divergences of ban rates depending on league. He's at an astronomical 55% ban rate in Gold and below, drops to 31% in Platinum and Diamond, and is only banned 3% of the time in Master. The fear of not spreading out from living bomb is real at lower levels of play, even though his winrate is only slightly different (53% in Gold and below, 51% in Platinum and above).

Yes, I'll do that right now! It's been on the list.

We're always looking. These are fun ideas! However, need to see a demonstration from the community that a single skin is wanted. 146 concepts is nice but that doesn't narrow anything down to a single community favorite. Please rally behind a concept so that we have a better gauge of what the community likes.

Dragon robots are always awesome.

We made the pink bike a long time ago and are saving it for a future release. As for the gold one we'll have to make that variation but it's doable. Thanks for the suggestions!

I really would love to do this and have been pushing for it for a while There's no concrete plans but it is on our minds.

Thanks for the question Dibface!

A lot goes in to planning out skin and theme packs. Primarily it comes down to what we think the players will be excited about, what are team is passionate to work on, and the complexity around the Hero. That last one is important. Some Heroes are more complicated than others. A good example of hero complexity is Ragnaros.

Sometimes an idea for an FX drives a skin. As far as Mecha Valla. I love that skin. The drunken missile concept sealed the deal for our Art Director Trev and I agree. It's super cool! Check out this cool concept. https://imgur.com/a/ZyIBhwC

As far as Stitches goes. He such a fun Hero but we kept getting feedback that he had a ton of gross skins. We wanted to give him one more approachable like Toy Stitches. The low skin count on some of our favorite heroes is something we want to fix and the team is hard at work creating some amazing skins that we hope you will enjoy.

You like it.

Anything is possible in the Nexus! We've taken a little bit of a break from doing those skins because we wanted to try something different for the last couple of years. This isn't to say we couldn't do more in the future but we have a lot of awesome ideas for the summer event and it's hard to cram all of those ideas into a single event. Thanks for the question!

We've had discussions about this in the past. There's no plans for it currently but a toggle for those and Murky sound awesome!

Ditto except for the moon. There's no air there. It's the same reason I don't go scuba diving either. Go where there's air.

We use 3Ds Max as well as Maya. For High poly models we use mostly Zbrush. I prefer using Modo for low poly polygon and hard surface modeling and UVs. Getting comfortable with the big two (3DsMax and Maya) is a good place to be. Mainly you're looking for a program that makes the most sense to you. Focus on creating a good result.

Once you do that the concepts that you use modeling will transfer between software later. Every studio is going to have proprietary tools as well which you won't be able to prepare for but that's expected. These programs are just tools. Learn keyboard shortcuts to speed up workflow. A lot of tools have similar shortcuts in multiple programs. If they don't you can change them to something that makes sense to you. I like to keep my most used hotkeys closer to my left hand as my right hand is usually on my Cintiq.

What we look for in a candidate is someone who can produce a good result as well as someone who meshes well with the team. Interfacing with people is important and if you're hard to work with you're probably not going to get the job. Hope this helps!

Yes.

The experience was awesome! It's always nice to see people react to something that they feel they had a part in. We enjoy engaging with you guys especially at a creative level. We have been open to doing another "Janitor Leoric" in the past and that hasn't changed. There are a lot of awesome concepts that I see our community put out. Please rally behind the ones you like. If there's a large backing behind a specific skin it will make it easier for us to make the decision to make that community driven skin.

It's unlikely that we will do an overhaul of the art for Sky Temple because we're happy with the way the art looks. However, we are experimenting on changing the lighting for the map so that FX will show up better. Initial testing has been well received but there's still some work to be done. There's no guarantee that it will make it to live but we are looking for solutions.

I have always had an interest in video games. When I was growing up there was little information on how to get into making them. So mostly I worked on my 2D skills. I got into making 3D art and animation in college. After I graduated my connections at the college got me introduced to a local game company making military simulations. Luckily they gave me a shot.

I didn't experience fear getting into the industry. Most people are super friendly. They're all nerds who probably like the same things you like. Generally it's very welcoming. The hard part is leveling up your skills so that you can be among these fantastic people. There is a percentage of available jobs for the amount of people Art Colleges are pumping out. So the biggest take away there is to be critical of yourself and don't live in the "Mom says I'm really good at art" bubble. Of course she says you're awesome she's your mom. Use forums like Polycount or Artstation to get feedback and level up and of course talking to industry professionals is always a good way to move up. Be objective. As Samwise Didier always says. "Remember your ABCs. Always be Creating."