It has been a little over a month since the release of Heroes 2.0 and the release of our latest map, Hanamura. During this time, Hanamura has been the most widely disliked and frustrating map among the player base. Here is a guide to some of the ways to give your team the advantage on this map for when you encounter it in your future games.

Map Overview

Hanamura has a unique map objective where each team has payloads that spawn and must be escorted to designated area to fire a shot at the enemy's core. Cores begin at 7 health and can only be destroyed by delivering payloads. Upon destroying a fort or keep, your next payload will fire an additional shot at the core. This can be stacked with multiple fort or keep takedowns prior to delivering the payload. Additionally, when a keep has been destroyed, sappers will spawn every other minion wave in that lane. If a sapper reaches the enemies core wall, the sapper will deliver a shot onto the core. Lastly, the boss in the center of the map can be defeated and once capped will fire a shot to the enemy core.

Additionally, there are three types of camps on the map. Upon defeating camps, rewards can be obtained. From the Recon Camp, you can obtain Dragon Spirits. Upon using Dragon Spirits, three dragon spirits seek out enemy heroes and revealing them for 5 seconds. From the Fortification Camp, you can obtain a Turret which can be placed on the ground or on our team's payload. From the Support Camp, you can obtain a Healing Pulse to be used. Upon using the Healing Pulse, you and allied heroes in an area around you restore 35% health and 23% mana over time.

5-Man Push

5-Man Push strategies allow you to get the early lead by overwhelming one lane. This allows the early pressure on a lane to begin sieging down the towers, gate, and ultimately the fort. By capitalizing on early structures and obtaining an early level lead, the opposing team has difficulty applying pressure to your team to retreat from the siege.

The goal of this strategy is to obtain the early fort so the first objective is in your favor, having two shots to the core instead of one. Additionally, further pressing the advantage with the 5-Man Push can help secure a keep which will begin having sappers spawn in that lane which will fire on the core if not defended. Later in game, it gives a choice for the opposing team to either stop the advancement of a payload or defend the sappers.

There are some heroes that provide the pressure needed in this strategy:

One of the top heroes to draft is Sylvanas for her ability to shut down the structures and allow your team to apply pressure freely. Additionally, the Haunting Wave allows for an easy retreat.

Azmodan has the ability to siege structures fast with a team utilizing All Shall Burn. Additionally, the higher health pool is good for when the opposing team rotates to defend the siege.

Zagara can utilize her summons to apply pressure to structures and heroes defending the lane. Additionally, the increased movement speed on creep allows for easier retreat after destroying the structures.

In my experience, comps with a sieging specialist (prioritizing Sylvanas), one to two frontliners (for example Varian and Johanna), a ranged DPS or mage (Falstad, Kaelthas, Guldan, etc.), and a Support (Uther, Rehgar, Brightwing) are successful. This strategy can be adjusted as your team sees fit but the objective remains the same: to obtain the early lead and then snowball from there to win the map.

1-4 Split

A 1-4 Split is splitting your team to play with a solo lane hero while the other four apply pressure to the other lane. The strategy is one of the more popular strategies that applies the same concepts as a 5-Man Push to get the early advantage. The solo lane hero can ideally win the 1v1 in the lane and be able to secure the objective shots on core.

Meta heroes for the solo lane:

Sonya is a strong solo laner with self sustain utilizing Whirlwind in the minion waves and has closing potential with the Ancient Spear.

Thrall with the recent rework is very strong in the solo lane with self sustain from Frostwolf Resilience and ability to clear lanes quickly with Chain Lightning and Windfury.

Leoric is another strong solo laner with self sustain with Drain Hope. Additionally, Wraith Walk as an escape or engage tool and Undying allows you to respawn faster after death.

Unique heroes for the solo lane:

The Lost Vikings can be good on this map holding a lane on their own. Additionally, the Vikings have the ability to Bribe camps while soaking and quickly push their payloads with counting as three heroes on the payload. This provides additional XP contribution and a skilled player can dominate the 1v1.

Rexxar, like the Lost Vikings, can utilize himself and Misha to quickly complete an objective as they count as two heroes on the payload. Additionally, Rexxar and Misha are good in most matchups in the 1v1.

Falstad and Dehaka can be considered for either lane in the strategy. With global presence, either can easily join a fight in the opposing lane turning the fight in your favor. Additionally, both heroes are good at contesting a solo lane.

Sub Strategies: Bribe/Global Presence

Bribe is a very good talent on this map, as camps on this map range between needing only one stack of Bribe for the Support Camp up to three stacks of Bribe for the Recon Camp. Capturing these camps will help secure your team extra XP to push the advantage and obtain the camp’s reward which can then be used as necessary.

Global presence can also be utilized well on this map by allowing a team to split push or quickly move to start the objectives. Additionally, the global presence can either split the other team or allow your team the advantage in team fights or soaking XP.

These are the strategies that I have used or have seen give your team the advantage on this map. Hopefully with the right execution, you too can press the advantage on this map.

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