“By now, I imagine most of you have completed your 10 Hero Challenge but for those of us who are still attempting to complete it it is an interesting experience in perseverance, experimentation and temptation.
It sounds simple. You get ten random heroes and you just have to win a game with each of them. But it’s not quite as simple as that because almost nothing is simple in DotA. With hero selection being one of the most important factors in determining whether you will win the game or not, the additional factor of a group of ten heroes having an unwarranted (performance or composition wise) edge in being picked can throw a real wrench into things.
I was fortunate enough to get a slate of relatively competitive heroes and am also able to play pretty much all of the heroes (Invoker remains a weakness of mine) so those factors weren’t too significant in my quest to get a tasty 300 points for my Compendium. However, I still had to contend with the fact that I would be biased towards these heroes when playing games and might end up losing because of a sub-optimal choice made in the hopes that my team would pull through and win despite me not picking a better hero for the situation.
In fact, you can see in my match history (and above) that I lost a ranked game as Drow Ranger. Now, I picked Drow Ranger because I wanted to get my challenge done but in the back of my mind I knew that she was not the best hero for that match up and my team ended up suffering as a result. Was it worth it to get a stab at getting that hero checked off? In the short term, it seems like a decent decision as pretty much hero can fit into a team’s lineup. But in the long term, you can see that your normally sharp decision making is dulled by these additional, irrelevant (to winning the game) factors. I eventually gave it another shot in unranked and pulled through but it definitely made me realize that some things are more important than compendium points (at least for me, my MMR is quite valuable).
Despite my difficulties and personal dilemmas, this experience has been quite enjoyable and I am looking forward to the daily hero challenge stretch goal. But, at the same time, I am afraid for what that daily challenge will bring. Just imagine, if my friends and I have been picking sub-optimally due to a list of ten heroes that they are trying to play and win games with (with it getting steadily more difficult to pick intelligently as the number available dwindles) then I can only shiver in horror at the incoming nightmare that will be five players stubbornly trying to win with the same hero they picked in the last few games (regardless of the composition).
Of course, things may not be as chaotic as they seem to be turning out to be and there could also be the potential that the other team will also have silly picks due to Daily Hero Challenge influences. Regardless, based on my experience with the Ten Hero Challenge, I await the coming of the Daily Hero Challenge with a mix of excitement and dread. I wonder if Valve has considered the potential impact it will have. Only time will tell…
That’s all for now. Have a pezant day!
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BONUS! Having trouble keeping track of which heroes you’ve completed? Use Paint and just pull up your snapshot before you start playing for easy tracking and experience the joy of crossing those bad boys off yourself!
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