Stitches Strategy Guide – Heroes of the Storm

In other games like Heroes of Newerth or Defense of the Ancients the incarnation of this abomination is a one trick pony. You hook, you rot, you devour, and you get a kill. The Heroes of the Storm version, in comparison, is pretty versatile, but if your looking for the classic ganker experience you find in other MOBAs your in for a surprise. I have to admit I was disappointed with the changes made to Stitches for HotS, but having gotten a chance to play a few games with him I now understand that the changes have made the hero much more team friendly. Pudge and Devourer were great early- and mid-game heroes, but unless you had a stellar start they didn’t played well late game. While in HotS, Stitches’ slow and damage overtime abilities scale well in late game.

Now lets talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly about this hook ability.

The good: You can actually hook through your allies! No longer will you drag a friendly back to your location. The hook goes right through creeps and other players. I really cannot emphasis enough how much of an improvement this is. I have raged many a night because an ally wasn’t paying attention to my position and unknowingly blocked a hook, but that simply isn’t the case in HotS.

The bad: Hooking doesn’t seem to do the same damage it does in other MOBAs; the only real benefit of the skill is to get people in a strategic position so you can use your other close range abilities like Slam or Putrid Bile.

The ugly: HotS doesn’t allow for players to be hooked through buildings or walls. This isn’t an insurmountable problem. With some knowledge of the map you can still position yourself to land a hook, but if, like me, you like to hook people up onto a cliff or hook them into a position where they are boxed in, it isn’t going to happen. Watch the terrain!

Now lets talk about game progression.

Early Game:

Heavy Slam is a great pick for your level one talent. Slam has a short cool down and the other talents allow your to dump a lot of power into this ability. Slam is the real bread and butter ability for Stitches. At level four, I would go with Putrid Ground. This allows you to apply the vile gas damage over time ability to players with your Slam ability. Typically you would have to wait for an enemy to hit you for your emit the Vile Gas. Getting this talent lets you keep your dot up right from the beginning of the fight. Tenderizer is a good pick for seven. This hero allows you to stack slow, and since I’m going to recommend Putrid Bile for your 10th-level talent you’re going to want people moving as slowly as possible so you can keep them in the damage-over-time area for as long as possible. I think its important to note that a lot of new players go with Gorge for the 10th-level talent, which allows you to consume an enemy hero and carry it around with you. This might be great if you’re trying to gank someone by yourself like in other MOBAs, but HotS really focuses on team fights and capturing objectives. So while you might think you’re using this abomination to gank like in other MOBAs that simply isn’t the case.

Mid Game:

For your 13th-level talent I would go with Mega Smash. This keeps with the pattern of buffing your Slam ability. This is going to increase the range and the arc of the slam ability by 25 percent. With the other debuffs placed on this ability its going to be a great choice for a talent.

Late Game:

Pulverize is going to complement your other talent choices by landing a 75 percent slow on enemies for one second. This is great to use in a team fight because its going to add to the confusion and make it difficult for enemy heroes to chase allies and get last hits. Regenerative Bile is going to be a good pick for level 20. This will allow you to use your Putrid Bile ability for longer and also increases your movement speed. This is a great hero to use to give chase to fleeing enemies, so anything that increases movement speed is going to be a great choice here.