I tried to organize this a bit better...

Post 1

So seeing as this game entered open beta and is about to officially release I've seen a lot of questions about hero tiers and lane meta, so I'm writing this guide as an answer to those questions. I REALLY hope someone gets some use out of this guide, because the editor froze as I hit submit last time, so this is my second attempt.

There is no defined meta, this game is still in beta so try new things. There is no "best" way to lane, and there are no hero tiers IMO. The game is new, there's still a lot of balancing being done, and we haven't had enough time to experiment with every build and situation yet. If we've learned anything from Smash bros hero tier lists, it's that even without any re-balancing happening, finding a new technique with a character can bring them from the bottom of the tier list to the top. With that said there are a few things to keep in mind, and I'll try to answer some of the common questions I've seen these past few days.

What is the best team composition? This is about as close to a defined meta as you're going to get. Generally it's nice to have a tank to soak damage, two damage dealers, a specialist, and a healer. However, you shouldn't limit yourself to this.

I've played games where we put two specialists in a lane to push hard, and it won the game. I've played games with 2-3 healers, and with that insane sustain we won the match. I've also lost games to "inferior" teamcomps, so it's really just how you play the game. It is also important to note that just because a hero is a "warrior" doesn't mean that they're a tank (sonya may not build for sustain for example), and support doesn't necessarily mean "healer", etc etc. You can build a hero in several different ways depending on what talents you pick as well. When I'm in a hero league draft I look for several things.

First, how many squishy assassin types do they have? If the enemies are going with illidan, zera or others, try to have a team composition with a lot of CC (crowd control moves such as stuns and roots), because if illidan can't move he's an easy kill. (likewise don't pick illidan if the enemy has a ton of CC) If you're going to play support and your team has almost no CC, try going for someone like uther who has several stuns at his disposal. Then pick talents that increase your CC capabilities.

Does your team have enough healing/sustain? If your team has malfurion or tassador as their support, they're probably not going to be able to reliably keep your whole team healed in most situations. You might want to consider taking someone like tyrande who can act as a supplemental healer while also outputting some damage to fill out both roles.

Does your team have enough ranged dps? If you have several squishy melee characters, and your enemy is rocking kael, jaina, and valla, they're going to be able to poke you down to low health before the teamfight even starts. Make sure that you have someone to poke back with, and some heavy CC for an engage wouldn't hurt either. tldr: You're going to want to have some CC, some heals, ranged DPS, and someone to soak damage. Adjust the levels of each based on your opponent's picks.

What character in Hots is exactly like X hero in League/DotA? While there are obviously similarities between heroes, such as gazlowe having turrets similar to heimerdinger, I don't think that's a good way to go about choosing a hero. In league you have to choose a toplaner with sustain, or a midlaner with burst, etc. There isn't a laning meta in HotS and there's barely even a "laning phase". The game is played so differently that you can't really rely on finding your favorite LoL hero in HotS.

For instance, Gazlowe can be GREAT at getting merc camps and even soloing bosses, but I've never really seen a heimerdinger jungle before. OMG WHAT LANE DO I GO TO? So like I said, laning in HotS isn't as rigid as other mobas. There are certain strategies that people seem to follow though. Sky Temple: 2 top, 2 mid, 1 bottom. This is because the first temples to activate are top and mid, so you want a strong presence there already. However, if you have a falstand and a brightwing, you could have several people pushing bottom (presumably against the enemy's one bottom laner) to push really hard, and when the temples activate they can just teleport up!

Haunted Mines: Several people like to have 4 push the lane with the golem, and 1 just defend the other lane and soak exp. This is in the hopes that you can take out that first row of towers before the mines open, level up, and get your second round of talents before the mines open. This will give you an advantage in the mines, which is basically a teamfight arena. You could also take advantage of the fact that most people go for these strategies and try and find a good way to counter it. Be flexible, because you never know when someone will have a counter for your "meta" strategy.

Generally though, especially on maps like Tomb of the Spider Queen or Garden of Terror where the objectives are balanced evenly, this is what you should be thinking about when choosing a lane:

Does your lane have damage in it? Is there a decent amount of sustain/CC in your lane? You're not going to want to be in a lane with no damage. Say that you're playing diablo. You have abilities that let you put enemies in really bad places, that's your specialty. The problem is that you don't necesarrily have very much damage. You can throw that lili over your shoulder over and over trying to get her out of position, but she's just going to run past you and heal by the time you can do it again.

Now, if you have someone like valla or jaina laning with you, once you pull lili out of position your assassin can hit them HARD while you just body-block lili's path back to safety. As for the sustain/cc, say you're a melee assassin like illidan. You have to get right up in an enemies face to do damage, and you don't have much health or sustain - especially early on. It's easy to get zoned from experience if you're laning against a ranged assassin.

The way to counter this is to have a healer behind you. You can dive in, do damage, dive out, get healed and repeat. If you need someone to solo a lane, a specialist is often a good choice. Warriors that don't fit the tank role (anub with beetle build, sonya) are also good for this because they can have a good balance of sustain and damage. I like to have a warrior solo mid-lane on dragon shire for this reason. tldr: make sure you have survivability in lane, as well as methods to either kill enemies or destroy towers.

What's the best build for X Hero? This is probably the hardest topic to address. While in some cases you can find really strong builds that work for a hero most of the time, it won't be perfect ALL of the time. I'm not saying you shouldn't ever look for cookiecutter builds on heroesfire or anything; guides can be a great way to get an intro to a hero. It's just important to take into account your team composition, your enemy's team composition, and the map you're playing on when choosing talents.

Say that you're in a quickmatch and you have illidan, nova, diablo, jaina on your team. You're playing tyrande, and you looked up a dps build that's great at killing single heroes. Sure that may have worked well for you in the past, but you already have three strong hero killers on your team. You just have to realize that you have enough dps on the team already, and that the game will go better if you focus on upgrading healing instead of damage.

Now imagine that you're playing an assassin like zeratul. Normally, you love going with seasoned marksman because for every six minion kills you get a PERMANENT damage increase. By late game you're a beast with unstoppable auto attack damage, and when the game hits that 25 minute mark you're an unkillable gank-god. Well, this game you're playing on haunted mines. Due to the nature of the map, you're going to spend very little time laning and the games are generally very short. You're not going to have many opportunities to gain that damage bonus, so it might not be the best build for that map. Maybe try an ability focused build instead of an auto-attack build.

This rings true in games like League of Legends as well. You may love building your tank with a TON of armor and thornmail, but what if all the damage dealers on the enemy team build AP? Good players know how to adapt to each game.

Tldr: build for situations, there is never going to be an objectively "best build"