Heroes of the Storm receives a new loot system with Update 2.0 that gives you much more rewards. But with a few tricks, you can significantly increase your yield. We show you the basics and nuances of the new loot box system of Heroes of the Storm.
With Heroes of the Storm 2.0, Blizzard’s MOBA aligns its rewards more closely with its own hero shooter Overwatch. There is more loot and more stuff to earn without spending a single cent. Even casual players will be rewarded handsomely. However, if you want to maximize your loot, be sure to check out our tips and tricks for leveling and looting.
HotS 2.0 – The Basics of the New Loot System
The core of Heroes of the Storm 2.0 is loot boxes. You receive these with every level-up, but occasionally you will get special versions. Here are the basics of the new system:
- Boxes can contain common (sprays and emojis), rare (regular skins and mounts), epic (new heroes, special skins and mounts, announcer packs) and legendary items (latest heroes as well as particularly cool skins and mounts).
- Every regular box can contain items of all rarity levels – as long as it is not a rare or epic box. There is no guarantee for a specific rarity. In return, rare and epic boxes have at least one item of the specified rarity.
- Every 18th box guaranteed contains a legendary item unless one has already been drawn before.
- You can re-roll the items in the boxes for gold up to three times. This is especially useful with rare and epic chests, as you are still entitled to at least one item of the specified rarity.
- Duplicate items turn into shards. There are 5, 20, 100, and 400 shards for common, rare, epic, and legendary duplicates.
- With shards, you can specifically transform into a desired rare, epic, or legendary item for 100, 400, or 1,600.
- Instead of spending real money directly, you now purchase gems for real money. With gems, you primarily buy heroes, boxes, and stim packs.
- You can only buy selected items, which change regularly, for gems. Everything else must be crafted with shards or drawn from boxes.
Heroes of the Storm 2.0 – What are Boxes Worth?
Boxes can also be purchased for the new real money currency “gems.” A box costs 100 gems, which are worth 0.95 Euro. However, you make a significantly better deal when you buy gems in bulk, as you will receive bonus gems then.
HotS 2.0 – Purchasing Skins Becomes Complicated
Basically, the new loot system is a fine thing. You can draw any item in the game for free from a box. But as there are so many items, it can take a long time until you get the item you want. On the one hand, each individual color version of a skin is now its own item that must be drawn separately. On the other hand, you can only purchase a handful of items directly for jewels (330 to 500 jewels per item).
The selection changes regularly, but it can take some time until your dream item is among them. Alternatively, you can build an item of your choice from shards at any time, but to get a cool legendary skin, you need 1,600 shards.
To receive as many duplicates as possible, you would need to purchase approximately 2,000 jewels (16.58 Euro) worth of boxes. In the past, individual legendary skins cost around 15 Euro and you received all three color variants at once.
So, if you only want a specific skin, the new system is clearly more expensive.
Heroes of the Storm 2.0 – More Loot Through Stimpacks?
Every character level gives you a loot box. You get boxes most easily through new heroes, as they require only 250,000 XP for Level 2, 400,000 for Level 3 and additionally 100,000 more than the previous level for each subsequent level.
This ends at Level 12 with 1.2 million XP for each level thereafter.
Every game lasting between 15 and 20 minutes roughly earns 75,000 XP, with additional bonuses for winning, good combat performance, and playing with friends and teams. However, if you use a stim pack, your base gain doubles and you earn about 75,000 extra XP per win.
Stimpacks – Optimal for Hardcore Players!
With this, you can level up very quickly and scoop up many additional boxes. However, stimpacks cost jewels, which can only be obtained for real money. Stimpack prices range from 400 jewels for 7 days to 1,000 jewels for 30 days to 9,000 jewels for a whole year.
However, keep in mind that for 72 Euros (based on the best exchange rate), you could also have received 90 boxes. You need to play often enough in the booked year to earn more than 90 additional boxes through level-ups for the stimpack to be worthwhile. This is not a problem for hardcore gamers, but casual players should think twice about it.
But don’t worry, you will still get enough boxes if you just keep leveling your favorite heroes and play a new character occasionally. New heroes are released every three weeks anyway!
So, you won’t run out of loot any time soon, and you will have more of it if you acquire new heroes for gold or gems.
HotS 2.0 – In Summary More Random Loot
Overall, the new loot system is optimal for frequent players and people who simply want to have everything. However, those who only play occasionally and prefer to sporadically buy a specific skin or mount may be disappointed. They now only get their desired item through luck.
What do you think? Do you miss the old HotS, where you could buy everything with money, or do you prefer the random principle and the many rewards from HotS 2.0? Let us know in the comments!
Also interesting: Heroes of the Storm 2.0 – A Better Game Through Loot?
