"Don't Focus the Tank"

[@TheLemonMan153]

when you'r playing Tychus and they tell you "don't focus tank"

[@whyareyoureadingthis1947]

That happened to me before but if someone said that to me i'll be tilted LOL.

[@sandroguzelj1234]

even better when you are malthael lol

[@furioni333]

It happens to me so many times. It's like they have no idea what tychus does. Godamn.

[@BingBangPoe]

I've seen that before.

[@Voldrim359]

Something interesting happended to me in a game (HL), i am with Tychus and i couldn't hit the tank because he enter and exit very quickly so the Stukov could do his job, because of that i said, fuck it, i can't hit the tank then i will hit the support, he was static and open for it, i think i kill it because the tank wasn't doing the pill correctly

[@gogmat2004]

**Focus Abathur**

[@peter20arthas]

Abcus Foathur

[@TheHidalgo99]

I omegaluled

[@MCPANDA44]

With a medivh you could

[@kagura7107]

Back before the reworks you could, with "stealth" heroes. :)

[@GoldanSaint]

its funny when hanzos pick their Q quests when theres an abathur on the enemy team. So they can't progress the quest at all XD

[@malohn2068]

"Don't attack tank wtf" oh im sorry. Let me just walk past this malganis ignoring him. Because my basic attacks are reserved for the whitemane behind the tassadar spamming walls and that sgt hammer I'm sorry. Let me just walk over there without touching the tank.

[@sleep3417]

I mean,why would you focus the tank if tassadar, malganis and whitemane are between you and her?

[@corbinium]

@@sleep3417 rofl

[@kly8105]

Yeah but one thing is focusing a tank that is being a threat and another is focusing a self sustaining Malganis when you have a Ragnaros right next to you that is much more squishy and tasty. You think a Malganis will cry and run away just because you unloaded all your basic abilities on it? Better scare of the hero that is actually going to murder you rather than the one slowly peeling at you. Then again this is mostly a problem because tanks don't think its a tank's job to keep their team safe and stave off the enemy tank.

[@rancidraw]

"guys guys wtf u doin ignore that mal'ganis on our backline go kill their healer wtf noob team"

[@chalk2307]

Mal Ganis bodybuilder

[@Mjolonar]

"Dude just walk past Diablo and Raynor they're not gonna hit you or anything just kill the support."

[@Saphire_Throated_Carpenter_Ant]

"Go after Deckard stop targeting Mal'Ganzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzz zz z" "Did we win?"

[@thomasbuckney9128]

This has happened to me so many times............

[@mauboy1983]

Targeting Malganis is indeed stupid... but okay

[@shoogles_]

I think in lower ranks a lot of people don't appreciate the speed difference between certain heroes. I can't tell you the number of times I've had a hyper-mobile hero dive five bodies deep into the enemy team then wonder why the backline mages aren't following up.

[@thanhnguyentri7836]

For long range mages like Kael and Gul'dan it's fairly easy. I still get your point anyway.

[@fuzzypockets]

I'm experiencing tanks that are diving that far. What do you do? Try follow them, get slaughtered? Or stay back, try to stay alive and get another kill somewhere while your tank is getting killed in their backline?

[@ScorchedEclipse]

just had a friendly malthael dive 1v4 the whole game and wonder why the enemy Chen was a problem for us. mind you our two other damage dealers were both mages, it's as if the guy doesn't understand that's how Chen works... plus I think the guy drafted malth instead of another cc hero vs the early Chen pick :/

[@kly8105]

Or people without speed buffs or cc who try to chase down a Lili when she is gone.

[@darrinharvey3384]

So totally true ... I mean ... if you can take out the tank it forces everyone to move back and you win the objective unless they want to die as well ... so if there is a tank who is down to 10-20% you can take them out by focusing on the tank ... even if you don’t take them out if you force them to back out the rest of the them will scatter like flies

[@Scarletraven87]

"Don't focus the tank" are at the top of idiocy rankings along with "never soak, always fight"

[@cptr3db34rd3]

Thank you. To be honest this video should be on the front page once you open Hots. Far too often people keep telling no-stop focus the healer/don't focus the tank and I get where they're coming from but sometimes it can also be pretty frustrating. It's good to know that now, at least, some of those people may realize "focus the healer" isn't always the best strategy. Good work as always ^^

[@Taliheim]

There's also the more complex and dynamic concepts of hero importance, ease of kill confirmation, and post-kill positioning. Sometimes taking down the warrior is more important than taking down their healer, sometimes the opposing warrior wants to take sustained medium damage like malganis, sometimes you can safely confirm a kill but doing so puts your team in a situation where you're at a disadvantage even in the now 5v4. It's not always as easy as simply attacking the safest target, although that is what's usually the best idea.

[@Onshki]

I find that kill priority is more important on dive and ambush teams. For example, Nova. Nova COULD attack the tank, but tanks have enough health to survive and usually a defensive cooldown as well. It's usually better in her case to wait for a chance to secure a backline kill, or burst an enemy attacker to make them back off.

[@Sylfa]

​@@Onshki "It's usually better in her case to wait for a chance to secure a backline kill" Within reason yes, the problem is lots of stealth players just wait and wait and wait. Even when you know (by being on voice for instance) that they aren't AFK. If your out of position your stealth won't help you when you open fire, so your better off getting to a position where you can do something, sometimes that is to do a quick burst on a backline. But often it's to move to a safe position and open up full burst on the tank, preferably just as the tank decides to back off, possibly securing the kill with the team.

[@warxdrum]

if you're playing a stealther that reduces armor you should use opportunities to lower the tanks health not just kill them, but to get rid of them strategically for the rest of your team. I think in HGC etc gets killed most often if he's on a team. makes sense strategically and he doesn't have much health.

[@WhiteTigerShiro]

"Ranged damage dealers will attack whoever is safest to attack." THIS! So much this. "Stop attacking the tank"? Well then give me something other than the tank to attack, maybe.

[@christopherdemo9884]

I think most people say this when the back line is exposed and the focus remains on the tank after the initial engagement. That's what don't focus the tank means. Only person you can attack is the tank at the begging of fights of course everyone attacks the tank, but WHEN the option to switch targets happens and the tank is low HP people don't need to stay focused on the tank once the enemy DPS is no longer in a good position.

[@vorea]

Focus whoever is safe to engage on, but focus the same target. No healer can sustain a 4 or 5 man collapsing on one target without peels without blowing heroics.

[@Sylfa]

He did mention that in the video, when you can safely engage multiple targets, follow the teams damage.

[@SwordWieldingDuck]

Stukov and Lucio can as well.

[@ArjanL1979]

@@SwordWieldingDuck Lucio with the bro shield, but Stukov how? Kharazim, Uther and Rehgar can too and ofcourse

[@wisdommanari6701]

ThANK YOU

[@RopeDrink]

As a (mostly) support player, there is nothing more annoying than having tanks who spend most of the early game intentionally eating constant damage that was entirely avoidable. Unless you are an infinite-resource healer, said tanks will either a) force your healer to expend everything on them (mana, resources, cooldowns) for little to no gain or b) die, or be forced to tap the well. Then you have the tanks who act as if diving 100% on the backline is the best move, leaving the enemy to dive YOUR backline and thus chaos ensues. This is infinitely worse if your only peel/frontline is screaming "Why aren't you hitting [insert backline target here]?" - well bro, it's probably because you decided to do that and leave your own backline exposed. I'm currently in Diamond 1-2 in both Leagues and the No.1 reason I see for lost team-fights is because a lot of tank players dive away from their own team and then wonder why their support hasn't walked through 4x enemy heroes to heal their sorry ass. Honestly - if you see a tank over-extending to play the 'look at me, I'm an annoying meatwall' card - pump every ounce of free damage you can into them. Even healers like Auriel/Morales don't have infinite resources despite lack of mana. A well timed counter-attack in such situations can cause serious panic.

[@MisterNightfish]

"Look how much damage I've soaked and you're still losing the game?!?" is my favorite quote from my least favorite tank player. Yea, no shit. Extra points for not including yourself in the group of people currently losing the game, champ. Almost universally, the first person to bitch will be the one most responsible for the loss (and least aware of that fact).

[@csatornabazmeg]

As a support main, I totally agree with u

[@joncooper1145]

Exactly. Uther main here, and the other night i had a varian and butcher constantly diving in and getting melted early game FOR NO REASON at all. I told them to dial it back bc im not a high output healer and they should choose fights more wisely. Well, they were deeply offended by what i said and asked me "what do you do, if youre not going to heal?" ugh it was super frustrating

[@tiraraymond6629]

Thank you! I'm still low level and hear this all the time. Trying to explain that its not always the best move just gets them more angry.

[@recless8667]

Tira Raymond just talking is going to make them more angry. People tend to blame anyone else but themselves for the reason they suck and are still in low levels, which means they'll never get better. Logic and self improvement is the opposite of blaming everyone but yourself, so they don't want to hear it.

[@GruppeSechs]

@@recless8667 Two year old comment, but in my head everyone in this game is holding down the TAB key at the end of a losing game, contemplating who the easiest target to blame is without backlash. Cowards of the Storm. Like, yeah, if someone is a DPS with 10k damage in a 20 minute game, flame them. But man, people will find the tiniest discrepancy to finger-point. YOU PICKED THE WRONG 20 TALENT AND HAVE 3K LESS DAMAGE THAN ME YOU LITERALLY THREW THE GAME. 9 times out of 10, they've already rage-reported you for "Abusive Chat" before you even respond.

[@spythe]

Probably one of the most annoying thing in the lower rank Especially when a "weak" tanks are a mile away from there team and your team is essentially ignoring him/her

[@recless8667]

"This Zarya is out of position" *Crickets*

[@advertslaxxor]

"nova go flank them"

[@podaniteodor2256]

And you didn't and lost did you ? Nova has an easier time going in the back line than other divers because she is ranged and can escape easily. And don't tell be"but the video ?"; if you can kill a tank then do it but that tank can pop a defense, get healed while the enemy is hammering you squishes.

[@TerryFT86]

It really depends on lv too, nova can certainly pull it off if you have good map awareness, but nova need to know when her power spike comes in more then most heroes.

[@rodolfogarza8947]

No Podani. You walked around to flank and they spotted you and dove on you and you died. And they say Nova is Trash cuz of you.

[@Onshki]

@@podaniteodor2256 It's a waste of time to flank an opponent when you can't secure a kill or decisive advantage. Most of the time people don't think about that. They think Nova should just be relentlessly poking the back line and kills will magically happen.

[@advertslaxxor]

​@@rodolfogarza8947 I bet he got away because "[nova] can escape easily" and "she is ranged". Even though she has no escape, only jukes, and a minor movement boost when stealthed.

[@rajahava]

What people often mean by "dont focus the tank" is that others tend to go for low hp bar warrior instead of a squishy that is right near them, while it is clear they will not be able to kill that warrior and/or the warrior value added to team fight is much less in the certain moment than an assasin/healer who is positoned aggressively and is not pressured at all. The reason that expression does not show in higher ranks is because often people in higher ranks know how to make split second decisions and change targets during team fights once the opportunity occurs. Lower ranks people just see half hp bar warrior and they think they can kill him because "he is low", while in fact he has much higher current hp than the players around him and much better ways of escape.

[@Steven_Olson]

I agree often the dps is standing right next to the tank not behind them but most still focus the "low percent health" tank with sustain.

[@TheMrRightclick]

I feel like this is exactly the problem 90% of the time.

[@BigBoss-zx7sh]

THANK YOU.That's the problem,not "dOn'T fOCuS tHe tAnK"

[@PedroHawk1]

Thanks, dude, I rarely ever watch videos to improve, but I've been watching yours recently and I feel like they've been helping me lots.

[@chronopolize_jp]

Don't focus the tank, well sometimes its not good to blow key bursts and cc when it's not likely to kill tank. And there are times where the tank has used their CC you should ignore them and put help focus down a dps. If you tunnel vision on having to attack the tank first thats like being perma taunted, even if their tank is say a stitches.

[@sherlylecty9345]

When they say that, I just ping core 5 times.

[@hawkeyefan181825]

Hi, Greymane main here. The actual issue is that people below master have no idea how to team Fight and call you are a troll if you don’t suicide for the healer. It becomes very hard to win fights when your team wants to just dive (regardless of having a dive team or not) and have no idea how a sustained team fight is supposed to play out. I have an easier time climbing with Valeera then Greymane for this very reason.

[@chalk2307]

Hi, who cares what you main.

[@kuramkarameruk]

And then Blizz gonna ban you for a week for 'afk' cause all team will report you if you don't suicide xD

[@Harbyz]

Why didnt you say Greymain. Missed oppertunity

[@confidential5743]

@@chalk2307 Hi, who cares that you don't care, no one

[@dcgregorya5434]

Yup. Had a Sgt Hammer tell me to dive their 4 man for a Junkrat kill as Greymane. I'm like uh, if you wanna z in there go for it but I'm not suiciding for a Junkrat trade while they're pushing our keep. Tfw the longest range dude on your team demands a blood sacrifice from you lol.

[@benallmon5613]

If you watch pro games, tanks are almost ALWAYS first killed lmao. And it's usually from either a great CC chain or the enemy tank dives too far and gets punished. I do laugh at people who say this and I will continue to lol.

[@randomaryuploads5315]

only that in lower ranks cc chains don't work, half of the ppl don't know their own heros abilities nor the enemies, no voice, no following pings, and so on. so the "don't focus the tank" is more like "punish the dps or healer overextending behind our own backline and don't chase the tank, that's trying to escape into their base". xD

[@Torbintime]

Because the healers are pros and never make stupid positioning mistakes and dont overextend unlike healers in ranked and qp where you can punish bad positioning

[@mariuscarausu9352]

Not saying it happens it pro games,but the best ones are the muradins who jump into a fight or the etcs who powerslide with at most another dive assassin(like a kerrigan) against someone like ktz which just punishes them instantly.Usually a kerrigan that dives into in the enemy team without much support is a dead kerrigan

[@cozee6681]

Or you can, you know, stop being a douchebag and help people to learn

[@kly8105]

Because high level play in tanks is super hard, harder than other roles, not because it should be the first target.

[@djS0nics]

Great video. I already knew about the "focusing the safest target" thing, but you opened my eyes on how to play sustain-dps-heroes. I have a terribly low winrate with them and now I know why. :D

[@BingBangPoe]

Also, if you have long range poke (i.e. Chromie, Azmodan) you can focus the backline while the rest of the team attack the safest target.

[@13markhuz37]

Thanks, as a player new to hots this really helps in playing autoattackers! Also, just wanna say your videos enlighten my day and are super fun to watch

[@wtfronsson]

This is why you can just pick Muradin and solo kill people. Often without any resistance, or just 1 or 2 people trying to fight back ineffectively.

[@LegsON]

Gosh I hate that dude.

[@rayyu5545]

If only it was that easy

[@BunnychanFarabee]

Also mainly because the pub meta is very mage focused right now. Sustained mobile DPS like Greymane and Valla are out of vogue, amd Raynor/Tychus are also not seen very much after constant nerfs. Muradin fails to get any value when you can just whittle him down and dodge his storm bolt. Same with why MalGanis feels so oppressive right now, I can force a MG out of the fight on Valla in no time flat.

[@WolfieY2k]

Thats easy with Toss, Clap, Stun, Haymaker.

[@PapaAwiz]

God bless you. This video needed to come out 2 years ago.

[@bastiano2939]

Better late than never

[@ICZiman]

Video like that comes every other month. Not like it gonna change anything. Whoever says "focus morales" not likely gonna chage theyr mind if you even put that video in theyr face. Its realy all about "you doing wrong, not me" mentality.

[@ArjanL1979]

Positioning > target. When poking the tank is mostly the best target. On a full on engage it should be a dps or healer. Quite often your tank will have a nice opener to follow up on and erase a target, tank or anything else.

[@Levyathyn]

My problem with this is mostly that, when I say, "Don't focus the tank," I'm not telling my teammates "Literally never pay attention to the tank." It's a complicated phrase that's somehow to suppose to convey to low-level or new players that situationally speaking we need to capitalize on certain out of position picks and opportunities, as well as needing to not lock onto the first target we get and tunnel vision them. Players will attack the enemy Muradin when Muradin comes in, and then when the entire enemy team dives us or catches one of us out of position, will continue to attack Muradin. When Muradin gets low, and runs away, and the teams are still fighting... they will continue to attack Muradin. When we're mostly dead, and Muradin is being healed by two people and the ADC is the only one able to do any damage... they will continue to attack Muradin. And we lose a teamfight, 0-5, and the next objective, and a Keep, and the game. Once upon a time, you could say, "Don't focus [x]", often just the meat shield in front, and players would really understand what you meant. But a lot of people who needed to be told this advice all the time picked up only the phrase, and none of its context or the other situational advice that used to get thrown around a lot. And it's circled back around to be a problem again, because now you get people who ignore tanks, and people who tunnel vision on one target forever, and people who sit back and literally sit out entire teamfights to get a chance to "ambush" the enemy carry or healer. And, perhaps worst of all, you get split damage with people focusing on different individual targets, which can make even great play and excellent fighting wasted.

[@genericasianperson6405]

I'll take whoever is out of position first because im not running past a Diablo

[@SangoProductions213]

Ah. I remember back in season 1 and 2 of League, when even the best of the best were worse than today's bronze 1 players. Pretty nostalgic to hear this phrase again.

[@nicholasbeeson4999]

I think a reason why people are told to not focus the tank is because the bigger issue is at lower ranks people have tunnel vision and miss the easy kill walking right next to them. Target selection of who will be easy to kill first and stay safe eludes lower rank plays. I would be interested to see how many times people are able to just walk away with less than 100 hit points because the tank is being focused.

[@Diontology]

I'm going to make a macro that links this video in my ingame chat

[@NicolasLehmannPlus]

I love that idea!

[@ninjayoshi3820]

I think something you should consider is that in low ranked games, the healer is often out of position, so if you had a choice of hitting the tank or healer, obviously hit the healer. In GM, healers are often at the back and will be protected if you try to dive them do therefore, focusing down the tank as a team would be better.

[@CaptainSnakeViewer]

This is the video I've been waiting for! I keep getting annoyed when people say this phrase. I love the video!

[@adrianmalinowski1073]

It should be "don't casually spread damage". Focusing tank = good if they can go down.

[@zeos26]

I've learned a valuable lesson this day... Always lol at "focus the tank"

[@flibbernodgets7018]

As a tank player, I hate being focused. Keep this mentality going, enemy team!

[@joshangel3585]

Every time I see someone tell the rest of the team, "don't focus (insert tank)", I think to myself, not one of these guys... You know they're just gonna rage and spam that message the whole match instead of playing or just rage quit. Great video, NP. I wish I could link this video in game. Keep up the good work!

[@kkme7]

I'm totally guilty of this. Thanks for clearing it up!

[@MisterNightfish]

The problem is that people want to have a simple rule that always applies so they don't have to think. Who you can and should focus changes, sometimes even during the game. Figuring that out is more difficult than always going for the healer in every situation and blaming the team when it doesn't work out. That's pretty much always the case, though. Even if we have the means to take a boss in 10 seconds, can see 4 people of the enemy team on the other side of the map so it is physically impossible for them to stop us, people often won't go for it because "omg, even talents" and you never try for boss on even talents, obviously.

[@LeQuack147]

Watching that Muradin was hilarious. Meanwhile I found out the key to playing Tank is mostly going "fuck it, we ball!" and staying in the fray at a sliver of health so long as my teammates are still alive to deal damage. I don't play Ranked, but I have seen plenty of players flinch when that Arthas at death's door decides "you're coming with me"

[@hristopavlov298]

Absolutely correct but on that one scenario you showed in the end with mura on the capture point if you and Nova both jumped on morales she was dead :P

[@vash1080]

Maybe. But with the risk of being stunned by Muradin while standing in tower range. And other team members rotating and making it worse. I often see my team having the initial kill but then get blown apart due to worse positions after the kill. Often it is just a game of being patient and waiting for the enemy to make the first error. also a team without Morales can defend and poke pretty good, whereas a few Morales without a tank can not step out a single millimeter before getting focused.

[@takeetos1]

I absolutely love that I stumbled upon your channel, I love your instructional videos, thanks for the great content

[@Krimnorr]

Thanks a lot for the video! This was one of my major problems. You have people telling you to focus the healer who is way in the back, but it's practically a death sentence if the team is competent. Sometimes I'll do it anyway though, just to get the guy who's going on about it to be quiet. Anyways, with a video from a GM to assure me that it is almost never the best option (unless running full dive) I will definitely alter how I play. Thanks again.

[@stk7778]

Yeah, I've dived and died and hust typed "there you go. focused healer." people frustrate me.

[@sungleong]

@@stk7778 nice, next time I will do that when someone tells me to focus on healer lmao

[@jlysimachus]

Huge eye-opener. I really appreciate your content man. Thank you :)

[@Thurgor_Supreme]

I always thought I was a noob for believing in focusing the tank, but it turns out I'm actually SURROUNDED by noobs. Thanks so much for this video, made my day.

[@Tensooni]

my reply is usually "I'll hit whatever is highest priority, that I can hit without dying." One of my favorite games recently, comp had murky, hammer, Artanis and some other stuff. Late game all I was doing was 'reverse swaps' where I'd shoot one of their tanks back into their backline, and focus the second one with the giant-slayer talent. Kept hammer alive through almost everything, while march-of-the-somethings and hammer killed their team. If in any fight they had ignored hammer and tried focusing me, I'd get destroyed very quickly and they could reach and kill hammer easily after that.

[@yNot__]

This video described me perfectly, especially when you threw in the league of legends comment 😂 I was thinking that the whole video. I’m really glad I found your videos man, I will definitely show my teammates and hopefully they make us better players!

[@RealGamingKnowledge]

6:14 E.T.C gets armour from every ability, including ulti

[@osmankack9554]

7:08 Don't you think that you should've stepped up and zone morales instead of attacking Muradin there. You don't have to kill her, your presence would just isolate Muradin from Morales. By zoning I don't mean using leap, just autoattack in human form. If she retreats, then start attacking Muradin in human form again so you will be in a position to deal damage to both of them.

[@mackybeltran498]

I don't think so. This Muradin is being ridiculous and you should punish. His positioning is so aggressive when he has no damage behind him, Essentially asking to be attacked for free. Morales would just back off and if she does Muradin leaps out.

[@osmankack9554]

@@mackybeltran498 Isn't that the point of this map? Forcing them to retreat and take the objective or if you are lucky, you can get a kill. Check 7:25 and you will see that Ana and Nova are trying to attack Morales while Greymane is attacking Muradin. If he had not used his leap and stayed in the bush in human form, he would've been able to attack both of them. Then Zarya comes to the bottom lane as well and Nova almost dies. This shows that even though they were fighting 2 v 3 for like 10 seconds, they almost were able to kill Nova. And also at 7:40 Greymane surely could've dealt some damage to Morales, at least 2 or 3 autoattacks. I also watched his video named the difference between high and low ranks ( impact level ) and that video is about dealing effective damage, namely putting your enemies in a position where they can't easily recover from and I think this is not effective damage. I'm not saying that you should never attack tanks. If you are in a good position to attack a healer, then you should do it.

[@jonathan2521]

@@osmankack9554 true, hate when they sit doing what they have in their minds and do not adapt to the circumstances and cooperate taking advantage of every situation

[@mackybeltran498]

@@osmankack9554 the point of the map is to be able to control the point for a long time. if you don't get a kill they can very easily heal up and contest again a few seconds later.

[@CC-ee7bj]

As someone who used to play League of Legends, the same principles still apply regardless of how much damage reduction tanks have in that game. Trying to dive through an enemy team to reach the back-line when you are a squishy champion that relies on auto-attack damage is usually suicide.

[@charlesmynhier5611]

I have never entertained the views you put out in this video, and I am definitely guilty of going "don't focus the tank!". This was great, thanks for sharing such a well displayed application of where consistent damage should go, I'm definitely showing this video to my heroes crew I roll with. Keep up the content! :)

[@lilithius9410]

That one noob that didn't understand the video: " I will only focus tank now! "

[@azquidif6319]

To put it into fewer words: Attack the safest target to attack.

[@mikemcgoo4579]

Can we get this put on the launcher, like, forever

[@AshGAM3BO1]

5:50 “it’s a learning opportunity” proceed to miss gilnean cocktail jokes aside, this is a great video and I hope many players will understand this

[@BruceSKing]

There are appropriate times to make this request, when the tank is being focused even though there is an assassin in your backline and no one is attacking him or trying to peel/focus him to get him off the support/backline. Of course you focus on what is safe to attack, but people all too often get transfixed on a single target, it's almost like they are having a 1 vs 1 fight with someone and never switch target.

[@infraredxray]

"dont focus the tank" etc proceeds to get a triple kill

[@androski5247]

7:30 This is some of the most beautiful Greymane gameplay I've ever seen.

[@laimisdesapereira2869]

Tychus is the best hero to execute this, and I think when players see how many games snowball when you shred the tank with him, they may try it with other great auto attackers as well. The worst "dont focus tanks" is when it is your non dive tank trying to "kill" the healer ignoring their role of peeling.

[@3ndeavor]

Thanks for replying to my question about this last week!

[@guaridadelsapo]

From my experience i learned that 100% of the "focus healer" are games we are losing badly. When someone ask to focus basicaly wants to start a teamfight by hitting the backline. Focusing only works when you have traded enough so you can blow up someone with a few moves.

[@TutkunDzgn]

By the way he is not saying dont focus on healers he says safest really admire this video

[@oshersharaby]

Dude, ETC gets armor from every ability basic or heroic, not only from slide. Also ETC should almost NEVER use slide straight into enemy team cause he'll just get blown up in a second.

[@shocksword6847]

Another great video! I was making the same mistake in platinum without realizing it, so seeing this video really helped me out.

[@GruppeSechs]

7:30 I pushed N on my keyboard reflexively.

[@eia6016]

Good now I have a video to link to those players

[@DarkseidTCG]

For the longest time playing this game I assumed Morales' first name was Focus.

[@BayBerry1337]

I don’t have enough time to invest in hots, but I like putting your videos on in the background while I work, because it makes me feel more productive.

[@FrostFawks]

This is good advice, but I think you gloss over the best advice for this topic: Learn to Focus (the best target). You say it at 7:43, but don't really go into further detail. Maybe do a follow-up video? Focus is literally the best thing you can do in a fight and I feel targets should be called-out and communicated with your team.

[@frank9238]

Good info, maybe you could give us a guide on when to switch targets or when to retreat.

[@TheMamon66]

I had notice this before, how the pro teams wont mind droping everything they got to kill the main tank if he is out of position. Great video as usual.

[@blackblack1167]

My friend and I got into a heated argument over this. He says focus healer, I say focus tank. Im so glad there are people who think like me.

[@nickschaeffler7878]

I love when a Valeera says "just kill their backline". Thats easy for you to say

[@VArsovski10]

It's also frustrating the reverse way as well = i.e. when your team is "super safe hero picks" and YET have no peel what-so-ever.. They basically think they'll win the game by farting at the opponent with random spells all the freakin' game :P

[@jokkepokke95]

God I really fucking wish I could link this in qm chat every time someone says stop focusing Artanis and Stitches and dive Whitemane

[@EDGE94]

It depends on the amount of committment, imho: If ur a mage, throwing out your cooldowns on a full health tank is wasted out of lack of no kill-condition (armor, shields, exit cd, invuln, HP healed back), while in this case the gmane doesnt have to commit much for basic attacking the closest target without diving. And i wouldnt give the mindset "whittle down whatever target is safest to do so" the label "focusing". "Focusing" is committing whatever cooldown you got and in this view, yes I still would refrain from focusing tanks.

[@TADMG]

Mocus Forales

[@TyrannisUmbra]

Big caveat here: There are times when the safest target doesn't care about incoming damage. Malganis is the current iteration of this -- Garrosh is another example. These tanks specifically while you CAN put some damage into them if you literally cannot hit anything else, are targets that when you have an alternative, you should take it. It goes along with the example of the healer who has people to peel, shield, etc. These tanks actually have strong tools to shrug off and heal the damage, making your damage on them vastly less effective. There are exceptions to every rule... even this exception to the first rule. Ana makes Malganis incredibly easy to kill. Smash Varian wrecks Garrosh. But the important thing is to understand when and where those exceptions exist. Of course in every circumstance if you have literally only one target you can deal damage to, you do it. Some less effective damage is better than none.

[@mackybeltran498]

there's no caveat. The entire point is you should take the safest target, generally, unless you have the opportunity to make a play. You shouldn't compromise your positioning "because Garrosh is a less effective target". Sure, if you don't have to compromise your positioning, hit someone else. But the enemy team is trying to do the same thing your team's trying to do: kill someone. You shouldn't make it easy for them by taking unsafe positioning so you can hit a squishy. Positioning first before target selection.

[@Canusares]

I find it funny when someone tells me not to focus the tank when I'm Malthael and the tank is in the front line. That's kind of his job.

[@Diallo268]

Great video, thanks for sharing. One thing I was wondering is what's you opinion on damage splitting? It seems like if you don't focus 1 or 2 targets you end up not getting any kills and the enemy team wipes you. Also what about trying to kill the high damage DPS? Like a Kel'Thuzad who has 2x the hero damage as the next person on their team and yours? I know there are things like you mentioned about dive comps, but should more risk be taken to try and take him out if possible then try and wipe the team?

[@30year-oldboomer17]

This advice helped me become a better player just by listening to it offhandedly thank you NotParadox

[@alandcapelari]

This video should play during load screens of the game.

[@Sylfa]

I've had the "pleasure" of being told not to focus the tank: a) when Malthael b) when Tychus c) when Cassia using Charged Strikes. A very special game was when the healer insisted we shouldn't hit Zul'Jin... One fight the tank and other dps jumped past zul'jin towards their healer and I just went, well ok then. No one hit Zul'Jin and... he completely destroyed us, obviously.

[@szalaierik]

Thank you! I will reference this vid in my games.

[@SurugaKanbaruChan]

I learned a lot from this Video! My main game is League of Legends, I still play it, and I did have the mentality of not focusing the tank but the healer in hots! Thanks for clarifying so well! By the way what do you think of League? Do you play it? :)

[@Pandinzka]

Good point. Thanks for sharing.

[@kly8105]

1- Focus the healer first is the most stupid thing you can say, healers are mostly on the backline and are not easy to gank first, the optimal choice is to focus the assassin first. If they kill your assassin while they lose their healer, they can then transition to killing your specialist or second assassin, leaving you without damage, a team can easily survive having no healer if the enemy has no assassin, if you have no assassins left, the fact that the enemy has no healer doesn't help you make up for your lack of damage, unless your remaining heroes have enough sustain. Going for the healer first is only an option when the healer is caught in the frontline. 2- Its not ok to focus the tank first unless its from afar or while kiting and not being hit, basically before the teamfight starts, when the teamfight starts you should almost never focus tank, unless he is the only target available to you. Even under 30% hp, a tank can generally survive easily, instead of being baited its better to ignore it even if you yourself are the tank's target. Yes there are many times when one can or should focus tank or healer, but these kinds of comments only appear below platinum because players below platinum will generally focus a tank like Artanis first 100% of the time even when its not convenient, or when no one else is focusing the Artanis, to the detriment of the teamfight, if you are not doing damage or ccing your team's target, or helping a teammate survive, then your team is basically 4v5 in a teamfight. Some people ARE brain dead, you can't just systematically make videos about elo hell and not acknowledge that lower rank players don't have the skills or the knowledge to make decisions on the fly, and lack simple skills such as map awareness and have tunnel vision so bad that they miss a healer or assassin running away right next to them at 10% hp while they are focusing a Stitches or an Artanis and keep focusing it for 20 seconds without lowering its health at all, that is not smart, i dare you say that is smart. Basically what all your videos imply is that all lower rank players have the same knowledge and skills as platinum and any players who play and tell them to stop committing the same mistakes over and over again are wrong for the only reason that you think they are wrong. If a tank doesn't help its team and constantly does anything BUT help its team, its not a tank, its a solo bruiser. This is a team game, if the other 4 players tell their tank to get it together and stop making the same mistake over and over, its obviously not the other 4 guys's fault that they just lost 200 rank points. And you keep making these kind of inflammatory videos just for views when you could be discussing more interesting topics such as why lower rank players tend to ban heroes that lower rank players never pick or pick but can't play. Lower rank players can't play Orphea or Malganis and rarely ever pick them (even then they suck at them), and yet they ban them all the time, instead of banning much more common picks that lower rank players tend to use perfectly, like Nazeebo, Li-Ming, Jaina. Fact is all rank tiers have preferences for bans and But no, you keep choosing topics about player ego and speak mantra bullshit about how to being less toxic is better for teamplay, guess what, so is not AFKing, not trollpicking, not soloing, but lower rank players do it, and people rage when they lose points for someone else's fault, specially after being trolled by toxic kids. So you're not helping kid.

[@Junglej0hn]

In the last fight I think that if you start auto-attacking morales she will need to leave because she will need to respect the oneshot potential of greymane when she gets low. This would leave muradin stranded without healing. I believe this would lead to pressure on muradin faster than 'Exhausting Morales Energy'.

[@TheHidalgo99]

With the current state of Malganis being as it is me and my friends we approached games vs him like "okay don't attack Malganis, just ignore Malganis. Don't waste any spells and time on that guy", but that is only because that guy is literally unkillable. In general though, Hots tanks are very much killable indeed and are the safest and most practical target to focus down in most cases. Obviously, if a Diablo and a Morales are both targets that are in range for most of your teammates, then one probably should attack the Morales.

[@Imkaje]

Even league of legends it's rare to be able to just focus healer. Most are high range in the very far back line, so it requires a flank, and vision so it requires a lot of set up and insurance that they won't just rape half your team while the other circles to flank. Front to back I'd say is still 85% in higher rankings where the winning team is the one with the better use of their team comp and a tank better able to hold back the tide of their team

[@xenniealchayliss2489]

I love the dontfocus tank cry

[@TheDoho]

I find this to be useful for anyone. I think we end up going into an automated mode and forget the importance of core mechanics. I've made this mistake so many times in the past.

[@silverblade0011]

The only tank I would suggest not attacking is Garrosh mostly cause he can get some crazy armor, but that is his gimmick.

[@Mantinae]

Cool, I learned something. Liked and Subbed 👍

[@Omegacalgar]

it sounds like BGs in WoW. Master tacticians behind every screen telling the team what to do as they are waiting for respawn.

[@qorazx]

7:15 wouldn't it make more sense to actually focus morales there to make her go back to her towers and stop healing muradin so the other two can lower muras health more effectively??

[@VArsovski10]

Towers at lvl3 = takes like 6 or 7 hits to kill off a squishie lol, perhaps even tanks at low levels can't tank tower shots.. With exception of Anub who spawns beetles and each wastes couple of them :)

[@Yansei05]

Had a Falstad do that to me today. He got mad that the team and I didn't gun for their Lucio. Every time he did, he died. Then he would call everyone morons.

[@nuzengahicastle6090]

I feel like you just slap me in the face with every video. Thank you for making me better

[@Greningas]

This is true for any moba, people yelling to focus people should stick to playing tetris.

[@ktakkakashi6500]

As lol player that dabbles in hots, its the same issue in lol low ranked players always try to back to front and the high level players and pros tend to just kill tanks, even with the damge reductions most ranged DPS have escapes in LOL, most tanks don't so they're actually easier to kill unless your catching one unawares . I see a lot of people on hots ignore melee assassins too which I think is crazy , qhira , butcher, illidan will kill your whole team if you don't hit them plus they're taking up one of their teams damage slots so if you only have ranged assassins unless they get to stick to a target your team will most likely out DPS them anyway which favours front to back fights.