Experience Globe

Larger Experience Globes can be collected for full XP amount, while the smaller ones only grant 25% of this value.

In order to collect experience from Minions in the Heroes of the Storm players cannot simply stand nearby, but instead need to gather Experience Globes dropped by dying Minions or last hit them (which gives experience for them globally).

Gameplay

Experience Globes work similarly to the Regeneration Globes already found in-game: Instead of automatically granting experience, defeated minions will leave behind globes that you can collect — with a generous pickup radius — to contribute to your team’s collective total experience. Experience Globes slowly move toward the closest visible allied Hero within 6 range, and are collected when an allied Hero comes within 1.75 range. Heroes who kill Minions with Abilities or Basic Attacks will automatically collect the experience from the Minions.

Experience Globes will not move toward Heroes that are hidden in bushes or Stealthed, but they can be still collected by these Heroes, if they move within 1.75 range. Once a Hero has revealed themself, Globes will gravitate to them again. So, for example, an Abathur would need to be in a visible spot in the lane or reveal himself from the bush by using an Ability in order to body soak them.

Experience Globes last for a total of 45 seconds. Collecting the Experience Globes during the first 6 seconds grants the full experience amount. For the remaining 39 seconds, however, the experience gained is reduced by 75%.

A few Heroes have special interactions with Experience Globes:

• Ragnaros's Lava Wave instantly collects Experience Globes as it passes by.
• Abathur's Symbiote is treated as a Hero for the purpose of collecting Experience Globes.
• Hallucinations like Samuro's Mirror Images or Nova's Holo Decoys are treated as Heroes for the purpose of collecting Experience Globes.
• Heroic Pets like Misha will count as a Hero for the purpose of soaking.

Mechanics

Spawning a Globe

• Heroes who kill Minions with Abilities or Basic Attacks will automatically collect the experience from the Minions and no Experience Globe will be spawned.
• If the killed minion belonged to the team on the left side of the map, the Experience Globe spawned belongs to the team on the right side of the map, and vice versa.
  • Melee and Ranged Minions drop an Experience Globe that lasts for 45 seconds and awards 80 experience (plus 2 every minute mark), dropping to 20 experience (plus 0.5 per minute mark) after 6 seconds (indicated by the shrunken globe). On Tomb of the Spider Queen the preceding values are altered to 68 experience each, or 17 from a shrunken globe, respectively (still plus 2 and 0.5 respectively every minute), and on ARAM maps, 160 and 40 respectively.
  • The Experience Globe value is checked when the Experience Globe is collected, instead of when it spawns. This means you can kill a Minion at 0:58, and then collect the Experience Globe at 1:01, and you'll get more experience than if you collected it as soon as it spawned.
• Leader Minions do not spawn Experience Globes (nor directly grant XP when killed), but instead drop Regeneration Globes.

Behaviors

• When an Experience Globe is created, it has a lifetime of 45 seconds. If the Globe remains uncollected for more than 6 seconds, it will shrink significantly and the experience gained from it is reduced to 25% of the original value. Experience Globes will start flashing 2 seconds ahead of time to indicate that they are about to shrink or disappear.
• Once the initial delay has expired, the Experience Globe will instantly perform 3 actions, and then reperform those 3 actions every 0.1875 seconds:

1. Search for targets to be picked up by within 1.75 radius

• The target must be a Hero, Abathur Symbiote, or Hallucination (like Samuro's Mirror Images or Nova's Holo Decoys), isn't in Stasis, isn't currently E.T.C. Stage Diving, and is not Dead or in a Special Death State (like Leoric's Undying).
• If the Experience Globe is picked up, the experience will be granted to the collecting player, and this loop will terminate.

2. Search for targets to gravitate toward within 6 radius

• All of the above conditions under (1) except the target must also not be visible (not Stealthed), not in fog of war or hidden in a Bush with respect to the Globe).
• If this action is performed, the Experience Globe will issue a move order toward that target for 0.25 seconds. While this behavior is active, the Experience Globe gains speed with 8 acceleration up to a maximum speed of 20. (Compare this to most Heroes, which have a maximum speed of 4.8398, but an acceleration rate of 1000.) If the behavior does not get reapplied and expires, the Experience Globe will be issued the stop command.

3. Search for a Lava Wave to be collected by within 6 radius

Development

The idea behind it is to better communicate the XP system so you now have a better idea on how to deny the enemy XP by pressuring them away from the Minions. Additionaly, the developers don't want to encourage passive soaking of experience via sitting in a bush or Stealth, as one of our goals with the change is to encourage active gameplay around fighting over experience. That makes Experience Globes a two-for-one opportunity. Not only do they make a core part of the game—gathering experience—more satisfying and visceral; they also help players align on the importance of doing so, leading to better coordination and—hopefully—more games that feel like a good session of pickup basketball.

Another nice effect of Experience Globes is that leveling up finally makes sense from a narrative perspective. “Why is it that I kill this random soldier and I suddenly get stronger?” Alex Neyman says. “The idea now is that there’s this Nexus energy that you go and pick up, and that makes you more powerful.” That’s right: by defeating enemy Heroes and clearing minion waves, you’re tapping into the boundless energies that roil and thunder within the Nexus, multidimensional currents that wrest realms in and out of existence like a deranged swarm of cosmic fireflies. As you extract the very life essence from the corpses of your foes, your powers grow, until they become so vast that none can stand against you...

In May of 2021 Experience Globes were changed to last for additional 39 seconds, but award only 25% of the base value for the added duration. With this the development team's goal was to make missing the 6 second window a little more forgiving as well as better visualize how much valuable experience is left uncollected.

Trivia

• Experience Globes are visually reminiscent of picking up globes in Diablo III (ex. Nephalem Globes, Health Globes).
• The developers tested Experience Globe for about 6 months before bringing them to the game.
• Experience Globes were introduced as the first Nexus Anomaly in the first season of 2020 and at the end of the season it was decided to be kept as a permanent addition to the game.
• Prior to Experience Globes Heroes would gather experience automatically by being within 12 range of a Minion at the moment of its death.
• Experience Globes originally lasted only 6 seconds. The additional duration for reduced XP gain was introduced in May 2021.

External links

• Introducing Experience Globes, the first seasonal Nexus Anomaly